Aer Lingus Viscount Awards reward NI’s high flyers at London ceremony

The awards, which take place in association with Ulster Business, were presented across eight diverse categories to businesses that have excelled in areas such as innovation, export, employee engagement and entrepreneurship.

“The Viscount Awards have grown over the years to become one of the most respected events on the business calendar and we are proud to continue to reward and support those organisations that represent the absolute best in their respective fields,” said Andrea Hunter, Business Development Manager of Aer Lingus in Northern Ireland.

“This was a true celebration of business excellence and on behalf of Aer Lingus I would like to congratulate each of the winners for their tremendous successes.”

This year’s winners are as follows:

Best SME Award: Kestrel Foods

Best Business Start-Up Award: Titanic Creative Management

Employee Champion Award: Firstsource Solutions

Exporter of the Year Award: Sandvik Mobile Crushers & Screens

Innovator of the Year Award: Hunter Apparel Solutions

Business Person of the Year: Connaire McGreevy, CTS Projects & Mourne Mountains Brewery

Overall Excellence: Gilbert-Ash

The ceremony also recognised Mukesh Sharma MBE for his Outstanding Contribution to business life in Northern Ireland.

The Managing Director of Northern Ireland’s largest independent travel firm, Selective Travel Management, Mr Sharma MBE is one of Northern Ireland’s most experienced and successful travel professionals and has been instrumental in pushing Northern Ireland as a destination for airlines to come and set up new connections.

Business Person of the Year Connaire McGreevy, Managing Director of two Warrenpoint-based businesses, CTS Projects and Mourne Mountains Brewery said: “I’m delighted to win this award, to be honoured amongst the best of NI businesses at such a prestigious ceremony is truly overwhelming. Although it’s an individual award, the business successes would simply not be possible without the hard work and dedication of the fantastic teams I have at both CTS Projects and the brewery.

“It’s been an eventful year for us – CTS Projects has grown significantly; we’ve secured £14 million in new contracts, now serving 40% of heating installations and maintenance for the social housing market in Northern Ireland. Mourne Mountains Brewery is also going from strength to strength; in just a year we’ve brewed and brought to market eight distinct craft beers which are already stocked in over 70 outlets,” he added.

Ray Hutchinson, Managing Director of Gilbert Ash, who won the Award for Overall Excellence said: “This year has been very exciting for the company and we are proud that the hard work has been recognised with the news that we have won the Overall Excellence Award at the Aer Lingus Viscount Awards.

“We substantially increased our workforce in 2015, a decision which was driven by a series of high profile contract wins across the UK. We successfully increased our turnover in 2015 to £115m and are on target to achieve a turnover of £160m+ in 2016. We recently took the strategic decision to target projects that would allow us to make use of our expertise and experience to sustain our plans for continual growth and we anticipate this will lead to further wins in the coming year.”