These are the judges who will name the stars of 2010
CITY A.M. is looking forward to another scoop later this year: our first-ever awards ceremony where we will be celebrating London’s financial and business community and its most succesful individuals and firms.
Our newspaper is delighted to be hosting and organising the awards in partnership with Interactive Investor; we are proud that our awards will be the first to recognise that the City is more than merely the sum of its parts. It will be an extraordinary evening for an extraordinary community.
Allister Heath, City A.M.’s editor, said: “Our awards ceremony promises to be an exceptional and exciting evening. At a time when everybody else is bashing capitalism, we will be identifying and celebrating those individuals and companies who are reinventing the City and in doing so helping to take the economy out of recession and back to growth.”
The awards are being sponsored by Saxo Bank. Albert Maasland, Saxo’s UK and US CEO, said: “After the turbulence of the last 18 months in the financial markets, it’s good to see the City on the road to recovery, and Saxo Bank is proud to support these inaugural awards, which celebrate the best performers in the City in 2010.
“Both City A.M. and Interactive Investor are key players in the financial industry in the City and Saxo believe their readers truly reflect the UK’s financial community.”
The City A.M. awards will look at a broad range of sectors, including banking, law, accounting, fund management, trading and many other vital industries, and will aim to single out the highest achievers as well as the most promising new kids on the block.
Readers will be invited to pitch in with their votes – we will soon be launching a unique micro-site to allow easy online voting. Our panel of judges, comprised of some of the best-known names in London’s financial community, will make the final decision ahead of a ceremony on 28 October at one of the City’s best and most luxurious hotels, the brand-new Grange in St Paul’s.
Panel members so far include Roland Rudd, founder of Finsbury, the financial public relations group. Rudd is known for being supremely well-connected, with Cabinet ministers and investment bankers mingling happily at any number of the social events he hosts during any year.
Rudd is joined by John Griffith-Jones, who runs KPMG in London. Griffith-Jones served on the Wigley committee that looked into the competitiveness of London as a financial centre and is passionate on this issue. Bob Wigley himself is on the panel too; he served for five years as chairman of Europe and the Middle East at Merrill Lynch International. He was a member of the Court of the Bank of England between 2006 and 2009.
Also on the panel is Jon Moulton, the doyen of UK venture capital. Moulton recently left Alchemy to found another investment vehicle, BetterCapital.
Goldman Sachs’ deal-maker supremo Simon Dingemans, who advised Boots the Chemist on its bid from KKR, has agreed to join us, as has Slaughter & May partner Nigel Boardman, one of the City’s most prominent lawyers.
Truett Tate, group executive director of Lloyds Banking Group, where he runs its commercial and wholesale business, is also on board. The panel will be complemented by Simon Borrows, who spent 10 years at Baring before joining Greenhill, the boutique investment bank. He is one of the City’s most successful corporate financiers.
Last but not least, City A.M.’s editor Allister Heath and deputy editor David Hellier are both members of the panel.
We will be releasing more details about the awards, how to nominate candidates for our short-lists, how to attend and how to sponsor tables and categories over the next few days and weeks. In the meantime, for more information or any queries please email harry.owen@cityam.com