Star of TV’s The Apprentice Nick Hewer has agreed to head up the judging panel for this year’s Northamptonshire Business Excellence Awards.

Nick’s PR company first represented Amstrad in the 1980s, and Nick built a long working relationship and friendship with Alan Sugar, who eventually asked him to sit alongside him on The Apprentice.

Nick is a great believer in encouraging entrepreneurship and collaboration, telling the All Things Business podcast recently that many of Britain’s larger employers, the likes of British Steel and British Railways, that it is imperative for people to be able to exercise their entrepreneurship and start new companies. He also encouraged the government and banks to do more to support small and start-up companies and be more flexible about lending money to worthwhile business ideas.

Corrie is excited to be a judge in this year’s awards because they are linking business and education, and judging the Apprentice of the Year award, that champions our young people is, she says, an amazing thing to be able to do. She is very much looking forward to meeting the entrants and winners and hearing their stories and about the journeys they have been on – and to seeing everyone back together, in person, on the evening itself.

Being a judge at the NBEA 2021 is an honour, says Richard, and gives him the chance to see the breadth of ingenuity and entrepreneurship that exists in Northamptonshire. He accepted the invitation to be a judge not only because he enjoys it, but because he finds it inspiring to read through the entries and see out how people are adapting their businesses. The Community Project or Person of the Year is, he says, a difficult one to judge but it also one of the most inspiring.

Ruth accepted the invitation to judge this year’s Business of the Year award because she feels passionately about business and finds it amazing to see what businesses put themselves forward to show and celebrate what they have done, and how resilient they have been, over the past 12 to 18 months. Her advice to those entering the awards is to shout about how brilliant you are and don’t hold back. She wants to see businesses that will Wow her and demonstrated how they have excelled over the past year or so.