Cambridge100 Awards recognise top Interim Managers and Innovators

Cambridge, 23rd March 2007:

The Cambridge100, a network of experienced freelance senior executives and innovators who meet a growing need for short-term interim specialists, managers and directors, today announced the winners of its 2007 Interim & Innovation Awards. This year’s event was sponsored by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP). The Awards, which showcase high performance projects delivered by the interim community located within the Cambridge region, were presented by Nigel Brown, Chairman of N W Brown Group, the leading Cambridge-based financial services group, and the GCP at an awards dinner at the city’s University Arms hotel.

Simon Webb was selected as the overall winner for the most outstanding example of an interim project for his work with Sky Broadband.

Simon, who is based in Harlton, near Cambridge, was given the job of managing the programmes to create and implement a new broadband network for Sky, offering a combined broadband, voice and video service.  His prime achievement was to deliver this in just five months, enabling Sky to sign up more than 350,000 customers and to give the company top position in the market for local services (called Local Loop Unbundling).  This was coupled with achieving the lowest level of customer-initiated complaints of any of the major broadband suppliers launching a free broadband service in 2006.

The Cambridge100 president Malcolm Ladkin said that Simon Webb’s achievement is a perfect example of the key role that interim managers can perform.  “The business environment is moving too fast for many organisations to be able to access the necessary skills internally just when they need them.  This was a massive, and strategically critical, project for Sky.  In Simon they found someone with the right skills and experience and he was able to focus entirely on this project.  The results are exceptional by any measure.”

The Innovation Award went to Wladyslaw Wygnanski for his work in developing a high pressure high speed valve for use in oil well reservoirs.  His company is Harston (Cambridge) based Camcon Technology Limited, a highly specialised intellectual property company that has developed very advanced actuator technology that can be used in valves and similar devices.

Working with a team of four over a year-long project, Wladyslaw was able to produce a solution for a leading oil exploration company that could work remotely in deep oil reservoirs and could withstand extreme pressure of up to 5000 PSI (pounds per square inch).

A special Innovation award went to Diana Hodgins at European Technology for Business, based at Codicote in Herts. They have developed a system for monitoring equine stride characteristics which will provide a quantitative approach to performance assessment. The system has been through trials phase and is now close to commercial launch and with 14,000 active racehorses in the UK and over 800,000 in the USA the target market is significant. 

The Cambridge100 is a not-for-profit organisation, a network of experienced Interim executives, many of them successful entrepreneurs in their own right or with specialist skills across the management, venture development, marketing and high technology spectrum. Last December, the Cambridge100 merged with The Innovation Society for the East of England and is now half way towards its target of a maximum size of 100 of the best and most experienced innovators, entrepreneurs and managers in the region.

The number of entries for this years’ awards is higher than in 2006, said Malcolm Ladkin, a sign both of the growing number of interim assignments and of the increasing recognition of the value of interim managers and innovators.  Experience indicates that users of interim managers see a return on their investment of over 300% and estimates indicate that the combined C100 and ISEE membership has generated more than £3million for the local economy in the past year.

Further Interim Award commendations went to Saffron Walden based Mark Smith and Hatfield Broad Oak based Adrian Birt.  Mark’s ‘Highly Commended’ recognition was for his work with a small and rapidly growing US-based company.  Facing rapid expansion for its operations in the US, UK and India, the company called on Mark to develop and implement an operational improvement programme across the company, aimed at ensuring high product quality, reliable delivery dates and expanded capacity.  Key to this was a programme of training and increased delegation, improved internal communications and better management of customer expectations.

Adrian Birt’s Commendation is for work with Chelmsford-based Redlin Print Management.  His interim management project involved overhauling the company’s scheduling process, including introducing new software technology to support all stages of the print production process.