A night out at the President's Award!

Play-Doh, Glastonbury and learning to fly helicopters at 60

Posted on 10 July 2024 by Carla Francome

We had a very exciting evening last Wednesday on July 2^nd 2024- it was techUK’s annual black tie dinner, and also where the results of the President’s Award would be announced. Our Chief Executive, Andy Beverley, was honoured to be shortlisted in the Economy category, so we slipped into our finest outfits and headed down to the Royal Lancaster Hotel in Central London to see how he got on.

Andy, John and Carla at the annual techUK dinner

John, who lives in Somerset, had the most eventful journey of the three of us. His first train was cancelled and his second delayed, so rather than getting changed in London, he was forced to put on his attire in a swaying toilet, three carriages from the front. The rest of his journey should have been fairly uneventful - it’s always handy to be dressed like James Bond, but he was surrounded by crowds of people heading back from Glastonbury, so rather stuck out like a sore thumb.

John arrived in the nick of time, and we headed to a special VIP drinks reception, where we mingled with the great and the good people of tech, and enjoyed seeing Andy in the glossy brochure about the night.

The President’s Award was launched in 2023 to recognise “the significant contribution and positive difference techUK members are making through their work with technology”, the organisation says. “It’s an opportunity to shine a light on colleagues in the industry who are one in a million. We’re looking to recognise trailblazers, innovators, and problem solvers who are an inspiration to others”.

There were four awards, and three people shortlisted in each category. The economy category aimed to recognise “someone who, through technology, has enabled improvements, mitigated risk, protected funds, facilitated advancements in financial planning and supported the growth of the economy”.

Andy with shortlisted candidates and the judges, second from far right

In red, Nicola Hodson, Chief Executive of IBM in the UK and Ireland and Vice President of techUK, and in green, Sheila Flavell CBE, the president of techUK.

The president, Sheila Flavell CBE, looked resplendent in green sequins. She has had a fascinating career – she started out working for the Glasgow police force, and went on to take a role as a flight attendant with Gulf Air. “This was an amazing adventure until the Gulf War kicked off 12 years later and it was time to return to the UK” she said.

She then joined a tech start-up, FDM group, which now 30 years later is a FTSE 250 global company. “I live my life by what I call my ‘Play-Doh Principle’” she has said in interviews. “My life is full of colour and I have reshaped it many times over the 50 years I have been in the workplace”. She has shown no signs of slowing down, and qualified as a helicopter pilot at the age of 60.

“My grandchildren call me Bibi which is a common name for ‘granny’ in the Middle East and Africa” she has said. “I am now affectionately known as Pilot Bibi. I think this sounds better than ‘The Flying Granny’”. Pilot Bibi is clearly just the person techUK needs at the top.

Nicola Hodson was one of the judges, and was very gracious to Andy in his interview, saying she enjoyed the write-up of his story.

Andy hasn’t yet learnt to fly a helicopter (there’s still time), but he did spend 10 years in the Royal Navy, honing his problem-solving skills whilst in charge of the IT on HMS Illustrious, one of the UK’s flagship aircraft carriers. He went from dashing around a ship with 1000 rooms to inventing some groundbreaking software.

The software that he created is called LinkSpace, and we’ve done a new write-up that even kept Carla’s mum awake!

We made our way down to the dinner, where over 600 people took their seats, and our president got things moving. As the awards got underway, Andy’s name flashed up on the big screen as one of those shortlisted.

This time, it wasn’t to be for Andy- the winner was declared as Toby Jones, but Andy has been such an admirer of his work, he didn’t mind in the least. Toby created the Accelerated Capability Environment (ACE) for the UK Home Office, enabling SMEs (small to medium enterprises) to collaborate on government projects. Since its 2017 launch, ACE has handled over 500 innovation commissions worth £200 million, engaging 380+ suppliers, 80% of which are SMEs.

All of the shortlisted candidates gathered on stage with the President and some of the judges (image from techUK)

Afterwards, we all headed to the bar, where we bumped into another shortlisted candidate in the Economy award, the charismatic and always-dashing Ben Johnson, the co-founder of Uptitude (and seen here next to the President).

“Well!” he said brightly to Andy. “If the winners are one in a million, surely we must be … three in a million?” Three in a million! It sounded pretty good to us!

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