Meet the judges
1
Estelle Blanks
Director of Business Development and Enterprise, Newcastle University
Ian Beaumont
Regional Senior Partner - The North, Azets
Sarah Glendinning
Director of Business Partnerships, Northumbria University
Amanda Hopgood
Leader of the Opposition, Durham County Council
David MacGregor
'Rising Star' Winner 2024 & Engineer, Osbit
Bill Scott OBE DL
CEO, Wilton Engineering
Nitin Shukla DL
Programme Lead - Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner for Northumbria
Adnan Syed
Production & Operations Manager, Wootzano
(2024's Business of the Year)
Graeme Whitfield
Chair of the judging panel & Editor, The Journal
The judging process
After entries close in June, all the nominations will be collated and then sorted according to postcode into the following sub-regional areas:
~ Northumberland & Tyneside
~ Durham, Sunderland & South Tyneside
~ Teesside
Our distinguished judging panel will be sent the nominations to review and will then meet in July to select a winner for each of the 10 award categories in each sub-regional area - resulting in three winners for each category.
A second round of judging will then take place to decide which of the three sub-regional winners becomes the overall category winner for the North East.
The sub-regional winners will be announced in a special feature published online on ChronicleLive and TeessideLive, and in print in The Journal and The Gazette.
All sub-regional winners are then invited to the Grand Final at Hardwick Hall on 25th September where the overall North East winners will be announced.
The judging panel is made up of representatives from the headline and associate partners, Reach plc, independent local business leaders and previous award winners.