Nominations for the 2023 Sunday Times Non-Executive Director Awards have opened, with this year’s prizes set to honour work carried out under some of the most challenging circumstances.
Many companies have been adjusting to the post-Covid world but have also had to adapt to extreme geopolitical uncertainty caused by the invasion of Ukraine and its impact on supply chains, inflation and the cost of living.
The judges
This year’s awards see the judging under the leadership of Ruth Cairnie, chair of Babcock International and senior independent director at Associated British Foods.
This will be the 17th NED Awards run by The Sunday Times, with backing from Peel Hunt. Nominations involve a short entrance statement before a nominee’s colleague is asked to write a long-form nomination. These are then passed to academics at Henley and Cranfield business schools to draw up the shortlist.
A team of business heavyweights make up the judging panel, including Sir Philip Hampton, winner of last year’s Lifetime Achievement Award and co-author of the Hampton-Alexander Review, as well as a former chair of Royal Bank of Scotland, J Sainsbury and GlaxoSmithKline.
He is joined, among others, by Fiona Hathorn of Women on Boards UK and Suki Sandhu, founder of Audeliss Executive Search.
The categories
There are seven categories of award, that range from FTSE 100 NED to a Lifetime Achievement Award. There are also accolades for working on a FTSE All Share board, FTSE AIM, Private/Private Equity Backed, a Not for Profit or Public Sector body and, of course, the Dame Helen Alexander award for “NED to Watch”.
Last year’s winners included a director who was once told she would never get into Cambridge. Funmi Adegoke (pictured) took the “NED to Watch” award for her work on the board of Melrose, and she joins the judging panel this year.
Another of last year’s winners was Dr Roch Doliveux, who won the FTSE All Share award for his work on the board of Oxford Biomedica, one of the companies in the consortium that developed the Oxford Covid vaccine. At the time of winning, Doliveux told The Sunday Times that non-executives should be “driven and passionate”. His work, he said, had given him an opportunity to “do good for society”.
Nominations close on 20 November, with a shortlist expected on 12 February 2023. You can read more about the awards and make a nomination on the NED Awards 2023 website.