Jim McDonald, Director of Finance & Deputy Chief Executive, Canterbury City Council
Jim McDonald has over 38 years experience in local government finance and has been a director at Canterbury since 1996. During that time the council has won a number of awards reflecting its commitment to providing high quality services to its community. Jim is passionate about high quality public services and believes in empowering staff to seek continuous improvement. That is reflected in the performance of services he has been responsible for and in his department being awarded the Customer Service Excellence accreditation and the IiP Work Life Balance accreditation.
Website: www.canterbury.gov.uk

Sally Pritchett, Director, Something Big
Sally Pritchett has an extensive back-ground in client side brand development, commercial, training and operations roles for global hospitality organisation Compass Group. She jumped ship to run Something Big nearly ten years ago and now works closely with clients to define their marketing strategies and solve challenging marketing conundrums. The company prides itself on delivering an enviable mix of creativity coupled with an ability to positively impact on the bottom line. High profile clients include DHL, Kraft Foods and Thomson Airways as well as range of dynamic SME's.
Website: www.somethingbig.co.uk

Ian Hughes, Managing Director, Consumer Intelligence
A graduate of Harvard Business School, Ian has always had a passion for information technology and combined IT with Marketing at M&S and MM Group where he created the first Internet shops for Wallace and Gromit. Ian formed eCharity.com during the .com boom before going on to become founder of Consumer Intelligence which provides access for companies to high-quality information about their price competitiveness to inform their marketing, pricing and product strategies. Ian is driven by a passion for information - the way it is collected, analysed, designed and delivered.
Website: www.consumerintel.com

Howard McKenzie, Managing Director, HMSL
Howard McKenzie left the public sector in order to start a consultancy business after 30 years in further education. Howard was, until August 2009, the Principal of Jewel and Esk College in Edinburgh; a College with 8,000 students, 420 staff and a turnover of £17m pa, which is regarded as one of the most innovative and successful colleges in Scotland. He created the vision, drive and leadership for the College's £60m rebuild and modernisation programme and for two years led the 43 Colleges in Scotland overseeing their Political and Public Affairs strategy.

David Connor, Managing Director, Coethica
Coethica is a specialist CSR consultancy with particular unique expertise in successfully engaging with the smallest of businesses. David has successfully engaged social media to raise awareness of CSR and generate direct business benefits. He has a very successful blog of his own and is also a guest blogger on several of the world's biggest CSR / sustainability networks. He also has around 4000 followers on Twitter making him the 3rd most followed CSR specialist globally. Previous to Coethica David spent eight years winning awards at Everton Football Club as Community Business Manager and also as Technical Director to England Amputee football squad. Website: www.coethica.com

Simon Burgess, Managing Director, Burgesses
As founder of British Insurance, Simon epitomises what the Best Business Awards are about. He set up and grew the highly competitive, multi-award award winning insurance company British Insurance - they have 21 awards under their belt so far - and sold it to insurance giant Towergate a couple of years ago. Simon has also built a formidable reputation as a consumer champion in the national press and continues to speak out when he thinks Jo Public is being sold short with regard to insurance matters. Simon is now focusing on growing another insurance provider called Burgesses.
Website: www.britishinsurance.com

Andrew Areoff, Director, Areoff
Areoff are a multi-award winning insurance and financial services website design specialist. What sets them apart is that rare ability to design sites that are search engine friendly, which in turn maximises online visibility and credibility but without sacrificing functionality and usability. Their overriding aim is to is to make their clients more effective online and ultimately to transform their website into a key revenue stream, sales tool or reputation building communication platform.
Website: www.areoff.com