Cash and kudos in Cambridge glory night

The money men cashed in on the glory at the Cambridge News Business Excellence Awards at King’s College.

The Cambridge Building Society, which has £1 billion worth of assets and successfully rebranded as ‘The Cambridge’, won Business of the Year.

Ray Anderson, whose company Bango enables payments over mobile phones was named Businessperson of the Year.

And Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch – unable to be present – was given a special Outstanding Contribution award on the back of selling the business to US giant HP for £7 billion – the richest deal in Cambridge technology history.

Jewels were also added to the rich mix as Harriet Kelsall Jewellery Design was named Small Business of the Year.

Former world champion javelin thrower and veteran Olympian, Steve Backley, presented the prizes in front of a full house in the Great Hall.

Amino Technologies at Swavesey, a world leader in set-top boxes for television over the internet, won the new TWI Award for technology engineering in international markets while PneumaCare took the Business Innovation title for its non-contact chest-scanning technology which replaces invasive methods. Quartix won the Barclays Corporate Award after reinventing its business model in the telematics sector.

A special Corporate & Social Responsibility award went to social entrepreneur Ken Banks, whose FrontlineSMS texting service is playing a major role in the developing world.

Sponsors were Price Bailey, Hewitsons, Barclays, Barclays Corporate, Cambridge Business magazine, TWI, Granta Park, and Noel Young Wines.