Banner Blog

It's a real privilege for Banner to get to the shortlist stage and have our teams and business achievements recognised by BOSS. 

The Awards recognise and celebrate those in the UK office products industry who demonstrate excellence, either individually or through the success of their team and business. 

Our innovative approach to product development has seen Banner shortlisted for the BOSS Awards New Product of the Year for a new plastic-free envelope that could stand up to the rigours required by the Royal Mail. Read all about it here. 

Our talented team have also been recognised at the BOSS Awards, with Group Purchasing Manager, John Bacon, being shortlisted for Professional of the Year for his seamless management of paper supply and demand during major supply chain disruption over the pandemic. And Pawel Borkowski, for the Rising Star of the Year Award for his journey from warehouse operative to Merchandise Category Assistant in just a few years. To top it off, two members of the team, Jennifer Jones and Tina Henry, have been nominated for the unsung hero award!

Isabel Spence, Banner Merchandising and Marketing Director at Banner, says, “We pride ourselves on being more than just a single source for businesses, we strive to create a personal partnership with our customers and work really closely with them to support their business goals. We couldn’t do it without cultivating a really talented team!"

“I can’t say how proud we are for our services and colleagues to be recognised at so many different awards. We hope to win them all, but just to be shortlisted is an enormous achievement."

Find out more about our nominees

Rising Star of the Year - Pawel Borkowski, Category Assistant

This award is for an individual who has accelerated their career during 2021. Whether this is through accepting increased responsibility, demonstrating a major contribution to the success of the company they work for or providing excellent professional service to their customers, suppliers, or external stakeholders in the business.

Pawel started his Banner life as a warehouse operative within our distribution center and has demonstrated his capabilities and desire to progress throughout the last 4 years of employment. He has progressed through the ranks, becoming a junior member of the merchandise team and rising up to take up his current role of Category Assistant. He is now training and developing his skills in the art of purchasing and data modelling.

Professional of the Year - John Bacon, Group Purchasing Manager

This award is for individuals who have demonstrated a major contribution to the success of the company they work for or who have provided excellent professional service to their customers, suppliers, or external stakeholders in the business.

John has held numerous senior roles throughout his career with the business spanning category and purchasing roles. He has been the lead expert for the paper category and numerous associated paper based products (envelopes, labels, packaging etc). He is our 'go-to' and is even now still extending his knowledge and generously sharing it.

Unsung Heroes - Jennifer Jones, Implementation Team Manager and Tina Henry, Pricing Executive

Jennifer has worked in Banner Group in the Implementation team for almost 16 years, she has grown up in Banner and the vast amount of knowledge she has gained along the way is testament to her success. She started her career at Banner in 2006 in the contracts team as an Internal Implementation Executive. In 2012 she used her extensive experience in the field, as External Implementations Executive, delivering on-site support and training to thousands of individual users across hundreds of new contract wins. In 2018 she was appointed as Manager of the Implementations team. She has implemented millions of pounds of business over the years and has an integral role in the success of Banner today.

Tina is a member of the Banner Bid Management team and has worked for Banner for +15 years. Her "day job" is pricing bids for both public and private sector contracts, and in the first half of this year she completed more proposals than anyone else in her team. At the same time, Tina volunteered to support her Bid Writing colleagues by picking up a variety of administrative tasks, which gave them more time to focus on their written proposals. Tina is a true "unsung hero", working diligently and effectively behind the scenes and always prepared to "play out of position" if required to support her team.

The BOSS Awards ceremony takes place on the 25th November.  To find out more about the BOSS Awards, click here. 

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