Jewel Awards 2009 - Southern Region
London, 7 November 2009

The seventh Lloyd's TSB Jewel Awards, celebrating the successes of Asian businesses in London and the South East, was held Saturday 7th November 2009 at the London Hilton, Park Lane. Nine awards were presented in categories including business and commerce, professional service, healthcare, education and public life with winners including successful entrepreneurs Dr Kartar Lalvani, President & Founder of Vitabiotics Ltd, Navin Engineer, Founder of Chemidex Pharma and Rami Ranger, CEO Sun Mark and Sea & Land Forwarding Ltd. Naaz Coker, Chair of St George's NHS Trust was awarded one of the Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Winners of the Lloyds TSB Southern Jewel Awards 2009

Healthcare & Education Award:

Navin Engineer, Founder of Chemidex Pharma, which began as a retail chain with the purchase of its first pharmacy in 1981 in Chertsey, Surrey, on the site of a former grocery store. In 2000, Chemidex established itself as a pharmaceutical company by the acquisition of its first brand. The company now focuses on marketing various pharmaceutical products within a wide range of therapeutic areas. Since then, further acquisitions of ethical brands, for UK and Ireland markets, from various global pharmaceutical companies such as Elan, GSK & Solvay as well as in-house developments of branded pharmaceuticals has made Chemidex Pharma into the company it is today.

Professional Award:

Fayaz Ghafoor, Chief Operating Officer, ARY Digital, who joined the ARY Network of Channels in 2003 as Head of Projects and Distribution in Dubai and after only four years with the organization was asked to take over the UK and European Operations as Chief Operating Officer. Since Fayaz took on the new role and with the help of his experienced management team, he has managed to grow the business from one channel to three channels on satellite TV. ARY Network of Channels is now one of the fastest growing South Asian networks in the world. Having started from the UK, growing over a period of nine years, it now successfully broadcasts on all the major leading platforms including cable TV and DTH.

Public Service Award:

Sheetal Mehta of Microfinance, who has leveraged her international background in technology and venture capital to set up Shanti Microfinance which focuses on slums and villages in India. She is also founder of Innovative Social Ventures which provides advisory services to socially conscious technology companies so that they can access smart venture capital, corporate partnering, and global expansion. Sheetal is the UK Deal Maker (by appointment) for the UK Trade and Investment’s Global Entrepreneur Programme and has received several awards: Asian Women of Achievement, Management Today Magazine 35 Under 35 and recently received an Alumni Award of Excellence from the University of Alberta.

Business & Commerce Award:

Rami Ranger, CEO of Sun Mark and Sea & Land Forwarding Ltd - two of Britain's fastest growing companies with a combined turnover of over £80 million. Both of his companies received the most prestigious awards from Her Majesty the Queen - the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement 1999 and the Queens Award for Enterprise 2009 respectively. Rami was also made a Member of the British Empire. As his business represents the best of Britain in terms of products and companies, he exports to over 84 countries. Rami brought about profound changes in British Society to improve social cohesion. He set up the British Asian Conservative Link to make Asians more publicly and politically spirited.

Entrepreneur Award:

Saad Saraf and Javed Husain, Joint Founders of Media Reach Advertising - UK’s first specialist multicultural agency. Established for more than 20 years, the agency provides comprehensive solutions for targeting the UK multicultural market. Under their inspired leadership the agency has helped hundreds of ethnic and mainstream brands communicate effectively with the UK’s multicultural public. Now in 2009 and with no sign of slowing down, the team is actively advising the Olympics 2012 committee, the GLA and numerous government departments on multiculturalism and also addresses various conferences and events on diversity, media and multiculturalism. More recently Javed Husain had become CEO of the newly formed integrated media agency Logika.

Amar Maker, Founder of Maker Properties. Amar graduated in Economics from Delhi University in 1967 and soon after married and came to England where she ran a grocery shop with her husband. It was during this time that the Makers began buying, refurbishing and renting out houses in Clapham, Tooting and Thornton Heath. In 1980, Mr Maker became ill and was on dialysis for a number of years. During this difficult and testing phase, Amar looked after her husband, as well as bringing up her two sons and building up the family’s property business. Mr Maker’s ill health continued and unfortunately he passed away in 2005.Today, through Amar’s efforts the group has a substantial multi-million pound property portfolio of mainly commercial and residential properties.

Retail, Food & Franchise Award:

Syed Qamar Raza, Founder of Retail 24, who came to UK in 1996 and started a small retail unit in February 2001.With persistent hard work and continued efforts, he was able to develop a chain of retail stores in a short period of eight years from a single store to 12 very successful stores employing nearly 200 people and involving a mix of free-hold and lease-hold commercial outlets. Syed is now further developing the Retail 24 concept across London and beyond and believes that a strong management team coupled with hard work will ensure that the Retail 24 Group continues to go from strength to strength.

Asian Women 100 Award:

Shahnaz Husain, Founder and Chairperson of Shahnaz Husain Group, who has been recognised for promoting Ayurveda worldwide, creating an international market for Ayurvedic beauty and health care products. Currently, the Shahnaz Husain Group operates in more than 100 countries, where it has franchise salons, shops, beauty institutes and direct product distributors. The growing worldwide demand for herbal products continues to generate potential buyers, distributors and agents to establish business links with the Shahnaz Husain Group. Even in the current economic slowdown, the cosmetics products business has emerged as one of the most favourite segments all over the world.

Asian Corporate 100 Award:

Surinder Arora, Chairman of Arora International and one of UK’s major independent hoteliers. Owning properties with more than 5,500 hotel bedrooms, Surinder started his leisure and tourism industry career working for British Airways as a customer services officer. He left BA to join Abbey Life full-time and after one year he became sales manager. In 1993, he left Abbey Life and moved into Real Estate Developing where he developed B&B at Heathrow Airport to house airline staff. In 2004, he became the first in Europe to win a franchise from Accor for its up market Sofitel brand. In August of 2004, Sofitel London Heathrow, cost of £180m, 600-bedroom was announced. It is one of the largest and most luxurious MICE hotels in Europe. Mr Arora then won the highly-prized contract to open the only hotel at Heathrow’s new Terminal 5, Sofitel London Heathrow is one of Europe’s largest luxury hotel and conference centres, with facilities for up to 1,500 delegates.

Lifetime Achievement Award:

Dr. Kartar Lalvani, President & Founder of Vitabiotics Ltd. Born in India, after completing his Pharmacy degree, Dr Kartar Lalvani moved to UK in 1956, graduating again at King’s College, London. After moving to Germany in 1959 he obtained his Doctor of Science in Medicinal Chemistry at Bonn University in 1962, and later in 2007 was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.He founded Vitabiotics in 1971, and the company is now Britain’s fastest growing and leading nutraceutical/vitamin company. Today, his flagship Vitabiotics brands are household names, with eight of his products, such as Wellman, Wellwoman, Pregnacare, Perfectil and Osteocare, being acknowledged as Britain’s best selling brands in their respective healthcare categories.

Dr Lalvani is possibly the only Asian example of an individual whose professional excellence and innovations in life-science have been most effectively translated into a highly successful entrepreneurship in the field of healthcare. He has won many business and personal awards, including The Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2003 and 2008, a DTI Innovation Award 2005, Asian of the Year 2004, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award 2008 and JP Morgan Family Business Award 2009. He supports numerous health and education related charities, including Kidney Research UK, National Childbirth Trust, the British Heart Foundation, The National Osteoporosis Society, National Literacy Trust and Wellbeing of Women.

Naaz Coker, Chairman, St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust, whose career spans 38 years. She is currently Chairman of St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust, one of London’s premier undergraduate teaching hospitals and also runs a management consultancy practice. She is Non-executive director of the Ethical Property Company. Until November 2008, she was Chair of Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity, and from 1998 to 2006, she was the Chair of the British Refugee Council. She has held many other voluntary appointments and is currently a trustee of the RSA and Council Member of St George’s University of London. Naaz graduated with an Honours degree in Pharmacy and gained a Master’s degree from the University of London. She completed her MBA in 1991. She was awarded honorary doctorate degrees by Leeds Metropolitan University in 2005 and the University of Central England in 2007.

About Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets

Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets provides financial banking and advisory services to businesses and organisations with a turnover of £15 million and above. In addition to core banking, it provides specialist products and services include asset based lending, structured finance, acquisition finance, capital markets, international trade finance and risk management on interest rates, inflation, foreign exchange and commodities.