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The 7th Annual Birmingham Awards celebrates all things Birmingham

The singular most effective means of inspiring excellence
Sharing best practices
Creating more opportunities for those involved

This is the reason Pathway Group has sponsored the Birmingham Awards 2022 for six consecutive years. Birmingham is a world-class city, but unfortunately, it is not always seen that way by the outside world. Despite its massive contribution to industry, commerce, politics and the arts, the fact is that the city remains somewhat in the shadows. Too often seen as a stopping-off point between London and Manchester.

The Birmingham Awards aims to showcase and celebrate the achievements and success of the businesses and people that make this place unique. Although, unfortunately, some talk negatively about awards in general, failing to understand the power of winning an award is phenomenal.

These awards celebrate and recognise success and inspire others to do well. Birmingham is a beautiful city with a proud past and a great future with some excellent young people and some great universities and colleges like Birmingham University, Aston and Birmingham City University.

The city is well connected with a great international airport and is at the heart of the UK road and rail network. It is second to none for shopping and arts facilities like Symphony Hall. There are also the NEC and ICC, indeed global facilities. Global businesses like Cadbury and Jaguar Land Rover are synonymous with Birmingham, and now HSBC is bringing its UK headquarters to the city.

This year, Safaraz Ali, the CEO of Pathway Group, played his part in interviewing all the candidates for the categories: Business of the Year, Businessman of the Year, Businesswoman of the Year and Professional of the Year. He said, ‘there were some excellent nominations but what I was looking for in the winners were people and businesses that combine innovation with enterprise’. He further stated, ‘Birmingham is a beautiful city with a proud past, but we wanted to select winners who can help ensure that it has a great future. This ambition was, for me, the most significant single factor. He concluded that all our winners could have a significant role in taking Birmingham to the next level.

For the last two years, Pathway Group has been Diamond Sponsor, supporting the headline sponsor in ensuring the awards go from strength to strength.

On the night of the awards ceremony, several Pathway Group team members participated: Martin Chandler, Head of Impact, presented the Employee of the Year Award; Kasim Choudhry the Business Woman of the Year Award and in his speech to the 500-plus attendees, Safaraz Ali said that: “evenings like this don’t just happen, there is a lot of hard work and teamwork that goes into this. The power of winning an award is phenomenal, but the power of being involved with awards, if it is done with true intent and conviction, is also fabulous. Birmingham is a wonderful city with a proud past and a great future, and let’s take us to that next level, which we can do with all the wonderful people here tonight.”