Winner
Louise Verrall
Summary of work
From her first degree to her current position as Business Unit Director, Louise has developed a passion for science, education, psychology and entrepreneurialism. She is driven to make a difference in everything she does - for her own curiosity, her team, her company, her clients, the experts she works with and the patients that they treat.
This is reflected in her desire to demonstrate the credibility of healthcare communications through applying academic frameworks of behaviour change, and directly contributing to clinical practice by developing programmes that support healthcare professionals to advance patient outcomes. Louise is naturally engaging and develops strong partnerships with clients. Engendering this trust enables her to convince and inspire client teams to develop programmes that will effect long-term change.
Louise’s leadership is also reflected in her commitment to her team. She is keen to understand individuals’ drivers and motivations and focuses on encouraging self-awareness in team members, instilling empowerment, individualising skills development, providing constructive feedback and rewarding achievements. The loyal and committed culture this has generated in her team is reflected in the unit’s financial success. The team’s performance and Louise’s implicit understanding of business drivers led to growth of the unit from ~£400K to nearly £2M during 2015.
Judges’ comments
Louise is extremely impressive. Having made a great transition from the academic to the commercial world, she’s demonstrated an ideal balance of intelligence and the ability to apply her skills, both inherent and learned, to great effect achieving phenomenal business growth. Whilst she is clearly ambitious, she has progressed in her career in a sensitive way, focusing on building strong relationships with peers, juniors and seniors alike and has very strong leadership abilities. We predict great things for her.
