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Annual Awards for Excellence 2008
The Sir Robert Lawrence Award
Winner: Hilary Devey, Chairman and CEO, Pall-Ex
A leading female entrepreneur, Hilary makes CILT history as the first woman to win this premier award.
This premier award is presented annually to an individual judged to have made a major contribution to logistics and transport over a sustained period, and in doing so to have raised its status and importance. This will be the first time it has been presented to a woman.
Hilary is delighted to receive the Award. She says: ‘Having attended this function so many times over the years and listened with such admiration to the previous recipients I am totally overwhelmed. In the past I have listened in awe and often thought that to receive this award would be the pinnacle of my career. It is and I hope that having this honour bestowed upon me will serve as an inspiration to other women in what can still be regarded as a male dominated industry.'
Few people better fit the purpose of this award than Hilary Devey. In June 1996 she formed Pall-Ex, selling her car and house to raise the capital. Putting in 20 hours days to develop Pall-Ex into a £100 million business in just 13 years, she took it from it's first home, a dilapidated second world war aircraft hangar to a state-of-the-art hub in the East Midlands. The Pall-Ex Group of companies now includes haulage, logistics, proprietary IT and property.
She has won numerous other awards including the Entrepreneur of the Year in the National Business Awards in 2006; the Vitalise Business Woman of the Year in 2004, and again in 2008; the 1st Woman Award and the Everywoman award.
In September 2008 Hilary appeared in C4's Secret Millionaire, giving away over £150,000 and she is involved in many charitable projects including TRANSAID and The Back Door Project.
Hilary was presented with the award by the Institute's President, Graeme McFaull FCILT, Chief Executive of Wincanton plc.
Previous winners of the Institute's Sir Robert Lawrence Award.
