My favourite night of the year
- By Richard Branson -
- Sep 26, 2012
My favourite night of the year, bringing together 31 of our people from around the Virgin world to celebrate them as our Stars of the Year. We had more than 1,500 nominations from our companies and it was an incredibly hard task to select just 31 who have gone the extra mile.
This year we hosted it at Sam and Holly's house in Kidlington near Oxford and I was joined by my wife Joan, Holly and her husband Freddie, Sam and his fiancé Isabella and a number of our CEOS. We were lucky to have great weather that night as we hosted it inside a stunning tent. Our guests were able to enjoy the wonderful gardens and the last of the Great British summer!
At the start of the dinner I went around the tables asking our Stars to introduce who they were and what they did. It was brilliant to hear the variety of companies, jobs and countries that we had under one roof, all of them united by that great quality of going the extra mile, looking after their colleagues, their customers and their companies.
We also awarded some special prizes for our Stars rewarding them with trips to see our Branson Centre in Jamaica, our Pride 'n Purpose programme in Ulusaba and - for an (un)lucky two - to spend the day with me. Going to have to think of something daring for them to do!
It is so important for every company to remember to recognise and reward its staff. This was summed up very well by our CEO Josh Bayliss who explained that all of our success and exciting expansion is down to the hard work and excellence of the people we employ.
After all, your staff are the lifeblood of your company. At the end of the day, they make all the difference between running a successful business and one that is just run of the mill.
By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group
