Business Leader of the Year

Suffolk News

Dr Nikos Savvas, West Suffolk College, won Business Leader of the Year. His award was collected by Phil Stittle, the college's business development director

Transcript

00:00We're joined by Phil from West Suffolk College who's just picked up the Business Leader Award

00:06on behalf of Dr Nikos Savvas. Phil, tell us about Nikos and why he deserves that award.

00:11Nikos is inspirational. He leads from the front. He looks five to ten years ahead. He

00:18is literally someone I look up to. He is a role model and he serves the community so

00:27well and so is just from this award. How passionate is he about lifelong learning?

00:37He is here for Suffolk, for the eastern region. He could have gone anywhere with the credentials

00:46he has but he stayed locally. He wants to improve Suffolk education. He wants to improve

00:52eastern education and his desire to just improve everybody's thought and skill and

01:03training is empowering. Just great. Fantastic. Tell us about some of the key achievements

01:09you feel that may have contributed towards this award tonight, maybe over the last year

01:12or over the last few years. Yes, so I've worked at the college now for ten years. Nikos called

01:20me back and I was at the college before he came and I've now come after he came and it's just

01:26been transformational every year. He has a drive to succeed. He has a drive to bring people with

01:33him and to do things that other people can't do. You talked about his drive. What other facets of

01:40his leadership do you think make him such a good leader? It's hard to keep up with him. He just

01:49wants the best and if you just hang on his coattails you'll actually get the best and he's

01:57just on for more than what we can deliver here in local Suffolk, local Bury. If you look at what we

02:03are doing at the moment, we are the sixth largest provider of apprenticeships in England. We have

02:09over 5,000 16 to 18 year olds training with us just in sleepy Suffolk. We need to shout loud and

02:17proud what we do here and Nikos is the person to do it and he'll have that response from the

02:25general public that is looking at education. Obviously behind every great leader is a strong

02:31and supportive team. How important are they, do you feel, behind him in terms of ensuring

02:36that 15,000 students are equipped for success? Yes, we have a very, very strong leadership team

02:42at the college and again we try and keep up with Nikos. We take it year to year because the growth

02:53is exponential. From knowing when I left County Upper, just down the road from the college,

03:00the college was doing 600 students. It's now 3,800 students and go wow, how has it grown so

03:07much and the facilities it has, the XR lab, the care hub, you just keep going and going and going

03:15and I just think as a local we are very lucky to have the college here, have Nikos as our leader.

03:23It's just brilliant and I'm so lucky to be part of that. Congratulations to Nikos and

03:29Phil, thank you very much. Thanks so much, thank you.

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