White Label has been proud to facilitate two major awards schemes this autumn in recognition of the way local businesses have risen to the challenges, and embraced the opportunities, presented by COVID-19.

The Croydon Business Resilience Awards – and Southwark Business Resilience Awards in association with London South Bank University – gathered hundreds of nominations and entries from businesses in the respective boroughs, as well as hundreds of votes cast for winners.

The Croydon winners were announced at a Virtual Awards Ceremony on 23 September and the Southwark winners were revealed on 21 October.

Before lockdown, our hugely-popular Business Excellence Awards culminated in an in-person Gala Dinner but due to the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 lockdowns, an in-person event wasn’t possible at the time we started planning.

However, we wanted to do something to recognise the efforts of business community through the pandemic and so we came up with the hybrid event. Host Fayon Dixon presented live from our studio to a virtual audience, sponsors and winners.

White Label Associate Director, Julie Leggatt, said: “We have been proud, delighted and deeply moved by the stories from businesses who have weathered the pandemic storm. Being the organiser and facilitator, we tend to take a back seat and bring forward the businesses we work with so they can shine. However, in a year which was also a difficult one for us, we were very proud of our Awards programmes and our Croydon Virtual Awards Ceremony which gathered many compliments.”