Entries have recently opened for this year’s Isle of Man Newspapers’ Awards for Excellence and all over the island, companies, public sector teams, individuals and third sector organisations are preparing their submissions.

After the entries close, on September 15, and the judging takes place, these entries will be whittled down to three finalists in each category before the winners are decided.

All of the finalists are informed but, when it comes to the night of the Awards for Excellence, none of them knows if they are a winner until the on stage announcement.

And, in one category, Business Leader of the Year, no one even knows that they are taking part. The recipient of the award is nominated and chosen by the judging panel behind closed doors so it is an especially big surprise when their name is announced from the stage.

Last year’s winner, Greg Ellison, chief executive officer of Capital International Group, wasn’t even there on the night to collect his award, but that was through force of circumstance, not by choice, as he explains:

‘The weekend before the Awards Night I went to Twickenham and the next day I felt absolutely awful and thought: “What’s going on here?”’

He had caught Covid, ‘the Twickenham variant’ as he jokingly refers to it but it was no joke at the time.

He says: ‘I was so under the weather. I never get sick but I was probably in bed 20 hours of every day – it absolutely knocked me out.’

As well as the judging panel, a handful of people are told the identity of the winner of Business Leader of the Year before the Awards Night. These include Isle of Man Newspapers’ deputy chairman, Trudi Williamson: she is the one who, under normal circumstances, would be making sure that the he or she was going to be at the Villa to receive the award.

Trudi had also, as it turns out, arranged a few special surprises for Greg but he was unaware of all of this. Normally, he would have been at the awards night, spruced up in black tie, but instead he found himself sitting alone in bed ‘in my boxer shorts and t-shirt’, watching the live stream on his laptop.

He recalls: ‘I sent a message to my mum and dad saying: “If you’re free tonight the Awards for Excellence are on and I know you sometime dial in to watch” and they said: “Oh yeah we’ll have a look if we’re free”.’

The Business Leader of the Year Award was the last to be presented before the interval and Greg was just debating whether to go and make himself a cup of tea when Mickey Swindale came onto the stage and began talking.

Greg says: ‘She started with: “Their journey started in January 2017 to set up a new digital corporate bank and I thought: “Hang on a minute” and within about 10 seconds I realised she was obviously talking about Capital and I still didn’t think anything and a few seconds later, after more of a preamble, I can hear some of the crowd starting to cheer in the audience. Then Mickey said: “And if you haven’t guessed already who it is the winner this year is, it’s...”

‘And I thought: “Bloody hell – it’s me!”

‘And it was surreal because I was just sitting alone in a dark room going: “Well that’s good”. It was bizarre.

‘And then my phone started going with everyone sending me messages.’

Greg watched as Anthony Long, chairman of Capital International, went up on stage to collect the award on his behalf.

Then there was another surprise when his mum called him from the UK during the interval: ‘She knew all about it because Anthony had liaised with her and my dad, arranged flights for them to come over and a hotel for them and he’d also arranged with Trudi for them to make a surprise appearance at the Awards.

‘They were going to come on stage to hand it to me. They knew all about it and had been sworn to secrecy, Anthony knew all about it but was sworn to secrecy – the only person who didn’t know about it was me!’

One of the major reasons Greg was chosen to receive the award was for the setting up of Capital’s ground-breaking digital corporate bank and he goes on to explain why the award meant such a lot to him:

‘Capital has won a few things at the Awards for Excellence in recent years, International Business of the Year and Freedom to Flourish, but it was the first time I’d won a personal one.

‘It felt a bit wrong in some respects when I think of the effort of so many people over four or five years to set up the digital bank. It felt a little bit odd being singled out, but I see it as an award for everyone that’s been involved with it really because you don’t do it on your own.’

Greg is immensely proud of what has been achieved. At a time when some of the high street banks are taking a minimum of three months to open a new business account, his team are able to turn one around, typically, within 48 hours.

‘Our record is 24 hours for an egaming company, from first enquiry to account open,’ he says.

And he goes on: ‘Obviously it’s just for corporates, we can’t do retail banking: that was never our intention and the licence doesn’t allow us to do it but, focusing on those corporate service providers, fiduciaries, ecommerce and egaming – it’s working really well.’

And yes, he adds, Capital will be entering the Awards for Excellence again this year.

He says: ‘ There are new categories this year so it’s very exciting.

‘It’s great to see ones included about sustainability because we’ve got a very ambitious goal to become carbon neutral by 2025 and we’ve done loads of work towards that.’

And, of course, Covid permitting, he will be there in person: ‘I think it’s the social highlight of the year, the Awards for Excellence.

‘I love going and it’s so great to see so many businesses and not for profits showcasing what they’ve done. We always leave the evening feeling incredibly proud of the collective efforts of everyone in the Isle of Man. It’s my favourite night out of the year, it’s brilliant.’

To view this year’s award categories and enter, visit https://www.afe.im. Entries close at midday on September 15.