Louise Bratchie (left) with Debbie Alder, DG of human resources at the Department for Work and Pensions, WIG Trustee at WIG and member of the judging panel. Photos: WIG
A civil servant working to prepare HM Revenue and Customs for Brexit has been recognised with a leadership award that highlights emerging leaders across both the public and private sectors.
Louise Bratchie, a senior performance adviser at HMRC’s EU transition unit, was awarded with The Whitehall & Industry Group Emerging Leader Impact Award at the charity’s annual reception on Thursday. One of four civil servants nominated for the two awards given out at the event, Bratchie was rewarded for her work through the Charity Next secondment scheme, which is run by WIG and forms part of the civil service Fast Stream. She spent six months on secondment to Project Trust, a Scottish educational charity that provides volunteering opportunities to school leavers to work in education and social care projects across 22 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
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The emerging leader award was jointly won with William Goldsmith, who works as a balancing markets development officer for the National Grid, while the Leadership Impact Award was won by Kate Willsher, the chief operations officer at the University of Cambridge's Institute for Manufacturing’s Education and Consultancy Services division.
The other civil servants nominated for the WIG awards included Eleri Wones CBE, a deputy director at the Government Legal Department, Yasmine Hafiz, a senior strategic communications advisor for No. 10 Downing Street campaigns in the Cabinet Office, and Bijan Hakimian, the head of UK-India trade policy, Department for International Trade, all of whom were named runners-up at the awards.
Both awards were set up three years ago to raise awareness of the benefit of developing leadership skills in a cross-sector environment and to celebrate leaders who were able to demonstrate impact in their work. All nominees have gone through a cross-sector leadership programme or had been on a secondment into another sector, brokered by WIG, in order to share experience and skills between the civil service and wider public sector, and industry.
The winners and finalists of WIG's Leadership Awards 2019:
Top row (L to R): Yasmine Hafiz, Cabinet Office; Bijan Hakimian, Department for International Trade; Louise Bratchie, HM Revenue & Customs
Bottom row (L to R): William Goldsmith, National Grid ESO; Kate Willsher, IfM, University of Cambridge; Eleri Wones CBE, Government Legal Department