Last Friday saw the Verve team don their best Hollywood glamour outfits for our Christmas Party and team recognition awards. The party is an annual fixture where we come together to celebrate the successes across the business, along with highlighting the superstars in our team, who have gone above and beyond this year, with our Team Verve Awards.

This year’s theme was Hollywood Glamour – think sequins, sparkles and lots of movie puns! The team dressed to impress and a great night was had by all. (with a few sore heads the next morning!)

Christmas Party
Christmas Party
Christmas Party
Christmas Party

Our team awards are always the main focus of the night, which gives us a chance to reflect on the amazing work we’ve delivered over the last 12 months. Like everything at Verve, our awards are based around our company values – showing how our team are living out the values on a day-to-day basis to help make the world at Verve a better place!

So, without further ado, here are this year’s categories, finalists and winners (look out for the movie puns!)

Best Newcomer Award

This award is given to someone who has joined the team in the last year and who has fitted right in to the Verve way of working by showing off their skills, supporting their teams and generally making a huge impact to Verve through their amazing work.

About our winner…

Alison has been a consistent pillar of support to everyone in the business throughout our biggest year of change and transformation EVER! Supporting conversations, delivering training, tackling recruitment, suggesting improvements and hosting focus groups to mention just a few!

Alison Hewitt - Winner

Best Supporting Role – aka, our ‘got your back’ award.

This award recognises those who always have the needs of their colleagues, clients and wider business at the heart of all that they do. Someone who is the ultimate team player – picking up extra work, taking on new challenges, supporting others in their development, late nights, early mornings – and does it all with a smile on their face!

About our winner…

Mike’s a huge asset to the technology team and well acclimatised to being at the top end of the team Kudos leader board! He puts the introverted developer cliché to shame (though he does enjoy an energy drink or two before 9am), is a Wellbeing Champ, a de-facto Product Manager, onboarding buddy, an Instagram takeover specialist all on top of being an amazing developer.

Mike Watts - Winner

Best Original Screenplay – aka our innovation award.

This award recognises individuals who are no stranger to creating new solutions/services that benefit us or our clients. They love nothing more than developing themselves and our businesses further, giving us the edge over our competitors and paving the way.

About our winner…

Despite considering herself “not particularly innovative” there’s been many a time we’ve received a message from her entitled, “Ideas”. Whether that’s on services, efficiencies, systems or the business and industry as a whole, Hayley has become the queen on ‘minnovations’ – showing that innovation doesn’t always have to be one big great idea, but the culmination of many little changes can make huge differences.

Hayley Rabbets - Winner

Best On-screen Performance – aka our quality award

This award is given to someone who lives and breathes this company value. They are thorough and methodical, whilst maintaining efficiency and productivity, and consistently deliver high-quality output.

About our winner…

Consumer Duty. What else can we say?? From the prep, to the writing of the whitepaper, from the implementation of it with our firms and internally to simply embedding Consumer Duty in every facet of Verve and financial services, Maddie has shown outstanding quality and commitment to us and the industry.

Maddie Delboy - Winner

And finally, the big one… The Verve Award!

This award is for someone who has had a standout year – has been consistent in their efforts, undoubtedly champions all company values and simply deserved the recognition of the positive impact they have on the business and those around them.

About our winner…

Amy is the ultimate shapeshifter. She’s EA to Cathi, an office manager to the wider team (from making sure tech is working, arranging for a leaking roof to be fixed to making sure the wine fridges are fully stocked!) and even an honorary member of the events team. She is the glue that holds us all together and works tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that everything runs smoothly – and she does it all with a smile on her face. As Cathi put it “she literally keeps me alive”, and we just don’t know what we’d do without her! A very worthy win indeed!

Amy Alderson - Winner

Congratulations to all our amazing finalists and winners – and the whole team for their continued commitment and dedication to all things Verve. It’s been a strange and turbulent time for everyone across the UK and we’re so proud of what our team have been able to create by pulling together. We can’t wait for what the year ahead has in store for us all.