Success for Industry Lunch and Young Person of the Year Award

More than 150 members attended the IWMA Industry Lunch this year – an annual event that also included our Inaugural Young Person of the Year Award and gave us an opportunity to showcase the new IWMA branding.Held on 5th february 2020 at the Mere Golf Resort & Spa in Knutsford, the day commenced with networking and a welcome speech from IWMA Chairman Martin Van Der Zwan, who looked back over the last 50 years and forward to an exciting year for the industry. Riccardo Weber, Director of Customer Care, Marketing & Product Development for Prysmian UK, then gave a keynote speech and Chenfei Wang, Analyst for Wire, Cable & Fibre Optics for CRU group, delivered a presentation titled ‘End of an era: What lies ahead after China’s demand slowdown?’.

The 2020 Young Person of the Year Award attracted many applications from all over the world. These were eventually narrowed down to a shortlist of 3 candidates:

• Alun Owens, Cimteq UK
• Andrew Steptoe, Bridon-Bekaert, The Ropes Group UK
• Jinlin Gao, Bekaert China

The inaugural IWMA young person of the year title was awarded to Alun Owens, who won a £500 prize.
As runner-up shortlisted candidates, Andrew and Jinlin received prizes of £100 each.

This new IWMA accolade was very well received and entries for next year’s young person of the year award will open in September 2020.