From chicken shop to the top: Severn Trent boss is business woman of year
SeVeRn Trent boss Liv Garfield has won the nation’s most prestigious prize for business women.
The 42-year- old water company chief ( pictured,farright) scooped the 2018 Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award for her commitment to customer service and efforts to champion diversity, judges said.
She is the FTSe 100’s youngest female boss and took the reins at Severn Trent in 2014.
The Yorkshire-born executive’s first job was on a fried chicken stand. After graduating from Cambridge University she joined management consultancy Accenture and then rose up the ranks at BT, eventually taking charge of its Openreach infrastructure division.
Garfield, who has two sons, was named one of the world’s fastestrising corporate stars by Fortune Magazine in 2013. She was paid £2.45m by Severn Trent in 2017.
She said: ‘This is an incredible honour, not only because I remember taking a huge amount of inspiration from some of the previous winners, but also because of the awesome story of Madame Clicquot herself, who was a strong role model at a time when women in business were almost unheard of.
‘I know I wouldn’t have been able to win this award without the support of everyone at Severn Trent who works to keep water flowing every second of every day, so this is as much a win for them as it is for me.’
Sex toy entrepreneur Stephanie Alys won the new generation award. She is co-founder and ‘chief pleasure officer’ of Mysteryvibe, which makes a ‘smart’ vibrator that can be controlled with a smartphone app.
Alys, 28, started her career as a management consultant.
She was praised by judges for creating ‘an entire category by bringing the world of sextech to the masses’.
Amanda nevill, the chief executive of the British Film Institute, won the social purpose award for her work to open up the film industry to young people from a variety of backgrounds. Judges said the 61-yearold had also helped to transform BFI’s base into ‘one of London’s coolest arts venues’.