It’s changed over the years and I can honestly say I don’t look at captains of industry with a view to testing their prowess with a bow and arrow, but I do examine their business acumen.

As the monarch’s personal representative in East Yorkshire I am called upon for various ceremonial occasions including, in this context, The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise.

I’m looking for businesses that are ready to challenge and compete.

And why limit it to a hundred? Or to East Yorkshire?

I took inspiration most recently from presenting Sewell Group in Hull with The Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Promoting Opportunity Through Social Mobility.

I know the company well as a homegrown business which dates back to 1876 and now employs 500 people.

It is a hugely positive influence in the business community, not just in Hull but much further afield.

Promoting opportunity is in Sewell Group’s DNA and the company, a serial winner of so many other awards, absolutely deserves the royal recognition which was announced in 2021 but presented only recently for various obvious reasons.

It struck a chord because my old employer Smith & Nephew, where I worked for many years and reached the post of Global President of the Wound Management Division, won Queen’s Awards for International Trade and for Innovation.

My Vice Lord Lieutenant, Christopher Oughtred, won The Queen’s Award for International Trade with the William Jackson Bakery in Hull.

We know what it takes to win a Queen’s Award and we know what sort of impact it can have on a business.

At Smith & Nephew it certainly helped sales and it’s great for staff morale as well. It comes from the monarch. It’s very prestigious and should be seen so.

Inviting businesses to apply for The Queen’s Awards will always prompt a few questions, with the main one at the moment being whether they will be renamed The King’s Awards.

We’ll leave that one to His Majesty, but we can answer some of the others.

It can appear daunting so we help people and provide the mentoring to guide them through the process.

We have some fantastic people and organisations in this region and we need to make sure that more of them get the recognition they deserve.

We hope they will be inspired by Paul Sewell, Chair of Sewell Group, who said: “Talent is spread equally within our community but opportunity isn’t and we have a great team here because they come from very different backgrounds.”

And by Emily Jones, Retail Manager at Sewell on the go, who added: “We have flags flying and it’s really nice for customers to be able to see that and for them to ask us about it. I work for a place that’s been given an award by the Queen!”

Jim Dick OBE is HM Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding and former Global President of the Wound Management Division, Smith & Nephew.

Why region's businesses should put themselves forward for Queen's Awards - Lord Lieutenant Jim Dick