Accolade for Brandon head

Graeme Hall, managing director of Brandon Medical in Leeds, was selected this year's winner at the Institute of Directors Director of the Year Awards.

The awards, which are now in their sixth year, were presented by former BBC presenter Jon Hammond at a black tie ceremony at Saviles Hall in Leeds and rewarded the achievements of nine leaders from across the region.

Mr Hall was chosen for the overall award because of his ambitious target of doubling the size of the business, which manufactures and installs medical equipment worldwide, every three years.

Amar Latif, founder and managing director of Traveleyes, a specialist travel firm that provides holidays for the blind or visually impaired, also received a Lifetime Achievement award in acknowledgement of his company's contribution to the lives of people who are blind or partially sighted.

Other winners from across the region included Young Director of the Year Simon Gray of Boost Drinks, who has increased year-on-year sales at the company by 26 per cent, and Philip Barty, group chief executive of Autism Plus, who was awarded the Not for Profit & Voluntary Sector Director of the Year accolade, after tripling the organisation in size since his arrival.

The new SME Director of the Year title was awarded to Wold Top Brewery director, Tom Mellor, and the Judge's Special Achievement Award went to Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire in recognition of his work to rebrand and re-launch the tourist board, which has

increased visitor numbers by 31 per cent. John Thompson, regional director for the IoD in Yorkshire & the Humber, said: "This was a superb night that celebrated the outstanding achievements of some of Yorkshire's most dynamic business leaders.

"This year's entries were particularly strong and I want to

congratulate all those who made it on to this year's shortlist and acknowledge the success of the winners whose hard work and innovation achieves incredible results for their companies and contributes to the prosperity of this region."

He added: "The past two years have been a turbulent time for everyone, with a massive loss of general confidence, the bonuses for failure issues, MP expenses scandals and the collapse in large parts of the banking sector.

"Over a year ago, seeing what was coming, IoD Yorkshire and our supporters agreed, that despite the recessionary difficulties in doing so, this made 2010 an even more important year to hold these awards, as a positive message to business."

Last year's Yorkshire Director of the Year was Neil Gaydon, chief executive of TV set-top box maker Pace, who has been head of the Saltaire-based digital TV technology firm since 2006.

Aiming to double staff

Brandon Medical plans to hire an extra 40 staff over the next three years as it increases sales in emerging economies such as the Middle East and India.

The Leeds-based company's lighting system makes it easier for surgeons to differentiate between tumours and surrounding tissue by emulating the best of natural daylight.

In an interview with the Yorkshire Post earlier this year, Graeme Hall, the company's managing director, said the lights helped medical staff to cut out tumours with greater precision, which meant, for example, that a brain tumour could be removed while causing the minimum of harm to the brain.

He believed the company could grow from 40 to 80 staff by 2013. If the company hits its targets, turnover could rise from 6m to 50m by 2020. The company expects to pick up new business in the Middle East, South Africa and India.

It has launched an audio-visual system to improve healthcare training, which it has installed in UK, Irish and Danish hospitals.

It has also introduced lights which ensure germs have no hiding place and also devel-oped a manufacturing pro-cess which involves moulding PolygieneTM (a well-known anti-microbial agent) directly into lamp heads.