Local Leaders Shortlisted for Leading Wales Awards 2012

Leading Welsh recruitment and training firm New Directions has had two of its employees shortlisted for this year’s Leading Wales Awards.

Natalie Poole from Porth, Rhondda Cynon Taff and Victoria Deane from Cathays in Cardiff have both beaten stiff competition to make it through to this year’s short list.

Natalie Poole is Branch Manager for the specialist educational needs team at New Directions Education. She has been nominated in the Team Leader category.

Victoria Deane is Group Learning and Development Manager for the New Directions team. She has been nominated in the Leading Leadership Skills Development category.

The awards, now in their eighth year recognise those leaders across Wales whose leadership really makes a difference.

Natalie and Victoria made the shortlist in their individual categories after being nominated by colleagues. Jeff Tune, Chairman at New Directions comments:

“Simply being recognised by others is in itself a reflection of the hard work and commitment that is put in daily by the New Directions nominees. I feel honoured and extremely proud to work with staff as talented as Natalie and Vicki and wish them both the best of luck.”

Barbara Chidgey, spokesperson for the Leading Wales Awards, said; “There is a lot of talk about the importance and impact of leadership in today’s society, our role however is to uncover and celebrate real life examples of leadership that have touched people’s lives.

“We’ve reached out to even more people across Wales this year and we’ve had a tremendous response in terms of both quantity and quality of nominations as illustrated by the largest number of finalists ever drawn up. Reading the many and inspirational nominations submitted has been an absolute privilege and extremely motivating.”

The winners will be announced at the celebratory lunch and ceremony which will take place at the Hilton, Cardiff on Thursday 31st May 2012.