Print VersionMidlands Excellence Award win - Jan 2008
DRIVEN TO SUCCESS
A leading fleet management firm has won a top business award for the enthusiasm and professionalism of its workforce.
Masterlease was one of three main winners at this year's prestigious Midlands Excellence Awards. The company also received another accolade with Jo Dowdall, Masterlease's quality manager, winning a special ambassador award.
The Midlands Excellence Awards are now in their eleventh year and see entrants explain their performance in nine key business areas, which include leadership, managing people and satisfying customers. All areas form part of the Business Excellence Model, a management framework used by more than 20,000 organisations across Europe.
Midlands Excellence’s assessors were impressed with the enthusiasm and professionalism of Masterlease’s “role model” workforce and cited the enlightened leaders, strong partnerships and a general culture of continuous improvement as the driving factors in the award recognition.
Masterlease received the awards at a spectacular ceremony held at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham. The trophies were presented before 1,350 guests by Midlands Excellence chairman Alan Jones and England’s world cup winning rugby captain Martin Johnson, who was the evening’s guest speaker. 
Peter Tatlock, managing director of Masterlease, comments: “Winning is the icing on the cake for Masterlease. It’s great for all our people, as it’s a fantastic endorsement of the hard work that has been put in over a number of years.
“We already felt like winners, as this approach has helped us to achieve great benefits to our business and will continue to do so.”
Jo Dowdall’s special Ambassador for Excellence award reflected her work in promoting excellence and best practice to other organisations around the region. As well as being responsible for ensuring quality within Masterlease, Jo helps to run events and presentations that are attended by dozens of organisations. She comments: "This is only the second year that Masterlease has entered the awards. Having achieved a commendation last year, obviously we feel it is a major achievement to win the top award only a year later."
Masterlease employs 450 staff at its offices near Birmingham International Airport. The business offers a one-stop fleet management service to an international customer base, covering all aspects of fleet acquisition, vehicle funding, vehicle management, driver management, risk management and vehicle disposal.
