INSPIRATIONAL !
New event reveals Teesside ’ s most inspiring business leaders
InspiraTees 2023 winner Catherine Devereux with Abdul Shakeel of event sponsors Tees Medical Services and Teesside boxing champion Savannah Marshall .
She juggles a legal role with being the driving force behind a mental health charity set up in her husband ’ s memory .
And now Headlight Project founder Catherine Devereux has another role to contend with , having been named the Tees region ’ s most inspirational business leader in a prestigious annual poll .
Catherine was revealed as overall winner of the inaugural InspiraTees at a special event in front of 160 people at Hardwick Hall Hotel ’ s new Lakeside Marquee .
InspiraTees was born out of an annual poll by Aycliffe Business sister publication Tees Business to find the Tees region ’ s most inspiring business leaders , with local business leaders casting their votes .
Each year since 2016 , when Boro chairman Steve Gibson OBE topped the first poll , the results have been announced online and in Tees Business magazine .
Other previous winners have included Bill Scott OBE , the late Professor Jane Turner
OBE , PD Ports ’ Frans Calje OBE and , before political figures became ineligible for the poll , Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen .
This year , to reveal the winners , it was decided to hold a lunchtime event , in association with Tees Medical Services and under the new InspiraTees banner – and it was an emotional moment when Catherine stepped up to receive the overall prize .
Almost 200 business leaders took part in this year ’ s survey , which saw nearly 100 people receive at least one vote .
The top 30 had already been revealed on the Tees Business website but the order and , crucially , the winner , remained a secret until the special event .
Seventeen of the top 30 of 2023 were women – a far cry from the first poll in 2016 when there were just three . Indeed , it was that lack of female names initially that prompted Tees Business to organise the Tees
Around 160 people gathered for the inaugural InspiraTees event at Hardwick Hall Hotel ’ s stunning new Lakeside Marquee .
Businesswomen Awards – another event that has since gone from strength to strength .
At the InspiraTees audience was told , mum-of-three Catherine is a partner in the employment team at law firm Knights .
But when , five years ago , she lost her beloved husband Russ to suicide , she set up the Russ Devereux Headlight Project in a bid to reduce the number of deaths by suicide in the Tees region .
Since then , through preventative
32 | Aycliffe Business