Sponsored by Barclays Eagle Labs
Turnover
SMALL BUSINESS
FINALIST
LEXONIK
Thornaby
MD Molly Teasdale ( right ) received Achieve Hospitality ’ s category trophy from Sharon Braithwaite , eco systems manager for category sponsor Barclays Eagle Labs Tees Valley .
WINNER
ACHIEVE HOSPITALITY
Middlesbrough For the second year in a row , a high-end hospitality recruitment firm is celebrating a VelociTees award .
Achievement Hospitality again won the Turnover – Small Business category by recording a leap in annual turnover from £ 466,000 to £ 658,000 ( a 41 % growth ), narrowly pipping reading improvement specialist Lexonik ’ s 40 % growth .
Founded in 2019 by Lewis Clennell and Molly Teasdale , who noticed a gap in the market for experienced luxury hoteliers to provide consultative recruitment services , Achieve Hospitality has carved out a niche by matching the world ’ s finest hospitality and private staffing professionals with top-tier employers .
Their expertise spans across placing executive chefs , sommeliers , personal assistants and management personnel in some of the most prestigious hotels , resorts and private estates globally .
Renowned for its high-end placement services , the Middlesbrough-based agency – whose sister corporate sector recruitment arm , Achieve Professionals , recently opened a new office in the town – has seen an impressive surge in demand for its bespoke solutions and has recently become a formidable player in the US market .
And after picking up the VelociTees 2025 trophy with Lewis , Molly also paid tribute to the Achieve team who made it happen .
She told Tees Business : “ It ’ s unexpected – you don ’ t plan for it but you put your full energy into what you do . Our team is so dedicated – they go above and beyond for all our clients and candidates and the agency as well . We ’ re in the lucky position that we have a team that cares about our agency just as much as we do .
“ With launching just before Covid , this is the last sort of thing we ’ d have thought of down the line . We didn ’ t know how the industry was going to work out . Luckily when we diversified into private staffing , it just worked and it worked at the right time . If you ’ re stagnant , you don ’ t grow – nothing changes if nothing changes .
“ We do the same basic things , but we try and implement better services every time – and we keep growing our team to keep up with client demand .”
Lexonik was founded in 2011 by dyslexia specialist Katy Parkinson , who was determined to find a more effective way to improve reading outcomes for struggling students .
Since then , the award-winning Middlesbrough-based firm , steered by its skilled and passionate team of “ Lexonites ”, has delivered , to thousands of students in hundreds of schools , dynamic programmes that help teachers bring literacy alive in classrooms , and which have outstanding results for child confidence and reading attainment .
Thornaby-based Lexonik specialises in accelerating literacy progress through evidence-based interventions and expert-led training , with programmes designed to close literacy gaps quickly and equip students with the skills they need to succeed across every subject .
Since its launch , Lexonik has grown from a promising idea into a transformative solution used by schools worldwide . Backed by more than 90,000 data points and countless success stories , Lexonik ’ s mission continues to empower learners to reach their full potential , wherever literacy support is needed .
SPONSOR MESSAGE
Sharon Braithwaite , ecosystem manager for category sponsor Barclays Teesside Eagle Lab , said : “ As a proud sponsor of the VelociTees Small Business Turnover category , we were thrilled to support such an inspiring event . At Barclays Eagle Labs , we understand how significant the tech sector is to the UK economy and it is important that we recognise startups and scaleups on their growth journeys and for the work they do to positively impact their local communities . Congratulations to all the winners and finalists of the awards .”
146 | Tees Business