AJW Aviation boss wins young director award

Boris Wolstenholme, chief executive of Partridge Green’s AJW Aviation, a specialist in the supply, exchange, repair and lease of spare parts for aircraft, received the award at a red-carpet awards ceremony hosted by Channel 5’s Emma Crosby and featuring keynote speaker Gyles Brandreth.

Their award-winning 24/7 AOG critical response service guarantees delivery from a significant inventory of Airbus and Boeing spare parts valued in excess of $425m. As well as its UK base, it operates out of Dubai, Singapore and Miami, with a total of 310 employees.

Mr Wolstenholme joined the Company’s Logistics Centre 16 years ago as a graduate trainee. Having worked his way up through the operations, sales and commercial departments, he took on the role of commercial director for three years before he was voted by the board to become CEO in October 2009 since when he has overseen dynamic company growth of more than 60 per cent.

He said: “The whole evening was a phenomenal success and I would like to commend the IoD for organising the awards. It was inspirational to see the other nominees and award winners. It made me realise how important it is to recognise SME Businesses in the South East.

“AJW Aviation is a fantastic company which has doubled in size in the last three years, and our growth and success is testament to the talented and motivated executive team and the excellent staff that we employ. We have incredible ambitions for AJW, and I am looking forward to leading the company through its next stage of growth and meeting the goals set by our president, Christopher Whiteside.”

Martin Howe, chief executive of Global Immersion of Haywards Heath, also won the award for International Director of the Year for a Business up to £24.99 million.

Rodger Broad, director for the IoD in the South East, said: “The IoD London and the South Director of the Year awards serve to remind people just how talented and driven our region’s business leaders are.

“The South East is the powerhouse of the UK economy and the efforts of directors such as Martin and Boris and our other winners, along with many, many others around the region, will help drive the UK’s economic recovery.

“Their success in this year’s awards is just reward for their hard work and vision and I congratulate them.”

Both winners now go on to the UK Director of the Year final in October.