A Royal Anniversary

Since receiving the Queen's Award for Enterprise - Promoting Opportunity through Social Mobility in April 2022, we have continued to make significant strides towards our mission of promoting social mobility through opportunity. This prestigious award, approved by the Prime Minister's recommendation, acknowledges social mobility programs that help people transition into successful working lives.

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The year has flown by since we were presented with this award but our team is still filled with enthusiasm and pride, and a little disbelief that this actually happened - talk about a royal seal of approval. We are now taking a moment to reflect on the impact of the award, share our progress over the past year, and discuss how we are continuing to make a positive difference in the Armed Forces community.

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What's happened since we won the award?

• Our Founder and former CEO, Brendan Williams has now retired and passed over the reigns to Karen Jefford, who has been settling into her new role since January 2023
• We celebrated our 2,000th graduate and are receiving 2,000+ course applications per annum
• We are expanding our reach and have already launched 2 new academies in 2023; Wembley with Regal London, and Coggelshall, near Colchester with Vistry Group
• We are set to launch further onsite academies around England and Wales throughout this year
• We are in a position to provide training programmes for up to 1,000 learners per year across England, delivering up to £20.5 million of Social Value
• We won the Soldering on Awards and signed The Armed Forces Covenant - Silver Award, and continue to work towards Gold Award recognition

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Karen Jefford, CEO, said: "Since we received this award, Building Heroes has gone from strength-to-strength and it was with deep sadness that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II passed away last year. She left a great legacy, including this award which highlights charities and organisations for their outstanding achievement."

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Our Founder and former CEO, Brendan Williams, had the pleasure of meeting HRH The Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, at the reception for the announcement of winner of the Queen's Award, and following the passing of Her Majesty we were advised last month that the UK's most prestigious business award has now been renamed as The King's Award for Enterprise and this new award will continue the legacy of the Queen's Awards.

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We look forward to keeping you updated on how 2023 develops, and we are excited to look ahead to 2024 as we will commence the celebrations for the 10th anniversary of Building Heroes.

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