A post from Paul Woods – Managing Director
On Saturday I had the good fortune to be invited down to Stelios Philanthropic Foundation at their London HQ.
My invite was as a result of being a third-place winner in the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation Disabled Entrepreneur awards in 2025.
This Saturday I got to catch up in person with Umbreen David – Award Winning Entrepreneur💚 the esteemed first place winner of last year, and some of the applicants for the award this year.
This year’s winners will be announced at 12.00 BST on the 26th May on Zoom.
I also got to catch up with Stelio’s team Tracy Ghori, Maya Turnbull Vikas Kotecha and Georgia Tatnall who always make me feel so welcome.
However, this year I got the good fortune of meeting Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in person. We only got to meet on zoom last year.
His time is precious, so we only had a quick catch up, however we had an opportunity for a lovely photo, and he signed a copy of his book “Easy History” for me.
Without wishing to sound like a super fan, he was even warmer in person than on zoom, and although he had time constraints, he still took a real interest in how I and the business were doing.
I only had a small amount of time with him so did not get the chance to properly thank him for what he had done for me and Proactive Despatch.
When I was an overjoyed recipient of the £50,000 prize money, I made a promise to Sir Stelios and myself that I would invest the funds with great care.
The above prize has enabled me to:
Increase spend, on account management enabling us to get closer than ever to our existing customers, hopefully turning them into raving fans in the process.
Remove me entirely from the credit control process, enabling me to spend my time on more commercial activities.
Bolster and invest further in cyber security to make our defences even tighter.
However, the exciting bit is that these funds have enabled me to invest even more in growing our customer base.
As a result, we have now expanded geographically and are bringing our brand of what we describe as “legendary service” to customers in the West Midlands.
However what Sir Stelios has done for me is the tip of the iceberg.
The brand that he has created the easyGroup, creator and owner of the easy family of brands, Europe’s most famous value brand generates licence fees, which then comes back into the Philanthropic foundation.
Stelios Philanthropic Foundation does so much, in fact Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has committed to away 50% of his wealth during his lifetime or through his will.
Real legacy stuff.
Thank you Sir Stelios for what you have done for me and my team at Proactive Despatch.
Thank you for raising the profile of disabled entrepreneurs in business, what you do is incredible.