35 Under 35 Award Winners
Our team attended the Let’s Recycle 35 under 35 Awards this week, hosted by the Resource & Waste Management Expo (RWM), at NEC Birmingham. Georgia Smith, our rising star at just 24 years old was ecstatic as she beat out the competition to win.
35 under 35 is an exciting awards programme that identifies the ‘young guns’ in the waste and recycling industry who are striving for professional excellence, promoting industry innovation, and giving back to his or her company or community. These awards are a unique opportunity to gain industry recognition for our team members achievements, highlighting customer successes in relation to Recycling, Reuse and Waste Reduction.
Georgia joined our business as a Customer Service Executive in 2019, from there she has been promoted several times, completing her level 3 Apprenticeship (with a distinction), and is now heading up her own team, as Customer Service Team Leader.
She looks after some of our largest clients and brands, such as Marston’s and CBRE. Her team handle circa 115,000 inbound/outbound calls and processes approximately 120,000 tickets and orders. Being project lead on large plans such as TopDesk, implementing the software across the business, which involved scoping, designing, mobilising the system, and training up to 100 colleagues; as well as being a part of our Leadership Team Committee which is chaired on a monthly basis. She has been recognised in our business Awards Ceremonies amongst our team, winning People’s Choice Award 2021, Georgia is continually going above and beyond for her role.
Outside of her day-to-day role, Georgia has also been involved in local litter picks, fundraising for the big sleepout, supporting her local primary school and is part of Brownies as a Barn Owl supporting 20 young ladies to become Environmental Detectives. Now she has recently been certified as “train the trainer” for our academy and is passing her knowledge onto the next generation of talented employees entering our industry.
Through our learning and development programmes devised by our People Department, we have been working with our team members to help them deliver excellence for our customers, and their hard work isn’t going unrecognised.
Our application was judged by senior figures from Let’s Recycle. We’d like to thank them for the time they put into creating the event and giving recognition to those in the waste industry. As part of the Reconomy Group, we had not just one but two winners this week. George Atkinson, Head of policy at Valpak also took home the trophy, showcasing the talent which is in abundance across our brands.
Georgia Smith, Customer Service Team Leader said ‘Just being nominated for the 35 under 35 Awards was an achievement in itself, but to have actually made it into the top 35 was such an honour. The waste management industry is largely male dominated, so as a female it makes me extremely happy to be recognised and appreciated. The future of the industry is changing and I’m here for it. The last 4 years have been filled with hard work and dedication, here’s to the next 4.
