Won by Sara Lou Ann Jones founder of Centre of Excellence

Centre of Excellence, based in Manchester, and its founder Sara Lou Ann Jones has been awarded Scale Up of the Year at the North West Federation of Small Business Awards (FSB). Centre of Excellence is an e-learning platform providing thousands of courses to customers in 130 different countries and has accumulated £6 million in turnover since it was founded. Sara founded the Centre of Excellence in 2013, when she was pregnant with her first child and reached her first million in just 16 months of starting the business.

Sara Lou-Ann Jones said,

"We are all thrilled to win the award, these last 12 months have been an incredible year of growth for us at Centre of Excellence, selling courses into over 160 countries worldwide, and we've only just scratched the surface of what's possible with e-learning!"

Sara's achievements were celebrated at an awards lunch at the Hilton Hotel in Manchester. The winners of each category will go through to the UK finals to be held in London in May 2019.

Chris Manka, FSB North West Regional Chairman, commented:

"We congratulate all today's finalists on their excellent year in business in a competitive range of categories. Our winners now go on to the finals in London where we hope to see their successes recognised on the national stage. We are sure they will do us proud."