Teamwork and serious effort pay off as Smart50 winners celebrate their staff

Common themes ran through the fine acceptance speeches at last night’s Smart50 Awards 2023: hard graft and supportive teamwork.

Last year’s Awards were the first to be hosted in person after the lockdown years, so the topics of conversation mostly focused on just how great it was to be back in person with the SME community after the unprecedented challenges all had faced.

The challenges of the last 12 months have been different, though perhaps a little more precedented. High inflation, high-interest rates, low spending, layoffs in tech and other industries. Smart50 winners, despite their success, aren’t immune from these headaches and threats, and those accepting awards on the night stressed how important their full team’s efforts had been in making it happen.

In accepting the Resilience Award on behalf of founder Harry Sanders, Matthew Farmer from StudioHawk — on stage with teammates Claire Bremner and Lawrence Hitches — told of the remarkable feat this small but growing team of amazing copywriters had achieved. ChatGPT’s introduction threatened their very profession but StudioHawk was able to use it in a way that supported the team and enabled them to focus on much of the creativity that machines still can’t – exemplified in Bremner’s masterful (and award-winning!) writing in the application stage for the award.

Untitled’s #1 spot and Marketing Award category win were accepted by five team members who filed along the narrow stage, team leader James Hennessy was also quick to point out that the events giant’s success was a testament to the work of its amazing team.

In a chat with Untitled Group this morning, co-founder Nicholas Greco agreed, saying “We’ve definitely had to work a lot harder to continue our growth and continue where the business is going”.

Greco, too, was quick to attribute much of Untitled Group’s success to its fantastic culture and team. “It’s a team that are really passionate about what they do,” he said. “It’s a key part for us to have a team that is really engaged.”