Award honour for Co‑op’s Alex
A colleague from Lincolnshire Co-operative has won a prestigious national award and will now jet off to Atlanta to present his work to a panel of international retailers.
Alex Ho, from the Sutton in Trent Foodstore, is the winner of the 2010 Association of Convenience Stores UK Achievement Award, which sees entries from convenience retailers such as Lincolnshire Co-operative, Spar, One Stop and Londis.
To win the award, Alex wrote a 4,000 word essay and formally presented his work to a panel of judges made up of industry leaders in London.
Now, he is getting ready for the Global Convenience Industry Achievement Award finals, which will be held in Atlanta in October. He will be competing against entrants from New Zealand and Canada for the international honour.
It’s the second year running the award has been won by a member of Lincolnshire Co-operative staff – in 2009, Hykeham Green Store Manager Sarah Louks scooped the national trophy and visited Las Vegas to give her presentation.
Alex also had company from another colleague in the run up to this year’s ACS Achievement Award. One of the other finalists was University of Lincoln graduate Rik Greig (21), who worked at Lincoln’s Winning Post Foodstore on Carholme Road before embarking on the Society’s Management Training Programme.
Alex is now working on honing his presentation further and can’t wait to get to Atlanta.
“It’s been a great experience so far. It’s been hard work, as I’ve been doing it alongside my day job, but I’ve enjoyed it,” he said. “Now, I’m looking forward to visiting Atlanta and going to as many seminars and tours as possible and finding out as much as I can about retail in America.”
ACS Chief Executive James Lowman said: “The Achievement Award is an excellent experience for the rising stars of the convenience industry and hopefully Alex’s success will continue on the global stage in October. Alex is a real credit to both Lincolnshire Co-operative and the UK convenience sector as a whole.”
