At the 2013 Scottish Business Awards Sir Brian Souter was presented with the Outstanding Contribution
Award while Stagecoach Group was named winner of the Green Business of
the Year Award.
Former US President Bill Clinton was keynote speaker at
the Edinburgh ceremony which was attended by 1600 delegates including
the First Minister, Alex Salmond and Scottish Minister, Michael Moore.
Sir Brian, who was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday
Honours List in June 2011 for services to transport and the voluntary
sector, is one of the UK’s foremost entrepreneurs.
His first job in the transport industry was as a bus conductor. He
then co-founded Stagecoach with his sister, Ann Gloag, in 1980 with just
two buses, and developed the company into a leading international
transport group in the UK and North America with 35,000 employees and an
annual turnover of nearly £2.5billion.
Sir Brian became Chairman of Stagecoach Group in May when Martin
Griffiths, previously Finance Director, succeeded him as Group Chief
Executive.
A significant supporter of charitable causes and the country’s
leading public transport innovator, Sir Brian was honoured at the
Scottish Business Awards ceremony at the Edinburgh International
Conference Centre (EICC) on Friday night. Accepting the award, Sir
Brian pledged £100,000 from the Souter Charitable Trust to the Scottish
Social Business Fund that invests in social businesses and micro-finance
institutions in Scotland and throughout the world.*
Speaking about the transport business he has helped shape for over 30
years, Sir Brian said: "I’m very fortunate to work in an industry that I
care about and enjoy being part of. Transport affects the lives of
millions of people every day. Over more than three decades, Stagecoach
has transformed public transport through new ideas and continued
investment."
"This has been achieved thanks to the vital contribution of many
talented people across our group and this honour largely goes to them
too, and I’d like to pay tribute to my team at Stagecoach Group led by
Martin Griffiths, and at Souter Investments led by Andy Macfie."
Sir Brian also applauded the important work of Josh Littlejohn and
the Scottish Social Business Fund, and recognised the important roles of
entrepreneurs and of the positive impact they can bring to society and
of the vital contribution they will make on both the Scottish the UK
economies. He also noted that "while we all strive for success we
accept that part of that journey will be in learning from our mistakes
and failures along the way", and he concluded that "it is acceptable to
try in businesses and to encounter failure, but it is not acceptable if
we fail to try."