Wimbart Crowns Huge Year With Wins At BME Pros Awards and PRWeek Awards 2023
For many stakeholders in African tech, 2023 has been a year to forget, and perhaps rightly so. It has been a year littered with losses, layoffs and liquidations, largely owed to the global VC pullback and the subsequent fallout. As an otherwise forgettable year draws to a close, not too many have been able to make it out to tell the story. However at Wimbart, not only have we been helping tell the stories of the triumphant (e.g M-Kopa’s $250M fundraise, AFEX number 1 spot on FT’s fastest growing companies list, Wasoko’s expansion to Southern Africa etc) we also received some recognition and acclaim for our own efforts, after almost a decade in business. As a matter of fact, in 2023, Wimbart saw more plaques than toothbrushes, in a year we can look back on with huge pride.
Wimbart wins Agency of the Year and Founder of the Year at the BME Pro Awards
The BME Pro Awards is the only awards in the United Kingdom celebrating talented Black, Asian, Mixed Race, and Ethnic Minority (BME) PR and comms pros and judged by a panel of BME experts. At the inaugural awards, which were held at the prestigious Bloomsbury Ballroom London, Wimbart emerged as the big winners of the night, snapping up the Agency of the Year and Founder of the Year awards. Other winners on the night included Munya Chawawa who won Communicator of the Year, Clotilde Abe and Atinuke Awe who won Campaigners of the Year, Matt Brown who won In-house leader of the year for his work as the Director of communications & Corporate affairs, Transport of London, Avril Lee who won Industry Legend and more.
While our Agency of the Year win hinged on our achievements, growth, commitment to personal development, strong team culture and exceptional client results, our CEO Jessica Hope’s Founder of the Year win was based on Jessica’s vision and realisation of building a central communications and consultancy hub for Africa’s growing technology ecosystem. Under Jessica’s guidance, Wimbart has grown to become the first point of contact for various growth-stage companies, public bodies and investment platforms in Africa looking for strategic global communications. Jessica’s steadfastness and unapologetic approach in employing, mentoring and promoting PR professionals from diverse backgrounds, going on to aggregate some of the most amazing black and ethnic minority PR talent that the UK has to offer was also considered by judges, adding to the fact that she sits on various advisory boards and hosts a wide range of mentorship programmes.
Wimbart wins Highly Commended Specialist Consultancy of the Year at the PRWeek Awards
The PRWeek Awards are the Oscars for agencies and our CEO, Jessica Hope and Senior Account Director, Maria Adediran represented Wimbart on the awards night which took place at JW Marriott Grosvenor House in London.
The judges were impressed with Wimbart’s firm understanding of the African market and how Wimbart has been able to firmly consolidate its position as the juggernaut in Africa tech comms, becoming synonymous with African tech and being the go-to agency for the biggest names. Our win hinged on how we consistently delivered exceptional results for our clients, in terms of media coverage, brand awareness/recognition, and reputation management, how we have positioned ourselves firmly in the wider ecosystem, and our outstanding growth across various indexes including staff strength, client base and market share.
Another contributing factor to our win was our contribution to DE&I to the industry at large. In comparison to the PR industry standard where 87% of PRs identify as white, our team comprises 100% Black and Minority Ethnic teammates (60% being women and a 100% female-led senior management team) who are passionate about what they do and who genuinely enjoy working together, inclusively and collaboratively, to achieve great results for our clients.
Our heartfelt thanks goes out to our team members, clients and teams behind the awards as well as the judges for their time and effort! Let’s do more in 2024!
