Westcombe Group CEO, Kamal Pankhania, has been shortlisted for Business Person of the Year at the 24th Annual Asian Achievers Awards.
I am deeply honoured to have been shortlisted for Business Person of the Year at this year’s Asian Achievers Awards.
Although it’s my name that appears on the shortlist, this recognition reflects the exceptional work of the entire team at the Westcombe Group. Every day, my amazing team works incredibly hard to deliver new luxury homes and hotels, and create jobs, opportunities, and economic growth for local communities across the country.
The accolade of being shortlisted is also eloquent testimony to the impact my entire family has made in Britain since arriving here in 1969. My father set up the Westcombe Group in 1975 making the most of a £5,000 bank loan and, in the years that have followed, the business has gone from strength to strength while expanding into new areas including our prestigious Acre Hotels collection, a luxury collection of hotels in the UK and overseas.
More than 50 years on, we remain a family business that places personal endeavour, perseverance and giving back to the communities where we work at the centre of everything we do. Receiving this recognition speaks to the extraordinary contribution that my brother, Sunil Pankhania, makes as the Group’s Chief Operations Officer and highlights the immense debt of gratitude that my whole family owes to our Chairman, my father, Vraj Pankhania, for his ongoing leadership and guidance of the business and the family.
I am grateful to Pratik Dattani., Convenor of the Asian Achievers Awards, for his generous words:
“We received one of the strongest set of submissions we’ve ever had at this year’s Asian Achievers Awards. Judges looked for examples of leadership, impact and contribution to the community. Kamal’s role in creating long-term value through the complex regeneration and restoration of historical buildings, including an upcoming hotel development in Manchester and a proposed new luxury lifestyle hotel in Kingston, both projected to contribute significant value to the local economies, is exactly the kind of success story the Awards are created to highlight.”
To be recognised alongside so many outstanding British Asian business leaders in our country is a real and rare privilege. I look forward to joining my fellow nominees in September as we celebrate the enormous contribution that a British Asians daily make to our nation’s economy and communities.