Drew Benvie from Worcester wins PR Industry CEO of the Year

Benvie, the founder of Battenhall, a social media consultancy, has been hailed as the UK's PR Industry CEO of the Year by Campaign Magazine, as well as Europe's Communications Industry Innovator of the Year by the EMEA Sabre Awards.

Both ceremonies were held recently in London.

Furthermore, Battenhall has been honoured as the UK's Digital Agency of the Year by The PRCA, and has grasped the UK's Large Agency of the Year award from PRMoment.

Battenhall was named after the Worcester neighbourhood Benvie grew up in.

Benvie began his professional journey in 1999, landing his first job in a tech startup. He used his free time to teach himself HTML coding, unknowingly setting a path to become one of the UK's first bloggers.

In 2006, Benvie made his mark by writing the 'social media' page on Wikipedia. Six years later, he launched Battenhall. Over the past year, Benvie's focus on social media safety and original digital strategies have made him an industry heavyweight.

This year also marked the 10th anniversary of Battenhall, and it has been a standout year for him at the consultancy's helm. To celebrate the milestone, Benvie launched a non-profit to promote social media safety education to underprivileged individuals.

Furthermore, he's become a familiar face on TV, appearing as a social media commentator.

Benvie also spearheaded the '20% time' initiative at Battenhall, leading the 120-member team to deliver an unprecedented level of support to charities.

His TEDx talk on rebooting social media brings to the forefront the challenges and possibilities awaiting us in the digital age.

Drew Benvie said: "Building a team of industry-leading talent from the ground up, then seeing our business win the support of some of the world's most admired brands as customers who are still growing with us today, has been just a fantastic experience over the last 10 years. So to be given these awards in recognition is just a huge privilege."