Gate 7’s managing director Kate Wickham has been recognised in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Wickham received an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire awarded by the British monarch for services to Great Britain) for her services to exports and outward investments, after being nominated by a UK government department.
Having been at the Gateshead-based specialist component manufacturer to the automotive industry since 2005, Wickham looks after the UK division of the company, running the business with a team of 40 staff as well as overseeing the foreign exports that currently account for 60% of Gate 7’s revenue.
Wickham said, “We won a Queen’s Award for International Trade back in 2005 and we have also won local export awards in the past. But being awarded an MBE was completely unexpected and I am still taken aback by it all now!
“I have since discovered that I was nominated by UK Trade and Investments (UKTI) who we work with on a regular basis. I had no idea that they made the nomination. I had to call the Cabinet Office to confirm the award was real.
“It is going to be great for business as it’s showing that we are a professional company and we are very successful in what we do, how we do it and how we conduct ourselves. We hope that we are an inspiration to companies and encourage them to pursue exporting.
“I have always been very pro export when you look at our commodity and what we do, people think it’s only a decal surely, we can source that locally? But it’s so much more than that it’s not just a decal it’s the level of quality, performance and the service. It’s all those extras that we can provide to our customers which makes us invaluable and not something you can source locally.”
August 11, 2017
