A year, 12 months, 365 days, 8760 hours, 525,600 minutes…
This time last year (November 2016), Emma Casimir, Steve Pickup and I took over the exciting but daunting task of running HMA from founders Rob and Diane Hill who founded the business in 1996.
Anyone who says that ‘running a business is easy’ is lying. That’s not to say I haven’t loved every minute of it but it is definitely all-consuming – every minute, of every day, thinking about the people, the clients, the projects, the money, the next move… the list is endless.
But what makes it all worthwhile is being able to work with a super-talented team who have delivered some amazing projects for our wonderful clients and I for one wouldn’t change that for the world.
There has been a lot of activity in the last 12 months…
We launched a new visual identity to mark the management buyout in November 2016.
We welcomed Jonny, Rachel and Christopher to the team.
We won contracts to deliver work for lots of new clients including Digibete, MindMate, Tookie, BioEden, stem4, JRI, Leeds CCG, Disability Action Yorkshire, Black Yak, Heights Federation, City Fusion and Basingstoke Together.
One of our app projects (Blood Choices) received its CE mark and is now regulated by MHRA as a Type One medical device.
We held our first ever webinars with NHS Blood and Transplant and The Big Life Group which attracted audiences as far as Australia!
Emma Casimir (Client Services Director) successfully completed her first year studying towards her MSc in Behaviour Change with a focus on Health and Wellbeing.
Gregg Senior (Technical Director) celebrated his 10th year at HMA
Steve Pickup (Director) celebrated his 20th year at HMA
We retained our ISO9001 accreditation for the 6th year running
One of our app projects (Calm Harm) is now on the NHS App Library and is one of only 10 mental health apps that has made it through the rigorous accreditation process.
And that’s just a selection of this year’s fabulous achievements.
So I’d like to publically thank our team for all their hard work and support this past year, we couldn’t have done it without them.
I think Emma summed it up really well the other day when she told me she was proud to tell strangers what she does for a living – I feel exactly the same and can’t wait to see what the next 12 months brings…