Retail’s talented rising stars certainly know how to party, as does Theo Paphitis

Retail Week held its annual Rising Star Awards on Wednesday, and we had more retailers from more companies than any other time in the six year history of the event. The Rising Stars are always an uplifting event - more than any other awards event I’ve been to, it means so much to the shortlisted entrants and as for many of them it’s a rare escape from the store or the office, they really make the most of their night out at the Grosvenor House.

We had an excellent comedian called Alan Cochrane there, who’s apparently on telly quite a bit, but the real star of the show was Theo Paphitis, coming back for the third year. He gave a really witty speech making the very serious point that retail is an absolutely vital driver of the economy but that the value of a career in the industry is massively underestimated in the wider world.

Theo’s always keen to do his part to put that misapprehension right, and he certainly seemed to get his message across if the crowds of retailers - and particularly the women - who were after photos or autographs from him were anything to go by. Theo seemed to enjoy himself too and was still going strong when we were finally chucked out at the end of the evening, while the dancefloor was packed right to the end too.

The winners came from a wide spread of retailers and the quality of people we saw was really high. My judging group picked store manager category winners from Debenhams in Reading and the Disney Store in the Trafford Centre, while the overall winner Sarah White came from Boots, where she’d overseen the HR side of the company’s supply chain reorganisation, a hugely challenging undertaking.

Boots had a good night overall and it was nice to see retail CEO Alex Gourlay there supporting his company’s up-and-coming talent. Other retailers with winners on the night included Iceland, Topshop, Clinton Cards, John Lewis, Figleaves and Brighthouse.

It was a great night and the passion and determination on display in the interviews we did with all the retailers on the shortlist were really uplifting. They were all living proof that retail is full of great people, and is a great industry to work in. And I’m sure we’ll be seeing many of their names on the pages of Retail Week in the years to come.