James Chew, has won the prestigious ‘SES Intern of the Year’ award for 2018. He has made an invaluable impact during his placement year, at VisitBritain, working as a Retail Product and Affiliate Intern. He leaves a lasting legacy for the company from having worked on the introduction of knowledge banks and fool-proof business systems, which will undoubtedly make the running of the entire department following his departure smoother, more streamlined and efficient.

James with his SES Intern Certificate alongside Lara.

The Aston University student, couldn’t believe he had won the award when he was told of the good news on his last day by his line manager Lara:

“When Lara congratulated me on winning the award, I didn’t believe it at first, thinking that it was a joke! Winning this award has truly been an unexpected win as well as an honour for me. I am very grateful to everyone in the team for having the patience to teach me in areas where I was lacking as well as sharing small nuggets of advice to help make me a better person. Big shout out to the colleagues in the Products team for answering all my curious and intriguing questions!”– stated James.

Some of the highlights of James’ achievements, which he delivered on top of his day-to-day job:

* discovered a way in the system to enable the company to retail a new, key product on their online shop which had not been uploaded on the system before because of its complexity, resulting in extra sales and a very happy client
* tested, proposed and implemented an automated way to update annual prices for one of their top products, resulting in 48 hours of work saved for the whole team
* developed a centralised knowledge bank which is going to be used by the division going forward
* completed his final project, shifting the product update spreadsheet from excel to a shareable software platform which will serve him a foundation for his final year dissertation

Lara, who nominated James, told us:

“James joined our team in June 2017 and I can honestly say that he will leave a big hole in our team, as not only did he achieve so much in terms of personal growth over the past 12 months, but also because he brought into the role so much proactivity, ambition and achievements which have truly set out a new standard not only for future Intern roles but also for future full-time members of staff recruitment.”

James is a truly deserve winner for this year’s Intern award, who will return back to complete his final year studies in September.

We wish him all the best with his future endeavours. 😊