An engineering apprentice has become the youngest ever winner of Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year.
Santina Bunting took home the top prize at last night's annual awards which celebrated achievement among the under 35s of Greater Birmingham's business community.
The 19 year old is part of the civil and ground engineering team with consultancy Arup and took home the apprentice category before being picked ahead of the other winners to be named overall professional of the year (scroll down to see all the 2024 winners).
Judges said that Ms Bunting was "absolutely remarkable at presenting and talking about her journey, with some major achievements" and were impressed with how she had taught herself A-level maths because she found herself behind her peers at university.
In her role at Arup, she has grown steadily from developing geotechnical databases and creating drawings for early-stage highways projects to taking on engineering assessments, analyses and report writing.
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She is also the voice for early career employees at Arup, regularly organising workplace initiatives centred on topics such as imposter syndrome, personal branding and winning work.
Ms Bunting is an assistant technician and is aiming to become an incorporated engineer after finishing her degree and eventually achieve chartered status.
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She was also recently nominated by the Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education to be invited to the King's Summer Garden Party at Buckingham Palace for her work on its apprentice panel.
Ms Bunting serves on the UCAS apprenticeship advisory board.
The annual awards are run by Future Faces, part of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, and handed out 13 different categories prizes.
Other winners represented companies such as KPMG, Hotel du Vin and West Midlands Combined Authority.
The award ceremony was held at the ICC in Birmingham and welcomed 500 guests from across the city region's professional services and business community. It was hosted by BBC and Sky broadcaster and journalist Amber Sandhu.
Two additional awards were also handed out.
The ambassador award is reserved for members of the Future Face networking group and went to Joel Blake, from The Wilkes Partnership, while the president's award was given to Suzie Branch-Haddow, from Birmingham Metropolitan College.
The winners at the 2024 Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year:
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Apprentice of the Year
Santina Adjari-Bunting, Arup
Creative Arts and Culture
Sunjay Kohli, AAA Media
Digital, Technology and Innovation
Charlotte Stanyer, Entec Si
Environmental, Social and Governance
Alex Peart, KPMG
Events, Retail and Hospitality
Money Chopra, Malmaison and Hotel Du Vin
Finance
Nadia Johnstone-Smith, Quilter Cheviot Financial Planning
Legal
Shereen Johal, Shoosmiths
Property, Construction and Engineering
Aysha Bateman, West Midlands Combined Authority
People and Wellbeing
Charlie Pendlebury, Mills & Reeve
Sales, Marketing and Communications
Rory Pickin, Rohlig 海角视频
Start-ups, Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
Iveta Pudilova, Happy Autistic Lady
Not for Profit
Francesca Bagley, United by 2022 Charity
Training and Education
Samantha Strong, Aston University
Greater Birmingham Young Professional of the Year
Santina Adjari-Bunting, Arup
Future Faces Ambassador Award
Joel Blake, The Wilkes Partnership
Future Faces President's Award
Suzie Branch-Haddow, Birmingham Metropolitan College