Award for Univanich: John Clendon, managing director of Univanich Palm Oil Plc,accepts the best Performance Award for Agro-Industry and Food sector from Finance Minister Somkid Jatusripitak at the recent SET Awards ceremony.Mr Clendon was also a nominee for the Best CEO of the year award.

At a glittering gala dinner for the 2005Thailand Business Leaders Awards, Univanich Palm Oil PCL took away the top award in the Agro-Food Sector and the company’s Managing Director, John Clendon, was one of eight nominees for Thailand’s CEO of the Year.

The annual event held in the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre is organised by the Stock Exchange of Thailand and CNBC Television. In the first phase of judging a team from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (Chicago GSB) shortlisted companies based on four performance measures : Sales Growth, Operating Margin, Earnings before Interest (EBIT) Per Employee and Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)

The second phase of the judging involved face-to-face interviews with a team from Development Dimensions International (DDI), a global consulting company specialising in leadership development, DDI worked closely with Chicago GSB to evaluate the performance of all semi-finalists based on a set of key parameters.