The 2024 PCA Futures Awards, in association with Lodders Solicitors, has been won by The Blaze batter Marie Kelly for her innovative business venture.
The Overall Winner impressed the judges through the creation of her new business that is initially focusing on sports caps designed specifically for female athletes, allowing flexibility and comfort for all hair types and styles.
Founding a company named ‘Versatail’, Kelly wants to solve an issue which has persisted with her and fellow players during her cricketing career. Her aim is to see female players being comfortable on the field, enabling them to perform to their highest potential.
Kelly has utilised her time away from cricket to the create contacts and understand complexities of invention and creating a business. Extensive market research and establishing relationships with a plethora of cap manufacturers fascinated the judging panel and showed her entrepreneurial commitment.
The right-hand batter is planning on utilising her prize money towards investing into samples and prototypes in perfecting her product for the betterment of female players.
The 28-year-old was awarded a trophy along with a cash prize of £3,000 from the award-winning law firm. With a winner from each category, £2,000 was also awarded to former Yorkshire and Northamptonshire player Moin Ashraf for being judged the most impressive in the Community Spirit category with Nancy Harman victorious in the Academic Progression category - in which Notts batter Ben Martindale was also nominated.
Meanwhile, runner-up in the Business Impact area, former Sussex wicketkeeper Callum Jackson was the recipient of complementary accountancy services for a year from Clay GBP, the Tax / Accountancy Education Partner of the PCA.
PCA Business Club Member, Lucidica, also supported the runners-up, with James Graham-Brown awarded a free business grade laptop with a 12-month subscription to Microsoft365 in the Community Spirit category while a complementary website build up was awarded to Nottinghamshire’s Ben Martindale for being second in Academic Progression.
In a brand new format for 2024, the six finalists, that were whittled down from a shortlist of 14, presented their personal development journey across the past 12 months to each other, three judges and a room full of PCA and Lodders staff.
Following an application process, the successful finalists contested across three categories at Lodders’ new Birmingham office.
The judging panel, consisting of Lodders Managing Partner, Paul Mourton, PCA Director of Player Rights and Women’s Cricket, Emma Reid and PCA Director of Commercial, Rob Smyth were blown away by the calibre of the finalists. Each had to deliver a 10-minute presentation on their journey in their chosen category before an individual Q&A session with the judges and a roundtable chat.
The six contestants were judged on five criteria – the application standard, verbal delivery, visual aids, storytelling skills and their confidence whilst presenting.
The PCA Futures Awards, which forms part of the PCA’s Personal Development and Welfare Programme (PDWP), aims to rewards candidates on what they have been doing outside of their playing career.
This year marked the fourth consecutive year that Lodders has partnered with the PCA’s Futures Awards, with the initiative born in 2013, initially as the Transition Awards.