Thom Hetherington, 34

Managing director

Moorfield Media

Biggest achievement: Launching the first 50 Best Restaurants in the World Awards, which involved “phoning the world’s finest restaurants and persuading the chefs to travel across the world for an inaugural awards held by a magazine few had heard of.” After setting up his own company, Hetherington applied the same approach to create the Northern Hospitality Awards.

Current business goal: To develop a portfolio of trade and consumer events which represent the north of England and are equal to anything purporting to be a national event run from London.

Moorfield Group, made up of exhibition organiser Moorfield Media and joint venture event RSVP North, had a turnover in £998,000 in 2007. This is predicted to rise to £1.38m in 2008 now joint venture event Buy Art Fair has joined the group.

The exhibition, which will take place at Urbis in October, has been designed to meet the growing demand for art ownership in the region and will showcase hundreds of artists from some of the UK’s most respected galleries.

Hetherington launched Moorfield in 2004, with the acquisition of the Northern Restaurant & Bar show. The company now employs 11 people and has The Northern Hospitality Awards, RSVP North exhibition, Buy Art Fair and Fashion Weekend Manchester amongst its portfolio.

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