State-owned An Post has been named Company of the Year at The Irish Times Business Awards 2020 at a virtual ceremony on Thursday held in association with KPMG.
The group won the award after been widely praised for keeping its postal services operating during the Covid-19 lockdown, and its network of post offices around the country open to provide essential services.
An Post has also experienced a sharp increase in parcel delivery volumes since Covid-19 restrictions came into force, with hundreds of thousands of people continuing to prioritise buying goods online even though shops have reopened.
The company’s many postmen and women also played a key role in many communities around the country by keeping in touch with elderly people living alone during lockdown, often helping to organise groceries and delivering newspapers to their homes.
“I’m delighted to accept the award for company of the year on behalf of the 9,000 employees in An Post,” said An Post chief executive David McRedmond.
“I’m so pleased for them because they’ve had to work incredibly hard to deliver the transformation, to make An Post more relevant, to move into a new age of e-commerce and financial services and a whole range of different ways of doing things and they’ve been quite amazing in how they’ve done that and we have more of that to come.”
Mr McRedmond continued: “I want to particularly thank the An Post Management Board, the most talented, uncynical, hardworking and creative team I have ever worked with, together with the An Post Board, staff and unions."
The other nominees for company of the year were financial technology group Fenergo and whiskey-maker Irish Distillers.
Other awards at The Irish Times Business Awards 2020 include Businessperson of the Year, Local Enterprise of the Year, Deal of the Year and Distinguished Leader in Business.
