Birmingham trailblazers nominated for 21st Asian Achievers Awards

The shortlist for the UK’s longstanding celebration of British Asian achievement across multiple fields has been announced and two trailblazers from Birmingham are among the potential winners.

In the upcoming edition, more than 500 nominations were received across all the categories. These include: Arts And Culture, Business Person Of The Year, Community Service, Entrepreneur Of The Year, Lifetime Achievement Award, Media, Professional Of The Year, Sports Personality Of The Year, Uniformed And Civil Service and Woman Of The Year.

Hosted by Nitin Ganatra and Ainy Jaffri Rahman, the stage is set and the red-carpet is getting laid out for the event on September 15, 2023 at the prestigious London Hilton on Park Lane.

From Birmingham, Tani Dulay, Woodbourne Group’s CEO, was nominated in for Entrepreneur Of The Year Nominee. He is the visionary behind both Woodbourne Ventures, an early capital and pre-seed accelerator fund, supporting ambitious fellow entrepreneurs, and he is the driving force behind Curzon Wharf, the £360m, world’s first mixed-use net zero carbon ready masterplan.

The other nominee is Atif Ali BEM BCAc - who was nominated in the Community Service category. He has over 6 years of experience working in local government. He previously worked at Birmingham City Council, the largest local authority in Europe. He has a Masters in Law from the University of Birmingham and is a Fellow of The Lunar Society Birmingham.

Passionate about community building, he founded the ground-breaking Birmingham Pakistani Report, which identifies the needs and wants of the Pakistani community in Birmingham. He was awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours list - ‘for services to the Community in Birmingham during Covid19’ and received a British Citizens Award (BCAc) at The Palace of Westminster in 2022 for Service to the Community in particular for promoting and championing inclusivity across Birmingham.

This year’s shortlist includes accomplished figures across various fields. This includes the star of BBC One drama A Suitable Boy and Apple TV+ Shantaram, Shubham Saraf, as well as Anwar Uddin MBE, who created history by becoming the first British-Bangladeshi player in English football history, and Chair of KPMG UK Bina Mehta - the first woman to hold the role in company’s 150 year history.

Full list of shortlisted nominees

Art and Culture

• Archana Kumar
• Jasdeep Singh Degun
• Prathiba Parmar
• Shubham Saraf

Business Person of the Year

• Dr Dharminder Nagar
• Harren Jhoti
• Nisha Katona
• Zeeshan Shah

Community Service

• Atif Ali
• Baljeet Chane
• Poulomi Desai
• Shalni Arora

Entrepreneur of the Year

• Nurdin Jivraj
• Rishi Patel
• Siddhi Mittal
• Tani Dulay
• Vaysh Kewada

Media

• Aditya Chakrabortty
• Anila Dhami
• Rubina Pabani and Poppy Jay
• Shamim Chowdhury

Professional of the Year

• Bina Mehta
• Dr Nikki Kanani
• Lubna Shuja
• Professor KJ Patel

Sports Personality of the Year

• Anwar Uddin
• Bhupinder Singh Gill
• Hamzah Sheeraz
• Naomi Dilip Dattani

Uniformed and Civil Service

• Asrar-Ul-Haq
• HHJ Anuja Ravindra Dhir QC
• Murugesvran Subramanian
• Salman Desai

Woman of the Year

• Dr Lalitha Iyer
• Ridwana Wallace-Laher
• Rukshana Kapasi
• Saloni Bhijwani and Samira Ann Qassim

Liji George, Commercial Director, Asian Achievers Awards says: “We see in the Shortlist that the Awards represent the best and brightest in South Asian excellence across the country. We have community leaders, innovators and job creators that have added to the social, cultural and business fabric of the UK. Congratulations to all the shortlist and best of luck for the Awards.”