Arts & Business Cymru Awards 2025
Wales’ best creative partnerships recognised in a glittering ceremony celebrating 30 years of prestigious Awards.
The 2025 Arts & Business (A&B) Cymru Awards took place at ICC Wales on Thursday 19 June.
The event, which for 30 years has encouraged and celebrated excellence in partnerships between the private sector and the arts, was sponsored for the first time by Hern & Crabtree, Cardiff’s longest-established independent estate agents.
The annual celebration sees companies of all sizes, based across the whole of Wales, compete to win the coveted awards. From Housing Associations to law firms, the shortlist represented the many far-reaching ways businesses work with the arts to achieve tangible goals. Nineteen businesses and their arts partners made to the 2025 shortlist.
The black-tie ceremony, presented by broadcasters Caryl Parry Jones and Huw Stephens, revealed the winners of the 10 categories. Well-known personalities, including actors Pal Aron, Rakie Ayola, Di Botcher, Mark Lewis-Jones, Suzanne Packer and Eiry Thomas, former Children’s Laureate Wales, multi-disciplinary artist Connor Allen, Olympic athletes and broadcasters Colin Jackson and Jamie Baulch and presenter and designer Anna Ryder Richardson took to the stage to present the winners with their trophies.
The evening’s incredible entertainment was provided by the Drum Waiters and Graffiti Classics.
A&B Cymru CEO Rachel Jones said: As we mark the 30th anniversary of the A&B Cymru Awards, it is an ideal time to reflect on past achievements and plan for future success.
Belief in the power of the arts to enrich lives and benefit society as a whole has always been at the heart of our work. In a rapidly changing landscape, A&B Cymru is continually driving ever more innovative and far-reaching partnerships between the two sectors. This is clearly illustrated by the number and quality of nominations from every corner of Wales in this anniversary year. The independent judges felt inspired and humbled by the projects, large and small, new and established and wished to congratulate every business and arts partner nominated in 2025.
Our flagship event would, quite simply, be impossible without our Awards Partners. We are hugely grateful to them all for their vision and staunch support and look forward to another successful year of partnership.
Further details on the event, including the winners, can be found below.
The Robert Maskrey Award for Arts Philanthropy
Winner: Joseph Boughey
Adviser of the Year Award, sponsored by Grant Stephens Family Law
Winner: Jonathan Chitty, Port of Milford Haven & SPAN Arts
Finalist: Giovanni Basiletti, Burges Salmon LLP & National Dance Company Wales
Finalist: Yeota Imam-Rashid, Freelance Consultant & Theatr na nÓg
Finalist: Sian Humpherson, Snowdonia Hospitality & Leisure & Dance Collective
Arts, Business & the Community, sponsored by Wales & West Utilities
Winner: Port of Milford Haven & Torch Theatre
Finalist: Bad Wolf & The Other Room Theatre
Finalist: Pendine Park Care Organisation & North Wales International Music Festival
Arts, Business & Diversity, sponsored by Sony
Winner: First Choice Housing Association & Gig Buddies Cymru
Finalist: Grant Stephens Family Law & Hijinx
Finalist: The Queer Emporium & Menter Caerffili
Arts, Business & Employees
Winner: Grant Stephens Family Law & Act Now Creative Training
Finalist: Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru & Hijinx
Finalist: Cloth Cat & Cardiff Animation Festival
Arts, Business & the Environment, sponsored by Bluestone Wales & The Waterloo Foundation
Winner: Cartrefi Conwy & Benjamin C Dearnley
Finalist: Bute Energy & Literature Wales
Finalist: Linc Cymru & Tanio
Arts, Business & Health, sponsored by Cartrefi Conwy
Winner: Rubicon Facilities Management Ltd & Rubicon Dance
Finalist: Cerebra & Swansea Carers Centre & Grand Ambition
Finalist: RWE Renewables Swindon & Dance Collective
Business of the Year
Winner: Rubicon Facilities Management Ltd
Finalist: First Choice Housing Association
Finalist: Grant Stephens Family Law
Hodge Foundation Arts Award
Winner: Rubicon Dance
Finalist: Gig Buddies Cymru
Finalist: Hijinx
The Nicola Heywood Thomas Arts Prize
Winner: North Wales International Music Festival
The A&B Cymru Awards is made possible by a range of key A&B Cymru partners. The flagship event was sponsored for the first time by Cardiff’s longest-established independent estate agents, Hern & Crabtree, which heads an impressive list of supporters.
The category partners in 2025 were Bluestone Wales, Cartrefi Conwy, Hodge Foundation, Grant Stephens Family Law, Sony UK Technology Centre, The Waterloo Foundation and Wales & West Utilities.
A&B Cymru also works with a range of event partners to ensure the success of the evening. For 2025, they were Entertainment Sponsor, University of South Wales, Media Partner Orchard, Design Partner Ubiquity, Hotel Partner Park Plaza Cardiff, Transport Partners FlightLink Wales and Intercity Removals, as well as Drinks Partners Barti, Penderyn Distillery and Ty Nant.
The 2025 Judges were drawn from a range of sectors and have expertise in practical art forms, sponsorship and the aims of the private sector.
The individuals who took on the considerable task of judging the business partnership categories were BAFTA winning Actor & Producer Rakie Ayola; Hern & Crabtree’s Company Director, Mike Baillie; Business Psychologist & Director of Bowen Hopkins, Lorraine Hopkins and Giles McNamara, Bluestone Wales’ Finance Director.
The Adviser of the Year was judged by three key supporters of A&B Cymru’s Professional Development Programmes. They were Director of Data and Operations at Go.Compare, Hoodi Ansari; Former Artistic Director of North Wales International Music Festival, Mezzo Soprano Ann Atkinson and Grant Stephens, Managing Director of Grant Stephens Family Law.
The winners of the 2025 Awards once again received trophies specially commissioned for the ceremony. They were designed and made by West Wales-based blacksmith, installation artist and sculptor Angharad Pearce Jones. She used the last ever sheet of virgin Welsh steel from Tata Steel’s blast furnace in Port Talbot to create the unique pieces. They celebrate the simplicity of the steel plate, while representing the seeds of change, the growth of green enterprise and the creative arts.
Proceeds fund projects engaging under-represented communities with the arts.
