Today we reveal that highly successful businessman Huddersfield Giants chairman Ken Davy will be awarded out Achievement this year for his services to sports and charity over many years.

His award will be presented at the Examiner Pride of Huddersfield Awards at the John Smith's Stadium on May 26.

Pride of Huddersfield Awards

Achievement Award goes to Huddersfield Giants chairman Ken Davy

Ken Davy is a man with an exceptionally strong sense of community.

A highly successful businessman, he has used his wealth to save Huddersfield Town, has rejuvenated Huddersfield Giants and set up such innovative community-based schemes such as The Zone.

Since 1968 he has averaged a day a week doing voluntary activities and contributes extensively to the community and particularly to local charities, often anonymously.

This has included working behind the scenes to help set up charities such the One Community Foundation Ltd for Huddersfield. This uses the interest from large benevolent donations to help charities and good causes.

Examiner pride of Huddersfield awards: Ken Davy

He served on the working group under Sir John Harman which established the foundation and donated a significant founding family endowment called The Davy Fund which supports children and young people in sporting activities across Kirklees.

Ken has made several charitable contributions to Huddersfield University which included anonymously funding the three year courses for 25 underprivileged students.

The university subsequently requested permission to make Ken’s support public to encourage others to provide similar support.

In 2006 Ken invested a significant sum to establish the charitable Huddersfield Community Trust to build the children’s sports and leisure facility called The Zone. This is where the charitable Huddersfield Community Trust is based, set up by Ken to use the power of sport to help improve people’s health, education and social inclusion.

The 40,000sq ft building off St Andrew’s Road includes one of the largest soft play areas in the country, plus a children’s gym, dance studio, meeting and hospitality areas along with two indoor sports pitches.

The key theme is healthy living and since 2008 more than 750,000 youngsters, accompanied by more than 400,000 adults, have visited it and it is now also being used by retired people for general fitness and with the NHS for recovering heart patients to improve their health and fitness.

Examiner pride of Huddersfield awards: Ken Davy

Ken originally lived in Filey and in 1959 at the age of 17 began four years as a photographer on cruise liners, sailing round the world 13 times. At 19 he became the company’s youngest ever chief photographer and spent two years on the Oriana, one of the world’s largest liners, and was the first person to take and process colour photographs on cruise ships.

He brought that knowledge of processing colour photographs with him to Huddersfield – he was probably the only photographer at the time in Yorkshire who could photograph and print colour wedding photos – when he married wife Jennifer here in 1963 and set up his own photography business. That grew and grew – so much so that he needed to hire several other photographers.

In 1970 he moved into financial services at a time when he was also involved in politics.

Ken was elected to Huddersfield Borough Council in 1968, aged 26, after campaigning for a Huddersfield Sports Centre to be built and served until the local government reorganisation in 1974. He also unsuccessfully contested the Colne Valley Constituency in the 1970 and 1974 General Elections.

As a financial adviser for almost 30 years, Ken has worked with more than 2,000 clients and their families on about 10,000 financial product solutions and was one of the country’s most consistently successful independent financial advisers.

A joyous chairman Ken Davy enjoys the Giants win over Warrington

He helped to form the Life Insurance Association and served in every office before becoming its president in 1991. Ken was also a founding director and a joint deputy chairman of IFA Promotion and a founding director of the Association of Independent Financial Advisers.

Following the success of his IFA practice Ken created the network concept in 1983 to train and support other financial advisers on compliance and regulation. This later became the largest business of its type in the UK, employing about 400 staff and serving 3,000 financial advisers. His current business, Simply Biz, which he started in 2002, provides compliance, software, technology and training support primarily to directly regulated IFA firms. From its base at the John Smith’s Stadium it employs over 360 staff and serves some 6,000 independent financial advisers. He also enjoys assisting and mentoring younger entrepreneurs and has an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from Huddersfield University along with several business awards.

Ken said: “Running any business is a challenge. It’s no good doing the same as everyone else. You have to do things differently and the customer must be the focus of everything you do. You need to combine an edge – preferably a leading edge – with superb customer service. You have to have the two.”

He remains a staunch fan of Huddersfield and its people but feels the town doesn’t make enough of itself in its prime position between Leeds and Manchester.

Ken Davy Huddersfield Giants Chairman is interviewed by Examiner Rugby League reporter Chris Roberts at John Smith's Stadium.

“The Kirklees brand is pretty lifeless,” he said. “The area would benefit if it changed its name from Kirklees to Greater Huddersfield. It has great strengths – its people, its location, its potential dynamism with a fantastic university that demonstrates just what can be achieved. But Huddersfield could be so much more than it is.”

Ken may be 74 with four daughters, 11 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren but he has absolutely no plans to retire.

“I’m always doing different things,” he said. “I feel I learn something new every day and life is never boring – that’s the thrill of it. In life, as in business and sport, success is a journey, it’s not a destination. It’s important you recognise there will be hurdles and it doesn’t always go as you’d wish.”

Ken Davy’s name is now synonymous with sport ... yet he used to have no interest in it at all.

That interest came when he became involved with the Giants.

In 1995 Huddersfield’s professional rugby league club was in dire straits having just emerged from administration. They approached Ken for support and he donated a six figure sum to enable them to clear their debts on condition his support remained anonymous.

Ken Davy flag

Some creditors, however, insisted on knowing the identity of the club’s benefactor so after some two or three months of funding anonymously he reluctantly agreed to his identity being made public with the result that in January 1996 Ken was appointed chairman of the Huddersfield Giants Rugby League Club – and he’s still in the role.

The more games he watched, the more the sport impressed him.

“I was really impressed by the integrity of the sport and the players,” he said. “If a rugby player goes down you know he’s really injured.”

Their fan base has more than quadrupled and in 2013 they won the League Leader’s Shield for the first time in 81 years while in 2014 they were, for the second year running, Yorkshire’s highest placed Super League side. They have gone from being one of rugby league’s least successful teams to one of the top clubs in Super League.

Ken said: “The last three years have been the most successful consecutive ones since the team of All Talents in 1915.”

And he remains typically optimistic despite the team’s poor start to this season.

“We certainly didn’t plan to lose nine out of 10 of our first games,” he said. “We’ve had a really difficult start – we’ve had injuries and lost players – but we lost five of those games by the narrowest of margins and then beat Warrington, narrowly lost at Wigan and then beat Leeds.”

In 2003 Huddersfield Town went into administration with substantial debts and a rescue looked increasingly unlikely.

Ken Davy at the Civic reception at Huddersfield Town Hall for Huddersfield Giants RL after winning Super League Leader's Shield

Just hours before the club faced liquidation which would have seen it forced out of the league Ken stepped in, taking on debts totalling almost £1.5m and rescued the club from administration.

“It was all about the community,” he said. “Town would have folded which would have been bad for the club, the town and the wider community”

Ken then chaired Huddersfield Town from 2003 to 2010, gaining promotion and rebuilding the financial stability of the club.

During this period Ken also underwrote and part financed a substantial extension to the stadium to both improve its financial position and the facilities for fans.

When he retired as chairman he was appointed Life President of Huddersfield Town AFC.

Pride of Huddersfield Awards sponsor: Syngenta

Syngenta
Syngenta

Syngenta is very proud to continue our support of the Examiner Pride of Huddersfield Awards.

Now in our third year as principal sponsor we have a long history of supporting such events and this year we also celebrate 100 years of manufacturing in Huddersfield. Our work helps farmers all over the world grow higher yields from their crops, providing greater choice of quality food at an affordable price.

Research has shown that our business contributes £57m to the local economy each year and we remain committed to keeping professional and skilled manufacturing jobs in Kirklees. Over 80% of our Huddersfield workforce lives locally and we shall continue to invest in our apprenticeship programme, providing employment opportunities for local people.

We do our best to stay in touch with our community and we recognise how hard everybody works in the voluntary sector, putting the needs of others before theirs.

Our annual Connecting Communities events and Employees Community Gift Scheme are just two of the ways we work with local community groups.

We support the Examiner Pride of Huddersfield Awards because we believe that every nominee, past and present, deserves this recognition for their contribution to making Kirklees the diverse and compassionate community it is. For our part, we shall stay focused on our work and continue to reach out to our community.

We thank and pay tribute to all of the award nominees for their continued dedication and we extend special congratulations to Mr Ken Davy in receiving the Examiner Pride of Huddersfield Achievement Award in 2016.