The inaugural award, which was presented at the association’s annual conference in Dallas, Texas, recognises individuals who push the bid and proposal industry forward through innovation and educational contributions.

Andrew beat off stiff competition from around the world to land the prestigious accolade, the first time the Edinburgh-based company has won global recognition since forming in 2014.

“It’s an incredibly proud feeling to pick up this award, particularly as it has been selected by professional peers from around the world,” said Andrew, a former IoD Scotland director of the year.

“It’s the first time we have been recognised on the global stage and I’d like to express my gratitude to the judging panel. It’s an achievement I will treasure and provides a real boost for the business as we continue our scaling journey.”

Embracing social media, particularly the professional networking platform LinkedIn, in a bid to cope with the challenges of Covid, struck a chord with the judges, as did Andrew’s role in developing Ultimate Tender Coach, the UK’s first digital bid training programme aimed at winning SMEs more public sector contracts.

“I was the first bid professional in the world to be given a LinkedIn Live broadcasting licence to talk about bidding,” said Andrew.

“In the early stages of the pandemic I decided that video was the best way forward with in-person conferences and events off the agenda and since July 2020 I have delivered more than 100 live broadcasts on LinkedIn which have been seen by over 132,000 viewers.

“I find people are initially more interested in what I know rather than what I do. Our 80% bid win rate is independently audited every quarter and I was happy to share some of the secrets, so to speak, of that success, with the business community.

“Ultimate Tender Coach was also born out of the pandemic. The UK public sector tenders out £290bn worth of work a year. In Scotland alone, there is more than £12bn worth of work out to tender so there are a lot of opportunities for SMEs to get a share of that market.

“We wanted to develop something to give them a better chance of competing with the larger organisations. It’s great these innovations have been recognised by APMP as helping drive the industry forward.”

Andrew added: “I think there will be also recruitment and retention benefits going forward for us.

“People, at all stages of their career, want to work for an organisation that is going to develop them and I’m proud of our track record on that front to date. Colleagues join AM Bid with an expectation that they are going to get great career development and I see that being a strength of the firm going forward.”