Five businesses and organisations from Suffolk and north Essex have been named among the finalists in the 2015 East of England Business Champions awards.

Categories in the awards include a Business Champion for each of the seven counties in the region – Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire – plus a number of region-wide awards..

Among seven nominees for the regional Business Person of the Year award is David Bell, managing director of Halstead-based business consultancy and management company Simboc which is also one of three firms shortlisted for the Essex Business Champion award. Also in the running is employee engagement specialist The Survey Initiative, based at Frinton-on-Sea.

The sole nominee for the Suffolk Business Champion award is Ipswich-based Poppy Nursing and Care Services, which supplies staff to the NHS. It is the latest in a series of accolades for the firm whose co-founder Kelly-Anne Byres is also also currently in the running in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and the Women of the Future Awards, and was a finalist in the Young Business Person category of this year’s EADT Business Awards.

Other Suffolk finalists in the Business Champions awards include Suffolk Business Women, based in Ipswich, which is one of five organisations shortlisted for the Networking Group of the Year title, and software consultancy IJYI, also based in Ipswich, which is among three finalists in the Training and Development category.

The Business Champion awards were open to businesses with an annual turnover of £25,000 to £5million. The winners will be announced at a lunchtime event being staged at Center Parcs Woburn Forest in Bedfordshire on Tuesday, October 20.

East of England Business Champions spokesman Damian Cummins congratulated the finalists for beating off “seriously tough competition” to reach this stage..

“The Grand Final will be a celebration of the strength, resilience and brilliance of businesses in the region,” he added.