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LBU alumnus scoops national business prize
Matt Connelly, the founder and CEO of on-demand dry cleaning service ihateironing, has been crowned the winner of this year’s Entrepreneur of the Year award at the British Business Awards.
Matt, who is a BSc (Hons) Sport and Exercise Science graduate, founded the company in 2014 as the first scale-up firm to offer on-demand dry cleaning in London.
Since then, the business has grown to serve over 100,000 customers across the UK and in New York.
Operating through a network of professional dry cleaning centres, the service allows customers to have their laundry collected and delivered with a same-day or next-day turnaround and continues to provide revenue and new customers to small local businesses year after year.
Matt said: “I’m thrilled to win this award, and it is truly a testament to the hard work and resilience of our whole team.”
After graduating from the university in 2001, Matt moved to London, where he helped to grow and develop a number of small businesses before founding ihateironing in 2014.
Since then, he has made good use of the skills and knowledge gained on his course within his business, where he has prioritised a scientific approach to the day-to-day running of the business.
“Doing a science degree and understanding the process for scientific research taught me to have a certain rigor and data driven approach to the work we do here at ihateironing.” He added.
“I also have taken many of the learnings from Sports Psychology and in particular the learnings about winning teams and applied them to our business here.”
Alongside this win, Matt has also been shortlisted as a finalist for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards as well as the Laundry and Dry Cleaning Awards 2022, which will announce their winners in November.
Read more about the careers and achievements of our alumni here.