For 48-year-old Brendon Cross, being named the 2012 Shaw Gibbs Oxfordshire Business Person of the Year was "probably the proudest moment of my life".

His reign will come to an end tomorrow night, when the 2013 winners are announced, but he has his sights set on a new award — his company STL Communications, has now been shortlisted as Employer of the Year.

The list of industry awards takes up half a page on STL's website — with another two in the 2013 Comms Dealer Sales Awards — but the company's managing director has no doubt about the value of the Oxfordshire accolade.

Mr Cross explained: "Rather than the judges talking to me, we have put our employees forward, to let the judges see what they think of the company.

“In many ways, if we win that award, it would be an even prouder moment. Winning an award in our own backyard — whether Business Person of the Year or Employer of the Year — is brilliant for staff morale.

"We won the a telecommunications contract for London 2012 and I spent six months thinking about why none of our staff was very excited, yet they were over the moon at the Oxfordshire award.

“Then I realised that the Olympic Games was just another job, and they were all doing their job, just as they do for every client. But when you win a business award it's different — it is a real pat on the back."

He added: "STL is very much a national company, but more than 50 per cent of our business comes from customers within Oxfordshire."

Mr Cross was just 30 when he set up his first business, Spire Telecom, from a tiny office at the Oxford Centre for Innovation in Mill Street, Osney — having started his working life at 16 as an electrical engineering apprentice at Didcot Power Station.

He said: "It was a tough time. We started in 1995, building it into a major business which was sold to Carphone Warehouse in 2004.

“A large part of the proceeds we ploughed into STL Communications, so we never needed to depend on the banks."

STL is now a major employer, based in Witney, with 50 staff and more than £5m turnover, supplying sophisticated IT, telecom and data systems to businesses nationwide, as well as Formula 1 teams, schools and health centres.

But Mr Cross remembers how difficult it was to start a business from scratch.

So he jumped at the chance to help local start-ups, and two years ago he started the Hexagon Business Centre in Witney.

Now he has two complexes providing physical space for 30 tenants and virtual space for another 35, who use the centres' office facilities.

"Being managing director of STL Communications takes up all my time but the opportunity came up to set up a centre for small businesses and I also had someone working for me who was ready for a new challenge. There was a crying need for it in Witney. At one time we had four or five queries a week for Hexagon.

"Some were people who had been made redundant and were setting up on their own and wanted to use our address and phone number. In a recession it can be a good time to make a move and some people are taking their business out of their back bedroom and moving it to a new level. I started like that, so I can empathise with my tenants."

He added: "The appeal for me of Hexagon is that you get to see a mix of businesses — entrepreneurs and small businesses — and it is just so interesting."

As if two businesses was not enough, Mr Cross is also heavily involved in the local business community, including a volunteer mentoring project and is a vice-president of Charlbury-based Special Effect, a charity which supplies high-tech aids for children and adults with special needs.

A keen Oxford United fan and former director of the club, he has roped in various players at charity events to raise funds to purchase prosthetic legs for Horspath Primary School pupil Charlotte Nott. * The winners of the 2013 Oxfordshire Business of the Year awards will be announced at a gala dinner on Friday, June 21, at the Four Pillars Hotel, Sandford, and the list will appear in next week's edition of The Oxford Times