Gayle Appleby-Merry named a Female Business Awards 2026 finalist.

From a blank page to a Female Business Awards finalist

… what twenty months of building Rue has taught me

I didn't expect to be writing this post.

Not because I doubted what we were building, but because when you're in the middle of building something, you don't often stop to look back at how far you've come. You're too busy doing the work.

But being named a finalist in the New Business category of the Female Business Awards 2026 has given me exactly that reason to pause. And so this is that post, an honest reflection on what has gone into building Rue Consultancy, what we've learned, and what this recognition means.

Where it started

Rue Consultancy launched twenty months ago as an independent catering and facilities management consultancy, with a simple but clear belief: that organisations across the commercial, corporate and public sectors deserve genuinely independent advice on their catering and FM contracts.

Just honest, evidence-based, independent expertise representing the client asking those difficult questions.

That belief came from years of working in the sector and seeing the same pattern repeat itself. Good organisations, well-managed teams, skilled people not optimising value or service levels and without the independent data and expertise to know it or have the leverage to change it.

Rue was built to fix that.

"We benchmark. We challenge. We improve. Those three words are not marketing. They are exactly what we do, every time, for every client."

What the first twenty months have looked like

Building a consultancy from scratch while doing the actual work of consulting and looking after clients is not a gentle experience. There is no quiet period where you set everything up and then launch. You are finding clients, delivering for clients and building the infrastructure of a business all at the same time.

But the results have been extraordinary.

We have worked with clients across business and industry, leisure, heritage and education, across the UK and internationally, helping them benchmark their current catering and FM services, challenge underperformance and improve their contracts in ways that deliver measurable, lasting value.

A single soft FM review with one client grew into a more strategic partnership across eleven services pest control, window cleaning, cleaning, landscaping, catering, uniforms, laundry, workplace experience and more… not because we sold harder. Because we were trusted.

With another client, our independent review of a catering contract identified in excess of £750,000 in-year saving alongside stronger supplier relationships and improved accountability, outcomes that no internal review had surfaced, because no internal review can be truly independent.

A cleaning contract review found over £220,000 in annual savings opportunity, an 8.7% reduction alongside meaningful improvements in service performance.

These are not small numbers. And they represent something more important than the figures themselves: the difference that independent expertise makes when it is genuinely applied.

The Workplace Event… a turning point

One of the defining moments of Rue's first year was The Workplace Event at NEC Birmingham in April. It was our first major industry presence as a standalone consultancy and it was a statement of intent.

The response was remarkable. The conversations we had at that event with FM Directors, Heads of Estates, Finance leaders and workplace managers confirmed everything we had believed about the need for what Rue offers – A New Perspective.

Companies and clients are not short of FM and catering providers. They are short of someone who will sit alongside them and share insights and honesty, creating value.

"Companies and clients are not short of FM and catering providers. They are short of someone who will sit alongside them and share insights and honesty, creating value."

Why this award nomination matters

When I received the message that Rue had been named a finalist in the Female Business Awards in the New Business category my first reaction was genuine surprise.

Not false modesty. Genuine surprise. Because when you are working this hard, and this close to the detail of what you are building, it is easy to lose sight of what it looks like from the outside.

From the outside, apparently, it looks like something worth recognising.

The Female Business Awards celebrate female founders and solopreneurs who build something of their own, quietly, often without fanfare, driven by a belief in what they are doing rather than the external validation of doing it. That description felt so accurate to the experience of building Rue that it moved me more than I expected.

This nomination is not just for me. It is for every client who trusted us with something important. It is for The Barns Group, whose partnership has been instrumental in everything we have built. And it is for everyone who has supported Rue, referred us, believed in what we were doing before the evidence was as clear as it is now.

What comes next

The gala is on 15th October at the Victoria & Albert Marriott Hotel in Manchester and I will be there, nervous and excited in equal measure.

But more importantly, what comes next is the work. More clients. More benchmarks. More honest conversations about whether FM and catering contracts are genuinely delivering what they should. More independent advice that makes a real and measurable difference.

That is what Rue is here for. And the last twenty months have only made me more certain of it.

"Building Rue has been one of the most rewarding and demanding things I have ever done. I would not change a moment of it."

Gayle Appleby-Merry
Founder, Rue Consultancy