Businessperson of the year Kristeen Ko credits top team for Quality Apartments Banksia Albany’s double win

Kristeen Ko has been named this year’s Great Southern businessperson of the year, recognising almost a decade of dedication and hard work at Quality Apartments Banksia Albany. Quality Apartments made a clean sweep of the top gongs at this year’s Albany Chamber of Commerce and Industry Great Southern Business Awards, taking home business of the year for the second year running in addition to Ms Ko’s individual honour. Quality Apartments also claimed the excellence in hospitality gong to cap a superb night on November 1. This is Ms Ko’s 10th year working at Banksia in Albany, and she said for the business to be recognised with the top award two years in a row was “very special”, and a credit to the effort her team put in on a daily basis. “It’s so nice for a team who are really close and work really hard to get the public recognition, and Albany is a city but still a small community really, so to get that recognition from those in the business community here means a lot to us,” she said. “We’re very much a family here. “Some of our staff her been here for five, 10, 12 years now. “We have staff who work for us and then I’ve seen their children grow up and start to come and work for us, so there are a lot of people who put a lot into this business.” Ms Ko said her team were the backbone of her business, crediting them in large part for her businessperson of the year title. “I was so happy to receive the award for business person of the year, but in reality it shouldn’t just be me receiving it,” she said. “We have more than 20 staff at Banksia and this award really belongs to all of them. There is nothing I can do without my team. “It’s nice that my name is on the award, but really it should be all of their names written on there as well. “Tourism and being in the hotel business is great. We want to help locals, and people who aren’t locals, to invest in Albany because it’s an amazing place, and all investment here is good for the community.” Ms Ko’s role will be expanding again in the next few months, as the owners of Banksia have recently bought Motel Le Grande so the Banksia team will have a busy time as they work to take on the new premises. Ms Ko fell in love with the hotel business on a backpacking trip to Australia more than a decade ago, when she was staying in Perth before heading off on a year-long trip around the country. Originally trained as an engineer, Ms Ko returned to Perth after a year of travel and studied a commerce degree at the University of WA, working at the Duxton in the Perth CBD before she moved to Albany. When Ms Ko became general manager of Quality Apartments Banksia Albany in 2018, the company expanded its Albany operations to include bed and breakfast-style accommodation properties alongside its motel apartments — a project Ms Ko said had been her “baby” for the past eight years. She said she had watched Banksia’s The BnB Collection grow from three properties to more than 50, now offering self-contained accommodation across Albany.