Kate Watts isn’t the type to shout about her achievements. Despite an impressive track record in her role as head of bid media for RocketMill, a digital marketing agency, Watts is quiet, humble and never puts herself forward for any praise, according to the business’s managing director Sam Garrity.

“Kate places her team on the pedestal and takes quiet satisfaction from her contribution,” says Garrity, who nominated Watts for the Guardian’s Small Business Showcase Rising Star award. In fact she “would blush if ever she read this”, he says of the nomination.

Under Watts’s steerage, the department is up (in net revenue) by 84% year-on-year, which is “extraordinary” in this area, says Garrity. “Kate has achieved this by helping us drive the sales effort while retaining existing clients.” She has also secured major clients for the business.

“She helped us recognise how good we could be and was certainly a catalyst when it came to expanding the business and competing against and beating other major players in the field,” says Garrity.

“She’s been such a vocal member of the management team, has stacked up a high client-retention rate, and has transformed the bid media team into one of the most important teams in the company.”

One of Watts’s major strengths is her ability to develop and inspire a team. “When two members of her team came forward and asked me if we could enter various employer brand awards, I realised the impact she was having,” says Garrity.

Watts has been with the business for nine months. “It wasn’t easy to get her in the first place,” says Garrity. “We had to go on a charm offensive and have lots of lunches, but luckily for us, it worked.”

In layman’s terms, bid media focuses on anything you can buy (or bid on) in the world of marketing, whether that’s advertising space on search engines, Facebook’s sidebar adverts or banners on LinkedIn.

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Watts says: “It’s a really fast-moving industry and as the company wins bigger contracts, I’ve focused on expanding my team, ensuring great time-management and getting all my team members involved in the pitching process. The strategy I’ve implemented isn’t rocket science, but it’s been effective.”

Watts doesn’t think she’s done anything out of the ordinary at work, other than working hard, and admits that she finds it difficult to accept compliments. “I’ve always been a hard-worker. I just get my head down and put the hours in – I don’t ‘do’ failing. And my team are fantastic: they just have so much focus and drive and get on with their work.”

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As Watts never puts herself forward for any praise or recognition, Garrity wanted to “put her on a pedestal”. He adds: “She’s always been a real hard-worker, but has been one of the quieter people; the last person to blow her own trumpet.”

The future looks busy for Watts. “Kate’s career will go as far as she wants it to. Her role will obviously remain at the company, but perhaps at a level similar to that of a director. She’ll be managing a far larger team, that’s for certain.”

And how does Watts feel about the nomination? “It’s very nice to work for a director who believes in you. And Sam was right about me in his nomination. When I read what he’d put, I blushed.”