A CHARITY boss spoke of her delight after receiving a top honour at Buckingham Palace.

Rachel Clacher, founder of WeMindTheGap and co-founder of Moneypenny, was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) from HRH Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace on Friday.

Ms Clacher has been honoured with the prestigious award in recognition of her dedication to bettering the lives of under-served young people and services to business.

Twenty years ago, she co-founded Moneypenny with her brother Ed Reeves.

Today, Moneypenny has grown to be the world’s lead provider in telephone answering, outsourced switchboard and live chat technology, with a dedicated team of more than 750 employees across the UK and US.

Encompassing the same values as Moneypenny, Ms Clacher established social mobility charity WeMindTheGap in 2014, providing unashamed love and care through totally holistic twelve-month programme for unemployed, young people aged 18 to 25.

From running programmes in Moneypenny’s home town of Wrexham the charity has expanded to run programmes in Manchester, Liverpool and Flintshire.

By 2024, with the support of the National Lottery Community Fund, the charity will have expanded across the whole of North Wales and the North West, will directly employ 160 young people and have over 450 graduates in full time work or education.

Ms Clacher said: “I am truly honoured to be receiving this CBE, and see it very much as recognition of the hard work, commitment and ambition of our amazing people at Moneypenny and WeMindTheGap.

"We all share a belief in treating other people as we would want to be treated ourselves, and that has resulted in us, as important and caring teams, making a huge impact in our clients’ and employees’ lives as well as the lives of under-served young people in our communities.”