Cosmopolitan's Ultimate Women of the Year Awards

Last year, filming-schedule changes, revised promotional commitments, Hurricane Sandy and laryngitis cost us eight celebrities in the run-up to awards. The truth is, you can never be 100% sure someone will turn up until you see their designer shoes step out of their car on to the red carpet.

Two weeks to go and we're confirming the presenters of our Ultimate Women of the Year Awards, sponsored by Vauxhall Adam.

Our celebrity fixer is an amazing woman called Stroma Inglis who also works on the BAFTAs and arranges celebrity appearances on numerous TV shows.

Apart from having the filthiest laugh that ricochets around the office, one of the things I love about Stroma is the passion with which she approaches her work. Persistent doesn't cover it. At the moment she has one potential celebrity she refuses to tell me about so I'm not crestfallen if at the last minute they don't make it. I've tried bribing her with coffee and cake (it normally works) but she refuses to budge. It may have to be alcohol next. She won't even give me any clues, but has confirmed it is not Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt. Shame.

Stroma has been doing our awards since the very first one eight years ago. During that time we've moved from a dark basement venue to a nightclub, then the illustrious Banqueting House and now the Victoria and Albert Museum. Each year the pressure is on to make it bigger and better, and the one celebrity who's stayed with us throughout our journey is presenter of the awards, Fearne Cotton.

Back in year one, Stroma tells me it was a nightmare as you were trying to persuade people to come to an event that had never happened before. PRs and agents are often suspicious of allowing their talent to be a major part of something that has no history, even when it's associated with such an established brand as Cosmo.

I asked Stroma for her favourite moment of the awards and she immediately said: "It was when Kylie presented to Cosmo icon and former cover girl Debbie Harry. It was two of my favourite female music stars, from different eras of my life, on stage together in a mutual love-in."

The hardest thing about arranging awards ceremonies is getting so many busy celebrity schedules to come together for one day. Stroma's worst moment was last year when Hurricane Sandy stopped two major celebrities from flying in the day before the awards. Obviously our A-list kerfuffle was nothing compared to the suffering of the New Yorkers caught in the devastating storm, but it still caused Stroma to age visibly before my eyes.

In fact, last year, filming-schedule changes, revised promotional commitments, Hurricane Sandy and laryngitis cost us eight celebrities in the run-up to awards.

The truth is, you can never be 100% sure someone will turn up until you see their designer shoes step out of their car on to the red carpet.

The next 14 days will be Stroma's busiest of the whole event, even though she's been in the office on and off since the summer. A single phone call can have her yelping with delight or swearing like a trooper (before going outside to smoke a fag).

By the day of the awards there's an uncanny calm around her desk, because what will be is what will be. Makeup artists, stylists and hairdressers are all booked, cars are on hold and all dietary requirements catered for. It's like a military operation. "By then, everything I can do I've done," Stroma says. "I'm quite cool until I get last-minute calls changing cars or saying a celebrity has got a sniffle. I get to the venue an hour before and the wait begins.

"There's no point me worrying about what I'm going to wear - I have flat shoes, a warm coat and possibly an umbrella - as I'm outside checking celebrity arrivals with a headset on so I can communicate to everyone inside the building about who's just arrived. "Once they've all gone through, I get my glad rags on. When I see the venue decked out and the celebrities on stage, I can finally relax knowing it's a job well done. I feel a great sense of excitement and achievement. I celebrate with a few drinks and I'm always the last person to leave the dance floor at the end of the night."

Never has someone deserved their hangover more...

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