Celebrating female entrepreneurship
At the end of November, I was lucky enough to attend The National Business Women's Awards. The National Business Women’s Awards celebrate industrious, hardworking, and enterprising businesswomen nationally.
Finding the courage to start your own business can be difficult, especially if you’re just starting out with no money or no experience. £250 billion would be added to the UK economy if women started and scaled up businesses at the same rate as men. Encouragingly, Companies House data shows 140,000 businesses were started by women in 2021, compared to 56,000 in 2019 showing the UK has become a leading hub for female entrepreneurs. Women are leading the way in terms of innovation and success and excelling in every industry across the country thus there are more female entrepreneurs than ever before. And the National Business Women's Awards showcase the very best of this talent.
The event was held at the Hilton in Wembley on the outskirts of London overlooking Wembley Stadium. The evening started with a red carpet hosted by DJ and presenter Katie Owen who interviewed many of us on the night. After the champagne reception, we took our seats in the grand ballroom.
The atmosphere was truly electric, everyone was eager to network and find out each other's stories. There was a real mix of people from across the UK working across different sectors, varying size businesses and vast backgrounds and ages. I loved how it felt like a true celebration of women in business. It felt humbling to see all of these women being recognized for their accomplishments.
The host for the night was QVC Presenter Lucinda Grossmith. The award categories included business woman of the year and best new business to lifetime achievement and the most influential business woman of the year. The overall winner of the evening was Dee Clayton from Simply Amazing Training.
As a finalist for two of these prestigious awards, I knew it was going to be tough to win. But it still didn't prepare me for how utterly inspiring my fellow finalists were. It was amazing to hear about their successes and what they had achieved in such a short space of time.
The Lewis Foundation were the charity partner and gave a very heartwarming speech. They raised over £2,000 on the night and do some incredible work supporting cancer patients.
Sadly I didn't bring home a trophy this year, but it was a wonderful event to be a part of and I'm so pleased to just be a finalist. I've made some wonderful connections and I hope we can meet again at some point. It was interesting for me to see how other women are running their businesses and what their challenges are. We all have something in common, and that is how we all want our businesses to succeed.
You can see the highlights here.
Until next year...
It was a great privilege to be able to attend the National Business Women’s Awards and see some extraordinary women being honoured for their achievements.
I would recommend attending one of these events to any female founder - it's an experience you won't forget!