Honours for West Cork women at Network’s business awards

THREE West Cork-based women took honours at the prestigious Network Ireland Businesswoman of the Year awards.

Dr Tara Shine, who lives in Kinsale, was named the national winner of the Stem category.

Tara, who won the title of Network Ireland Cork Businesswoman of the Year earlier in the year, is the co-founder of the social enterprise that inspires people to live and work more sustainably, Change by Degrees.

Two others received a ‘highly commended’ accolade at the ceremony which took place at the Theatre Royal in Waterford city. Louise Bunyan received her award in the employee shining star category.

Louise, originally from Fermoy, now living in Clonakilty, works with VMware as a talent marketing specialist and is also the founder of SmartFox.ie, Ireland’s only dedicated online LinkedIn school.

Jacinta Collins is the founder and principal consultant at Argideen Communications in Rossmore and has been championing science for over 25 years.  Jacinta’s pioneering work, in helping society gain a greater understanding of how science can improve our quality of life, has gained her recognition in the Stem category at the national awards.

Network Ireland West Cork president Katherine O’ Sullivan congratulated all the finalists.

‘As a branch, we are extremely proud of all of the finalists from West Cork and especially our two highly commended winners this year, Louise and Jacinta,’ she said. ‘It is testament to the amazingly talented women in business in West Cork for our branch to be just four years in existence and to have had two national winners and three highly commended recipients.’