Marathon star Sinéad Kane for awards event

WORLD Marathon Challenge Star Sinéad Kane will be the guest speaker for this year’s Network Cork Business Awards, which will be held at Rochestown Park Hotel on Friday, May 19th.

In January of this year, Sinéad Kane made history when she became the first visually impaired athlete to complete the World Marathon Challenge, which involves undertaking seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. What makes her achievement all the more impressive is that she only took up running in April 2012 and ran her first marathon in October 2014.

In 2009, Sinéad qualified as Ireland’s first registered blind solicitor and has continued her academic studies, currently in the final year of her PhD. 

Network Cork president Ciara Wilson is delighted with the level of interest for the awards and the number of applications received to date, as well as the keynote speaker. 

‘The anticipation is building,’ she said. ‘The competitive spirit among Cork’s business women is all fired up and it is perfect timing for us to announce that we are greatly honoured that Sinéad will deliver the address, she is an inspiration to us all.’ 

There are six different categories – emerging new business; employee; social enterprise; arts; SME under ten employees and SME over ten employees.