Network Ireland awards celebrate ‘power within’

WEST Cork businesswomen are being encouraged to enter this year’s Network Ireland awards.

Since its launch in January 2018, the group’s West Cork branch has gone from strength to strength and can boast of two national award winners.

President of Network Ireland West Cork, Caroline Murphy was the first West Cork member to win a national title in September 2018 in the ‘New Emerging Business’ category for her company West Cork Eggs.

‘The awards literally changed me and my business and I had no idea that it would do that when I first completed my application form,’ she said. ‘To win at a national level is a game-changer for a small business such as West Cork Eggs and the press coverage was amazing. We are a West Cork company, that are now recognised nationally. But it is more than that, it gave me a confidence I didn’t have before, in myself and the business.’

When Katherine O’Sullivan, general manager of O’Donnell Furniture won the 2019 Employee Shining Star award at the Network Ireland awards ceremony held at Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery last September, she was genuinely shocked. She said: ‘I have grown in confidence and learnt a lot about myself following the process of entering and being privileged and humbled to win a national award. I was hesitant entering the awards Aas I would see many other people as being much more progressive and having achieved so much more than me.  But through encouragement from my fellow members, I entered and I simply told my story.’

By just filling out the entry form, it allows businesses to reflect on how much they have achieved, review their current offerings and plan for the future.

Entries are now open for the awards process.  The focus of the award categories for 2020 is on the professional women as a whole entity, looking at the totality of their professional and community work.

These categories are new and designed to reflect the vastly altered working world in which we all find ourselves. 2020 has become a time for reflection, drawing on the power within to transform and create a new way forward.

The new categories are: online business transformation, business innovation, emerging business, solo businesswoman, transforming employee and the power within champion.

See networkireland.ie for more.