Region’s most inspiring females honoured by Chamber
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The North East’s most inspiring females have been given top honours at a special awards ceremony organised by the North East England Chamber of Commerce.
The Inspiring Females Awards recognise women across a range of businesses in the region and took place in front of over 300 guests at Newcastle Civic Centre.
Award categories included Apprentice of the Year and Inspiring Female Business Leader of the Year. The award for Outstanding Contribution to the North East was given to the England women’s national football team – the Lionesses.
England professional footballer Beth Mead said: “On behalf of all the Lionesses I want to thank you for the Outstanding Contribution Award. Wishing all our best to the North East’s Inspiring Females.”
Liz Mayes, current Chair of the Chamber’s Women’s Leadership Forum, said: “Our Inspiring Females Awards celebration is an opportunity to look forward and be positive about the future. We are facing difficult economic times but events like this help to champion and support North East businesswomen who will help our region’s economy to grow.”
The ceremony was hosted by interviewer and former BBC Senior Journalist Charlie Charlton. She said: “These women should be household names. I’m always blown away by what they’ve achieved. Setting up successful businesses on maternity leave; fighting for gender, age and racial equality; juggling caring responsibilities with growing new talent at work. How do they do it?!”
Inspiring Female Business Leader of the Year was awarded to Rebecca Chapman who created the North East Business Resilience Centre to protect businesses from cybercrime. Rebecca said: “I’m absolutely gobsmacked, I can’t believe it. I’m genuinely shocked that I’ve won it. It was really, really kind of everybody to vote for me.
“I think these awards create a role model for other young women who are coming into the industry now, especially in my sector which is the tech sector, so there’s not many people in it that are women, and also in the police force, there’s not many women who make the upper ranks, so I like to think that you’re inspiring the youth of the future. It’s really inspiring to come to the awards today and see so many women in the room.”
Northumbrian Water’s Jenny Hartnett was presented with the Inspiring Female Apprentice award.
The Inspiring Female for small businesses was won by Elaine Parker, who set up Safer Date to provide a safer place for people to meet online. The most inspiring employer in this category was given to Steedman & Company Ltd.
Special recognition for the best female in a medium-sized business went to Universal Wolf’s Melanie Stewart, who is passionate about encouraging more females into all manual trades.
An award was also presented to the most inspiring female medium business employer and was won by Northumberland National Park Authority.
Kerry Patterson from Tharsus Group scooped the Most Inspiring Female in the large business category, with special recognition also going to Oluwapelumi Amanda Adeola from BHP Law. The most Inspiring Employer was awarded to Muckle LLP.
Female entrepreneurs and businesses who trade internationally were also recognised, with the Inspiring Female global business award going to Nikki Sayer from Casper Shipping. Inspiring Employer was presented to XL Precision Technologies.
The Community and CSR Inspiring Female award recognises women who have made a difference to their local communities or the environment. This award went to Paula McMahon from Sir Robert McAlpine.
Only in their second year, the Chamber’s Inspiring Female Awards took place on 11 October.
The overall awards were sponsored by Bernicia with category awards supported by Esh Construction, Intuit, Hargreaves, North East Times Magazine, Openreach, NRG, NatWest, AIM Group and Teesside University.