Jo Cocker from NWDA presented Kathy Higgins of Insight 2 Drive with her Woman In Business 2008 award. Jo is responsible for the Womens Enterprise Co-ordinator for NWDA and North West Womens Enterprise Forum, of which Elaine Owen is the current Vice Chair. Jo commented that the award event was uplifting, extremely enjoyable and demonstrated a huge range of talent within the nominations, finalists and winners. It has been suggested that next year our winners will receive automatic nomination for the regional awards supported by the NWWEF.

The Women In Business (NW) Awards now in it’s second year are organised by the Women In Business Network. The awards are given in support of women and to encourage female entrepreneurship as women are half as likely as men to be running a business, and as a women’s network we aim to change this within the North West. We do this by encouraging women to invest time, money or energy in supporting each other and to be able to maximise the opportunity to network in a supportive business environment. This was the case when the finalists were nominated as they have been recognised as women that have helped others within the Network with either encouragement or as a realistic role model that help other realise that “they can do it” too.

Kathy Higgins of Insight 2 Drive has been an asset to the network since she joined and this was recognised by her nominations and being the Winner of the Best Woman in Business sponsored by

Business Link Northwest. Kathy encourages other new businesses women and uses her knowledge to mentor them to overcome problems with real life solutions. Business can be tough especially in a very male dominated arena and Kathy is beating them at their own game. She has taken on a campaign to help others be wiser when using other less reputable services. Always extremely encouraging to others and “gives back” at any opportunity, Kathy is a great ambassador for women in business everywhere. We are very proud that Kathy is part of the Women In Business network.