Women's awards celebrate career-changing healthy business leaders

Women keeping Tasmanians fit and healthy and others who’ve made significant career changes in launching their own enterprises are among 15 finalists for the 2015 Telstra Tasmanian Business Women’s Awards.

Health and fitness promoters named as finalists include:

• University of Tasmania’s Regional Development senior project manager Lucy Byrne, who created health promotion project Active Tasmania. A Launceston-based member of the government-advisory committee Healthy Tasmania, she says: “My passion is to help people to improve their quality of life.”
• Endurance runner Hanny Allston, who coaches and mentors runners and hosts running tours through her Hobart business Find Your Feet, and former Royal Australian Navy sailor Kirri-Lee Brazendale, who says her Cambridge personal training business Military Mumma is dedicated to family fitness for ‘mums, bubs and hubs’.

Other finalists who’ve changed careers include:

• Marketing specialist Emma Price who founded and publishes Source Kids Magazine for parents, carers and professionals working with children with special needs. Driven by personal experience – her daughter Charlotte has a rare genetic condition called Angelman Syndrome – she says: “I love what I do because I know that it matters to people.”

Also named as finalists include UK-born Lucy O’Flaherty, CEO of award-winning aged care provider Glenview Community Services, Dr Asha Ram, owner of cosmetic medical practice Sanctum Medical Aesthetics, and business advisor Sara Redman, who launched SRA Corporate Change in Launceston in 2012.

Finalists who go home from work to their farms include the owner of Launceston restaurant Cataract on Paterson, Karen Burbury, who runs an 1100-hectare sheep farm with her husband, and Jacinta Young, the University of Tasmania’s director of Commercial Services and Development and mother of five children who operates a 1600-hectare sheep and cattle farm with her husband.

Telstra Chief Operations Officer and Telstra Business Women’s Awards Ambassador, Kate McKenzie, said Tasmanian business women were excelling in a broad range of sectors.

“Now in their 21st year, the Telstra Business Women’s Awards not only celebrate women who have the courage to start their own business and lead their industries, but also offer them a platform to encourage others to challenge the status quo and think differently,” Ms McKenzie said.

“The 2015 Tasmanian finalists join a long list of successful business women, whose unique and innovative approaches to leadership at state and local community levels, and in some cases, globally, continue to impress and inspire the Awards judges.”

The 15 finalists join Alumni including Tasmanian Police Assistant Commissioner Donna Adams, Bellamy’s Organic CEO Laura McBain, Camerons Accountants & Advisers partner Lucinda Mills, Ashgrove Cheeses’ former managing director Jane Bennett and Genevieve Adams from The Travel Studio in Hobart.

Vanessa Nolan-Woods, General Manager Business & Private Banking and Women in Focus, CommBank, a long-term partner of the Telstra Business Women’s Awards, said: “The Tasmanian Telstra Business Women’s Awards finalists are achieving extraordinary things.

“This is exactly the mandate of Women in Focus – to support women to succeed across diverse industries and become positive role models for other women through connection and collaboration. Women in Focus is proud to support these awards and play a proactive part in encouraging future trailblazers.”

Finalists for the 2015 Telstra Tasmanian Business Women’s Awards are:

Start-up Award
Karen Burbury, Cataract on Paterson, Launceston
Sara Redman, SRA Corporate Change, Launceston
Rosalie Saville, Innerspace Wardrobes Tasmania, Launceston

Entrepreneur
Candice Gillies, NAI Harcourts North, Launceston
Beth Mathison, Centaur Business Networks Pty Ltd, Hobart
Dr Asha Ram, Sanctum Medical Aesthetics, Hobart

For Purpose and Social Enterprise
Kirri-Lee Brazendale, Military Mumma, Cambridge
Susan Fahey, Women’s Legal Service Tasmania, Hobart
Lucy O’Flaherty, Glenview Community Services Inc, Glenorchy
Emma Price, Source Kids Magazine, Launceston

Government and Academia
Lucy Byrne, University of Tasmania, Launceston
Jenny Self, The Hutchins School, Sandy Bay
Jacinta Young, University of Tasmania, Sandy Bay

Corporate and Private
Naomi Walsh, Venarchie Contracting, Launceston

Young Business Women’s Award
Hanny Allston, Find Your Feet, Hobart
Kirri-Lee Brazendale, Military Mumma, Cambridge

Winners of the 2015 Telstra Tasmanian Business Women’s Awards will be announced on Friday 16 October in Hobart. The Tasmanian winners proceed to the national finals in Melbourne on Wednesday 18 November.

For more information on the Telstra Business Women’s Awards and to nominate brilliant business women for the 2016 Awards, visit www.womensawards.com.