WMB Award Winners – Update
25th May 2022
It was great to hear WMB Businesswoman Award recipient, Rhonda Doyle of Schneider Electric on Newstalk’s The Hard Shoulder last week when she talked about the challenges and possible solutions around career breaks, especially as they affect more women. “I think what we are seeing is that more and more companies are embracing flexible working policies – not just for women but for everybody,” said Rhonda. “So, for example, at Schneider we have a people first approach and a global family leave policy and that’s for women and all parents, or anybody who may need to take care of an elderly parent etc. We are seeing more and more of those policies starting to come online from companies over the last number of years and more and more partners or men sharing the paternity or maternity leave as well.”
Yesterday, the Matheson WMB Female Entrepreneur Award recipient, Niamh Parker of Altada Technology Solutions shared some exciting news: “I’m beyond excited to share that I am starting a new position as Co-CEO of Altada Technology Solutions.” she said. “We will be following in the footsteps of some amazing Public Companies with the Co-CEO structure…” Recently Niamh together with husband and business partner, Allan Beechinor, were announced as finalists in the Emerging category of the 2022 EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. What an exciting year for Niamh and Altada.
In other news, Akara Robotics has been selected by EIT Health, Europe’s largest health innovation network, to join its highly competitive business accelerator programme for phase-one 2022. The programme will grant Akara direct access to key European stakeholders to test its solution at Tartu University Hospital in Estonia, helping the team fine-tune their cutting-edge innovation. Niamh Donnelly, Co-founder and Chief Robotics Officer, received the Expleo WMB Woman in Technology Award recently.
Hats off to Microsoft who came 8th in The Sunday Independent/Statista list of Ireland’s 150 best employers based on research of companies with more than 200 employees. Eimear Michaels, Senior Operations Manager in the International Operations organisation, is also D&I Lead at Microsoft Ireland. In a recent interview with WMB she said; “With our corporate mission to empower every person to achieve more, our scale, and our global reach, I was conscious of our responsibility to do more than just raise awareness about inclusion. We at Microsoft are uniquely positioned to drive the conversation, to have a meaningful, tangible impact on how people experience Microsoft products and services, and how they engage within our workplace and with the company in general.” Eimear picked up the WMB Empowering Women Award and certainly ‘walks the talk’.
Deirdre Lyons who received the Sodexo WMB Female Newcomer Award will be building on her current business network. As sponsor of this Award, Sodexo will be providing mentoring sessions with a suitably qualified Sodexo mentor to Deirdre, to support her professional and business development objectives. “I’m honoured to win this award and grateful to WMB and Sodexo for their support,” she said. “I’m standing on the shoulders of the many amazing women who have blazed a trail before me, and I look forward to ‘paying it forward’…”
We look forward to sharing more wonderful news from our Award recipients 2022 in the months ahead.
