Two Huddersfield businesswomen have taken top awards in a national contest.
Amy Wray and Grace Bylinka were among the winners in the Barclays-Forward Ladies Women in Business Awards. They each received their awards, a hand blown lilac bowl, at a special lunch at the Queens Hotel in Leeds.
Amy, managing director of Holmfirth-based Applegate Lettings, was named young business women of the year, while Grace, who is regional manager with Swedish cosmetics, skincare and fragrances company Oriflame, won the award for home-based business woman.
Amy launched her business in a bedroom with just a phone line and an idea. With seven years experience in the sales and letting industry, she launched the company in the middle of a recession and operates without retail premises.
Grace, based at Birchencliffe, is one of Oriflame’s most successful traders in Britain, turning over £500,000 with 10 nationwide sales teams and more than 500 people working to her.
She joined the company in 2007 as a part-time sales consultant alongside her role as a hospitality assistant at KPMG, but was so successful she joined full time, becoming a regional manager two years later. She achieved a 28% growth in 2011, 21% in 2012 and is forecasting 20% growth this year.
Among other winners, Jacqui Hall, managing director of commercial gas supplier CNG in Harrogate won the overall award and also the category for corporate leader of the year in the competition organised by Barclays and business networking body Forward Ladies.
Announcing the overall award, Caroline Pullich, head of relationship banking at Barclays said: “Our winner has created a culture across the company that has true values, and demonstrated this with an open door policy for staff; tripled employee numbers in the past five years as the company continues to grow; made a huge difference to bottom line profit, has increased turnover to £150m from £98m in the previous year and achieved a net promoter score – an industry measurement which measures customer satisfaction – which is 25 points higher than the industry average for her sector.”
