Award Winners 2023

Dublin Jewellery Business and International Business School win Women in Business Awards 2023

 Madeleine and Paul

The winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award is Madeleine Blaine, founder of Silver Works and The Collective.  Silver Works runs jewellery making workshops and courses, the most popular being their two hour ‘Forge A Silver Ring workshop’, where attendees make a ring from scratch.. Silver Works also hosts a lot of private workshops for team building, hen parties and groups of friends as well as a Wedding Ring Workshop. They also offer a variety of longer workshops and courses ranging from full day workshops to seven week courses.  Since the Covid lockdown, they also offer a Ring Carving Kit, where tools are sent out and an online tutorial can be done to make your own ring and they have also taken this wax carving workshop out to different venues such as large corporate events and tour groups in Galway.  The Collective is a jewellery shop, offering the work of over 30 Irish designers and more from Europe and around the globe, including Madeleine Blaine’s own range, Gallardo & Blaine Designs. The Collective also offers a bespoke service remodelling customers’ own jewellery or designing pieces from scratch. Their personalisation and engraving service offers fingerprints and zodiac signs amongst other designs which can be engraved on jewellery in a short turn around. The business now employs 9 full time members of staff and 21 part time members of staff across the 2 businesses, who do a mixture of teaching, making jewellery for bespoke orders, and managing the shop and workshops.

 Richella and Paul

The winner of the Rising Star award is Richella Boggan. Richella is co-founder of Sandown Business School, a hybrid business school founded in April 2022. The school provides Internationally Recognised Treble Accredited Professional Coach and Coach-Mentor Education and Training Programmes at Practitioner, Advanced and Master level plus coming in spring 2024 is Team Coaching Education and Training. Sandown Business School also offers Executive Talent Development Coaching and Coach-Mentoring programmes and offers bespoke in-house accredited certification in coaching for managers and leaders, with every course enriched by the latest knowledge and research of neuroscience, ontology and psychology. Richella and her co-founding business partner Pheona Croom Johnson are master coach professionals with over 50 years of experience between them. They are already trading as an Internationally Traded Service provider attracting students from across the globe and businesses that are spread across many continents. 

The winners were announced by Paul Berry of LEO Dublin City who encouraged the members present to utilise the services of the Local Enterprise to help them grow their businesses.

The Lord Mayor Daithí de Róiste congratulated the winners and wished all the members a prosperous new year after what has been the first full year of “business as usual” since 2019.

The Awards were followed by a talk on her business story so far by inspirational founder Rachel Doyle of Arboretum, leading national garden centre and lifestyle brand.   She encouraged the network members to dream big, no matter how modest the start and to take a positive attitude when things are challenging.  Great opportunities often emerge from difficult times.

Group pic at awards

Left to right: Rachel Hickey, LEO Dublin City, Rising Star Award Winner Richella Boggan,Co-Founder of Sandown Business School, Lord Mayor of Dublin Daithí de Róiste, Female Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner Madeleine Blaine, founder of Silver Works and The Collective, Paul Berry of the LEO Dublin City and Pauline Logan, LEO Dublin City Women in Business Network Coordinator.

These Awards are made every year to the winners of the LEO Dublin City Women in Business Network Awards.  This network is an initiative of the Local Enterprise Office Dublin City to support women who are starting and growing businesses and has over 200 members across a range of sectors. 

The judges were Cora Barnes, MD of Three Q Recruitment, Natalie Kelly, Audit Partner with Crowleys DFK and LEO Dublin City Mentor Una McGoey.

See https://www.localenterprise.ie/DublinCity/Start-or-Grow-your-Business/Networking/Women-in-Business/ for more information or email leodcwomeninbusiness@gmail.com.

Details of winners and prizes

Entrepreneur of the Year’ Award Winner: Madeleine Blaine, founder of Silver Works and The Collective

Perpetual trophy

€1500 cash

€500 LEO voucher

Certificate

 

‘Rising Star’ Award Winner: Richella Boggan, Co-Founder of Sandown Business School,

Prizes

€500 cash

€500 LEO voucher

Certificate