2024 Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards now open

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Freya Lucas

May 22, 2024

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Early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals have been encouraged to enter the 2024 Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards – a prestigious and comprehensive awards programme that celebrates female small business owners from across the country.

2024 will mark the third consecutive year for the Awards, which highlight the achievements of some of the nation’s most inspiring women in small business. From those in educational services to early childhood educators, children’s services, community services, the performing arts, social enterprise business owners and disability support providers, the Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards is ‘fantastically diverse’ in terms of the breadth of represented industries.

There are more than 65 small business award categories and four individual categories – Young Small Business Champion Woman Entrepreneur (aged 30 years and younger), Small Business Champion Woman Entrepreneur (aged over 30 years), Australian Small Business Champion Influential Woman and Australian Small Business Champion Icon.

Entry into the Awards is free, and now open. Submissions for the Awards will close at 5pm (AEST) on Wednesday 26 June 2024. According to Australian Government data, female small business owners currently represent more than one-third of all small businesses; and recently released research from Commonwealth Bank suggests more and more Australian women are choosing to start a small business or ‘side hustle’, with women opening up 43.2 per cent of all new business transaction accounts during the 2023 financial year. “We’re in the midst of an age of female entrepreneurial empowerment,” Steve Loe, Awards Founder and Managing Director of Precedent Productions, which coordinates the Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards said. “Despite the current high cost of living and myriad challenges associated with small business ownership at present, Australian women are simply powering through and showing incredible resilience and drive across all industries of the small business sector.”

Mr Loe has been ‘deeply involved’ in the small business sector for more than four decades now said he can “absolutely attest” to the fact that a growing number of female-led small businesses are making huge waves across many industries across the nation. “Precedent Productions has been running the Australian Small Business Champion Awards since 1999 but especially during the past few years, we’ve noticed a steep rise in the success of female-owned small businesses in particular; so much so that we deemed it appropriate to have a standalone awards programme that showcases and honours the truly impressive work of women in small business,” he explained. “Perhaps there are elements in the double-X chromosome that gives female leaders a special ‘oomph’, or perhaps it’s lived experience, but whatever the reason, small business women today are shining and ought to be recognised for overcoming still-existing distinct trials to reach such inspirational success,” Mr Loe added. An independent national survey commissioned by Precedent Productions found that almost half (47 per cent) of all small business owners still feel that it is harder for women to succeed in small business today for reasons including the gender financing gap, the ongoing existence of stereotypes in the workforce and balancing home and work life. “From regional and rural areas to the suburbs and capital cities, female small business operators from all parts of the country are encouraged to enter the Awards – free of charge – as we strive to celebrate the women behind the small businesses that contribute so significantly to our national economy and help to shape their local communities in so many meaningful ways,” Mr Loe said. The 2024 Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards shortlisted finalists will be announced from July and will culminate in a National Presentation Evening Gala Event to be held on Saturday 24 August 2024 at Sydney’s The Star. For more information and to submit an entry form, visit: championawards.com.au/womens.

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