#EWIF Announces Finalists Of 2014 NatWest EWIF Awards

EWIF (Encouraging Women into Franchising) is delighted to announce the finalists for the 2014 NatWest EWIF Awards. The awards recognise the efforts and achievements of women in the UK franchising industry.

The finalists are:
The Coconut Creatives 2014 Woman Franchisor of the Year Award

* Lisa Suswain – Wagging Tails
* Lisa Curteis – Rosemary Bookkeeping
* Susanne Cooke – Paw Pals (UK)

The BarterCard 2014 Woman Franchisee of the Year Award

* Clair Slingo – Wagging Tails
* Nicky Morris – ServiceMaster
* Shweta Jhajharia – Action Coach

The McDonald’s 2014 New Woman Franchisor of the Year Award - (for women who launched their franchise after January 2012)

* Jenny Williams – The Detective Project
* Jo Tomlinson – We Love Pets
* Vicky Matthews – Pink Spaghetti

The NomasVello 2014 New Woman Franchisee of the Year Award (for women who became a franchisee after January 2012)

* Tara McGregor – Tatty Bumpkin
* Sarah Evans – Wagging Tails
* Hayley Simpson – Tatty Bumpkin

The Franchise Show 2014 Woman Franchisor employee of the Year Award

* Rebecca Duschl – DidiDance
* Louise Pen-Collings - Extra Help
* Hannah Banfield – ServiceMaster

The Merry Maids 2014 Woman Service Provider of the Year Award

* Kate Matthews – Boddy Matthews
* SallyAnne Butters – Coconut Media
* Ailie Waite – Dennis & Turnbull

The winners of each category will be revealed at the Awards Ceremony which will be held at RBS House in London on 22 May 2014. The theme of the event will be ‘Encouragement’. Tickets are free and open to all, members and non members and should be applied for via the EWIF website.

The award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Franchising’ sponsored by NatWest, which was won previously by Pam Bader OBE, will be announced on the day.

Louise Harris of Wilkins Chimney Sweep, Co-Chair of EWIF, said: Firstly our thanks to our fantastic sponsors, without whom the awards wouldn’t take place. We thank them for their support and commitment to encouraging more women into the wonderful world of franchising. Sadly, according to the most recent NatWest bfa survey, the number of women entering franchising is actually falling. Even though 30% of all franchisees are women, a 2% increase on 2011, only 18% of new franchisees are women, compared to 38% in 2011, so there is much work to be done and we thank our sponsors for supporting us in this effort.

Louise Bruce of Big Red Box PR, the other Co-Chair of EWIF, said: Congratulations to all our finalists and we wish them the very best of luck at the awards in May. The theme of this year’s event will be ‘Encouragement’ and, in light of the NatWest bfa survey results, we’ll be taking the opportunity to ask all our members to do just that little bit more to encourage another woman to think about buying a franchise, to franchise her own business or to help existing franchise operations to recruit more female franchisees. We know from attendance at our regional meetings and the huge amounts of women who use our free 30 minute mentoring service, that we are meeting a need but the survey results show us we need to do more.