Publisher and gift brand founder clinches three National Business Women’s Awards nominations
Wrendale Designs founder Hannah Dale is celebrating 10 years of her greeting card and gift company in spectacular fashion – with a trio of nominations in the National Business Women’s Awards.
The creative mind behind Wrendale Designs By Hannah Dale has built the business from her farmhouse kitchen in Lincolnshire to a turnover of more than £15million in a decade, and is in the running for the Business Woman Of The Year Medium (£10m-£25m turnover), International Woman’s Award, and Northern England Business Woman Of The Year.
Hannah said: “I am honoured and humbled to have been nominated for the National Business Women’s Awards on behalf of Wrendale and so delighted to have been named as a finalist in three categories.
“I am so proud of the amazing team that we have at Wrendale and I know we wouldn’t be getting any of these accolades without every one of them. I have everything crossed for the awards in November and hopefully will do them all proud!”
With an ma in natural sciences, Hannah spent five years in the corporate world before going back to her country roots and life on the farm with husband Jack and their children, turning her hand to art and greeting cards.
Eventually Jack joined her to run the business side of Wrendale and they now manage the farm solely for the benefit of the environment and wildlife rather than commercial gain.
They grow nectar and pollen-rich plants to provide food for insects as well as seed for overwintering birds – and two years ago their re-wilding commitment saw the couple, staff, friends and locals hand plant 28,000 trees on their farmland.
Having expanded into gifts and homewares, they employ more than 30 staff at their Brigg hq and warehouse with self-employed sales reps ensuring their products can be bought across Europe, the US, Australia, and many other countries, and in 2019 Wrendale earned a Queen’s Award For Export.
Celebrating the first decade in business, Hannah cited winning The Henries Most Promising Young Designer or Artist in 2012, followed by Best Art Range in 2013 with her signature collection The Country Set – which won again in 2014 and 2015 – as among her highlights.
And she added: “I just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to every single person who has supported us on our journey over the last decade. We are excited to see what the next 10 years will bring for Wrendale and, with lots of amazing new products in the pipeline, we hope you will continue to enjoy following our journey.”
The National Business Women’s Awards has 21 categories, which any company can enter, with the aim of raising the profile of industrious, hardworking and enterprising business women nationally, with all entries judged by up to four of the panel of up to 30 judges, all top business people within their chosen arena.
With the awards programme having run for 17 years, the process has been refined with the judges spending several hours deliberating each entry and scoring both their own sponsored category as well as several others to ensure transparency, and entrants complete a series of questions designed to give the judges a real feel for each business.
As well as Hannah, the Business Woman Of The Year Medium finalists are Catering24’s Charlie Dean, Baltimore Consulting’s Charmaine Vincent, and Emma Bardwell, of BardWood Support Services.
In the International Woman’s Award category Hannah is up against Kate Bateman of Caledonia Worldwide; Coco De Mer’s Lucy Litwack; Priscilla Wulandari of PW Travel; Adeline St John, The Media Snug; The Pattern Studio’s Camille Grant; George Blizzard and Nicky Regazzoni of The PR Network; and Uptake’s Stephanie Hall.
And for the Northern England Business Woman Of The Year category, the other finalists are Amabel Grant, Bloom Procurement Services; Linda Jameson of Lindy Lou Artisan Cakes; Neo Walk’s Lyndsay Watterson; Lorraine Gannon, New Era Training; The Mum Collective’s Sophie Baldwin; and Gail Waterman of Waterman Corporate Enterprises.
