Gillian Askew, founder of Go4Growth, a national procurement support business based in Barnsley has been nominated for the coveted Business Woman of the Year Award at the Yorkshire Choice Awards 2023.
The Yorkshire Choice Awards are a celebration of independent businesses and individual achievements and contributions to the economy and community across the county. The awards recognise businesses and individuals who have “shown outstanding ability or determination in the face of difficulties or has gone the extra mile for customers or its community”.
The Business Woman of the Year Award is sponsored by Leeds-based HQ Hair and aims to highlight the achievements of female entrepreneurs across the Yorkshire region.
Gillian, who was born and bred in Yorkshire, has nearly 30 years of experience in procurement services across a number of sectors, having previously worked as Head of Procurement at Nottingham Trent University, YPO, and Supply Chain Director for Critical and Mobile assets at Babcock International Group PLC.
Having founded Go4Growth in 2020 the organisation now supports more than 5,000 micro businesses, SMEs and VCSEs to become public sector supplier ready and counts several Yorkshire Local Authorities, the Ministry of Justice and the NHS among its public sector clients.
On hearing she’d been nominated, Gillian said:
“I’m delighted to have been nominated for the award, Yorkshire has some strong and innovative business women and these awards are a lovely recognition of that.
I feel passionately about levelling the playing field for micro business, SMEs and VCSEs and supporting them to access public sector opportunities like larger corporations can. My business partners and I founded Go4Growth so that we could make a real financial, commercial and sustainable difference to these organisations and the communities in which they reside.
We’re completely impact driven, which means I’ve got to know and more importantly help, a lot of fantastic businesses, in Yorkshire and across the UK and we know we’re still only just getting started. We have big ambitions for the future to expand the support we’re giving.”
Voting closes in April and the winners will be announced at the black tie awards ceremony on 9 June. To vote, visit: https://www.yorkshirechoiceawards.co.uk/votehere