Top accolade for businesswoman who reaches out to the needy

Sarah Dunwell, chief executive of the Create foundation, who won the Not For Profit Business Woman category, beat off competition from eight other regional businesswomen to take the overall title at the inaugural Women in Business Awards, organised by networking organisation Forward Ladies.

The Leeds-based company provides outside catering, learning food hygiene, catering and customer service skills.

It also runs Cafe Create in Leeds and Bradford, staffs a Found by Create vintage clothes shop and dress agency, and FareShare West Yorkshire which redistributes surplus food from producers and retailers to feed vulnerable people.

It has created 44 new jobs and 20 volunteering opportunities and supports 29 vulnerable people with full-time permanent work.

The company is about to launch a national expansion plan, opening in Birmingham, Liverpool and Sunderland by next April and hopes to be in 20 cities three years after that.

Ms Dunwell said: "I don't think women do business really that much differently to men but what is different is the reason why we run businesses. I run businesses for social outcomes. I want to see people who are furthest from the jobs market living independent lives again. Business for me is almost a tool to reach that social transformation."

The ceremony took place at The Met hotel in Leeds, attended by 280 guests. Judges gave a special mention to Claire Morley-Jones, of HR180 degrees who was the Home-Based Business Woman of the Year and came in a close runner-up.

Ms Morley-Jones was originally told by a male competitor that her business would fail. Determined to prove him wrong, she has gone on to establish one of Yorkshire's fastest growing HR consultancies from her home in Aberford, West Yorkshire.

The Yorkshire Post was the awards' media partner and sponsored the Start-Up Business Woman category, which was won by Jill Thomas, founder of Future Life Wealth Management in Sheffield. The company provides bespoke financial planning to individuals, small and medium-sized companies and inheritors of wealth.

Terry Hodgkinson, chairman of Yorkshire Forward, was the keynote speaker at the event, which was presented by Liz Green from BBC Radio Leeds.

He said: "One of the things about this role is that it puts you in places with people you would never meet and it changes you."

He added: "I think in the next economic cycle male dominance will do us no service and what we do here (at the awards) is brilliant to bring that sense of balance into business.

"I believe if Lehman brothers and Lehman sisters had worked together there would not have been a crisis. We have a crucial role to make it happen."

Etta Cohen, founder of networking organisation Forward Ladies, paid tribute to the thousands of businesswomen in the region who are playing an active role within businesses or running their own companies.

She said: "We are celebrating the success of our worthy winners, but we were overwhelmed by the response to these first awards."

She added: "This is a fantastic region and we have got amazing businesses. What we have done is bring those businesses together and for women to realise they are making a real contribution to this region's economy and that is so important because in the future we're all going to have to work together and value each other so that this region can continue to grow and thrive."