The winner of the 2009 Swansea Bay Woman of the Year Awards sponsored by Law firm, John Collins & Partners LLP, was announced at a glitzy ceremony on 27^th November presented by Sara Edwards.

  (Host, Anna Bastek Business Award winner and Cllr. Gareth Sullivan)

Anna Bastek from Wolfestone Translation was awarded the title of Swansea Bay Woman of the Year 2009. She was felt to be a truly inspirational role model for women across the region.  She firstly won the Business category before going on to scoop the overall title.

Anna who is originally from Poland set up Wolfestone Translation back in 2006 with business partner Roy Allkin. Translation is the core business; however the company has developed a series of complementary language services that add to the diversity of operations.

More recently, Wolfestone has developed a bespoke software package for translation companies which will help the company expand internationally as well as grow its team in Swansea. As well as its 11 strong team in its Welsh HQ, Wolfestone has additional staff working from its US and German offices plus a network of 4,000 translators across the globe. 

Next year the business is planning to open an office in India. Anna sees expansion into The Middle East, South East Asia and Russia as  the next steps.   

The 2009 category winners were:

• Business Award: Anna Bastek, Wolfestone Translation.
• Community Award: Dawn Sawyers, SNAC (Special Needs Activity Club).
• Management Award: Sally Hyman, RSPCA Llys Nini Animal Centre.
• New Business: Kate Jenkins, Gower Cottage Brownies.
• Innovation Award: Dawn Lyle, iCreate Ltd.
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Winners Profiles 

Business Award sponsored by The Business Centre, Swansea: awarded entrepreneurs with a proven track record of business success.  

Winner: Anna Bastek, Wolfestone Translation. 

Runners up: Anthea Davies, Acorn Chemical Services Ltd. and Sheila Willacombe, Elite Management.  

Community Award sponsored by Carmarthenshire County Council: recognised women who make a significant contribution to their community, with a particular emphasis on volunteering.    

Winner: Dawn Sawyers.    

Dawn originally engaged with SNAC (Special Needs Activity Club) in 1994.  The club was running in a local Youth Club on Saturday mornings and Dawn joined with her son who is registered blind.  In 1996 she became chair of the committee and took up the challenge of raising funds to keep the club afloat. Since then she has worked tirelessly organising fundraising events and applying for funding and grants. Her efforts were rewarded in 2001 when a new purpose built centre, funded by the Lottery and Corus, opened in Margam. The club currently has 130 children and young adults as members and operates an open to all policy in the community. It is the only play and leisure facility in South Wales for children and young adults with special needs. Despite achieving her dream Dawn continues to champion the cause of the special needs youngsters and raises the monies required to keep the facility going.   

Runners up: Katie James, NPTCBC Youth Service and Trudy Launchbury, Amman Valley Trotting Club.   

Management Award sponsored by South Wales Evening Post and Swansea Life: this award was aimed at rewarding women who have demonstrated strong management and leadership skills in their role, in the public or private sector. 

Winner: Sally Hyman.  When Sally became Chair of the RSPCA Llys Nini Animal Centre charity in 2001, it relied solely on donations and legacies and was only involved in the care of animals.  Since then, Sally has worked hard to grow the income generated by the business by researching new ways of fund raising. The organisation today has developed from a charity reliant on donations into a financially sustainable organisation. She has now been appointed Executive Manager and is very proud of her achievements.  Through her leadership style, which she admits is ‘dynamic, driven, focused and persistent’; Sally has developed a real business ethos and expanded the workforce of staff and volunteers.   Sally has many plans and ideas for the future including enhancing the management structure and to operate as a social enterprise, benefiting both the local economy and the charity. 

Runners up: Melanie Jasper, Swansea University and Debbie Robinson, Derwen Aggregates.  

New Business Award sponsored by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council: this award recognized the achievements of women who have demonstrated exceptional skills in the establishment of a business. 

Winner: Kate Jenkins.  Mother of two Kate established her business back in 2007 from her home in Gower.  The spectacular surroundings inspired her to bake brownies which she describes as being “as exquisite as the area they come from”.                          

Her background in Sales, Marketing and PR proved invaluable in enabling her to quickly establish a strong brand.  Her brownies have won various Food Awards, and the BBC Good Food magazine declared them “the best they had ever tasted”. 

Her high profile enables her to wholesale the brownies to numerous quality outlets and sell online with the slogan “instead of sending flowers …Say it with brownies”.    The online business now has over 2000 loyal customers worldwide and receives 6,000 hits per month.  

Kate considers herself a Mumpreneur and has ambitions to expand the business using the talents of other mums by offering sympathetic and flexible working arrangements.  

Runners up: Christina Adams & Sophie Turner, @Work Wales Ltd. and Lindsey Vellacott, The Britannia Inn.  

Innovation Award sponsored by The University of Wales: this award recognized the achievements of women who have successfully introduced new ideas, technology or techniques into an organisation or market place in which they operate. 

Winner: Dawn Lyle.  After graduating from Swansea Metropolitan University, Dawn along with partner Jake set up iCreate Ltd.  The company deals in computer graphics, with niche expertise in the field of 3D architectural visualization.  With the onset of the economic downturn in 2007, the property market slowed dramatically. 

iCreate had to adapt to the changing climate in order to survive with Dawn and the team focusing on providing solutions to the groups that are still developing property and moving more into projects outside the property sector, creating 3D animations for entertainment and advertising.  iCreate used any 'downtime' as a chance to innovate – developing new services, new techniques, and new technologies.  This included pioneering the use of computer games technology in the field of property marketing, through their new solution called the iViewer. 

Moving forward Dawn’s goal is for the business is to achieve a prosperous and exciting future, working on some of the best global visualisation projects.

Runners up in this category were Sarah Morgan, Swansea University and Caroline Thraves, Coleg Sir Gar.  

Around 400 people from across Swansea Bay gathered at The Brangwyn Hall, Swansea to celebrate the achievements of Women and recognise the contribution they make to their communities through business, management, technology and exporting work.  The evening also included an after dinner performance by multi award winning ‘Gavin & Stacy’ star, Ruth Jones.

Guest Speaker Ruth Jones

For further information on the Swansea Bay Woman of the Year Awards contact Sarah Toomey, Swansea Bay Partnership Event Coordinator on 01792 545066.