The Winners 2023

The finalists for this year’s WMB Awards descended on the Shelbourne Hotel yesterday (October 9th) to listen to inspirational speakers, network with some of Ireland’s leading business people and celebrate the announcement of this year’s Award winners across WMB’s five Award categories.

The winners for this year’s WMB Awards are pictured here and include (l-r): Sandra Healy, inclusio, who picked up the WMB Female Newcomer Award; Oonagh O’Hagan, Meaghers Pharmacy Group, winner of the Compass WMB Female Entrepreneur Award; Deborah Threadgold, IBM Ireland, who was awarded the WMB Businesswoman Award; Una Fitzpatrick, Technology Ireland – Ibec,  winner of the Fidelity WMB Woman in Technology Award; and Maeve McMahon, OFX winner of the WMB Empowering Women Award.

Winner of the WMB Businesswoman Award 2023 – Deborah Threadgold, IBM Ireland

Deborah Threadgold was appointed General Manager for IBM Ireland in February 2021 and is responsible for business operations, driving revenue growth, client satisfaction, and employee engagement. In addition to sales and services for Irish customers, IBM’s operations in Ireland include significant software development, digital sales, international services, treasury, and research activities.

Deborah joined IBM over two decades ago as a management consultant, working across a wide range of clients and sectors before taking on a series of key sales and business leadership roles in the UK and Ireland. During this time, Deborah became the first Chief Digital Officer for IBM UKI, the Executive Sponsor for Gender Diversity, and was named one of Cranfield University’s 100 Women to Watch. Before returning to head IBM’s Irish operations, Deborah was EMEA Vice President for System Integrator & Ecosystem.

Deborah leads IBM’s EMEA Women’s Leadership Council and is an active member of IBM’s UKI Inclusion Council. Deborah is a voluntary board member of BITC Ireland and is a believer in ‘payback and pay forward’.

Winner of the Compass WMB Female Entrepreneur Award 2023 – Oonagh O’Hagan, Meaghers Pharmacy Group

At the young age of 25, pharmacist Oonagh O’Hagan managed to secure a bank loan for 2M punts to buy Meaghers Pharmacy which was no mean feat. Twenty-two years on and Oonagh has grown Meaghers Pharmacy brand into a thriving business with 9 Dublin branches and an online store delivering to 58 countries. Meaghers has been consistently named a Great Place to Work and has been a Deloitte Best Managed Company for nine consecutive years leading to Platinum Standard. Meaghers was named Online Pharmacy of the Year at the Irish Pharmacy Awards and received the Retail Excellence of the Year award from Chambers Ireland. Oonagh is a Board Member of Retail Excellence Ireland and is a Lead Entrepreneur in Going for Growth.

In a recent interview Oonagh said: “It’s all about our people in Meaghers Pharmacy Group. We have so much knowledge about how to stay well and we are all very passionate about sharing that with our customers.”

Winner of the WMB Empowering Women Award 2023 – Maeve McMahon, OFX

Two years ago, Maeve McMahon joined OFX as CEO of OFX Ireland and Head of Europe. A year later, the company established its European HQ in Dublin and in August, Maeve was promoted to Regional President EMEA.

OFX is an Australian company and is an active member of the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce (IACC). In January the IACC asked Maeve to chair the Emerald Leadership Programme for 2023. It is for this work that she was recently nominated for this Award. The programme aims to celebrate, support and develop both established and emerging female leaders.

Maeve is a fundamental believer in supporting women in business, especially women in commercial roles and has demonstrated this passion throughout her career. Whilst in Ulster Bank (2015-2017), she was the Executive Sponsor of the Women’s Network. In 2016, she was one of the co-founders of the #LeanIn circles in Ireland and supported the roll-out of #LeanIn movement.

Winner of the Fidelity WMB Woman in Technology Award 2023 – Una Fitzpatrick, Technology Ireland – Ibec

Technology Ireland is the largest and most influential business organisation representing Ireland’s tech sector with 270 members. Una Fitzpatrick leads the Technology Ireland team to deliver services for members, growing membership, as well as leading research and insights, lobbying government and gaining consensus and context from an industry in a constant state of flux. Technology Ireland is the sponsor body for Technology Ireland Digital Skillnet which runs the Women ReBOOT and TechStart programmes amongst others. It also coordinates a very popular Tech HR forum and in 2018 created the ‘Technology Ireland Women in Tech Company Initiative’ award as a new award category in their popular annual Awards.

Una has an extremely busy life and credits “my 4 daughters as being big influences on the businesswoman I am today.” She is a strong supporter of new pathways into the tech sector and sits on the Board of Directors of FIT Ltd (Fastrack into Technology).  She is Vice Chair of the Digital Europe Brexit Taskforce. Una holds a BSc Biotechnology from DCU and Msc. in Management from Smurfit Business School.

Winner of the WMB Female Newcomer Award 2023 – Sandra Healy, Founder & CEO, inclusio

inclusio was founded by CEO Sandra Healy in 2020 as a spin-out from DCU and is an award-winning social impact business. Sandra’s career spans over two decades in the global telecoms industry and five years at Dublin City University where she established the DCU Centre of Excellence for Diversity & Inclusion.

inclusio combines technology, science, and AI to set new standards across the globe. Organisations can use the inclusio platform to help them drive improvements in Diversity & Inclusion within their workforce and deliver measurable improvements in their culture and business performance. The company has raised over €6.2 million to date in funding backed by institutional investors including Elkstone and Atlantic Bridge. The funding will create 80 new jobs over the next couple of years and will bring the company’s total employee numbers to over 100+.