Winning Awards with Donna O'Toole

This episode introduces Donna's new book 'WIN!' and explains the inspiration behind this must-have guide to winning awards for all entrepreneurs. Find out how recognition could help you achieve your true potential and discover the benefits of winning awards. Get your hands on WIN! from Amazon today by clicking HERE.Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this insightful episode, Donna talks about the New Year Honours List and looks at how diversity has grown in recent years, with recipients from all walks of life, backgrounds and ethnic groups.Learn more about who was honoured this year for their outstanding work, and the impact that this recognition can bring.Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this episode, Donna is joined by Antoinette Oglethorpe - a multi-award-winning consultant, coach, speaker and author who specialises in career management and mentoring.She has created unique models, tools and templates to empower employees to take ownership of their career development with support from their manager and organisation. In the past few years, she has supported multiple career management programmes or initiatives at international organisations in the United Nations System. She was a contributor to the award-winning Virtual Career Labs at the United Nations Development Programme, which won two Fuel50 awards in 2017 as outstanding career management initiatives. In 2012 - after 25 years’ experience as a Learning and Development Director for Accenture, Avanade and FTSE 500 companies - Antoinette founded her eponymous training and coaching company, Antoinette Oglethorpe Ltd.  She speaks at events across the globe on subjects like the impact of mentoring and the importance of career conversations to engage, keep and develop leaders, among other talent development topics.Her book, Grow Your Geeks: A Handbook for Developing Leaders in High-Tech Organisations, achieved number 1 Bestseller status on Amazon in the Leadership and Management category. Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this episode, Donna is joined by Gez McGuire - an award-winning digital marketer and international marketing awards judge with over 20 years' experience in marketing. Gez is now working at the forefront of blending AI adoption and machine learning with human intelligence to deliver strategic digital marketing campaigns, and he is about to launch an exciting e-commerce brand in 2022.Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Neil Skehel is the CEO of Awards International, an international awards organiser with 12 programmes around the world including in Europe, the Middle East and the UK. I’ve asked Neil to join me on the podcast today to talk about the launch of a brilliant new award - the European Customer Experience Awards (European CXAs).In this episode, you’ll discover how these awards will work, along with a preview of the inaugural UK Business & Innovation Awards - also operated by Awards International - which close in early December 2021.Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this episode, Donna is joined by Dominic Colenso, who began his career as a professional actor, before training as a director at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.He’s worked alongside some of the UK’s most famous actors, appearing on the London stage, in BBC period dramas and most famously played Virgil Tracy in the Hollywood film adaptation of Thunderbirds.Through his company In Flow, he now empowers businesses, sales teams and leaders to increase the impact of their communication and perform at their best under pressure. Drawing on his extensive experience on stage and screen, he shares the secret tools and techniques used by the world’s best actors to help his audience unlock their own star performances.In demand as a speaker, trainer and coach, he’s also the author of the bestselling book “IMPACT: How to be more confident, increase your influence and know what to say under pressure.”Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Donna O'Toole is joined by Head of Events at The Learning and Performance Institute, Pauline Saunders. Pauline talks about their flagship awards programme The Learning Awards, including what the 2021 entry process entails, who should enter, and which new categories have been introduced.The Learning Awards, since its beginning in 1996, have continually adapted to align with significant trends in L&D, and to ensure that categories represent current technologies, innovations and people skills - they are one of the highest accolades you can receive in workplace learning and development.Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this episode, Donna talks with Debbie Gilbert - a multi-award-winning Entrepreneur and owner of Viva Business Support, a marketing and events agency. She is also the founder of Mums UnLtd, a networking company aimed at mums in business which provides support for mums in business. Her book ‘The Successful Mumpreneur’ has been a global success, which shares her knowledge on growing a business around a family.Over the past 20 years, Debbie has built a reputation for being an excellent supporter of small businesses and start-ups. Growing a solid network has been her priority, which has been integral to her business success.Debbie founded The Best Business Women Awards in 2015 and she reveals more about this annual event, which recognises and rewards outstanding female entrepreneurs from across the globe. Her motto is ‘When you reach the top of your mountain – throw down a rope and help someone else up’.Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this inspirational episode, Donna discusses The Queen's Awards for Enterprise and explains why these awards are widely regarded as the world's most prestigious.Learn more about this year's winners and find out how the entry process works, so that you're armed with the information you need to get started on your Queen's Awards journey.Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Sarah Austin is a leading voice of the awards and events industry. In addition to a 12-year career running an international awards portfolio at Informa (formally UBM),  Sarah was notably the Awards Director for the National Business Awards. She has now launched two exciting ventures in 2021 - the first being sarahaustin.co.uk which is a full end-to-end events management consultancy specialising in awards, conferences, virtual events, weddings and private events. Sarah's business has had a roaring start with several projects in the running and her first major project is to deliver (with her team) The Travel Industry Awards by TTG. Sarah’s other main venture sees the launch of The Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards. In partnership with Lloyds Bank, these awards celebrate the resilience, innovation and creativity of British businesses - whether big or small - an innovative new start-up or an established industry player, private, public or third sector, culminating in the UK’s most prestigious business awards ceremony with a rigorous judging programme and a series of networking opportunities across the year. In addition to this, Sarah is a Non-Exec Director at the Tate Galleries and also sits on the Tate Modern Advisory Council, which allows her to advise their events team on sales, delivery and execution strategies whilst being surrounded by incredible priceless artwork.Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

As the Founder and Chief Purpose Officer of the Ministry of Purpose and Host of The Unconventionalists® podcast, Mark Leruste is on a mission to help entrepreneurs and business leaders have an impact on the world with their message.Mark  previously  served  as  Country  Manager  at  the  Movember  Foundation,  where  he helped raise €2.8 million for men’s health and inspired 110,000 fundraisers to sign up, winning multiple awards along the way.Since then, his videos have been viewed over 2.5 million times on social media and his podcast has had over 160,000 downloads from more than 100 countries. His book “It’s Not You, It’s Me” is a modus operandi for unfulfilled professionals looking to find more meaningful work.  Mark believes everyone needs a purpose and that no one should have to be one person at home and another at work. That’s why his big goal is to create a world where the vast majority of people feel connected to an important mission at work and feel seen, heard, supported and appreciated along the way – in essence, fostering a positive culture for people to bring their true selves to work and feel inspired to show up every day.  Over the years, Mark has worked with pioneering organisations, forward thinking leaders and disruptive conferences including Google, TEDx, Intuit, INSEAD, Method & Ecover, L’Oreal, StateStreet, The Guardian, Samsung, General Assembly and VirginStartup.Donna O'Toole is CEO of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. Seeing first-hand how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

David Henson MBE is a highly successful parasport athlete, who took up athletics following a life-changing incident whilst serving in Afghanistan almost exactly 10 years ago. Having stepped on a hidden landmine, the impact of the blast led to the amputation of the lower half of both his legs. Following an extensive rehabilitation program, he began walking with the aid of prosthetic legs several months later.From this moment on, Dave was determined to make the most from his ‘new life’ and has since gone on to represent Great Britain at numerous global events, winning medals at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio, the 2017 IPC World Championships in London, and the 2016 IPC European Championships.At the inaugural Invictus Games in 2012, Dave was chosen to be the British team captain, and he competed in three events, winning gold in the 200m. Three years later, he was the proud flag-bearer for Team GB at the IPC European Championships.Dave was awarded the MBE in 2014, en route to becoming one of our most recognisable - and popular - parasport athletes.Today, he works for Imperial College London, where his role involves biomechanical analysis to help in the development of prosthetic limbs - a cause very close to his heart.Donna O'Toole is CEO of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. Seeing first-hand how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Neil Skehel is the CEO of Awards International, an international awards organiser with 12 programmes around the world including in Europe, the Middle East and the UK. I’ve asked Neil to join me on the podcast today to talk about the launch of two brilliant awards - the flagship UK Customer Experience Awards and the newly formatted UK Business Awards. In this episode, you’ll discover how the UK Customer Experience Awards will work this year, and what can we look forward to in October - when the awards ceremony takes place. Neil will also explain how the UK Business Awards will be a really beneficial experience for entrepreneurs and micro-businesses, as he talks through what’s in store for 2021.Finally, with many people feeling the effects of lockdown fatigue, he offers useful advice on driving yourself and your teams forward in a positive, optimistic manner over the next few months.Donna O'Toole is CEO of August, she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. Seeing first-hand how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Join Donna in conversation with Ian Washington-Smith, the Director of Rego, an organisation that works with people to solve problems and support individuals and teams to achieve their goals and reach their potential. With the company strapline “Changing Realities” Ian had his own reality changed when he retired from the police after 30 years as a Detective Inspector. In his last post, he managed the Counter Corruption Unit working across the Thames Valley Police force area, leading a team that worked covertly to investigate police corruption allegations - a little like you see in the BBC series “Line of Duty”.After encountering his own experiences with stress, Ian retrained as an REBT (Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy) therapist, with much of this work based on Stoic Philosophy which has brought him to where he is today, helping people achieve their potential through a better understanding of themselves.Donna O'Toole is CEO of August, she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. Seeing first-hand how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Donna is delighted to welcome Charly Young to the podcast.  In 2013, Charly co founded The Girls' Network with her colleague, Becca. Starting out as a one-to-one mentoring scheme for 30 girls, The Girls' network has grown to support over 1000 girls a year aged between 14 and 19 to overcome barriers and access to opportunities, as well as giving them the confidence and skills to seize those opportunities and thrive. Their impact speaks for itself: 93% of girls on the programme last year said their mentor had improved their confidence, and 96% believe their mentor has helped them feel more positive about the future. In 2020 we were extremely proud to launch a new partnership with The Girls' Network as part of our Who Wins When You Win Campaign. So for anyone who doesn’t know, we help businesses and individuals to recognise their teams and business achievements with hugely valuable awards. And to give them and our team an even greater reward, every time one of our clients wins an award we make a donation to The Girls' Network. We’ve just launched the campaign for 2020 and we’re really looking forward to sharing our winning success with this fantastic cause, because together we believe that no girls should have their futures limited by their gender, ethnicity, background or parental income.Donna O'Toole is CEO of August, she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. Seeing first-hand how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Join Donna in conversation with Stephen Fear, The Phonebox Millionaire™, British entrepreneur, businessman, philanthropist and author with 50 years' international business experience.Stephen first went into business at the age of 15 after reading an article in the Financial Times that would affect the way industrial ovens were cleaned.  He used a red phone-box on the council estate where he grew up and persuaded an American firm to send him their product to sell in the UK. Before he knew it, he was trading with a number of large industrial companies under the brand ‘Easy Clean’.  Four years later, he sold his first business for £100,000 and invested the money in property.From those first days as a young boy, Stephen has had a legendary career, which included being Entrepreneur in Residence and Ambassador at the British Library from 2012 – 2016, a position formerly held by the late Dame Anita Roddick, founder of Body Shop.Now he is Chairman and Founder of Fear Group, an international organisation he runs with his son, Leon Fear, which has interests in strategic land promotion, international property development and investment.In 2013 Stephen was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Business Administration from the University of the West of England for his continued services to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship over the past 40 years. Recently, he received a lifetime achievement award presented by The Bristol Post and was a member of the Bristol Education and Skills Commission. He is also a valued judge for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and last year was inducted into their Hall of Fame.Donna O'Toole is CEO of August, she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. Seeing first-hand how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Donna is delighted to be joined by Alison Edgar MBE, also known as “The Entrepreneur’s Godmother” because of her incredible support of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs.Amongst her many achievements, Alison has pioneered culture change within her five-star global clientele which includes Sky, Equifax, The NHS, and The Discovery Channel, where she has delivered her world-class ‘Intrapreneurship’ methodology to enhance the development of teams by helping employees to think like entrepreneurs.Alison has also overcome her own challenges to become the successful author of her Best Selling book ‘Secrets of Successful Sales’ which was recognised by The Independent as one of the top business books written by a woman. She has now launched a new book, called ‘SMASH IT! The Art of Getting What YOU Want’ - something we all need to read!In 2020, Alison received an MBE for recognition of her long-term work within entrepreneurship and business, and I’m delighted that she can join me today to share her inspirational journey and possibly a few tips for us all to succeed in 2021.Donna O'Toole is CEO of August, she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. Seeing first-hand how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Today we are joined by Neil Foster, Vice President of the Guinness World Records Consultancy who works with brands, agencies, community groups and charities to make and break records by creating challenges that complement their marketing campaigns. And we are also delighted to welcome Hayley Woodward, Head of Global Marketing for Rubik’s - the iconic toy puzzle cube that has swept the world since 1980 and is as popular in Christmas stockings today as it was 40 years ago!We spoke about the impact winning a Guinness World Record can have on the people who succeed, plus how having a World Record challenge associated with your business can elevate your marketing. Neil also shared some of the creative marketing GWR have witnessed in 2020 and how the campaigns have propelled their customers to thrive even during a pandemic.Donna O'Toole is CEO of August, she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. Seeing first-hand how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Donna catches up with Dr Rebecca Zhi Herbert,  founder and the Academic Director of Wisdom Spring Education. As Silver winner of the UK Customer Experience Awards for Customer Experience during the Crisis, and finalist of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, 2020 has certainly been an eventful year for Rebecca and her team!Originally from Wuhan, China, As a highly respected and Chinese/British education expert based in the UK, Rebecca set up Wisdom Spring Education in 2014 to help families in China to give their children an outstanding British education.Since this time she has ensured children from the ages of 10 - 18 can safely and securely travel between the countries for their education and thrive in the schools and universities they attend.However, in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK, Rebecca was ahead of the game, having been aware of the outbreak in her hometown months earlier. In today’s podcast, I welcome Rebecca to tell us her incredible story of how the pandemic impacted on her business and the children and families she was working with, and how this has resulted in a new educational journey for both her students and her business.Donna O'Toole is CEO of August, she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. Seeing first-hand how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this episode of our podcast, Donna spoke with Marvin Sordell, former Premier League, England and Olympic footballer, turned creative producer, writer and ambassador for mental health. Marvin shares his stories on leaving the footballing world, being fearless whilst striving boldly into a new industry and his advice on how we can all achieve our dreams. Born in 1991 in Northwest London, Marvin achieved great success as a professional footballer, making more than 300 appearances and scoring a total of 73 goals over the course of his 10-year career. Highlights included playing in the Premier League for Bolton Wanderers after signing for a fee of £3million, and proudly representing England Under 21s and Great Britain at the London 2012 Olympics. In July 2019, Marvin’s career ended prematurely at the age of just 28 after he decided it was time to retire, for his mental health's sake.Following his decision to retire, Marvin channelled his efforts into setting up a new business, in a new industry – Oneighty Productions – with two of his close friends. The company focuses on producing story-driven content for a range of video projects and has already scooped two industry awards: for discover. film and the Independent Shorts Awards in 2019 and they masterminded the England Football’s film for Mental Health Awareness Day. He has taken great strides to raise awareness about mental health, he has become an Ambassador for CALM, and appeared in the BBC documentary entitled ‘Football, Prince William and our Mental Health’ broadcast early 2020. He also recently launched Transition FC, a platform for former footballers as they navigate changing careers.Donna O'Toole is CEO of August, she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. Seeing first-hand how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.