Businesses celebrated at the Business Excellence Awards on Friday

Some of the city’s most innovative operators have revealed plans for major expansion after taking out top slots in the Business Excellence Awards.

Andreas Nicola

@AndreasNicola97

2 min read

October 18, 2021 - 5:00AM

The Cairns Post

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AFTER the difficult year businesses in the Far North have faced, it was time for many of them to be acknowledged for their hard work throughout the pandemic.

There were 11 winners announced at the Business Excellence Awards (BEX) on Friday.

Cairns Chamber of Commerce CEO Patricia O’Neill said it was a beautiful night of dance and excitement.

“It was wonderful to have the opportunity to celebrate excellence in business across our community despite obviously some of the headwinds businesses have faced,” Ms O’Neill said.

“A lot of these businesses haven’t had the opportunity to market their business, being apart of the BEX awards showcased their brands to people that otherwise would not have known of some of these businesses.”

A range of businesses were showcased on Friday including some sole-business owners.

Murrii Quu Couture founder and creative director Cheryl Creed was so shocked to win the Indigenous BEX award.

In December she thought that her fashion label was not going to be able to continue.

But she thought she would give it one more go and submitted her work to Milan fashion week and was selected.

“As a small business there has been lots of challenges including financially so it is important we have support from the community,” Ms Creed said.

“As a sole trader it has been hard and I was in a bit of a slump but when something like this pops up and I am a winner. I am not ready to give up this race at all.”

Some businesses were rewarded for innovation on Friday, including one who won two awards.

Tech start up Gathar won the Business Technology Excellence Award and the Innovation Award.

Gathar CEO and founder Jodie Mlikota said it was a real honour because of all the work they have put in. She said Gathar continue to be innovative with hopes of going global.

“We want to take it global. We know what we have and what we have built in Cairns is an awesome product. We are excited to take that overseas and share that with the world,” Ms Mlikota said.

“We build all our tech here in Cairns. It is all Cairns build code and all completely unique web development technology so we are very proud of it.”