Small and mighty players honoured in the Telstra Best of Business Awards

Small business movers and shakers are tackling some of Australia’s greatest challenges - and their work has been honoured.

Sharing her story of an abusive relationship set Zoe Condliffe on a path towards helping victims become a voice for change.

CEO and founder of crowdsourcing platform She’s a Crowd, Condliffe jumped on the momentum of the #MeToo movement to collect anonymous stories and build a data-driven map of gender-based violence and crime across Australia, and internationally.

The data has been picked up by decision makers including Department of Transport Victoria, to help make cities safer for women and gender-diverse people.

Zoë Condliffe, CEO and founder of She's A Crowd, launched a crowdsourcing platform to help create safer cities for women and gender-diverse people.

A winner in last night’s inaugural Telstra Best of Business Awards, She’s a Crowd is among eight national category winners that show small and medium businesses can be heavy-hitters for change.

With small enterprises accounting for around 98 per cent of all Australian businesses, the winners, and all 24,000 nominees, are a beacon of hope for Australian business, and society, according to Telstra consumer and small business group executive, Michael Ackland. “A theme we saw really clearly was a desire to make things better and challenge the status quo,” Mr Ackland said.

Announced at a Sydney ceremony, the winners also include Tasmanian company, Sea Forest, for cultivating a native seaweed that, when fed to livestock, significantly reduces methane emissions.

Tasmania’s Sea Forest produces seaweed for a livestock supplement that can reduce cows’ methane by 98 per cent.

On the west coast, Shalom Group won the Building Communities category for its rehabilitation program that helps people recover from substance abuse and other life-controlling issues, and returns them to the community debt-free and employed. Queensland winner, entrepreneur Nina Nguyen is another one to watch, with her out-of-the-box approach to packaging, Pakko, and her quest to lead a renaissance in Australian manufacturing.

Packaging entrepreneur Nina Nguyen, of Queensland-based Pakko, with dog Buddy.

“This is the engine room, these are the challengers,” Mr Ackland said. “We’ve seen incredible resilience in the small business sector over recent years, an amazing ability to adapt, and great willingness to reinvest back into the communities and markets they serve.”

Entries for the 2023 Telstra Best of Business Awards are now open, via telstrabestofbusinessawards.com

Originally published as Small and mighty players honoured in the Telstra Best of Business Awards