A LEADING organisation for the advancement of women in business has launched its annual search for the UK’s leading female entrepreneurs.

The NatWest everywoman Awards is the most highly regarded programme celebrating the achievements of UK-based women business owners.

For 16 years, the awards have recognised the success of women from a wide variety of industries, uncovering strong and authentic role models who challenge preconceptions and provide confidence and inspiration in equal measure.

Judged by successful female business owners, who themselves have been on the entrepreneurial journey, the awards distinguish between the challenges of the start-up years through scale up and international expansion.

The judges, including Chrissie Rucker, Cath Kidston, Amanda Wakeley and Poonam Gupta also look at how technology, innovation, diversity and social impact have helped businesses to thrive and grow.

A recent report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers looking at the UK’s gender pay gap – an issue that has dominated headlines since 9,000 firms were made to publish their figures on April 5 – found that encouraging female entrepreneurship in the UK will play a key role in closing the earnings divide between men and women.

Inspiring and genuine role models are crucial in helping women to overcome confidence issues with many attracted to the flexibility, freedom and control offered by self-employment.

Female entrepreneurship has increased exponentially over the lifetime of the NatWest everywoman Awards with women starting 126,000 businesses annually, representing 7.3 per cent of economic growth.

While a positive step forward, Britain is still missing out on an estimated 1.2 million businesses due to the untapped potential of women.