A Sutherland Shire based business has taken out top honours at the recent 2020 AusMumpreneur Awards.
READY SET DANCE was founded by Belinda Agostino, Jade Barnes, Natalie Ettingshausen, Priscilla Severino and Glenda Yee and operates from an office in Sutherland.
The five dance school owners decided to join forces in 2014 to create a preschool dance program that is now licensed in 234 studios across Australia and New Zealand. It has also evolved into a TV program of the same name, which is shown on Nickelodeon's preschool channel Nick Jr in 125 countries.
Now all their hard work has paid off after READY SET DANCE won the Customer Service, Product and Business Excellence categories of the awards, and was named Mamamag Ausmumpreneur of the Year 2020.
The winners were announced at an award ceremony conducted via Zoom on September 8.
Ms Yee said they were very excited to win all four award categories they entered.
"We have always been very confident in our abilities as dance educators but this win really recognises how much we have upskilled since signing a joint venture with Nickelodeon in 2018," she said.
"It felt amazing to accept the award not only for our team but also the 234 dance studio owners and 900 dance teachers who deliver the magic of the dance classes every day.
"We hope that we can give back to the innovative Ausmumpreneur community over the next year by supporting new mums in business."
The Ausmumpreneur Awards are presented each year by The Women's Business School to inspire, celebrate and provide a community for Australian entrepreneurs.
The Women's Business School co-founder Peace Mitchell said the awards recognised the "growing number of mums who are achieving outstanding business success while balancing motherhood".
The Women's Business School co-founder Katy Garner said the number of women starting businesses continued to grow. Of the 670,000 women operating a small business in Australia, about 50 per cent are mums with children at home.
"We are delighted that READY SET DANCE has won this award. They have created an outstanding business and are inspirational role models and ambassadors for mums in business everywhere," she said.
Sylvania's Rebecca Thompson won first place in the Making A Difference Award - Health category for The Relationship Circle.
Manna Maniago, of Caringbah, won first place in the Multicultural Category for her business, Kairos Group, which she set up a year ago to provide counselling and psychotherapy services.
To see the complete list of winners click here.