Jacqueline O'Donovan was named UK Private Businesswoman of the Year by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) at Wembley Stadium, last Friday.

The National Women’s Business Awards are an annual event and held to recognise industrious, hardworking and enterprising Business Women on a national level.

Having already picked up the PwC ’UK Private Businesswoman of the Year’ Award and the Building Magazine ‘Female Leadership’ Award as well as the Women’s Economic Forum naming her as their ‘Woman of the Decade in Enterprise and Leadership’, O'Donovan has gone onto win the National Business Women’s Awards ‘Business Woman of the Year’.

As managing director of O’Donovan Waste Disposal, London’s waste management company, O’Donovan, who became MD at 19, has grown the company to a multi-award winning business with a turnover of £21 million-plus and 160 employees. 

With a reputation as passionate and driven businesswoman, dedicated to making the family business a resounding success as well as influencing and improving the industry as a whole, she has spent her entire working career devoted to the company her father, Joe, started almost 60 years ago.

She said: “I am delighted to win this prestigious award and with our 60th anniversary year just around the corner, this has been an exciting and rewarding time for the company. 

“I am thrilled that my siblings and I have been able to continue the legacy my dad started all those years ago.”