Senior Care Franchisee Danette Connolly of NAS was awarded the Professional Services Entrepreneur title at the recent South East Women in Business Conference in Carlow. The awards are the brainchild of the County and City Enterprise Boards and were established to reward and acknowledge the role of women in the development of enterprise in the South East. Danette’s first business, NAS (Nursing and Allied Services), was established in 12 years ago principally as a nursing recruitment agency which quickly established itself as the South East’s leading nursing agency.

She then acquired International Nurses Abroad (INA), which places nursing staff in Australia, New Zealand and the US. Following this, Danette developed a state of the art training facility at the Cleaboy Business Park which provides training services to health professionals. Most recently, with her husband Michael, Danette brought the highly successful Home Instead Senior Care franchise to Waterford / Ireland, which provides non-medical care to seniors in their own homes.

With over 65 businesses applying and 15 finalists in the running for the title it was Danette’s drive and enduring ambition that was the deciding factor in her receiving the award. The judges; author Blaise Brosnan, Connor O’ Brien of the Carlow Nationalist and Sheelagh Daly of Wicklow County Enterprise Board were particularly impressed with Danette’s ability to run four successful businesses in the highly emotive caring sector. According to Danette “It is a huge honour to be recognised by such an esteemed panel of judges. Our philosophy at NAS and particularly Home Instead Senior Care is to “keep caring in business.” We work with vast range of people such as nursing professionals, seniors, the sick and disadvantaged, the business community and many others, but we always treat our clients with the same level of respect and professionalism.”

Ciaran Cullen, Waterford City Enterprise Board added “We are delighted that Danette received this award. It’s a testimony to her drive and entrepreneurial spirit that NAS, INA and Home Instead are so successful. In Waterford there is a great tradition of enterprise. In fact, a recent Fresh Start Conference saw over 120 people attend and of which 60 said they would create in total 450 jobs in the next five years. It’s true to say that Waterford is a breeding ground for entrepreneurs like Danette.”