Winning Awards with Donna O'Toole

This episode introduces Donna's new book 'WIN!' and explains the inspiration behind this must-have guide to winning awards for all entrepreneurs.

Find out how recognition could help you achieve your true potential and discover the benefits of winning awards.

Get your hands on WIN! from Amazon today by clicking HERE.


Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this insightful episode, Donna talks about the New Year Honours List and looks at how diversity has grown in recent years, with recipients from all walks of life, backgrounds and ethnic groups.

Learn more about who was honoured this year for their outstanding work, and the impact that this recognition can bring.

Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this episode, Donna is joined by Antoinette Oglethorpe - a multi-award-winning consultant, coach, speaker and author who specialises in career management and mentoring.

She has created unique models, tools and templates to empower employees to take ownership of their career development with support from their manager and organisation. In the past few years, she has supported multiple career management programmes or initiatives at international organisations in the United Nations System. She was a contributor to the award-winning Virtual Career Labs at the United Nations Development Programme, which won two Fuel50 awards in 2017 as outstanding career management initiatives.

In 2012 - after 25 years’ experience as a Learning and Development Director for Accenture, Avanade and FTSE 500 companies - Antoinette founded her eponymous training and coaching company, Antoinette Oglethorpe Ltd.  She speaks at events across the globe on subjects like the impact of mentoring and the importance of career conversations to engage, keep and develop leaders, among other talent development topics.

Her book, Grow Your Geeks: A Handbook for Developing Leaders in High-Tech Organisations, achieved number 1 Bestseller status on Amazon in the Leadership and Management category. 


Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this episode, Donna is joined by Gez McGuire - an award-winning digital marketer and international marketing awards judge with over 20 years' experience in marketing. 

Gez is now working at the forefront of blending AI adoption and machine learning with human intelligence to deliver strategic digital marketing campaigns, and he is about to launch an exciting e-commerce brand in 2022.


Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Neil Skehel is the CEO of Awards International, an international awards organiser with 12 programmes around the world including in Europe, the Middle East and the UK. 

I’ve asked Neil to join me on the podcast today to talk about the launch of a brilliant new award - the European Customer Experience Awards (European CXAs).

In this episode, you’ll discover how these awards will work, along with a preview of the inaugural UK Business & Innovation Awards - also operated by Awards International - which close in early December 2021.


Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this episode, Donna is joined by Dominic Colenso, who began his career as a professional actor, before training as a director at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

He’s worked alongside some of the UK’s most famous actors, appearing on the London stage, in BBC period dramas and most famously played Virgil Tracy in the Hollywood film adaptation of Thunderbirds.

Through his company In Flow, he now empowers businesses, sales teams and leaders to increase the impact of their communication and perform at their best under pressure. Drawing on his extensive experience on stage and screen, he shares the secret tools and techniques used by the world’s best actors to help his audience unlock their own star performances.

In demand as a speaker, trainer and coach, he’s also the author of the bestselling book “IMPACT: How to be more confident, increase your influence and know what to say under pressure.”


Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Donna O'Toole is joined by Head of Events at The Learning and Performance Institute, Pauline Saunders. Pauline talks about their flagship awards programme The Learning Awards, including what the 2021 entry process entails, who should enter, and which new categories have been introduced.

The Learning Awards, since its beginning in 1996, have continually adapted to align with significant trends in L&D, and to ensure that categories represent current technologies, innovations and people skills - they are one of the highest accolades you can receive in workplace learning and development.

Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this episode, Donna talks with Debbie Gilbert - a multi-award-winning Entrepreneur and owner of Viva Business Support, a marketing and events agency. She is also the founder of Mums UnLtd, a networking company aimed at mums in business which provides support for mums in business. Her book ‘The Successful Mumpreneur’ has been a global success, which shares her knowledge on growing a business around a family.

Over the past 20 years, Debbie has built a reputation for being an excellent supporter of small businesses and start-ups. Growing a solid network has been her priority, which has been integral to her business success.

Debbie founded The Best Business Women Awards in 2015 and she reveals more about this annual event, which recognises and rewards outstanding female entrepreneurs from across the globe. Her motto is ‘When you reach the top of your mountain – throw down a rope and help someone else up’.


Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

In this inspirational episode, Donna discusses The Queen's Awards for Enterprise and explains why these awards are widely regarded as the world's most prestigious.

Learn more about this year's winners and find out how the entry process works, so that you're armed with the information you need to get started on your Queen's Awards journey.


Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.

Sarah Austin is a leading voice of the awards and events industry. In addition to a 12-year career running an international awards portfolio at Informa (formally UBM),  Sarah was notably the Awards Director for the National Business Awards.

She has now launched two exciting ventures in 2021 - the first being sarahaustin.co.uk which is a full end-to-end events management consultancy specialising in awards, conferences, virtual events, weddings and private events. Sarah's business has had a roaring start with several projects in the running and her first major project is to deliver (with her team) The Travel Industry Awards by TTG.

Sarah’s other main venture sees the launch of The Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards. In partnership with Lloyds Bank, these awards celebrate the resilience, innovation and creativity of British businesses - whether big or small - an innovative new start-up or an established industry player, private, public or third sector, culminating in the UK’s most prestigious business awards ceremony with a rigorous judging programme and a series of networking opportunities across the year. 

In addition to this, Sarah is a Non-Exec Director at the Tate Galleries and also sits on the Tate Modern Advisory Council, which allows her to advise their events team on sales, delivery and execution strategies whilst being surrounded by incredible priceless artwork.


Donna O'Toole is the Founder of August, and she has had the pleasure of supporting entrepreneurs, business leaders and teams to win the most prestigious awards in the world. She has seen, first-hand, how receiving awards and recognition has motivated teams, solved problems, supercharged brands and raised their profiles, helping businesses to grow and do even more good things for their employees, their industry and their community.