‘I’m not your typical public-facing business woman... I work in the background’

When you push yourself beyond what feels comfortable, you can achieve far more than you ever imagined.

So said Wendy O’Driscoll, who was recently named this year’s Network Cork Established Businesswoman of the year.

A mum of three teens (19, 18 and 15), the Blarney woman admits that the award and subsequent publicity is totally outside her comfort zone.

“I’m not very public-facing. While I’m a woman working in business, I’m not your typical public-facing businesswoman; I work tirelessly in the background,” said Wendy.

It’s an effective way to work and she has the results to prove it, playing a key role in her family civil engineering business, specialising in utilities, Mitchelsfort Contracting.

Wendy started her career in IT where she realised her skillset was in problem-solving and implementing solutions whilst being results-driven.

“I took time out from my career to focus on raising my children and was very lucky to be in a position where I could do that with my partner at the time. Once the kids reached school age, I returned to work around eight years ago and joined the family engineering business. That’s where I became involved in its day-to-day running, learning every aspect of operations and profitability in a highly dynamic and competitive market,” she said.

Adapting fast and having accurate, up-to-date data is at the forefront of running the business, as no year looks the same when it comes to utilities and contracts, she explains.

Being able to adapt to current market conditions is imperative.

“From there, I was able to evolve into a new business model at a company called SolarHill, which among other things provides home and commercial solar panels, and where I could see what it needed was a digital strategy to drive customer acquisition and allow the business to grow outside of Watergrasshill, where it was founded by Damien O’Leary.”

Digital marketing was completely new to Wendy but her technical background allowed her to dive in, self-learn, and implement a digital plan, which is currently thriving and has allowed SolarHill to expand across Cork city and county.

“This hard work was acknowledged when SolarHill won the Best Use of Digital category at the Cork Chamber Digital Marketing Awards last year,” she said.

“At the same time, I returned to college part-time by night studying Business Management, specialising in Digital Marketing, in MTU, as I love learning and don’t believe in being stagnant, true growth is in learning.

“I’m thrilled to be part of a sustainability project helping deliver renewable energy to people throughout Cork and county.

“Right now, my focus is on implementing a new website for SolarHill, as this is the first point of contact our customers and first impressions count. This is getting a whole new face and I’m working with a team of very skilled people on this as we speak, and we are looking forward to launching it in early autumn.”

Wendy joined Network Ireland last year after attending an International Women’s Day event.

“I was blown away by such inspirational women, all with their own story to tell. I knew I had to join, so I went home that evening, signed up, and haven’t looked back .

"They are such a supportive network of hard-driven, like-minded women and I feel so lucky to be part of the community. It was actually a member who rang me one evening and encouraged me to enter the awards, it never even occurred to me, so I really wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her.”

Winning the Established Businesswoman Cork Branch Award was an absolute shock, said Wendy.

“But it was such an honour to stand there with such inspirational women, all with incredible backgrounds.

“For me, it was really about stepping outside my comfort zone.

“It’s true, when you push yourself beyond what feels comfortable, you can achieve far more than you ever imagined. I’m living proof of that.”