Starting Again - and Rising Higher: What My TrailblazHER Women Returners Excellence Award Really Means
Last week, I received something truly special: the TrailblazHER Excellence Award for Women Returners.
It’s an honour that means far more to me than a trophy or a title, because it represents a journey I know deeply, both personally and professionally.
The courage to begin again
When I stepped away from my corporate career many years ago in 2002, I never imagined how hard it would be to find my way back. Like so many women, I’d poured years into raising children, managing family life at home and abroad, and keeping everything afloat. But when the time came to “return,” I realised how invisible that experience could feel.
The confidence wobbles. The uncertainty. The questions: Has the world moved on without me? Am I still relevant? Can I really start again, especially now?
At the time, the idea of rebuilding a career, or even starting my own business, felt daunting. But looking back, I can see that those years out weren’t lost time. They were years that built resilience, perspective, and creativity — the very foundations of the business I run today.
From break to breakthrough
Designs for Growth was born out of that return-to-work journey.
I didn’t just want to “get back” into work, I had to. I was a newly single Mum of 3, my own mother had just died and I was at a very, very low ebb in my life. I tried the traditional routes back into the workplace and found it really difficult to find my place. Not only did I want to return to work, I wanted to create something that aligned with who I’d become: a woman in midlife, with experience, knowledge, a strong voice, raising a family, craving financial independence and creative fulfilment.
Starting a design business from scratch in my 40s was both terrifying and liberating. I had to learn new tech, navigate self-doubt, and juggle a household, as a single parent. There were nights I thought, “What am I doing?” But there were also moments of pure clarity — when I realised that everything I’d done up to this point was leading me here.
Now, through my work, I meet women every day who are standing at that same crossroads — ready to return, reinvent, or rise. Some are returning to corporate roles after a break. Some are building businesses from their kitchen tables. All of them are questioning whether it’s too late.
And every single time, I remind them: it’s not.
The myth of “starting over”
We talk about women “returning” to work as if they’re coming back diminished — as if the skills, experience and emotional intelligence they gained during their time out somehow don’t count.
But the truth is the opposite.
Those years spent managing households, raising children, caring for others, or navigating change build incredible resilience and perspective. They make you more empathetic, more efficient, more human.
You’re not starting from scratch — you’re starting from strength.
Why this TrailblazHER award matters
Winning the TrailblazHER Women Returners Award from TU Dublin isn’t just a recognition of my own journey. It’s a celebration of all the women who have quietly, courageously reinvented themselves in midlife — often while carrying the invisible load of single parenthood, caregiving, or financial pressure.
It’s a reminder that opportunity doesn’t expire with age, it evolves.
So if you’re standing on the edge of change, wondering if it’s too late to build something new, hear this from someone who’s been there: You are absolutely capable of building a career or business that lights you up — on your own terms, in your own time.
Your experience isn’t baggage. It’s your superpower.
Here’s to every woman rewriting her story — and to the next generation who’ll see us doing it, and know they can too.
