A ROMSEY woman has helped thousands of businesses across Hampshire after setting up her own networking group online.

Trudy Simmons set up The Hampshire Women’s Business Group on Facebook in April last year, and it has doubled in size over the past four months and now has more than 2,000 members who run businesses from legal services to web design, to corporate photography to local restaurants.

Trudy, who runs The Daisy Chain Group, a personalised coaching business, said: “It’s been fantastic to see the group grow over the past year or so and the amount of support and advice members give is inspirational. Some people say to me that they are surprised there are 2,000 businesswomen in Hampshire – I am not. There are so many across our country who are running successful businesses.”

Trudy has launched the first Hampshire Women’s Business Awards, which will be held in November, to celebrate. More than 300 nominations to the awards were received in the first ten days.

Trudy, 43, said that women in business need to be celebrated.

She said: “Women in general rarely shout about their achievements and I want to try and change that. Positivity, personality and potential are powerful tools that help people to thrive. I want to provide environments both online and in person that breathe this ethos into helping people be successful in their business ventures.”