Your Office Online

Cornish Woman in Freelancer Award

Dawn, from Liskeard, narrowly missed winning the PCG Freelancer Award at The Remote Worker Awards, in association with BT Business, at London's Grand Connaught Rooms.

 In 2006, Dawn was employed by the South West Peninsula Strategic Health Authority, working with an associate director who was often on the road, providing her with remote secretarial services when she was out of the office.

When the SHA restructured that year, Dawn saw a gap in the market for businesses who were constantly out of the office but needed secretarial support, and created Your Office Online.

Known as a virtual assistant (VA), Dawn works as PA to several clients nationwide, including a locum GP provider for the Armed Forces, and a masseuse who works in the UK and Dubai.

Dawn said: "As VAs are self-employed business people in their own right, they have an understanding of the pressures businesses are under and are able to help businesses with their admin requirements in many ways, not just typing reports and memos."

Dawn is now setting up a new venture which has grown from her freelance work: Virtual Business in a Box, a product aimed at fledgling small businesses and sole traders.

It is literally a box, containing administrative items a new business needs to set up — such as website design, logos, templates and guides.

Dawn is hoping to launch the product later this year.