Role with town firm was the springboard for OBE recipient
Joanne Stuart OBE.
HIGH flying businesswoman Joanne Stuart, who received an OBE in the New Year Honours List, began her business career in Portadown.
Joanne served three years as chairperson of the Northern Ireland Institute of Directors, and runs her own IT business in Newtownards.
She came to Prentice’s in Portadown for five years in the late 1980s in an accountancy role and lived at Armagh Road close to the company’s headquarters.
“It was there that I acquired my love for IT,” said Joanne who was responsible for both the Portadown and Omagh operations, being directly responsible to Mr Albert Prentice.
So, in order to develop her knowledge of IT, she moved to England with Siemens Nixdorf and then McKeown Software before joining Oracle Corporation, the world’s largest software company.
She remained with them for nine years in senior management roles, and then moved back to Northern Ireland to open the Oracle office in Belfast. All that experience prompted her to set up on her own, and thus was born Attrus.
She provides IT packages for businesses, mainly in Ireland, but has many clients in the GB mainland, and was appointed chair of the Institute of Directors for a three-year period, and also holds down many voluntary posts.
On the charity side, she has raised in excess of £10,000 for various good causes. In one fund-raiser, she was captured by ‘pirates’ and locked up in the famous Nordic liner - a sister ship of the ill-fated Titanic - to raise funds for its restoration.
And she has “walked around Ireland” for charity - a daily trek of six miles a day over adding up to hundreds of miles, the equivalent of a round-the-island marathon.
Whilst serving for three years as the locally elected chairman of the Institute of Directors, Joanne worked closely with other senior figures in the business community and frequently took part in discussions and negotiations with Ministers and senior civil servants.
A feature of the last three years was the request by the Minister of Employment and Learning to chair an independent review on University fees (leading to a published report in February 2011) and close contact with the Minister of Finance regarding the impact of the credit crunch on businesses.
Currently Joanne is leading the senior advisory group on the implementation of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) strategy in the skills arena.
She is a non-executive director of the NI Science Park and is a member of the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal panel in London.
For relaxation, she enjoys nothing more than “a cold, wet Friday night at Ravenhill” cheering on the Ulster rugby side.
She said, “I am honoured and delighted to have been awarded an OBE in the New Years Honours list and I would like to recognise and thank my family and friends for their support and encouragement throughout my career. I have been and continue to be fortunate to work with many great people, companies and charities and in particular I would like to thank the members and executives at the Institute of Directors.”
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Weather for Portadown
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Today
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Temperature: 8 C to 18 C
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Wind direction: South east
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