Denise Goldsworthy, the managing director of the world’s leading exporter of solar salt was named as the 2010 Telstra Western Australian Business Woman of the Year.
Denise Goldsworthy is Managing Director of Rio Tinto subsidiary Dampier Salt (DSL), a business that produces industrial salt by solar evaporation of seawater at Dampier and Port Hedland and from underground brine at Lake MacLeod.
Appointed to head DSL in August 2008, Ms Goldsworthy was appointed in January 2009 to managing director of HIsmelt, a Rio Tinto joint venture that has an iron making plant at Kwinana. Ms Goldsworthy is responsible for 500 employees and a global customer base, principally chemical industry markets in Asia.
Telstra Chief Marketing Officer and Telstra Business Women’s Awards Ambassador Kate McKenzie said the winners of the Western Australian Awards were successful business women whose leadership qualities and achievements would provide inspiration for women across the State.
“Denise Goldsworthy has demonstrated steady growth and broadening of her skills in a career spanning 28 years in the resources sector,” Ms McKenzie said.
“She has created a culture of innovation at Dampier Salt where her key achievements include record sales earnings, improving safety by reducing lost time injuries significantly, increasing workforce engagement and reducing staff turnover.”
Small business owner Jan Ford was the only SME winner of the Western Australian Telstra Business Women’s Awards, taking home the Commonwealth Bank Business Owner Award, Jan owns Jan Ford Real Estate, Port Hedland.
Jan Ford is principal and licensee of Jan Ford Real Estate, an agency that she opened in April 2000 in the northern town of Port Hedland and which has grown to employ 13 people. Ms Ford, whose grandparents were born on a remote cattle station in the north of WA, is also developing a 46-unit project to overcome accommodation shortages in Port Hedland. She is passionate about community development and expanding the infrastructure of the town and is a board member of the Port Hedland Port Authority.
