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17


WOMAN OF THE YEAR IN BUSINESSES OVER £10M


WINNER SHIRIN DEHGHAN, JDSU


Above: Shirin Dehghan (general manager of JDSU) accepts her trophy from Cath Ingham (left) of Deloitte


Left: Finalists from back left – Yolanta Gill (CEO, European Electronique); Jo Keal representing Jan Ward (CEO, Corrotherm International); Yvonne Sherry (FD, Ceuta Healthcare); and Katrina Percy (CEO, Southern Health NHS Foundation) with Cath Ingham and winner Shirin Dehghan (front right)


Taking the title of Woman of the Year in Businesses over £10m, sponsored by Deloitte, was Shirin Dehghan, founder and now general manager of JDSU. The award was presented by Cath Ingham, director, tax, at Deloitte.


The accolade is just the latest in a long line of awards for the mum of two, who was named Outstanding Woman in Technology in the Blackberry Awards and Top Woman in Mobile by Real Business. And, as The Business Magazine went to press, she was on the shortlist for the Investor Allstars 2013 Female Entrepreneur of the Year in late September.


It’s just over a decade since Dehghan, a former Vodafone engineer, founded JDSU (then under the name of Arieso) by taking what was an idea and vision and turning it into a viable and exciting business.


Providing network optimisation products and services to some of the largest mobile networks around the globe, the company’s solutions locate, store and analyse data from billions of mobile connection events, giving mobile operators a rich source of intelligence to help boost network performance and enhance the user experience.


Represented around the world, its international network of clients includes O2 – for whom it helped manage mobile phone traffic during London 2012 – AT&T, Telefonica and MTN.


A former graduate of the University of Southampton, Dehghan has been responsible for setting the overall direction and vision of Arieso, breaking into the US market and recruiting a highly-capable management team.


In 2010, she was instrumental in securing further investment for the company from the Carbon Trust, based upon its products and services enabling mobile networks to greatly reduce carbon from their businesses.


With a turnover last year of £18 million, in March 2013, Dehghan sold Arieso for over £50m to US mobile technology group JDSU, but has stayed at the helm to continue running the business.


“What drove me to start the business is nothing to do with the fact I am a woman, it is more that I wanted to be able to do something new, something that no-one had achieved before. I saw a gap in the marketing and wanted to go for it, I didn’t want to be asking myself ’what if’,“ said Dehghan.


“A lot of entrepreneurs, especially women, see a gap but don’t take the risk and my over-riding message to anyone who is interested in developing their own business is to ’have a go’. At the end of the day, the worst that can happen is that you fail, and that in itself is a learning experience.


“Hopefully, with this award, I can give them encouragement, to show that you can be successful. It takes a lot of effort, it is a thousand times harder than you think when you start, but a million times more rewarding than you ever thought it would be.“


Dehghan stresses just how important it is for women, especially mothers, to have the support of their family when going into business. Her daughter was four and her son just six months old when she began Arieso, and she says the commitment and support of both her husband and her mother were of paramount importance in helping her succeed.


Clearly recognised as an industry leader, earlier this year Dehghan was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Women4Technology event held in June at the House of Lords, and also took part in a high-level discussion on the “Future of UK’s Engineering“, organised by Engineering UK and held at Number 11 Downing Street.


Business THE M A GA ZINE TM


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