Peterborough College graduate Tammy Banks has won a Women in Innovation Award.

Tammy Banks, a mum-of-two and co-founder and director of Taye Training, has been awarded the National Women in Innovation award.

Tammy is one of 50 of the UK's leading women entrepreneurs who were backed by Innovate UK for their game-changing ideas.

She is a business owner who has been working to promote the impact of high-quality training on frontline services nationally.

As the co-founder and director of Taye Training, Tammy has been at the forefront of providing training and development programs to organisations within the criminal justice, social care and charity sectors to help them achieve their full potential.

Alongside this, she works as a lay member in Parliament, assessing and adjudicating complaints about MPs.

The flagship Women in Innovation Awards is a key part of Innovate UK’s commitment to boosting the number of women entrepreneurs.

Innovate UK will give all 50 trailblazers £50,000 and bespoke mentoring and coaching to enable them to scale-up their businesses. 

Now in its sixth year, the competition drew a record number of 920 applications from women business leaders, 10 per cent up from last year, reflecting the growing number of women-led businesses in the UK (according to the Rose Review Progress Report 2023, 20 per cent of all UK businesses are now led by all-female teams).

Tammy said: “I am thrilled to receive the Women in Innovation Award. The funding we receive from the award will provide scholarships for 25 women with lived and/or professional experience of adversity to complete our Training 4 Influence ‘Train the Trainer’ course.

"These scholarships will help to support women in their pursuit of education and career development, and their training will reach over one million frontline workers, supporting their retention, as well as ability to deliver improved outcomes for over five million complex or vulnerable people.”

The Training 4 Influence course uses a four-step methodology of tailored, engaging, expert, and values-led, to create high-impact training that can make a significant difference in the lives of frontline workers and the people they support.

Tammy achievement in winning the National Women in Innovation award is a testament to her hard work in promoting innovation within the training community and dedication to helping others. She often shares her story of a complex childhood and homelessness as an inspiration to many. Her success is a reminder that anything is possible.

For more information about Tammy Banks and Training 4 Influence, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/tayetraining/

Tammy had a complex childhood and left school at 15. After spending her teenage years homeless, she went to university to study psychology.

She has since worked operationally and strategically to champion for system change and creative operational solutions, helping the most vulnerable and marginalised have an opportunity to live their best lives.

Tammy has utilised her lived experience to champion for change, she is currently one of only seven parliamentary lay members.

Alongside this, Tammy is a businesswoman, author, multiple award winner and undertaking the Westminster Abbey ‘Fearless Leader’ Fellowship.