A North West businessman has won £50,000 in a competition for disabled entrepreneurs.
Paul Woods is the managing director of tech-enabled courier business Proactive Despatch and finished third in the Stelios Awards for Disabled Entrepreneurs in a London ceremony.
The 51-year-old received his prize from Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou on behalf of the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, which run the awards in partnership with the leading disability charity Leonard Cheshire.
Woods has cerebral palsy after being born two months’ prematurely as a result of a lack of oxygen at birth.
He walked everywhere until he was 40 before ‘swallowing his pride’ and began using a wheelchair.
In 2008 he founded Proactive Despatch, which is based in Widnes, after being made redundant and has grown it to 11 staff and a turnover of £1.9m.
Woods said he hoped his story would inspire other disabled people to follow their dreams.
“I am absolutely delighted to win this award for a number of reasons,” he said.
“The prize money is really helpful and will enable me to grow Proactive Despatch quicker.“Winning the prize is part of my journey of finally accepting my disability.
“I hope a disabled person will look at my journey and think ‘if he has achieved, what is stopping me?’”
Woods has also contributed to The Lilac Review, which is an independent review being spearheaded by Small Business Britain to tackle the inequalities faced by disabled founders to level-up entrepreneurial opportunity across the UK.
His mission to tackle the barriers faced by disabled people in starting and running businesses has taken him all the way to the House of Lords and 10 Downing Street.
“This whole process has really challenged my thinking because, until the last couple of years, I hid my disability because I was embarrassed by it,” he admitted.
“I have now realised it is part of me and has given me skills and a sense of persistence, resilience and will to prove people wrong that I may not have had otherwise.
“I applied for the Stelios Awards for Disabled Entrepreneurs because I thought it might inspire at least one other disabled person to give it a go.”
Woods said he first became aware of his disability when he was six years old.
“I realised that my mobility levels were different to other children but I decided to try and fit in with the world,” he said.
“I spent much of my time at school either fighting off the bullies or making them laugh but I knew I always wanted to work.
“I have been turned down for jobs without fully knowing why. Maybe it was because there was a better candidate, maybe I was discriminated against because of my disability. I always chose to believe there was a better candidate and just moved on to the next opportunity.
“In my own head I thought that because of my disability I had a point to prove.
“When I started Proactive Despatch in 2008, I was more mobile than I am now and as such could visit my customers at their premises.
“Now I find that tougher to do that as a wheelchair user, because a great deal of the UK is inaccessible.
“Fortunately, I am now able to employ a sales team to navigate inaccessible premises.
“If I’d been a wheelchair user back in 2008 when my business started, I am not sure my business would have been as successful as it has been.”
The £150,000 top prize in the Stelios Awards for Disabled Entrepreneurs went to Umbreem David, of Hoama Group. She has muscular dystrophy.