The Creative Collective have been announced as a finalist in the Small Business category of the prestigious Telstra Business Awards being held in City Hall in Brisbane this Friday.

Now in their 24th year, the Telstra Business Awards are widely recognised as the most prestigious business awards in Australia and showcase and celebrate the achievements of the state’s most brilliant small and medium businesses across five categories: New Business, Micro Business, Small Business, Medium Business, and for the first time in 2016, Charity, which is designed to recognise the significant contribution of not-for-profit organisations to not only Australian communities but the economy as well.

The founder of The Creative Collective, Yvette Adams was recognised in the Telstra Business Women’s Awards in 2010 winning the competitive Business Owner of the Year Award for Queensland and says since founding the business in 2007 it has evolved several times, including taking on a business partner, Katrina Lees in 2014.

Lees has been involved with the business since it’s inception – first as an intern, then as a contractor, later in 2008, she became a franchisee and since early 2014 as a business partner in the company in the now national company.

“Going into partnership with Katrina has been one of my best business decisions. We complement each other so well. My strengths lie in strategy, business development and marketing; while Kat’s lie in operations and finances,”says Yvette.

“And given we’re both young Mums, we essentially job share the role of CEO of the company, which has been invaluable on so many occasions when kids have been sick, or had a special event on. We also keep each other really accountable. We have to tell each other to go to bed or go on a holiday as we’re both as driven as each other!” says Lees.

Adams says she believes the company have been recognised as a finalist because the agency are constantly innovating and pride themselves on fast turnaround and affordable digital services, including flagship products, ‘Website in a Day’ and ‘Brand in a Day’, which expedite typically time-consuming projects. They also made a foray into crowdfunding in 2015 and have carved a niche as a specialist digital marketing and crowdfunding marketing agency.

“Every agency moves fast, we’ve just found ways to innovate traditional approaches to digital projects and move even faster. And we’re always evaluating where we’re at as a business and where the market is at and where we think it will move to keep the growth going.

Since opening in 2007 from founder Yvette Adams’ home, the business has grown to a team of 9, with 6 of the team based on the Sunshine Coast and with a wider contractor network of over 40, and has increased turnover growth by 50 per cent over the past two years. The business is determined to sustain manageable growth moving forwards with big plans over the course of the next five years.

Winners of the 2016 Telstra Queensland Business Awards will be announced on Friday 15 July, at the Brisbane City Hall. State and Territory category winners will be flown to Sydney for the National judging on Thursday 25 August, culminating in a glittering celebration dinner on the night of Friday 26 August 2016.

For more information about the awards see: https://www.telstrabusinessawards.com/.

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