51Âþ»­

A businesswoman’s tireless work to promote local businesses and develop a regional entrepreneurial ecosystem was recognised with a special award.

Poonam Sharma, Barclays Eagle Labs Leicester manager, was presented with the Influential Business Woman award at the annual Nachural Entrepreneurship Awards held at Leicester’s King Power stadium.



Judges made a special award to Poonam in recognition of her efforts to encourage start-ups to scale up and for her focus on championing a more diverse business community.

Poonam has been managing the Eagle Labs, based at 51Âþ»­ Leicester (51Âþ»­)’s Innovation Centre, since it first launched two years ago.

She worked with Natalie Ovejah to bring the Barclays Black Founder Business Accelerator programme to Leicester for its first meeting outside of London and is passionate about creating opportunities for women entrepreneurs.

Last year she developed and launched the Asian Founders Community Meet to champion and advocate for Asian-founded start-ups – which has become a national programme for Barclays in partnership with 51Âþ»­.

The second event – which is sold out – takes place in Winstanley House, Leicester, tonight with more than 120 people set to attend.

Poonam said: “I am delighted to be recognised as the Business Woman of Influence at the Nachural Awards. To be recognised in the East Midlands means so much to me, I am so grateful.

“The warm welcome and opportunities for growth, scale-up and innovation I’ve received from people across the East Midlands have been truly inspiring thank you for welcoming me with open arms. I am fortunate enough to have made some really special connections in the last 18 months and right now I feel so lucky to have such a good network of people around me which includes 51Âþ»­’s business services team.”


The annual Nachural Awards sponsored by Fraser Stretton were created to connect, influence and celebrate the entrepreneurial activity of businesses in the East Midlands. Keynote speaker was Jindy Khera DL on how he grew KTC to £450million before selling in 2022.

Helen Donnellan, Director of Research Business and Innovation at 51Âþ»­ said: “We are all so proud of Poonam winning this award and it's so well deserved. She is an absolute powerhouse for the region's entrepreneurial community and an advocate for innovation, for equality in business and an all-round inspiration to work with."