Female led businesses across Scotland are encouraged to shout about their success, by entering the Business Women Scotland Awards. Free to enter, there are categories to cover businesses new and old, employers, mentors, and for international growth. New for this year is an award for the Best Use of Social Media.

Something for everyone, our categories cover business new and old.

• New Entrepreneur of the Year (up to 18 months)
• New Business of the Year (up to 3 years)
• SME of the Year
• Employer of the Year
• International Growth of the Year
• Best Use of Social Media
• Mentor of the Year (free mentoring)

We're delighted to welcome back Margaret Gibson, Chief Executive of Women's Enterprise Scotland to help us shortlist the entries.

And back with the difficult task of picking the winners, we have Marie Macklin CBEand Dr Lesley Sawers.

Marie is Exec Chairwoman of Macklin Enterprise Partnerships, non-exec Chair of family business The Klin Group, mentor with Entrepreneurial Spark, and is Exec Chair of risk mitigation company Diligent World. Lesley is Honorary Professor at Glasgow Caledonian University, authored a review into Women and the Scottish Economy, and was recently appointed to the role of Scotland Commissioner for Equality and Human Rights.

All great business women who know what it takes to be successful, it's great to have their expertise.

Awards are great to raise awareness and show credibility, get free marketing and to motivate employees. Success means different things to different people, so if you feel your company deserves recognition, you can find out more information about entering the awards at their website awards.bwsltd.co.uk