Deborah Terras is a finalist for this year’s Enterprise Vision Awards in the Business Woman of the Year Award Category. She is a worthy finalist in this category alongside some of her peers.

Deborah set up URPotential 6 years ago with no funding, no office but lots of energy, enthusiasm & passion. She applied for Lottery funding to deliver youth services when Blackpool council had to make the savage cuts securing support for 5000 young people. She moved to the grownups securing funding to deliver training to disadvantaged people supporting into work & volunteering. Developing women only courses for women returning to work after having their children, redundancy & victims of domestic abuse & addiction. She has grown the business from £49K a year to £500K with strong fiscal management, the company has never had an overdraft facility or taken a loan.  She recruited & employed home grown people offering training, paying for staff to go to university to support the development of the business. She volunteers across all sporting activities, supporting women into running, cycling & swimming. She fund raises for local causes close to her heart always about young people and achieving their potential. She represents Great Britain in Biathlon competitions, last year she was in the Florida World Championships representing GB she came 6th in her category. As a young mum with a family & home to run a business to manage plus volunteering and sporting activities it is fair to say she doesn’t sit down a lot. She is an inspirational leader supporting our young staff team to grow & develop. She works hard to put Blackpool on the map in a positive light working in partnership with local council and all 3rd sector organisations. She is chair of Greater Together a 3rd Sector consortium, chair of Blackpool’s 3rd sector leaders group & is very active in VCFS organisation support.