Background:

Carol Hanlon's diverse small business experience has qualified her well for the role of as Founding Manager and Facilitator at the Belmont Business Enterprise Centre Inc. (BEC) - Small Business Centre Belmont (SBC), Textile Clothing Footwear Resource Centre of Western Australia Inc. (TCFWA) and the designedge fashion incubator.

Belmont Business Enterprise Centre Inc (BEC) was established in 1994 and more recently also included the title of Small Business Centre Belmont which is part of a network of 26 Small Business Centre's located throughout Western Australia who offer free guidance and support to new and existing businesses. In 2004 Carol was announced the Best National BEC Manager in Australia, a prestigious award and Carol was selected from over the 110 BEC's operating across Australia.

Ms Hanlon's small business background includes fashion design, clothing manufacturing, wholesale, retail and export for over twenty years on the east coast of Australia. In her previous life as a small business owner, Ms Hanlon was responsible for the design, production, direction and staging of her own fashion label - which received international acclaim. The fashion studio won the Geelong Business Excellence Award for Manufacturing - under 20 employees, in 1986.

Ms Hanlon held the position of District Governor 1985-1986 for an international Service Club on the east coast of Australia and in this role assisted with projects for the speech and hearing impaired and national projects that highlighted the community service work of young women across Australia.

Substantial funds have been raised for charity through the Carol Hanlon theatrical fashion shows. Ms Hanlon has always been a strong community leader, serving on numerous Advisory Committees including restructuring of TAFE courses, tourism and regional economic development. Carol has received extensive community and business recognition for over 25 years and in 2006 Carol was a nominee of the Western Australian Citizen of the Year Awards - Industry and Commerce category.

Community based projects have included the creation of the Belmont Clothes Library - established in 1996, the first of its kind in Western Australia. The Clothes Library operates the same way as a book lending library. Men & women's clothing & accessories are loaned to unemployed people to wear at job interviews. The concept was acknowledged internationally as being beneficial to the self esteem of unemployed people & numerous Libraries opened throughout Australia based on the Belmont model established by Carol.

Another community based project instigated by Ms Hanlon is the Textile Clothing Footwear Resource Centre of Western Australia Inc. (TCFWA) - established in 1998, the first of its kind in Australia. Recently TCFWA has been successful in gaining support from the Australian Government Building Entrepreneurial Small Business program to extend its TCF & fashion small business support services nationally with business skill workshops and business mentoring to thousands of fashion designers across Australia with a focus on young, multicultural and indigenous designers.

During 2004-2006 Carol coordinated the TCF Australia uncovered project providing business skills to creative women in regional and isolated Australia. Carol is now working towards establishing an Indigenous Textile Clothing Fashion Industry (ITCF).

Multicultural Business Support Services is another project established by Ms Hanlon in 1998 where specialized support and workshops were developed covering topics including Business workshops for Muslim Women,

In 2007 Carol designed and managed the community collection across Western Australia of 165 sewing machines and over 300 cartons of donated textiles and sewing items to equip 110 community centres in the Philippines to help women start a small sewing business in the regional location of Ormoc, Leyte Province, Phililppines.

Carol is a Board Member, BEC Australia, a network of 110 small business assistance centre's across Australia; Board member of Institute of Enterprise Facilitators in Australia; founding committee member of Belmont Business & Professional Women's Club (BPW) and currently Conference Convenor of a National Small Business Development Conference being held in Perth, October 2007.