To mark her pioneering and extensive career in communications, Mary Finan, the former Chair of the RTE Authority and one of the founding partners of Wilson Hartnell Public Relations, is to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2015 IMAGE Businesswoman of the Year Awards ceremony next month.

Selected by the editors and directors of Image Publications, Ms Finan was chosen as the very worthy recipient of the award - now in its second year, following Breege O’Donoghue, Group Director of Primark being honoured in 2014.

Ms Finan is the former chair of the RTE Authority and one of the founding partners at Wilson Hartnell Public Relations, Ogilvy’s Irish public relations operation, and subsequently its chairman from 2003 to 2007. Since then she has been an independent non-executive director of a number of financial services companies and became the first female President of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce in 1996.

In recent years, Ms Finan returned to Harvard to complete the Advanced Leadership Fellowship Programme for the calendar year 2012. She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law Degree by the National University of Ireland in 2011.

Clodagh Edwards, CEO, Image Publications said of the award: “In all that she has achieved throughout her ongoing career, Mary Finan is a pioneer. She has never contemplated any form of glass ceiling in her ascent up the corporate and communictions ladder and is an inspiration to all women in business.

"At Image Publications, we’ve had a longstanding admiration for Mary, so we are delighted that she will accept the Lifetime Achievement Award on November 2,” Ms Edwards added.

Clodagh Edwards, CEO, Image Publications and Mary Finan, Lifetime Achievement Award recipient at the 2015 IMAGE Businesswoman of the Year Awards

The ninth IMAGE Businesswoman of the Year Awards, in association with Samsung, No7, Electric Ireland and Kuehne + Nagel, and supported by Enterprise Ireland, Marks & Spencer, Independent.ie and Newstalk, will celebrate Irish women in nine categories, along with the overall IMAGE Businesswoman of the Year award. The 2015 shortlist can be viewed here.