Kylie Ravens named business person of the year at the Hawkesbury Local Business Awards 2020

The 38-year-old Wilberforce resident owns five businesses, and has five kids - busy in anyone's books, but she loves it.

She told the Gazette it was "definitely a surprise" to win the award, though she hadn't had "five minutes to process it" since she was handed the top trophy during a gala presentation on Wednesday, October 21.

"I wasn't expecting it at all, so it's a really special feeling," she said.

Ms Ravens is the owner and founder of Stakks Group, which consists of Mortgage Broking and Financial Planning arms, as well as Stakks Property Management, Ravens Development and Buns and Beans Bakery at Wilberforce - which won the Best Bakery/Cake Shop award.

Ms Ravens' business empire began when she launched the mortgage broking business 10 years ago after having worked for someone else in the broking area for five years.

"I thought it could be so much better, so that's why I wanted to do it - and it's the same for all of my other businesses," she said.

"I wanted to help my clients in house and run the business the way I thought we should do it."

Opening the property management arm was a natural progression after launching the mortgage broking and financial planning businesses.

"Our customers were always complaining about their property managers. We would help them purchase properties and they would have terrible experiences as a landlord and owner and I wanted to help them," Ms Ravens said.

She said Buns and Beans started around six years ago as a creative and fun outlet from the "exhausting and challenging" world of finance.

"I wanted to launch something where I could switch off completely," she said.

"At Buns and Beans, I go into autopilot. I bake cakes every morning and serve all the customers and I am just the person who does that and serves coffee - I have different hats for different times of the day."

She thanked the "great bunch of girls" who work behind her in each business: Kathleen Doherty who heads-up the real estate business; financial planner Jenny Sligar; and Megan Johnson who runs the bakery when Ms Ravens isn't there.

Ms Ravens said she has "a thousand more businesses" in her head that she would like to launch someday, but in the immediate future she hoped to further develop her Ravens Development company which specialises in home renovations and flipping houses.

"The hardest thing is finding the right staff to maintain the businesses, because I can't do everything. You can't accept anything less than how you would want to be served yourself - customer service is key," she said.

She said having young children (aged 8, 9, 12, 13 and 14) had allowed her to be more understanding of her employees' family lives and being able to balance that with work.

"I'm very proud of what I do, and I'm very grateful for all the girls I have with me, who share the same passion, they have the same ethics and moral standards. If you're all working in the same direction, that's when it works."