Digital Women Awards 2025 Winner: Marie-Louise O'Neill

Introducing Digital Women Award 2025 Winner
Marie-Louise O'Neill: Carer of the Year 2025
The Carer of the Year award honours women who excel in demanding digital careers while providing essential care at home. Balancing tight schedules, emotional demands, and dual responsibilities, all the finalists demonstrated extraordinary time management, resilience, and empathy. Meet our lovely winner, Marie-Louise O'Neil.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
In a nutshell, I am a mum, wife and graphic designer. Family is hugely important to me and so is being a creative.
I specialise in branding and Canva design, offering a range of logo and design services, training and I’m an official Canva Creator and Canvassador. I bring together 20 years experience in the design industry, a branding degree and sprinkle in Canva for a winning combination.
I love to work with entrepreneurs, coaches, marketing experts and virtual assistants to create consistent content that’s on brand but with the flexibility to evolve over time.
My mission is to democratise design and empower my clients to build their brand. Not everyone has a large marketing budget and many soloprenuers and small businesses DIY their own designs. My clients don’t need to become professional designers to present their business more professionally online or in person. With the help of Canva, and some practical tips and/or design templates from me, they can be more consistent with their branding.
My design process is focussed on collaboration with my clients. I meet with them on Zoom to bounce ideas and bring the designs to life before their eyes. They’re able to share instant feedback during the design session, which speeds up the process and avoids the ping pong of emails back and forth. It’s so rewarding to see how my clients’ eyes light up when they see it all come together and that they’ve been involved and truly part of the design process.
It’s the same joy I get when I see my members of the Lovely Canva Club have an ‘aha’ moment. It might be that I solved an issue they’ve been stuck on, improved one of their designs or inspired them to try a new tool.
It’s a great work day when I’ve helped someone and been creative whilst doing so.
What does winning this award mean to you?
This was the only award that I have put myself forward for since I got out of my comfort zone and applied for a few awards back in 2023. The Carer award is really meaningful to me as it hasn't been all sunshine and roses the past 18 months.
I'm incredibly grateful for the joy and blessing of having my second child, Leon, in June 2024. I was at the point of coming to terms with not having another child after desperately wanting another one for years. It was a conversation that my husband and I had before 2020 that just couldn't be resolved with a compromise. And when he changed his mind, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try... and we were lucky to be successful!
However, as a business owner, my experience of maternity leave and phasing back to work was not so clear cut the time around and has not gone as I had planned or hoped for.
My husband, Matthew, has rheumatoid arthritis and was diagnosed with it in 2021 after living with the symptoms for nearly a year. It took a further year to get his flare up under control and he had 3 years of relative normality. In December last year, he picked up the norovirus from our eldest son. And we think that the virus kicked his immune system and sparked another flare up. It's now starting to get more manageable for him again, but he's been living with pain and fatigue for about 7-8 months. Unfortunately the hospital has not been responsive at all and so he’s not receiving treatment either.
And to top things off, my father fell and broke his hip at the end of September and had to have surgery. As my own boss, I’ve been able to step in to help care and support my parents as he settles back home from his hospital stay. It’s been another stress, another responsibility and I’m sure those with elderly parents can relate to this.
My husband is usually the one to do most of the childcare, but with his poor health this year and a toddler needing to be looked after, my business had to take a back seat and I’ve not been able to operate at full capacity for nearly two years for one reason or another.
Winning this award is a proud achievement for me. It’s the opportunity to celebrate that I still have a business despite all the challenges I’ve faced.
I'm grateful for the clients I have worked with during this time and their patience and understanding. I'm grateful for my community inside my Lovely Canva Club membership who’ve shown up for catch ups and embraced the imperfections. I'm grateful for the support of my network - both in business and in life. I'm grateful for my family – parents, parents-in-law, my brother and sister-in-law.
I'm now ready to rebuild for the future.
What career achievement are you most proud of?
I’ve been fortunate to have had a number of career highlights over the years, so this is a difficult one to narrow down to just one. For example, becoming an official Canva Creator in 2022, launching my own mobile app in 2023, and speaking at Digital Women Live in 2024.
However, the biggest, most challenging and rewarding design project in my career to date was for the book ‘A Guide to Dark Attractions in the UK’. It was written by Leon McNally, a budding author local to me in Northampton. I was the lead designer but I couldn’t have done it without the help of fellow designers, Maddie King and Mark Coster at the beginning and end of the project.
The project took nearly 2 years to complete from starting conversation to finished and published book. It was self published in July 2024, just after I gave birth to my second son in June 2024. I like to joke that I birthed two babies that summer!
Aside from the fascinating stories and history behind each location that featured in the book, it’s a real treat to the eyes. Leon had a vision for the details on the pages, like little illustrations and the backgrounds. It was a pleasure to collaborate with him to bring those ideas to life. It was a passion project and I’m proud to be a part of this book.
What impact have you seen from your work?
Being creative and designing is such a part of me and as natural as breathing after all the years. And because it’s easy to me, I often downplay or underestimate the impact that I make to my clients. I really should make more of a note of all the times people are inspired, have that aha moment and pleased with their designs.
My favourite example of the direct impact that my knowledge and design has made is my awards application evidence template. I’ve had two people who have said they have won awards as a result of using my template.
I worked with leadership coach and author, Mary Gregory in 2024 in a series of design sessions to create various bespoke Canva templates. She happened to mention that she wanted to put herself forward for awards but felt imposter syndrome and just didn’t know where to start.
I shared with her my evidence document that I had put together in Canva to support my application for a number of awards I’d put myself forward for, in particular the Best Businesswomen Awards in 2023. And Mary used my template to give her ideas and a starting point for her own application. She went on to win the gold award in the coaching category for Best Businesswomen Awards 2024.
At the recent Digital Women Awards 2025, I was chatting to Emma Youell (picture below of us together at the event) and she said she was inspired to apply for a number of awards this year. I had delivered a mini demonstration at Debbie Gilbert’s award launch webinar earlier this year. Emma went on to use my awards evidence template and has won a number of awards since then, including Highly Commended in the Content Marketer for 2025 category for Digital Women.
It’s fantastic to know that something I created in Canva has had this ripple effect on at least two people’s businesses.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve had to learn, and how did you grow from it?
My biggest lesson has been that you can make big plans and work out all the numbers and have the strategy all figured out but it can all fall a bit flat. I’ve done a number of launches over the years and I’ve never gotten the numbers I had hoped for, and I’d thought I’d been realistic.
I’ve learnt to evaluate what went well and what didn’t work so well either. I try to aim high, whilst also managing my expectations.
I now also focus on the fact that any progress is better that none. And to focus on the impact and help I’m providing to those in my community.
I’ve had to dig deep at times to cling on with grit and determination through the tough times (including right now). I have such a vision for my business and what I can achieve that it keeps me going.
What’s one thing people might be surprised to learn about you?
One thing that doesn’t tend to come up in conversations is the fact that I grew up in the Middle East. I was an expat child going to international schools in places like Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Oman. It’s shaped me as a person, showing me different cultures and walks of life. I’m a Taurus – very stubborn and hate change. But moving from country to country every couple of years forced me to embrace change, adapt to new places and make friends with new people. I even met my husband at school in Dubai!
What advice would you give to the next wave of Digital Women?
My advice is that you can face anything if you have the right support network. That’s why communities like Digital Women are so powerful. We can learn from each other. We can lift each other up and celebrate each other, especially if we’re rubbish at shouting out our own achievements.
I think I would be burnt out right now and in a quivering heap if it wasn’t for my support network. I’ve been able to reach out to trusted people for advice and help when I’ve needed it. I don’t feel like I’m alone or have to do it alone, even as a solopreneur.
Who’s got your back when the sh** hits the fan?