It is a decision she has never regretted and yesterday 44-year-old Mrs Gibbins had even more reason to feel that way, after being named Businesswoman of the Year.

On leaving school in Congleton, Cheshire, the teenage Dawn decided to travel and ended up working for three years picking fruit in the South of France.

She returned home and tried home and tried several jobs, including petrol pump attendant, factory machinist and domestic in an old people’s home.

In 1982, she decided to go into business with her father, Peter, an industrial chemist. That was how her company Flowcrete was born.

“My father had some great ideas but he wasn't very good commercially and he was being exploited, so I started to work with him, designing products from a small starter unit on an industrial estate” said Mrs Gibbins.

At first it was a case of getting people to listen to me. I would turn up on site and people would ask where the technical people or the engineers were, and I would say “Hold on it’s me”.

They built on the firm through a combination of hard work, innovation and a “can do” attitude.

Ten years later, her father died and Mrs Gibbins took sole control.

In 1994, aged 35, she was made an MBE – at the time the youngest industrialist to receive the accolade.

Mrs Gibbins is now chairman of Europe’s largest flooring firm and does business in 20 countries. Flowcrete, based in Sandbach, Cheshire, employs 200 workers and has a turnover of £25 million.

Half her company’s directors and a third of the workforce are women – twice as much as the industry average. Her husband Mark is the firm’s managing director.

Receiving her award in London, Mrs Gibbins said “Manufacturing is regarded as being very mucky, but I have a wonderful job and I would urge more women to come and join me in this industry”.

She works around 50 hours a week but usually manages to take her two daughters, Michelle, 15 and April 13, to the school bus and meets them in the afternoon.

John West, managing director of award sponsor Veuve Clicqot said “Her success and her style are an inspiration for others who choose the entrepreneurial path”.

Previous winners include Dianne Thompson, chief executive of Camelot and Anita Roddick founder of the Body Shop.