A woman who set up an agency to help introverted women excel in the workplace has been named as one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices in the UK.

Businesswoman Carol Stewart of Leytonstone founded Abounding in 2012 to coach women vying for top positions who may be held back due to lack of confidence.

She also works with companies to develop their pipeline of female employees and ensure more women make it to senior management roles.

When the social network analysed writers on a number of factors including engagement with readers Ms Stewart’s name rose to the top.

Writing on the issues and challenges women face in their professional lives and how these can be best addressed, Ms Stewart uses her voice to raise awareness of the “unfavourable, unconscious bias” that exists towards women and ethnic minorities in the workplace.

“I can’t believe that out of the millions of LinkedIn users here in the UK that I have been named as one of the Top Voices,” she said.

“It certainly is an honour.

“It was only once I started blogging for my business that I realised that I had a talent for writing and that I enjoyed it.”

Stewart is no stranger to receiving recognition for her work. In January 2015 she was named as one of Britain’s top 50 Business Advisers by Enterprise Nation, being one of two people in Waltham Forest to receive such recognition.

Within a short space of time she has carved out a position as a highly sought after women’s coach and her work has been featured in the HR Director magazine and US platform CNBC, among others.

In 2018 she plans to continue to write on issues affecting women because “there is still a long way to go before gender parity at senior levels is reached”.

There are also plans in the pipeline for her first book to be published.

Before launching her business, Ms Stewart worked for HM courts service for 28 years, starting out in one of the most junior positions and rising to Group Court Manager in magistrates’ courts.

She took voluntary redundancy in 2011 when a number of courthouses were closing, completed a MSc in Coaching Psychology and started her new journey of reaching out to women.