The Secret to Empowerment - Women in Business event at Wakefield

It’s no secret that women face more barriers on their business journeys than our male counterparts.In 2019, the Treasury commissioned Alison Rose, the CEO of NatWest, to lead an independent review of female entrepreneurship. This was called the Rose Review.

The findings of the report and subsequent reviews highlighted the common barriers, which for many women we know this will also come as no great surprise.

Summarised in an article by the Telegraph*, the 5 main barriers identified were:

• A shortage of funding

• The psychological barriers and bias against women

• The fear of failure

• Lack of networks and mentors

• Juggling childcare and growing a business

*You can read the full article here

Fast forward to 2022 and the challenges are still the same. Although there has been a substantial increase in the number of women starting a business, with the progress report in 2022 showing that more women than ever are starting new businesses, with 145,200 all-female-led incorporations in 2021, up from 56,200 in 2018.

This represents an average year on year growth of 37% per annum. These incorporations comprised 20% of the total in 2021, up from 16% in 2018

Which means we have more women than ever making the decision to start up.

Yet we are still facing the same issues!

How can we empower ourselves and others to break down these barriers?

How can we ensure our women led businesses are ready for any challenges thrown in their way?

How do we as women, stop worrying about the fear of failure and how do we challenge societal bias and prejudice?

We need to talk.

What we do know is women are incredibly supportive of each other. We love to help each other, and often, hearing another person’s story, and then sharing your own helps us to relate and understand each other.

Without networks or peers who understand your experience, it’s so easy to feel alone and that fear of failure creeps in. We all need to be around people we can learn from. We know from experience; you need to see it to be it.

We want to talk about that, and more. We want to share our experiences with you, and we want to hear your story.

So come along to our free and informal event at the Hepworth Wakefield and let’s talk.

The event will provide a safe place and space to listen, learn and share.

Starting with a delicious continental breakfast and coffee at 9.30, and the chance to say hello to each other, we’ll follow with a sofa style chat from our panellists, with candid conversations sharing their experiences, and valuable insights on how to negotiate this complex world and deal with those tricky issues.

(More on our speakers coming soon!!)

We also encourage you to ask questions, share your own insights to help and inspire others.

The event will then close with a buffet lunch at the Hepworth and an opportunity for more conversations. This will not be a sale focussed networking session (Nobody wants that!), but a genuine opportunity to meet some new people and build your support network. Much more valuable in our opinion!

And linking in so perfectly with the theme of this event anyone would think we planned it, you will also be given free entry to the incredible exhibition by Hannah Starkey on it’s first day of opening, and to the wider Hepworth gallery and collections.

Throughout her career, Starkey’s meticulously choreographed photographs have determinedly engaged with how women are represented in contemporary culture, an issue which is now centre stage.

https://hepworthwakefield.org/whats-on/hannah-starkey/

Let’s share our secrets. Uncover those truths.

Empower ourselves and each other.

Woman to Woman.

We hope to see you there!

Register your free place here

AD:VENTURE is a business support programme for new and early stage businesses based in the Leeds City Region.

The programme is part funded be the European Regional Development Fund 2013 - 2020

Photo by Jaime Lopes on Unsplash