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‘BUTTERFLIES’ HELP BUSINESS TAKE FLIGHT, SAYS SEEDA AMBASSADOR
25-03-2008
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Being a ‘butterfly’ in the business world can pay off, Surrey businesswoman Sandra Young told aspiring entrepreneurs attending a SEEDA Women’s Enterprise event at Fetcham Park House, Leatherhead.
An ambassador in SEEDA’s programme to encourage more female entrepreneurs, the Wilky Group director spoke about her experiences in a career that has spanned marketing, PR, and the development of Wilky’s successful property, business centre and bathroom retailing ventures. Sandra said that her own contribution lay mainly in “adding two and two and getting six, seizing opportunities and passing them on to others with the appropriate skills, being a butterfly and instinctively putting people and situations together for commercial or personal benefit.” She believed that networking in an open-minded rather than aggressively commercial way was a valid and valuable role for enterprise ambassadors.
Sandra described how she and a fellow ambassador, facilitator Lucia Bardoul of Alchemy in Company, were supporting the SEEDA initiative by collaborating to facilitate networking among women entrepreneurs. Wilky has offered office and meeting facilities at its Parallel Business Centres to enable graduates of the ‘She's the Business’ start-up programme, managed and delivered by Lucia on behalf of Enterprise First/Business Link, to meet regularly for networking.
In an update on the ambassadors scheme, Helen Cook, SEEDA’s Women Enterprise Manager, spoke of SEEDA’s efforts to develop business support programmes to address some of the factors that stop women taking the step into self employment. Fear of failure, lack of confidence in skills and unawareness of how to finance a business were three examples of such barriers, she said.
Roz Mayer of Business Link Surrey told the group about a series of forthcoming free events entitled What’s Stopping You to help women who are thinking of setting up businesses. To find out more, call 01732 878007 or visit www.whatsstoppingyouevents.co.uk
The ambassadors’ network - part of a national government initiative to address the shortfall of women entrepreneurs - has recruited more than 100 voluntary Women’s Enterprise Ambassadors across the region. They are raising the profile of the contribution women make to the economy by speaking at business events, in schools and writing of their own experiences in the media.
To find out more about the programme, contact Helen Cook at Helencook@seeda.co.uk
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