Women across Northern Ireland are starting new businesses every day - together we can achieve more

It has been good to read the findings of Rose Review Progress Report released on February 28 2022. First published in 2019, the Rose Review was an independent commission of female entrepreneurship authored by Alison Rose, CEO of NatWest.

Thursday 3 March 2022

Women across Northern Ireland are starting new businesses every day - together we can achieve more

It highlighted that if women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as men, up to £250bn of new value could be added to the UK economy. The progress report identifies that more than 140,000 companies were established by all female teams in the last year, around 1% of these were in Northern Ireland (NI).

We know that in NI levels of female entrepreneurship are the lowest across the United Kingdom. Last summer I had the privilege of chairing a taskforce sponsored by the Department for the Economy focused on increasing female entrepreneurship. It’s clear that we need a range of targeted programmes and support to encourage and enable NI women to start and scale businesses at the same rate as men. I also believe that NI needs to set targets and measure our own progress when it comes to female entrepreneurship – just as the Rose Review Progress report has shown ‘Measurement and disclosure are powerful instruments of change’.

At Women in Business (WIB), we are committed to creating a more inclusive economy by equipping women with the support, skills and networks they need to start and grow their own businesses and achieve success in their careers.

Since joining WIB less than three weeks ago, the reach of our work supporting female entrepreneurs has astounded me. In the last week alone, we have been celebrating the success of female entrepreneur finalists in the Women in Business Awards 2022, as well as supporting aspiring young entrepreneurs through the InnovateHer Programme at Queen’s University Belfast; we have collaborated with Venture Capital firm Techstart on NI’s first ever female focused Proof of Concept fund and also partnered with Enterprise NI, British Business Bank and Ulster Bank to build access finance readiness for female entrepreneurs.

All of this is done in collaboration, working with partners and change makers who share our vision for a more inclusive economy. Of course there is more to be done, with a challenge so great and a reward so promising, there always will be. And, this is the baton I am picking up. Who’s in?