Opportunity for women to achieve dreams

Since launching her marketing business in 2017 and experiencing first-hand the barriers faced by businesswomen in the Borders, Emily McGowan realised there was more she could do to help others.

In partnership with her 18-year-old daughter, Lara, who is a second-year business studies student at the University of Edinburgh, Emily launched a social enterprise called Advancing Eve and has developed a “Female Entrepreneurial Achievement Programme” which is available to all women from the Borders who are starting their own business.

Emily said: “Starting your own business is a very intimidating prospect, for many reasons.

“For me, I was nervous about initially losing my financial independence and concerned about how I would juggle the time commitment required with being a mum to two children. Many of my female friends commented on my brave move, but most said that they could never take the risk themselves – even the ones who said they’d love to start a business.

“I quickly realised how many women would never make the jump from employee to become a potential employer. It made me feel sad for my friends and isolated as a female business owner.”

Unfortunately, Emily’s experience is not unique, with the disparity between female and male entrepreneurs in the UK quantified within The Alison Rose Review into Female Entrepreneurship (2019).

While women do not lack ambition, only one in three entrepreneurs is a female, that is the equivalent to 1.1 million missing businesses.

The pre-Covid-19 report states that the unrealised potential of female entrepreneurship to the UK economy is approximately £250 billion.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on female entrepreneurship is, as yet unknown, however, organisations like Women’s Enterprise Scotland have voiced concerns that the coronavirus outbreak could have a disproportionately negative impact on women.

Emily added: “Any female-focused initiative available at this time can only counter the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs.”

Funded by the Royal Bank of Scotland Back Her Business, the Advancing Eve programme will provide a host of support for budding Borders female entrepreneurs including training, networking, mentoring, personal development profiling, online resources and access to hot-desking.

Emily continued: “The Rose Review recognised the importance of local support and a local network for female entrepreneurs, so being able to provide our programme and deliver it directly in the region, is something we are very proud to be part of.

“We look forward to working with innovative and energetic women to launch and grow a number of businesses over the coming months.”

The Advancing Eve Entrepreneurial Achievement Programme will launch in September 2020, running until February 2021.

The programme is free to join and is open to women of all ages – email [email protected] to join.