The first conference for women-owned businesses in science, engineering, construction and technology – Fusion – was held in Birmingham last week. Chaired by Maggie Philbin, a real champion for women in SECT, and facilitated by UKRC (the resource centre for SET gender issues – http://www.setwomenresource.org.uk/) and Prowess, it was a lively event. Dawn Gibbins, CEO and Chairman of Flowcrete, inspired and energised the audience with her success story. Since introducing Feng Shui to the business, turnover has increased by more than 30% and when you listen to Dawn’s passion and genuine enjoyment of her business, you don’t doubt that Flowcrete will continue its worldwide manufacturing success. UKRC & Prowess launched two new publications at Fusion – ‘Under the Microscope: Female entrepreneurs in SECT’ and ‘Women-Friendly Incubators and Managed Workspaces’. Both are downloadable in pdf format from: http://www.prowess.org.uk/publications.htm
The conference was also attended by three of the founding members of the Women’s Business Enterprise Council (WBEC UK) – Gwen Turner of Pfizer, Sarah Bates of New Technology Steel and Marianne Schoenig of Accenture. WBEC was announced formally on the 12th July in Birmingham – it aims to generate business partnerships between women-owned enterprises and private sector corporations. Based on a successful supplier diversity model in the US (WBENC – http://www.wbenc.org/), the UK body will be fully launched in partnership with Prowess in November. Even in the States, less than 5% of corporate and public sector procurement contracts go to women or minority-owned business and, although its difficult to uncover the stats here, the UK equivalent is probably less than 2%. Apart from Accenture, NTS and Pfizer, Bank of America and Microsoft are also founder members of WBEC UK and they’re all clear that diversifying their supplier base is about increasing their market share and shareholder value – ie its good for business and reflects their targeted markets.
These are exciting developments for the development of women’s entrepreneurship in the UK and we hope our new Government Ministers will support and assist us in ‘raising the bar’.
