Pathways Forward is set to stage the inaugural Female Founders Growth Summit at the RBS Conference Centre at Gogarburn in Edinburgh on Thursday 5th September in partnership with Female Founders Rise, a UK-wide resource and community for female founders building growth businesses.
The all-day event will focus on women who are already scaling or planning to scale their businesses, enabling female founders to connect with investors from Scotland, London, and the rest of the UK, and to hear from established founders to gain learnings and insights.
Pathways Forward’s Ana Stewart said: “The Female Founders Growth Summit will be the first ever of its kind in Scotland, and we’re excited to bring so many talented women founders together alongside private, angel, and institutional investors from across the UK. Centred on growth and scaling, there will be a mix of keynote talks, breakout sessions, panels and workshops looking at areas including the types of funding available to support growth trajectories. Attendees will also get to hear first hand from women entrepreneurs who have built high value companies. This is about joining the dots for our female founders, opening doors and equipping them with the right tools to scale their businesses. At the same time, it enables investors and finance providers to engage and support these founders.”
Emmie Faust, Founder of Female Founders Rise, said: “We’re very excited to come back to Scotland and to partner with Pathways Forward for this event. It’s so important to bring female founders together to celebrate, connect and learn from each other. We’ve got an incredible line up for the day with some brilliant speakers, workshops, panels and office hours with investors. We can’t wait to get everyone together in one room for a mega day of growth!”
Speakers and panelists will include highly successful female entrepreneurs including FinnCap founder and The Secret Sauce author Sam Smith, who grew her venture capital business to over £50 million, Darina Garland, co-founder of global brand Ooni and the world’s No.1 pizza oven company, Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, Genius Foods founder and the inventor of gluten-free bread, and Carcinotech CEO and founder Ishani Malhotra, recently voted UKBAA’s Entrepreneur of the Year.
The key sponsors for the summit are Scottish National Investment Bank, RBS, Scottish Enterprise, British Business Bank, Eos, and others, while the community partners for the Summit are Dechomai and AccelerateHER. Former BBC broadcaster and Freer Consultancy associate Dr Vanessa Collingridge will be the on stage host on the day.
Over 250 attendees are expected at the Female Founders Growth Summit, and founders and investors can now purchase tickets at https://lu.ma/5gmt7ovi and for those that cannot attend live-streaming will be in place.
Last year, the Scottish Government accepted the findings of the Pathways report in their entirety, and subsequently launched a Pathways Pre-start Fund in September with 20 organisations leveraging the fund including Dechomai, Digital Boost, Egg, Elevator, and Women’s Enterprise Scotland to action initial programmes across Scotland. In May this year, Scottish Government announced further funding to support the implementation of key Pathways report recommendations.
Pathways Forward was launched in September 2023 following the publication of the Scottish Government-commissioned Pathways: A New Approach For Women in Entrepreneurship report. In February, an Advisory Group was appointed to work alongside Pathways Forward’s chair Ana Stewart to amplify and progress the recommendations outlined in the Stewart Report.
Female Founders Rise is a community of 6000 female and non-binary founders in the UK founded by Emmie Faust in Dec 2022. Founders get support with business fundamentals, getting funded, resources for growth, as well as in-person events throughout the UK. And they have recently launched a directory to find, buy from and support women-led businesses.
For more information on Female Founders Rise: https://femalefoundersrise.com/.
Purchase tickets for Female Founders Growth Summit: https://lu.ma/5gmt7ovi.
