Jomas Associates MD Roni Savage was on BBC Worklife this week as part of a new campaign to identify and celebrate female business owners in STEM (Science, Technology, Mathematics and Engineering).
Along with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and Natwest Roni is calling all female entrepreneurs and inspirational business women working in STEM to nominate themselves, and celebrate their achievements with the new Inspirational Business Women in STEM.
In 2019 the findings of the Alison Rose review of female entrepreneurship identified that women entrepreneurs are underrepresented in the most productive sectors of the UK economy. As it currently stands only 24% of STEM roles are held by women and the country has the lowest percentage of female engineers in Europe. By changing this imbalance it is anticipated that a further £250bn could be added to the economy.
Following the findings of the Alison Rose review a range of initiatives have started to be launched to start to tackle this. RBS CEO Alison Rose has put aside a £1 billion fund to help women launch their own businesses, prompted by findings in the review that businesses led by women receive less funding than those headed by men at every stage of their journey. The government has also announced an ambition to increase the number of female entrepreneurs by half by 2030, the equivalent to nearly 600,000 additional female entrepreneurs.
The review recommends that encouraging young women to study STEM subjects is key to increasing female start-up rates in those sectors, and the Inspirational Business Women in STEM will play an important role in making this happen.
Nominate Inspirational Business Women in STEM
This is an opportunity for female business owners and leaders working in STEM to be recognised for their achievements. The Inspirational Business Women in STEM event will be held on 11th March to not only celebrate the achievements of women in STEM, but to showcase them. It is an event designed to share success stories, and create role models to inspire other women and girls looking to follow a career in STEM.
Visit http://businesswomeninstem.com to enter, the closing date for nominations is 31st January 2020.
