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Festival of Female Entrepreneurs is one of Enterprise Nation’s flagship events. 2021 marks ten years of the festival and to celebrate, we are delighted to be bringing the event to Ireland for the very first time!
Hosted online for you to enjoy from the comfort of your home or office, the event is a must in your entrepreneurial calendar.
Supported by Sage Ireland & AIB, it brings together some of the Island's most influential female entrepreneurs, business leaders, and brightest start-ups, leaving you to sit back, relax, and enjoy a day of expert and practical insight on how to start and grow your business.
Festival of Female Entrepreneurs is one of Enterprise Nation’s flagship events. 2021 marks ten years of the festival and to celebrate, we are delighted to be bringing the event to Ireland for the very first time!
Hosted online for you to enjoy from the comfort of your home or office, the event is a must in your entrepreneurial calendar.
It brings together some of the Island's most influential female entrepreneurs, business leaders, and brightest start-ups, leaving you to sit back, relax, and enjoy a day of expert and practical insight on how to start and grow your business.
Agenda
10:00am – Event Opens – Networking & time to look at Exhibition stands
10:30am – Welcome & Introduction on main stage
10:40am – Sarah Ouellette shares the story of Kindora
In July 2020, Sarah Ouellette started informally working on her business idea. Fast forward a few months, Sarah was crowned Enterprise Nation's Start-up of the Year Ireland and, her Dublin-based enterprise is preparing to expand to seven locations across Europe.
11:15am – Jacinta Dempsey – The Social Network.
Jacinta founded The Social Network over 5 years ago and has built her career by empowering businesses to use the power of social media to get real business results. Jacinta also works with Enterprise Nation to deliver Boost with Facebook & She Means Business activity to entrepreneurs and small businesses across Ireland. As part of the day Jacinta will run a session on establishing your businesses presence on Facebook & Instagram.
11:45am – Louise Dunne – Lessons learned
Louise Dunne is a two time award winning entrepreneur who founded the beauty tech company Glissed that grew to become the biggest database of beauty professionals in Ireland. The company received investment from Enterprise Ireland and angel investment and partnered with one of the biggest retailers in the world -Primark. Louise is here to tell her story about the many ups and downs of start-up life- what you are not told and the many lessons learned.
12:30pm – Break at main stage
2:00pm – Panel discussion with Lorraine Greene, AIB. Pannelists include:
- Lorraine Greene (Head of SME Market Engagement, AIB):
Lorraine leads the Market Engagement team responsible for engaging with AIB's key business intermediaries and stakeholders through AIB's retail network. With almost 20 years' experience in banking, Lorraine has worked across a number of different relationship management roles and sectors predominantly in Corporate Banking, Private Banking, and Retail. Having led AIB's Women in Enterprise programme Lorraine has a passion for supporting businesses to grow through learning, collaboration and utilising networks. Lorraine is a Chartered Banker and Licentiate of the Institute of Banking and a graduate of University College Dublin.
- Fiona Craul, Sweetspot Sourcing
Fiona Craul is one of the founders of Sweetspot Sourcing, a design, manufacturing and sourcing company. Together with her business partner Susan Dempsey, they have over 30 years experience in the industry, and have particular expertise in manufacturing in the Asian and European markets. Their clients range from start-ups, brand leaders & retailers. They work across all areas of the product sourcing journey, from idea generation and design to sourcing and importing.
- Lisa Marconi Design Led:
Lisa co-founded interior design studio, Dust, which she ran with her partner for six years. It was a successful residential design studio featured regularly in the press.
In late 2019, Lisa conceived of the idea for Design Led, a platform that would digitise the interior design process and streamline the shopping process, enabling users to easily create their dream homes.
In 2020, she was accepted on New Frontiers, a six-month accelerator run by Enterprise Ireland. So in August 2020, Dust was closed and Lisa took up her place on New Frontiers and began working on Design Led full time. After a long development process to get her prototype ready, she is finally there and will be launching this to her 200 test users in September.
- Wendy Slattery, Beauty Buddy
Wendy Slattery is an award-winning businesswoman and the Co-Founder and CEO of Beauty Buddy. Her background in business development, corporate sales, retail and project management has enabled her to lead a committed team who together with strategic partners are working to deliver the vision of Beauty Buddy- to be the go-to app for all things Beauty and Cosmetic in this 800BN Industry.
As an Enterprise Ireland HPSU client, they have raised a pre-seed of €575K. Wendy also took part in New Frontiers, NDRC Portershed, DCU Female High Fliers and Google’s Adopt a Start-up.
Wendy won the AIB Women in Enterprise Award in 2019 and was a finalist in the Irish Times Innovation Awards 2020.
2:45pm – Grainne Kennedy - turning customer discovery into strategic marketing communications
Gráinne has worked as a marketing consultant at Harte Communications specialising in market research and marketing communications for over two decades, since returning to Ireland following a successful career in advertising. With a primary degree from City of London University, Gráinne is currently undertaking a Master’s in Digital Marketing at TU Dublin. As CMO at Opoplan, Gráinne’s expertise in turning customer discovery into strategic marketing communications is driving brand awareness and growing Opoplan’s customer base in the US. Gráinne lives with her husband Michael among the rolling drumlins of Co Cavan where she enjoys growing her own vegetables and is cultivating a rose garden planted during the pandemic.
3:30pm – Jenni Timmony shares her story of FitPink
Jenni has over 25 years of experience in social and commercial entrepreneurship. Her current company FitPink Athleisure specialises in activewear for women. The business is seeing rapid growth and partners with Plan International for a campaign to improve girls' lives in the developing world. Shortlisted as a national finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in 2007, she lectures extensively alongside her business. Jenni lives in Donegal with her husband and four children.
About Enterprise Nation
Enterprise Nation is an active small business network, helping thousands of people turn their good idea into a great business. Join today to get everything you need to start and grow your small business, in one place.