This National Women’s Enterprise Day (#NWED), 18th October, Donegal’s female entrepreneurs are being urged to scale up and look beyond local markets.
Organised by Local Enterprise Office, Donegal, the business event in An Grianan Hotel in Burt is part of a nationwide celebration aiming to encourage more women to set up their own businesses and to increase national recognition.
Speakers at the Donegal event will include global expert in the business of luxury fashion, Máire Morris; award-winning designer Heidi Higgins and Fashion Enter & FTA CEO, Jenny Holloway.
Ambassador for the event will be Larissa Feeney, founder and CEO of accountantonline.ie, a fitting role given how she has grown her own business and is now working with and supplies her services to new start-ups. Larissa’s firm accountantonline.ie serves clients across Ireland and the UK and Larissa leads a team of accounting professionals who work both remotely and in offices in Dublin, Derry and Letterkenny.
A huge advocate of business entrepreneurship, Máire Morris has a career spanning two decades in the global fashion industry, working around the globe for clients ranging from emerging designers to established international brands and stockists such as Harrods and the Dubai Mall.
Jenny Holloway of Fashion Enter / FTA in London has been working in the fashion industry for over twenty-five years mostly in the private sector. She was a buyer for Littlewoods, M&S and Principles for Women before opening her own label Retro, wholesaling to major retailers such as John Lewis and exporting to key accounts in the Middle East and Europe. She now runs a successful manufacturing and training facility in North London.
Award winning designer Heidi Higgins graduated from NCAD in 2008. Just under one year later she proudly introduced her own label to the Irish market in May 2009.
According to Head of Enterprise in Donegal, Michael Tunney, while the Donegal event will use examples from the Fashion and Textile industry to highlight the benefits of going from local to global, the learning on the day will seamlessly apply across business sectors.
Mr. Tunney comments: “I am certain that the speakers lined-up for this year’s event will serve to highlight the importance for businesses here to look to look beyond a small local market.
To really achieve sustainability, businesses here need to compete on the world stage. We’re delighted to have such strong female entrepreneurs speaking in Donegal and I have no doubt that all female entrepreneurs attending will take away lots of learning from our speakers.” The Donegal event is one of 16 such events taking place across the country and are expected to attract over 1,000 women in business and female entrepreneurs nationwide.
If you are interested in attending this event all the details can be found here: www.localenterprise.ie/donegal