The Regional Women in Business Network 2016 which took place on April 21st at Bunratty Castle Hotel was organised by Local Enterprise Office Cork North & West, Clare, Limerick, Kerry & Tipperary. The event provided a backdrop for women in business to gather and network, share their own experiences peer to peer, learn new skill sets and receive advice about key aspects of business from experienced guest speakers and network facilitators.
Julie Currid, Initiafy
Head of Local Enterprise Clare, Padraic McElwee opened the event: “This is a good place to do business. Just go for it - start up a business, work hard and get results”. Events like this are organised to support businesswomen in the region in their endeavours and create an opportunity to learn new skills, bring them to practice and explore collaborative business opportunities. Topics covered during the event ranged from how to sell, to developing a PR Strategy and creating awareness and perfect pitching.
Leading advisor on reputation management and crisis handling to corporations, Governments and individuals - Terry Prone- spoke about the development of a PR Strategy that will create awareness of a business in the public arena. She explained the key elements of developing and implementing a successful PR strategy.
The second speaker of the day Catherine Moonan, Managing Director of “Communication Matters” introduced everyone to the art of the “Perfect Pitching”. During the breakout session facilitated by Catherine attendees put their skills into practice and made their 60 second business pitches. Guest speaker Julie Currid, a Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of “Initiafy”, currently employing 25 people across three offices in Dublin, New York and Toronto, discussed international business opportunities and focused on selling techniques and building a sales process. She spoke about different sales approaches and different selling methods. She underlined the importance of market research with particular attention on lead generation.
A panel discussion took place in the afternoon and featured five inspirational entrepreneurs from the region, including Maura Hunter of “MH Designs LTD”, Mallow. Maura founded the nationally renowned MH Designs Ltd. over 25 years ago. Expanding through networking and training from the LEO Cork North & West, MH Designs is now an established business and has been featured on RTE 1's At Your Service with the distinguished John and Francis Brennan. The panel also featured Karen Pleass from“Swinky Doo”, Maura Kearney from “Kearney's Homebaking”, Irish Fashion Designer Marion Murphy Cooney and Maeve Sheridan from “Western Herd Brewing Company”. The brainstorming forum highlighted key areas for the future in helping women to start, build, develop and grow their businesses. Plenty of valuable advice was given during the discussion.
Key note speaker Isolde Johnson, Co-Founder of “The Cool Bean Company” presented “The Story of Cool Beans”, an exciting, agile and innovative new Food Start Up which has been awarded Silver at the Blas na hEireann Awards and Best Ready Meal at the Quality Food. She spoke about “Most of our ideas are from our customers,” said Isolde during the presentation, highlighting the importance of the research in developing the product and developing the business.
“Today's event has been really useful and informative. It is great hearing of what's happening out there within different industries. And peer to peer networking is really worthwhile,” said Edwina Gore from Gore Communications who attended the event. Women in business who attended the event enjoyed the motivational and educational talks, workshops and networking opportunities during the event. There are amazing business opportunities available in the region.
Joan Kelleher from the Local Enterprise Office Cork North & West said “ It is our intention to continue and support Women In Business Networks the best way we can. If research indicates that female specific initiatives will help us to help business grow then we will provide female specific initiatives. We will also continue to run a full range of training programmes for both men and women so we believe that we are providing a range of supports that will suit everyone’s requirements.
Further information about the future events available online at www.localenterprise.ie/corknorthandwest
LEO staff members and Terry Prone
