Last Friday, M-SParc were proud to have a full house for the Women in Business event. Several M-SParc tenants – and Anglesey-based companies, all owned by women, shared their entrepreneurship journey to a room of students, business owners, and other female founders from the region.
The keynote speaker for this event was Virginia Crosbie, the local MP for Anglesey. Virginia said “I’m especially proud to be able to co-host such an innovative event at M-SParc and to shine a light on some of the amazing women who are running their own businesses on the island.”
The majority of businesses in the UK are founded by men, and less than 4% of Angel investments in the UK go to female-founded businesses, so we were proud to have Anna Roberts from Explorage as part of the speakers. Anna recently gained Angel funding for her company, which focuses on self-storage with a rapidly expanding team.
Other speakers included Dr Stef Williams from Aerial Worx who owns a drone filming company located at M-SParc, whose accolades include filming James Bond, and the recent popular series Happy Valley. Additionally, we had Stacey Chadfield, proud business owner of Emberwood Creative and Sioned Young one of the winners of our Welsh Language Hack, with her Welsh gif business; Mwydro.
M-SParc’s very own Gwenllian Owen, Commercialisation & Innovation Officer, organised and hosted this fantastic event, with our Low Carbon Innovation Manager, Dr Debbie Jones, speaking at the event about her career path. Dr Jones said “It was great to be in a room full of female entrepreneurs and it was so inspirational seeing what they have been doing, and the confidence they all have in themselves. I am pleased have been part of such a wonderful event.”
Gwenllian who is an entrepreneur in her own right as well as an M-SParc employee, acknowledges the continued need for such events. “Listening to all our speakers was truly inspirational and it was great to feel the energy in the room during the session! According to the house of commons library, in 2021, 78% of reporting employers stated that median hourly pay was higher for men than for women in their organisation. Even two years on from this report this is an issue, one that we ourselves reported at M-SParc in 2019. We hope to see this change in our 2023 survey and will continue to work to support those who identify as women, and close this gap. Diversity in business ultimately leads to better innovation, and we all benefit from that!”
“Personally, it was a great opportunity to meet like-minded women and to engage with them on a one-to-one and I’m looking forward to seeing our businesses grow and work together in the future.” Says Stef from Aerial Worx.
Anyone is welcome to attend M-SParc events to be inspired and learn more about local innovation. Find out more here!
