News: Rotherham leads the way with entrepreneurial women

Women in Rotherham are pushing against the national trend, demonstrating that they have entrepreneurial flair. According to the Annual Survey of Small Businesses, carried out by BERR only 14% of businesses across the UK are women-led with no obvious sign of any uplift. But statistics from RiDO, the council’s regeneration arm, highlight that 16% of companies operating from RiDO-run business centres have females at the helm and during the last eight weeks there has been an increasing number of enquiries from women. The manager of the centres, Amanda Parris, said: "We have a wealth of talented entrepreneurs in Rotherham across a broad spectrum of business disciplines from accountancy and law practices to design, IT and consumer product companies, for example. It’s rewarding to see that the percentage of women-led operations is above the national average.” Julie Kenny set up Pyronix in Rotherham, now one of the world’s top suppliers of electronic security equipment, and is also an adviser to the Government. She said: “If you have a strong business idea, then there should be nothing stopping you driving it forward. There certainly are more talented women out there with the necessary skills; they just need to get the right advice and give it a go.”
RiDO website
Working Woman article

Rotherham