Businesswomen encouraged to ‘Go for Growth’
THE call opened last week for ambitious female entrepreneurs from Wicklow who are looking to scale their businesses to join the latest cycle of Going for Growth, the award-winning business development programme.
Going for Growth is a six-month part-time programme, supported by Enterprise Ireland and KPMG, which assists ambitious female entrepreneurs to achieve their growth aspirations.
The programme, which is now in its 12th year, is seeking applications from female entrepreneurs – across all sectors – who are strongly focussed on growth. Ideally, businesses should be well established and trading for at least two years.
Sixty places will be available for this 12th cycle of Going for Growth, which will run from January to June 2020 and the deadline for applications is Monday, December 9. There is no charge for those selected. Anyone interested is encouraged to register their interest in receiving an application form at goingforgrowth.com.
Past participants from Wicklow include Geraldine Langan of LanganBach Services, which distributes diagnostic kits and laboratory equipment to healthcare professionals, and Alison Stroh of Dr Coy’s, which produces a collection of healthy snacks.
Geraldine and Alison urge anyone interested to apply for Going for Growth.
The Lead Entrepreneurs are successful business women with personal experience of growing a business. These high-profile business leaders volunteer their time to encourage participants to set and achieve personalised goals and milestones to address the opportunities and challenges they face in driving growth in their businesses.
Some of this year’s Lead Entrepreneurs include four previous Going for Growth participants: Dr. Anne Cusack, Critical Healthcare; Chupi Sweetman-Durney, Chupi; Claire McHugh, Axonista and Oonagh O’Hagan, owner of Meagher’s Pharmacy Group.
The other Lead Entrepreneurs are: Fidelma McGuirk, Payslip; Fiona O’Carroll, non-Executive Director; Monica Flood, formerly Olas IT and Susan Spence, SoftCo.
Julie Sinnamon, CEO Enterprise Ireland, said: ‘Supporting ambitious business women to start and to grow enterprises is a priority for Enterprise Ireland.
‘In addition to targeting a continued increase in the number of high potential start-ups led by female founders, a key focus for Enterprise Ireland is to increase the number of companies that achieve scale.
‘The Going for Growth programme provides unique supports to ambitious business women in the achievement of their growth aspirations through learning, collaboration and most importantly, through role models and mentoring.
‘We will continue to partner with Going for Growth, to grow the cohort of businesses of scale led by women, expanding their reach in global markets and creating and sustaining jobs in Ireland.’
This is the 12th year of Going for Growth and more than 660 female entrepreneurs have so far taken part in the programme.
Go to goingforgrowth.com to make an application.