Báirbre wins business pitch competition
A SLIGO woman has won an online business pitch competition held last week as part of a programme which aims to fast track female-led businesses based in the west and northwest.
Twenty women from across the west and north-west took part in the Dragon’s Den style event marking the completion of the first Empower Start II programme, which is delivered through the iHubs in the Connacht-Ulster Alliance (CUA) of IT Sligo, GMIT and Letterkenny IT.
Báirbre Meehan from Calry was declared the overall winner of the virtual contest.
Her start up business, PAUSE, is aimed at delivering measurable mental wellbeing improvements for large organisations.
Báirbre is a qualified and accredited business and executive coach and has coached extensively for 10 years.
She is currently coaching senior executives and runs leadership coaching programmes in Ireland and the US.
Báirbre has significant experience in leadership, people management, deal brokering, as well as boardroom and head office dynamics.
Her career has encompassed financial services, banking and manufacturing sectors, where she has held a number of senior management roles in multi-national organisations. In last week's event each of the women had a five-minute pitch on their business concept to the judging panel which comprised of Gillian Buckley (Western Deveopment Commission), Mary Ryan (WestBIC) and Liam Kiely (Sligo Local Enterprise Office).
They faced a virtual audience which included representatives from the European Social Fund, the Department of Justice and Equality, Enterprise Ireland, the Local Enterprise Offices, the CUA and the GMIT. The event was sponsored by the Western Development Commission and was opened by the President of GMIT Dr Orla Flynn.
The Empower programme is run by the GMIT Innovation Hubs and aims to fast track female-led businesses based in the west and north-west by offering free training, mentoring, support and peer to peer learning.
Nine established female entrepreneurs joined the group as guest speakers to share their stories of their entrepreneurship journey and a Best Guest Speaker Award was won by Kelly Hoey, author of the book Build Your Dream Network, from New York City. Empower programme manager Sandra Divilly Nolan said that the Empower pitch competition prepares new entrepreneurs to “articulate their business purpose and vision, develop their communication skills and build their self-confidence”. “The enormous response to the Empower programme highlights the thriving culture of female entrepreneurship in the region as over 130 women applied for the 20 places on this year’s Empower Start programme. “Overall, during 2020, there was an increase of 118% on applications for the programmes.”
She thanked the Department of Justice and Equality and the ESF for their support, and also the Local Enterprise Offices who have offered mentoring to the participants, as well as the event sponsors the Western Development Commission.
Tomás Ó Síocháin, CEO of the Western Development Commission, said they were delighted to support the Empower programme.
“Recent research from the WDC indicates that women and young women in particular have been disproportionately impacted by Covid, and the Empower programme is both a timely initiative in supporting women to return to the workplace and an opportunity to bring new ideas to life across the region.”
The next recruitment for the Empower start 2021-2022 will be in September 2021. Applications will open in March for the next Empower growth programme. Anyone interested should contact the Empower team at empower@gmit.ie and for further information visit the website www.empowerher.ie.
All females who are interested, whether they are setting up or established in business, are invited to get involved with the Empower Community through the Empower social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.