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Interview with a Multi-Tasking Female Investor, Entrepreneur and Mentor
As a business hero in her own right, she founded two companies and sold one, she invested in four other companies, she is non-executive director in various companies, such as Six to Start and First Flight (Placements); she has been managing director of the company that acquired her venture, and she had an interim COO role with Ariadne Capital of female internet hero Julie Meyer.
Jo Goodson is the real multitasking business women and mentor in The NextWomen mentoring programme.
In this interview, she talks about the various roles, the business plan she sees, the companies she advises, about the support of Business Link, and also about women looking for funding for their business and women investing in startups.
In general, I feel that where possible, it is good to create as much value in the business as possible before looking for external investment otherwise as the entrepreneur you end up giving away a huge chunk of the equity at the outset.
Entrepreneur, Non-Executive Director, Consultant, Investor, MD, Interim Manager… You have had many roles, what are the pro’s and con’s for each role?
I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the roles I have had and they have suited different stages in my life. When I ran Broderbund’s European Sales and set up MediaGold I was so driven to build those businesses and enjoyed the long hours and extensive travel.
Now, whilst there are some frustrations in the Non-Executive, mentoring and Investor/Advisory roles that you are not totally in the driving seat, the compensation for that is that it is easier to step back and find a work/life balance whilst still contributing to the growth and success of other businesses.
Although they appear very different roles, my approach for each of them has always been the same ….I have always become really actively involved in the companies I am working for and tried to pull everyone in the same direction…..
What always amazes me is how similar companies are when you get below the surface. They may be offering very different services, making or selling different things but the fundamental business principles are the same.
And what is your best skill?
I think if I had to choose one skill in the role I find myself in today, it would be my ability to cross the boundary from detail to strategy easily.
It is easy to get carried away with strategy or bogged down in detail (particularly in the finances) but the key is balancing these and helping the management teams of the companies I work with to do the same.
How do you work as an Investor?
Often, but not always, as an Investor, I will take a Non-Executive or Advisory role in the investee company so that I am able to manage my investment a little more closely and give help where required.
How many business plan do you see, and what are the criteria to invest for you? Read more
Saska Graville from Red Magazine Advises Female Business Owners on a Successful PR Pitch
For the 10th Kitchen Dinner, The NextWomen received Saska Graville, deputy editor of Red Magazine as the special guest of The NextWomen Summer Kitchen Dinner. The 25 women who were gathered for this intimate and relaxed networking include many business founders and directors. Indeed, 76.5% of them own or lead a company.
As the attendees arrived and prosecco and canapés were served, each person had to introduce herself to the rest of the group and this showed that once again, The NextWomen Kitchen Dinner received a group of very inspiring business women.
Editors Career Path: via Sydney, Newspapers and Redundancy back to the UK
After the starter, the set of ambitious women had the honour to receive a keynote from Saska Graville, deputy editor of Red Magazine, launched in 1998 for “women growing out without growing old” and which is followed by 225 000 readers monthly. Red Magazine has currently a UK and a Dutch issue.
Saska gave an overview of her magazine oriented career before joining Red Magazine. At the end of her 20s, Saska moved to Sydney. She was hired at the New Woman magazine where she shortly had to be made redundant as the magazine had to be sold.
In her today’s opinion, she couldn’t agree more with what one of her managers told her:
“Everyone has to be made redundant at least once in their career”.
This led her to work for one of Australia’s best selling newspapers Sydney Morning Herald but with her magazine background, little was expected of her. However, she managed to give a touch of lifestyle to the newspaper that actually turned into a surprising success.
Red Magazine: Proud of “Grown-up” Work Experience and – finally- ONLINE
Before she turned 40, she decided to come back to the UK as media is quite a “young” industry and that is when she joined Red magazine. With a lot of competition from other woman’s lifestyle magazine, Red managed to grow rapidly by reflecting the reader’s thoughts and responding to the audience’s needs. Today, Red Magazine is expanding its brand through its Red Hot Women Awards, “Grown-up” Work Experience, Red Direct and – as one of the last print magazines- by going online.
Business Matching and Business Issues of Female Business Women Read more
Aspiring Female Entrepreneurs Discuss Leadership in Edinburgh
Fiona Murray - photo by Jonathan Littlejohn M.A.
Earlier this month The NextWomen was invited to the “New Approaches to Leadership for Aspiring Female Entrepreneurs” workshop by Informatic Ventures where female founders from Scotland and across Europe discussed entrepreneurship. The over 50 women attending proved nothing but leadership and innovation in each of their man-dominated fields of technology, yet took the opportunity to discuss new approaches with experts from the MIT Sloan School of Management and each other.
Women and Leadership - Questioning and Understanding Statistics
The one-day programme was led by professors Fiona Murray, Laura Barker Morse and Glenda Burkhart who showed amazing talent in triggering constructive group discussions – from behaviour profiles to case studies and group exercises, always trying to evaluate whether women’s leadership approaches could be generalised as such, and how they could be improved.
The agenda included very interesting discussions around the latest statistics from the Kauffman Foundation about Women in leadership roles. Why are there not more women in boards? Male environments versus executive talent pipelines. Do women not get invited to leadership roles or do they turn them down? Although most people in the room agreed to never have heard of women turning down offers to leadership and board roles. How can we accelerate women access to VC funding? Women often focus on realistic return forecasts on investment and don’t always look as appealing as their male counterparts. Are there enough female investors? Not statistically speaking, and that may impactwomen’s access to funding. Why do women founders tend to lead smaller teams? For various reasons, but is that really a problem or can it be an advantage?
Female Internet Hero Dawn Airey brings Industry Experience to Lovefilm
“I’ve become a big fan of Dawn as she is very witty and insightful.” (k-ideas)
Dawn Airey (Flickr/k-ideasCC)
Techcrunch Europe reports an appointment of a female internet hero at one of the fast growing internet startups.
“Lovefilm, the pan-European home entertainment subscription service, has announced the appointment of Dawn Airey as a non executive director. Airey is regarded as one of the UK media industry’s most influential figures, holding key roles at a number of major broadcasters including BSkyB, iTV, and Five where she is currently Chairman and Chief Executive.
Notably, Airey was the first female Chief Executive of a UK commercial TV station. She also sits on the management board of the pan-European media group RTL, Five’s parent company, and is a member of the board of the British Library and a Trustee of The Media Trust. Read more
New Blond Computer Engineer Barbie speaks out: Girls should Consider a Career in Computing
The NextWomen was approached with a rather peculiar press release about a speaking Barbie…
In anticipation of her arrival to the UK in 2011, new Computer Engineer Barbie has spoken exclusively to the UKRC, the government’s lead organisation for the advancement of gender equality in science, engineering and technology. In a candid, online interview set to go live on 26th May, Barbie talks about her new career and why she feels other girls should consider a career in computing.
Computer Engineer Barbie is part of the Barbie I Can Be range, which features a collection of aspirational digital career dolls that come with a unique code that allows girls to try out different careers online. The new role was decided by a public vote on the Barbie.com website, which went viral amongst female engineers and other women in the tech industry, and saw Computer Engineer Barbie winning the popular vote.
Barbie designers then worked closely with the Society of Women Engineers and The National Academy of Engineering in the US to ensure that Computer Engineer Barbie met the standards of her title.
Barbie and her dual monitor set-up with laptop (pink) running Linux, geeky binary t-shirt, smartphone, Bluetooth headset and of course, glasses, will be on sale in the US end 2010 and in the UK in 2011.
Interview: Inspiration to Girls
Joining a long line of high profile scientists, engineers and technologists who have already shared their experiences and advice on the UKRC’s blog, Barbie – who has undertaken over 125 careers over the past 50 years – has taken part in a one-off interview where she reflects on her careers to date. She also reveals how she hopes to inspire a new generation of girls to consider a career in computing – a sector in which females currently make up only 14% of the workforce.
Reflecting on her new career, Barbie comments: “By becoming a computer engineer, I hope to inspire a new generation of girls to explore this exciting industry, where you can play your part in solving some of the world’s most important challenges. With support from organisations such as the UKRC, I truly believe that we can inspire more girls to consider computing as a career choice.” Read more
A Dominant Management Style is a Major Turn-Off (i.e. Lord Sugar You’re Out..)
Lord Sugar (too Dominant)
Half of the UK workforce thinks the dominant management style within their organisation is negative, putting the UK’s economic recovery at risk. The finding comes from figures published today by CMI (Chartered Management Institute).
A new survey of the workforce (5,000 adults surveyed by One Poll) highlights the three most common management styles within UK workplaces as authoritarian (according to 21 per cent), bureaucratic (16 per cent) and secretive (12.5 per cent). Only 10 per cent describe their bosses as accessible and just seven per cent think senior staff within their organisation are empowering.
A fifth of those surveyed said the traditional stereotypical ‘suited and booted’ view of managers is a major turn-off, while celebrity TV managers, including Lord Alan Sugar and X-Factor’s Simon Cowell, are seen as off-putting by a further 12 per cent.
To encourage UK managers to consider their strengths and weaknesses, as well as how they come across to colleagues, CMI has launched a unique online application. By visiting www.comparethemanager.com and answering 12 quick-fire questions, Read more
Launch Interview: Motivating Mums Launches their Mumpreneur Mentor Scheme
Clare Oliver, Laura Tenison and Alli Price
After mumsnet hosted live webchats last month with Gordon Brown and David Cameron, it is believed that the site can greatly improve people’s participation in politics. So it seems the Prime Minister has recognised the rising power of geek mums as they work together in communities for the greater business good, and just looking at the wealth of support coming from, and going to mums on the net, he is spot on.
Today Alli Price, Founder of Motivating Mum, launches the Motivating Mum Mentor Scheme for businessmums. Aimed to prevent the reinvention of the wheel, the scheme is amazingly cost effective and has some high-profile mentors already signed up, including Laura Tenison of JoJo Maman Bebe. Here, Alli Price talks to The NextWomen about the potential isolation when starting a business on your own, the importance of mentoring in the 21st century and how people should learn to ask for what they want.
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Tell us about yourself – your background and education
I have a Bachelor of Business in Hotel Management and Catering and initially worked in the marketing department of a 4* hotel in Melbourne, working my way up to Marketing Manager. After a few years, I returned to school to study Film and TV and then worked as a Production Manager in a Production Office, also in Melbourne, making TV commercials, corporate videos and pilots.
After years of talking about wanting to travel, I finally left in 1998 aged 28 for a trip to Sweden to edit a film for a friend. The film didn’t work out but the backpacking bug had well and truly bitten and five years later I had been to much of Western Europe, America, India, Nepal, Fiji, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Slovenia and Poland. Although I had worked a lot in the corporate sector, I realised that I was only truly fulfilled when helping people so trained to be a life coach. I completed my training at the same time as giving birth to my daughter and launched Motivating Mum.
What is Motivating mum? When did you launch and what are your objectives for the next three years?
Initially, Motivating Mum was a coaching service for mums, whatever stage of pregnancy, launched in 2006. However, running a business from home, coupled with looking after my daughter full-time quickly revealed how lonely and isolating it can be, being a Mumpreneur. In the belief there must be other mums out there like me, I launched the Businessmums’ Networking Lunch, a chance for mums to get out of the house, network and rest assured they weren’t the only crazy ones. The first lunch attracted 45 mums!
Following three years of mixing with Businessmums, I recently relaunched my service as a website offering support and advice to Mumpreneurs. The site consists of mentoring with established businessmums, a forum, articles and features and details of events now being held across London.
My objectives for the next three years are to provide Mumpreneurs with a service tailored uniquely to them. This includes providing mentoring and events for an exceptionally good price (as mums in business traditionally don’t have a lot of disposable income), having events offered across the UK (as although online support is great, it doesn’t combat the isolation), developing the forum to a point where mums can connect, network and help each other succeed and have each and every visitor to the site or an event walk away with whatever it is they need: a connection, information, inspiration. Lastly, it is to always be accessible. My pet hate is trying to contact businesspeople and their websites offer plenty for you to buy, but no details for contact.
What is your business model and how do you differ from your competitors?
My business model is to help Mumpreneurs. Everything I have done to date has been a case of trying to help fill a need or offer a service and I have had success with this approach as a result. I feel I differ from my competitors in that I always try to maintain approachability no matter how busy I get, I don’t charge membership fees for my services and I encourage face-to-face meetings in addition to online connections. I like to feel that my site is set up to offer support and advice, first and foremost, not to simply make as much money from people while I sleep.
What were your start-up costs and how were they funded?
My start-up costs were minimal as I only needed a website and business cards. The re-launch of my site and other investments have all been funded through money raised by the business. I am lucky in that the most expensive thing required of me for the success of my business was my time.
You are about to launch your Motivating Mum mentor scheme for businessmums and already have some great names onboard like Laura Tenison of JoJo Maman Bebe. How important do think mentoring is in the 21st century and how have you secured your mentors? Read more
Female Internet Hero: Audio Interview with Caterina Fake of Hunch and Flickr
As part of our Female Internet Heroes series, and in conjunction with NCWIT (the National Center for Women & Information Technology), The NextWomen are publishing audio interviews highlighting a diverse group of women innovators from small companies, larger corporations, and non-profits, whose ideas and products are changing the way we think, work, play, and communicate. Listen as these women discuss how they first became involved with tech, why they chose to be entrepreneurs and what advice they would give to young people interested in IT or entrepreneurship.
Caterina Fake, Co-Founder of Hunch and Flickr and TNW Female Internet Hero
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Listen to the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Interview with Caterina Fake. |
Caterina Fake
Caterina Fake is a NextWomen Female Internet Hero and co-founder of Flickr, the popular photo-sharing site that helped transform the web into the participatory environment it is today. Flickr was launched early 2004, but Caterina’s love affair with the net and web development started as early as 1994 when she worked as an art director at Salon.com and on the development of online communities, social networks and personal publishing.
Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Fake graduated from Vassar College in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. In 2001 she cofounded Ludicorp which in 2004 launched Flickr, later acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. While there, she worked on MyWeb and Yahoo! Answers and ran Yahoo’s Technology Development group, known for its Hack Yahoo! program, designed to stimulate innovation and creativity, and Brickhouse, a rapid development environment for new products.
In March 2009 her new company, Hunch.com which helps people make decisions and Read more
Entrepreneurial Technology Women in Italy
cc: flickr womentech
At the end of 2009 more than 1500 people attended and viewed online, the second ‘Women and Technologies 2008-2015′ conference, hosted by the Milano Chamber of Commerce. Men and women, all who work and live with a focus on skills, merit and diversity, came together as ‘bringers of a vision’ to make original contributions to technological innovation and societal development eliminating issues of gender.
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Girls on the continent continue to obtain excellent exam results across the board and yet although female involvement in ICT business remained static during the economic downtrun, there are still few women in permanent techno-scientific professions:
‘There are more than 31, 300 enterprises run by women in the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector in Italy. 3 out of 5 are in the Informatics sector, while 1 out of 5 is engaged in creating and/or repairing machines and equipment. Moreover, female businesses in ICT have been remaining in stable positions in the last year, in spite of the global economic crisis.’ Read more
Founder of Talk to the Press, Natasha Courtenay-Smith, Tells the Incredible Stories of Ordinary People
Natasha Courtenay-Smith founded features agency, Talk to the Press in 2008 after she realised that many ordinary people have incredible stories to share but do not know how to go about getting them published in the press. Since the agency launched, it has placed 300 articles in the media and helped many people talk publicly about their experiences; the majority of which have reached them through their website.
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Giving People a Voice
Talk to the Press act as a publicity agent for their clients, helping them navigate the complex world of media. Last year, they were approached by the mother of Kara Hoyte, a young woman who helped make legal history after her ex-boyfriend tried to murder her. Kara’s testimony helped convict him for a murder he had committed years earlier. The family was being bombarded by the press, but after approaching Talk to the Press, newspaper and magazine deals were arranged that allowed Kara to tell her side of the story in her own time.
Winner of the 2009 Women in Business award at the Startups Awards
Natasha at the Startups Awards (cc: Startups Awards)
In November of last year, Natasha won the hotly contended Women in Business award at the Start Ups Awards. The judges were unanimous in their decision and praised her business as being “innovative”. Not content with running one successful business, Natasha, a former Daily Mail journalist, also runs Case Study Link, an online service that connects commissioning editors looking for case studies, with experienced freelance journalists and agencies who can supply them.
From Biology and Psychology to Journalism
Natasha studied biology and psychology at the University of Sussex but after graduating was unsure what career she wanted to pursue. She had always been an avid fan of magazines and decided to pursue a job writing for one of her favourite publications. After numerous internships at various publications she was offered a job as an editorial assistant on Health & Fitness magazine. Her ability to write to tight deadlines meant she was soon producing features for the magazine.
Natasha went on to write for the Sunday Times in New Zealand and Shine magazine back in the UK, before joining the Daily Mail in 2001 as a feature writer after which she eventually went freelance.
Cutting Edge Documentary Read more
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