UK Women's Enterprise Task Force Members

Membership of the UK Women's Enterprise Task Force that reports to the Minister of State for Industry and the Regions, Margaret Hodge, was anounced on Friday 2 February 2007.

Pam Alexander, Chief Executive, SEEDA (co_Chair)
Pam has been CEO of the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) since January 2004. As CEO of English Heritage from 1997 to 2001 she managed and developed their 400 historic attractions open to the public. As Deputy Chief Executive of the Housing Corporation from 1995 to 1997, Pam invested government’s £2 billion p.a. grants to housing associations. Pam worked in the Department of the Environment from 1975 to 1994. Pam is Chair of the Peabody Trust; a non-executive Director of The Housing Finance Corporation Ltd; and a Board member of Brighton Dome and Festival Ltd. SEEDA is lead RDA for science, innovation and enterprise and in November 2006 Pam was appointed co-Chair of the UK Women's Enterprise Task Force.

Web: www.seeda.co.uk

Dr Glenda Stone, Chief Executive, Aurora (co-Chair)
Glenda is founder and CEO of Aurora, a London City based company providing women-focused corporate HR software and marketing services to over 100 blue-chip clients globally. Glenda also chairs the 28,000+ member Aurora Businesswomen’s Network. In her current position as CEO of Aurora, Glenda brings together experience as a manager, entrepreneur, business angel, government policy maker, curriculum developer and teacher. She is a Director of a number of companies and has considerable operational and management experience. With a background in international trade and working in the Queensland Treasury of Australia, Glenda is experienced in both public and private sectors. Glenda co-chairs the UK Government's Women's Enterprise Taskforce that aims to increase the quantity and quality of women's enterprise in the UK. Glenda is a board member of the international charity ‘Womankind International’ that funds sustainable women’s initiatives in developing economies. Glenda chairs The Times’ Where Women Want To Work TOP 50, the BlackBerry Women & Technology Awards and sits on a number of Business Start-Ups award panels and business/technology-related committees. Glenda won BusinessWeek’s Business Vision Award in 2004, was awarded Pioneer of the Nation by HM the Queen in 2003, and won European Businesswoman of the Year’ in 2002. Glenda first started her career in the late 1980's as a teacher in the Australian outback. Glenda holds a Dip. Teach; a B.Ed; a M.Ed and an honorary doctorate from Leeds Metropolitan University.

Web: www.auroravoice.com

Sumerah Ahmad, co-Founder & MD, Club Asia Radio
Co-founders of London's favourite Asian radio station, sisters Sumerah Ahmad and Humerah Khan were presented with the Asian Woman of Achievement Award for Entrepreneur of the Year for their success with Club Asia 963 & 972AM. The award was presented by HRH The Duke of Kent and Baroness Andrews from the Department of Communities and Local Government. Launched in September 2003, Club Asia Radio defines young Asian London. Sumerah completed a Law degree from City University but realised that her vocation lay in Media so followed her creative instincts leading her to work with a number of prestigious companies in the British Film & TV Industry, working on a number of feature films and television productions. During its first year on air, Club Asia was the fastest growing commercial radio station in London, becoming a household name amongst the Asian community. The station has been instrumental in the emergence of rising new Asian music stars and it is widely recognised as the UK's leading brand in the Asian youth market. Despite no previous experience in radio broadcasting, Sumerah, a law graduate with an NVQ in Film and Video production, managed to secure a highly sought after broadcasting licence from Ofcom. This allowed Club Asia to cater for the 700,000 previously under-served young Asians around London. In 2005, the radio station was named as the Best New Business in the UK at the prestigious HSBC Start-up Awards. Sumerah has won a European Federation of Black Women Business Owners Award for Best Ethnic Corporation, the Highly Commended Business Women of the Year at the Thames Gateway Business Awards 2005, and the Credit Suisse Entrepreneur of the Year Award (South East region) award, and was listed in Management Today’s ‘Top 35 Women under 35’, Women of Steel in Business and the Daily Mail’s Asian Hot List. Sumerah sits on the Barking & Dagenham Enterprise Growth Initiative Board. Future plans include launching the Club Asia brand nationwide and further expansion into TV and film.

Web: www.clubasiaonline.com

Professor Sara Carter, Director, Entrepreneurship Centre, University of Stirling
Sara is also a Visiting Professor at the Nordland Research Institute in Norway. Globally recognised for her gender-related enterprise research, Professor Carter's interests include entrepreneurship and small firms; female entrepreneurship; rural and farm-based entrepreneurship; business growth and portfolio entrepreneurship. She has undertaken several research studies in the area of entrepreneurship funded by agencies such as the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Small Business Service, Department of Employment, Shell (UK) Ltd, Federation of Small Businesses, Scottish Enterprise, Glasgow Development Agency, ACCA, Scottish Arts Council and the National Foundation for Women Business Owners, Washington DC. Sara is Director of the three biennial research surveys of UK small business funded by the Federation of Small Business published in 2000, 2002 and 2004. Drawing responses from between 18,000 - 22,000 small business owners, these surveys are among the largest business surveys undertaken in the UK. The biennial reports are also among the most widely read business surveys in the UK, the reports having a circulation of more than 400,000. Sara managed a two year project funded by the ESRC focusing on the effect of gender on securing bank financing. She is an editor of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, one of the leading US peer-reviewed journals and a member of the editorial boards of nine peer-reviewed journals including the International Small Business Journal; the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour Research; the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business; and Journal of Asia Entrepreneurship and Sustainability. Publications include ‘Enterprise and Small Business: Principles, Practice and Policy’ (2001, 2006) and ‘Women as Entrepreneurs’ (1992) and many academic and policy papers on entrepreneurship.

Web: www.stir.ac.uk

Valerie Dwyer, Board Member, EMDA
A serial entrepreneur, Valerie is Director of her own company Lincolnshire Legends Food Company and Founder Director of Strategic Insight, the marketing, people and business development consultancy. Chair of Rushcliffe Local Strategic Partnership, Valerie is also active within Greater Nottingham Partnership (GNP) Rural Strategic Action Team, on the Board of REACT 21 and Rushcliffe Resource Efficiency Club and Past Board Member and President of Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Nottingham City Business Club as well as a Governor of Broxtowe College and Chair of the Institute of Management. She is a member of Enterprising Women and the Women Entrepreneurs Network, Purple. She is Vice Chair of the National Lottery Charities Board's Community Fund in the East Midlands. Valerie has received special recognition for her work with The Prince's Trust. Winner of a number of awards, including EMDA's first ‘East Midlands ICT Awards' for her innovative e-mobile business, Valerie is most proud of those received through work with clients, amongst them ‘Nottinghamshire Company of the Year', ‘Derbyshire Award for Business Innovation', ‘CIM Excellence in Marketing', and ‘East Midlands Competitiveness Awards'. An active volunteer in business and the community, Valerie has been an ambassador for the East Midlands, giving her time as one of 570 Business Champions across the region who act as mentors to new enterprises and provide commercial expertise to the community. In 2003 Valerie was appointed as a non-executive Director at EMDA and subsequently to the Leicestershire Learning and Skills. Valerie leads the Star Prizes: Women in Enterprise, and Renewable Energy.

Web: www.emda.org.uk

Anne Glover, Director, Amadeus Capital
Anne is co-founder and Chief Executive of Amadeus Capital Partners Limited, the management company that provides investment services to three venture capital funds, Amadeus I and II and the Amadeus Mobile Seed Fund. Anne has experience as a scientist, operating manager and venture capitalist. She is on the board of Optos, which developed a laser-based imaging device for capturing a wide-field image of the retina; and SPI Inc, which develops lasers and other optical components for use in industrial, medical, defence and aerospace industries. Anne has prior experience working in venture capital, first at Apax Partners & Co Ventures as a member of the investment team for five years, then as a business angel investing in UK-based information technology start-ups. Anne has significant operating experience, most recently at Virtuality Group plc where she was Chief Operating Officer of the virtual reality peripherals company. Anne is the immediate past chairman of the British Venture Capital Association (BVCA) that represents around 165 UK-based private equity and venture capital firms. For the past seven years, Anne has been a member of the Council that runs the BVCA and has previously held the position of vice-chairman in addition to being Chairman of the Technology Subcommittee for five years. Anne is also on the Technology Strategy Board of UK’s Department of Trade and Industry. She holds an MA in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Clare College, Cambridge and a Masters in Public and Private Management from Yale, and is both a US and UK citizen.

Web: www.amadeuscapital.com

Rotha Johnston CBE, Vice Chair, Invest Northern Ireland
Rotha is an entrepreneur in commerce and property and is Vice Chair of Invest Northern Ireland. Rotha has interests in a number of businesses engaged in property investment. Prior to this she was a shareholder and director of Variety Foods Ltd, a foodservice company supplying the Irish market that sold in 2005. She was previously a Council Member of the Northern Ireland Economic Council and a Board Member of the Labour Relations Agency and also worked in both economic development and the textiles sector. Rotha is a Director of Allied Irish Bank UK plc and a member of its Audit Committee and a member of the Northern Ireland Science Industry Panel (NISIP) and is a BBC Trustee for Northern Ireland.

Web: www.investni.com

Allison Ogden-Newton, Chief Executive, Social Enterprise London
Over the last three years Allison has built SEL into a cutting edge, social economy development agency with an international reputation for innovation with a contemporary edge. Allison's vision for SEL is to make it a sustainable social enterprise that can capacity build the third sector supported by public funding and deliver management products with commercial value to the growing social enterprise market place. Allison has a Masters in Industrial Relations from Warwick Business School, and is a Graduate of the Institute of Personnel Managers. Prior to SEL, Allison was CEO at Women’s Education in Building (WEB), a voluntary organisation that provided education and training in the construction trades. It was while at WEB that Allison became interested in social enterprise and set up building etc, to offer struggling entrepreneurs incubator office space, mentoring and access to start-up finance. Allison is an independent expert on equal pay and has experience in the labour movement including working for UCATT, the UK construction workers union and ILGWU, the American garment workers union, for whom she worked on elections across the US. Allison is Deputy Chair of the London Business Support Network and a Board member of London Remade, London Rebuilding Society, and the Social Enterprise Coalition.

Web: www.sel.org.uk

Claire O’Halloran, Partner Development Manager, Microsoft
(on behalf of Clare Barclay, Microsoft - on maternity leave)
Claire has spent twelve years in Sales, Marketing and Business Development in IT and Telecoms. For the past two years at Microsoft, Claire has applied her energy and passion to creating a vision for growth for the UK software developer (ISV) channel which has resulted in numerous best practices and awards, as well as considerable investment by MSUK in the ISV partner community. Recently Claire has pioneered initiatives around off-shore development and 'Cross Border' partner collaboration helping UK companies partner with others in SE Asia, gaining endorsement from UK Trade & Industry and foreign governments. Her work with the Emerging Business Team (that actively partners with the VC community) focuses on helping 'high potential' ISV's from the UK and Overseas and has received significant sponsorship and investment from trade agencies such as Enterprise Ireland and Investment New Zealand. Prior to Microsoft, Claire helped start-up and small businesses grow in her role as a self-employed Sales & Marketing consultant. Previously Claire managed global relationships with Siemens and Compaq at Marconi Communications following her role as Business Manager at IT Distributor, Ingram Micro. Claire began her career at IBM in Dublin as a graduate. Claire is involved with the Trestle Group Foundation that empowers women IT entrepreneurs in developing countries that saw her receive a Microsoft GM's award for Citizenship.

Official Task Force member - Clare Barclay, Head of Small Business, Microsoft
Clare was appointed Head of Small Business for Microsoft in November 2005 to develop and support the UK small business market worth some £17 billion. Amongst her responsibilities, Clare oversees Microsoft's bCentral designated small business website that provides information on the company's products and sound business advice on everything from starting a business to making pension provision for employees. Clare has worked in IT for 14 years and has been with Microsoft for 8 years, and holds a special interest in the role of technology for both women's enterprise and for education.

Web: www.microsoft.com

Ken Olisa, Founder & Chairman, Restoration Partners
Ken Olisa is founder of Restoration Partners, a boutique technology merchant bank launched in 2006. He is a Non-executive director on the Board of Reuters Group PLC since 2004, BioWisdom, Restoration Partners Limited and Open Text Corporation. Other commitments include being a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, a Freeman of the City of London, Chairman of the homelessness charity, Thames Reach Bondway and a Governor of the Peabody Trust and a Director and Trustee of Reuters Foundation. He is former Chairman (2000-2006) and CEO of Interregnum plc which he founded in 1992. He is a former Director of udate.com, Adaptive Inc, Yospace Technologies Ltd and Metapraxis and former Postal Services Commissioner. Ken has over 30 years of business experience particularly within the technology arena. He began his career at IBM in the UK in a number of systems engineering, sales and marketing roles. In 1981 he joined Wang Laboratories Inc. Following a period as Marketing Director for Europe, Vice President of US Marketing and then Worldwide Marketing, Ken was appointed Senior Vice President and General Manager of Wang Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In this role he was responsible for the sales, marketing, support, service and administration activities within 11 Wang subsidiaries and 92 distributors. Ken has a MA in Natural, Social, Political and Management Sciences from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

Web: www.restoration-partners.com

Amanda Rendle, Head of Business Marketing, HSBC Bank plc
Amanda is responsible for driving the brand and marketing strategy across the bank’s Commercial and Business sectors in the UK. She is specifically responsible for financial services marketing to companies with up to £750 million turnover er annum. Amanda began her career with Mercantile Credit before moving to the Agency side of the communications business where she worked with clients such as Whitbread, Gallaher, Van Den Burghs and Debenhams. Setting up her own company in 1994 provided Amanda with valuable insight for her current role, in what it takes to run a successful small business. Amands is a regular spokesperson to the media regarding trends and issues for women-owned business growth across the UK. Amanda leads HSBC's women's enterprise initiatives and plays an active role in the analysis and monitoring of key statistics, trends and issues in this arena.

Web: www.hsbc.com

Erika Watson, Executive Director, Prowess
Erika is founding Executive Director of Prowess, the independent association of organisations committed to the development of women’s entrepreneurial potential in the UK. Prowess has 250 members who support over 100,000 women business owners and 16,000 new women-owned business start-ups each year. Erika was previously Chief Executive of the award winning Women’s Employment, Enterprise & Training Unit where she introduced a highly regarded range of enterprise support programmes including Full Circle, the UK’s first micro credit programme. As well as her experience of starting and developing successful social enterprises, Erika has launched several commercial businesses. Her entrepreneurial career started as a young mother in her early twenties. She found working for herself incredibly liberating and an ideal way of combining work and parenthood. It is now Erika’s professional mission to ensure that all women have the opportunity to start a business if they want to and the support to grow and succeed in their own terms. Erika left school at 17 and spent her early career in broadcast journalism and PR. She has subsequently gained a first class degree in Development Studies and she is working towards an MBA. Erika was a founder Board member of the CDFA (Community Development Finance Association) and is a member of the Government’s Women’s Enterprise Task Force whose role is to increase the quantity and quality of women’s enterprise in the UK.

Web: www.prowess.org.uk

Women’s Enterprise Task Force Observers (role is or periodic support and information)
- Meenakhi Borooah, Enterprise Team, HM Treasury - Web: www.hm-treasury.gov.uk
- Jane Simmonds, Women & Work Commission - Web: www.communities.gov.uk
- Julie Kapsalis, Head of Operations, SEEDA - Web: www.seeda.co.uk
- Tracy Vegro, Director of Enterprise Strategy, SBS - Web: www.sbs.gov.uk