Enterprising Women

Dublin City Enterprise Board is actively encouraging women to start up businesses through our Women Starting Your Own Business Programme and grow and develop their business through the Dublin City Enterprise Network for Women. The Dublin City Female Entrepreneur Award recognises and rewards success and the contribution that female Entrepreneurs make to the Irish economy. The online discussion forum gives you access to nationwide peer advice and support.

Jo Fairley - 

In 1991, Jo Fairley co-founded the pioneering organic chocolate company Green & Black’s (with her husband Craig Sams), which has now gone on to be ‘bigger than Marmite’ (in sales terms) and ‘cooler than Prada’ (according to two Coolbrands surveys.  In 2005, the brand was sold to Cadbury’s, but Jo remains in an ambassadorial role, travelling the world as the brand grows internationally in countries including the US and Australia.  In 2008 Jo and her husband Craig Sams collaborated on Sweet Dreams:  The Story of Green & Black’s (Random House). 

Jo now runs Judges Bakery - an organic one-stop shop - and The Wellington Centre, an 11-room ‘boutique’ wellbeing centre, in her home town of Hastings.  She continues to juggle this with her writing career:  although she left school at 16 (with six ‘O’ Levels), by the age of 23 Jo was the youngest-ever magazine editor in the UK, editing first Look Now and then Honey Magazine.  She is a Contributing Editor to the Mail on Sunday’s YOU Magazine, as well as to a very wide range of publications including the forthcoming National Geographic Green.

She is the co-author (with Sarah Stacey) of the bestselling Beauty Bible series of books, the world’s bestselling beauty books, including:  The Beauty Bible, Feel Fab Forever:  The Anti-Ageing Health & Beauty Bible, The 21st Century Beauty Bible, The Handbag Beauty Bible and most recently The Green Beauty Bible, which combines her ‘green’ expertise with her insights into the beauty world.  She is also author of The Ultimate Natural Beauty Book (all these books published by Kyle Cathie).  Jo and Sarah’s website, www.beautybible.com, is among the most successful beauty websites in the UK, with 55,000 subscribers.

For eight years Jo chaired the Soil Association’s Health Products Standards Committee, helping to set the standards for organic and natural bodycare in the UK.  She is a ‘matron’ of the Women’s Environmental Network, runs makeover workshops for young women at Centrepoint and sits on the Human Rights Watch Film Festival committee.

Alison Bell, Rising Star 2008, www.spa-ireland.com Read more	Mary Ryan, Female Entrepreneur Winner 2008, Product Innovator, http://www.productinnovator.com Read more

• Dublin City Enterprise Network for Women Networking 
• Women Starting Your Own Business Start Your Own Business Programme
• IrishBusinessWomen.com Forum online discussion & support website with women from all over Ireland .Sign up now for free. 
• Women Mean Business  WMB gives its readers a platform to reflect, collaborate, connect and gain knowledge from one another 
• National Womens Enterprise Day  will place on 20th November 2009 in the Mullingar Park Hotel. The 35 County & City Enterprise Boards are involved in the initiative and other enterprise support agencies.

Photo L-R: Joan Bree, Cush 'n Shade Winner of the Dublin City Female Entrepreneur Award 2007, Eibhlin Curley, Assistant CEO of Dublin City Enterprise Board and Jennylynd James, Caribbean Enterprises Winner of the Rising Star Award 2007

Statistics on Women Entrepreneurs

•  Men are 2.5 times more likely to be active as an early stage entrepreneur than women.
• One in ten Irish men and one in twenty four Irish women are early stage entrepreneurs.
• Only four out of ten women believe that they have the knowledge and skills to start a business.
• Women are less active across all age categories, across all income categories, whether they are employed full time or part time and across all education categories bar one. (Women with post graduate qualifications have the same rate of early stage entrepreneurial activity as men).
• Irish women are less likely to have a recent entrepreneurial role model.
• Irish women are less likely to believe they have the skills and knowledge required to start a business.
• Women are similar to male entrepreneurs in terms of age at start up and education levels.
• A higher percentage of women entrepreneurs come from part time employment or from a ‘homemaker’ role.
• GEM has reported a difference in rates of entrepreneurship between Irish males and females every year for the past five years.
• As income rates increase for men, rates of entrepreneurship also increase. This is not the case for women.