Entrepreneurial role models
The UKRC has built up a number of profiles of successful women entrepreneurs whose stories will inspire and motivate you. All the women below are innovators and inventors in science, engineering, technology and the built environment (SET) who run their own businesses.
GetSET Women - the UKRC's online community of women in SET – also has great female role models. It's free to join and search, and you get a monthly enewsletter with jobs, events, opportunities and other news.
- Allison Wylde has set up a range of companies including a company which is tracking the changes taking place in the security sector and a charity motorbike project for youths at risk of offending
- Liza Brooks is co-founder of True Snowboards, the biggest snowboarding company in the UK
- Melanie Smallman runs Think-Lab, a science communications agency
- Kate Ho has launched a software design consultancy for multi-touch devices - Interface3
- Mandy Reynolds is an electrician who runs her own company, Mandmade
Liza Brooks, co-founder of True Snowboards explains how she came to set up her own business:
"I’m dyslexic, which affects my attention span as well as other things. Then my teacher suggested I follow my interests and look at snowboarding – the vibration and frequencies of snow and their implications for snowboard design."
"I was 22 and I had no money. I looked for sponsorship without luck, then someone got in touch and said, ‘start your own business’. We lauched in 2006, and I am now running the biggest snowboarding company in the UK."
