24 January 2023
A Wonderful Recognition
2023 kicked off in superb style for me as I was lucky enough to be named as one of the 100 female entrepreneurs in f:Entrepreneur’s #ialso100 2023 campaign!
This campaign celebrates female business owners from all over the UK and recognises and celebrates the plate spinning and many elements that female business owners juggle on a daily basis. I really love this, as I feel the one-portfolio career has somewhat diminished over the years, and a lot of women are wearing a few hats in their professional and personal life, and that needs to be applauded.
Even though ‘on the tin’ as it were, I manage events. When you dig deeper, there are so many facets to that including venue finding, budget management, commercial negotiation and staff handling. These are all skills I have acquired over the years and brought together under the Lucy Claire Events arm in order to offer a professional and diligent events service.
Alongside that, as those who follow me know, I am heavily invested in working my dogs and training them and spend a lot of time in this community. For me, this is something I have always loved and a perfect day for me is spent on beautiful heather moorland somewhere in the north of England or Scotland with my dogs. This is the best antidote to the busy events world I am in most of the time and has saved my sanity on more than one occasion!
Having balance, I have learnt, is key, and it is interesting speaking to fellow female business owners at the same stage in their journey as me, who also acknowledge that this is of growing importance. You can still be incredibly successful and manage your mental and physical health at the same time. And you should. It is so imperative to have balance and forget the gung-ho attitude that a lot of us had in our youth in terms of working constantly.
I am genuinely so excited to meet my fellow 99 f:Entrepreneurs that made the #ialso100 2023 list! Having read about them, I am in awe of their stories and achievements and I am so excited we will be lucky enough to go for afternoon tea at the House of Lords on International Women’s Day to raise a glass to this incredible achievement.
It is not lost on me that women start their own businesses for many reasons, and so many of those reasons are not positive: the lack of childcare support, the lack of flexibility given by employers to women returning to work after having children, accessibility needs not being met, lack of support for mental and physical health needs. I could go on. These are all the catalysts for women to start their own business and to be in charge of their own time and needs.
To do this takes enormous guts and I feel there is no one more powerful than a woman on a mission to succeed. So, I salute all of the incredible female business owners out there and I am so very proud to be among you.