Four award-winning Yorkshire businesswomen offer their services to budding female entrepreneurs

Nov 21, 2012

Four award-winning business women have teamed up to help the next generation of entrepreneurs.


Janet Bebb of Social Progress in Huddersfield, Kate Hardcastle of Insight With Passion also in Huddersfield, Claire Mitchell of Chillipeeps in Ripon and Louise Turner of Your Virtual PR in Wakefield are the only four Yorkshire business women named in the MumsClub Top 100 Business Mums.

Having been introduced to each other because of the award, the women decided to pool their skills and help future business women by offering to mentor one lucky winner or team of winners.

Today the women appealed for entries to the competition, which is open to any female over the age of 16, either individually or as part of a group. They are encouraging teams of college students as well as young mums or women with a business idea, but who are unsure of how to get the business off the ground.Janet Bebb was named number 10 in the Mums Club Top 100 Business Mums. She says: “A recent government report found that lots of young girls don’t think they could run their own business. We’re keen to bust that myth.”We got together as Yorkshire winners and decided we didn’t want to waste this opportunity. We have a wide range of complementary skills which we know we can use to help one of the next generation of business women.”It doesn’t matter if you’re at college, a stay-at-home mum, or already in a good job, if you have an idea for a business, are female and over 16, we want to hear from you. All you need to do to enter is send us 300 words describing your business idea.”Claire Mitchell invented a teat which attaches directly to cartons of baby formula milk and water bottles so parents don’t need to worry about feeding on the run. Having taken a product from concept, to manufacture, to market, she will work with the winner to develop their idea and begin to assess its commercial appeal.Kate Hardcastle works with businesses to improve results, be that through brand, buying or strategy, to help them be more profitable. She will work with the winner to challenge the concept and help identify customers and routes to market as well as beginning the thinking about brand.

Louise Turner has worked in public relations for more than a decade and will use that experience to help the winners be clear about their potential customers as well as identifying ways to target them.

Louise will team up with Janet Bebb, an expert in getting results through social media, to ensure that the plan to promote the business is integrated and uses both new and traditional media.

Entries should be sent to iwanttobe@madwomeninbusiness.co.uk by 10 December 2012.