Celebrating International Women’s Day
Tuesday, 8th March 2022, marked the 41st International Women’s Day. Since it was originally named International Working Women’s Day, we believe that it is imperative to recognise the importance of women in the business world. As a leading corporate finance boutique, we have worked with hundreds of professional women and are delighted to see the increase of women in powerful positions within the workplace.
To celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day, we partnered up with She Almighty and Home Grown to host an event that was centred around connecting aspirational and inspirational women, mission-led leaders and founders – to share their stories, challenges and experiences. Our aim was to allow for a space where we could discuss how we can raise one another, break the bias to further gender equality and help people and planet whilst doing so. The event also featured a particular focus on female entrepreneurial leaders who have been through the process of growing their own business, raising funds for their business, or had sold a business.
Host Mikaela Jackson, award-winning coach and founder of She Almighty, was joined by four female entrepreneurs, two of which Bluebox has helped on their respective business journeys, to discuss their stories, challenges, and experiences. Kate Bell, Ariana Alexander-Sefre, Angel Noorbakhsh Ashman and Georgia Metcalfe highlighted their experiences as female-founders and mission-led leaders and shared the advice they would give to their younger selves. They also discussed how they had led, run their own, raised capital or sold a business and the challenges faced along the way and how they overcame these. An interesting recommendation from the event was to read the book ‘The Defining Decade: Why your Twenties matter and how to make the most of them now’ by Dr. Meg Jay.
It was fantastic to see so many women gathered in one room to listen to our speakers. As a private member’s club that provides entrepreneurial pioneers with unique resources to unlock their true value of their business potential, Home Grown was the perfect space for the panelists to intimately share their stories. The event was also a great opportunity to professionally connect with other women and reflect upon our own personal and professional journeys to date. All proceeds from the event went to support girls, women and worthy causes worldwide through B1G1. B1G1 is an inspirational organisation that helps businesses to give back in meaningful ways and have worked with over 3,000 businesses around the world, creating over 270 million giving impacts to date. Here is a summary of the B1G1 contribution we were able to make via our proceeds:
- 300 dollars to provide emergency relief support in Ukraine
- 20 days of support for a survivor of sexual abuse through performing arts
- 30 days of support for local women ‘PeaceMakers’ to prevent domestic violence
- 7 days of empowerment for women leaders
- 1,000 social media awareness to women at risk of domestic violence
- 20 days of education for girls in Kinshasa
- 100 days of vocational training
- 7 days of business training program to women in Zambia
- 20 days of access to health awareness sessions
- 30 days of access to training sessions for young parents
A key takeaway from the event is that you must find your own group of people who will support you through both exciting and challenging times. We find this to be extremely relevant to us as a business as we strive to ensure constant support and collaboration within our team. We hope that this will be the first of many Velocity women’s events that celebrate the inspiring work that women do all around the world.