All across Ireland female entrepreneurs will be celebrating National Women's Enterprise Day on October 13th. The theme for this year’s NWED is Our Future Our Way, and Louth and Meath Local Enterprise Office are once again joining forces to bring you an informative morning of insights from leading female entrepreneurs from within the region and an opportunity to network.

Helen McEntee, Minister of Justice, TD Meath East

We are delighted to announce that Helen McEntee, Minister for Justice, TD Meath East, will officially launch the LEO Meath and LEO Louth #NWED event.  After making history in becoming the first sitting Minister to take maternity leave and with just two months left before she begins maternity leave for the second time, we are thrilled that Minister McEntee is taking time out from her hectic schedule to join businesswomen in Louth and Meath in celebrating this year’s National Women’s Enterprise Day. 

The business environment has been transformed over the last few years with entrepreneurs and employees negotiating changed working patterns, rapid digitalisation and the need to consider sustainable business practices. Our MC for the day Miriam Simon a leading business and retail strategist will provide a fascinating insight into the future of business and will discuss these with a guest panel where participants will learn key tips from the experiences and journeys of all the speakers to apply to the running of their own business.

Thursday October 13^th City North Hotel

Registration, refreshments, networking: 9.00am- 9.30am

Panel Discussion, Q&A, networking: 9.30am - 12.30pm

Lunch: 12.45pm – 2pm

MC Miriam Simon  

An experienced Business Strategist, Miriam works with business owners to drive successful growth strategy and high performance leadership. Her client portfolio includes several household name brands and fast growing companies. Miriam strength is that she translates complex business strategy -into easy to digest and easy to implement actions that deliver powerful results for the businesses she works with.

Her background includes a 30 year career of senior and board level roles within several household retail names such as TK Maxx, Monsoon Accessorize, LifeStyle Sports, and B&Q. Alongside this, Miriam has also spent the last decade mentoring start-ups in the disruptive technology and med-tech space, and she still works with the European Innovation Council in this field.

As a speaker, Miriam’s focus is often about consumer behaviour and market trends. Since the Pandemic broke - she has developed and delivered several highly acclaimed seminars and programmes that are focused towards the SME businesses and how to navigate the changing landscape in order to survive and thrive.

Marita Collier of Drummond House Garlic

Drummond House Garlic is the first ever commercial producer of Irish garlic beginning her journey in 2012. Losing almost 100% of their food service business in March 2020 with the closure of bars, restaurants and the lockdown, it was the perfect storm that no business could ever have planned for. Growing fresh produce presented the extra challenge of limited time. Marita availed of the Trading Online Voucher and fast tracked her plans to start selling online and new valued added products were developed which have a longer shelf life for the retail market.

Sinead Crowther

Founder of  Soothing Solutions & Tonstix is an inspirational mother of 4 boys , who after working for 20 years in pharmacies, spotted a big gap in the market for a strepsil type product for children. 

Soothing Solutions is a manufacturing company that produces natural innovative products to help soothe young children when they are suffering from sore throats and dry coughs. Their  first product Tonstix Honey Jelly pops launched in April 2022 and is now stocked in over 770 pharmacies in Ireland including Boots, McCabes, Hickeys and Allcare groups to name a few.

Sinead started with an idea at her kitchen table and it took 5 years to bring its product Tonstix to the market such is the complex innovation that was involved to scale up and now her company is valued at €2.5million.

Lavina McGahon

With years of experience working as a business coach and mentor, Lavina McGahon has a wealth of insights into starting and scaling a business. Lavina is now Programme Manager for Thrive4Women, a support for women bringing new STEM products and services to market. She will talk about developing business strategy, avoiding common mistakes and accessing supports.

Shóna Mc Manus

Shóna McManus is a highly accomplished, respected and recognised global recruitment business leader who has been listed for the Staffing Industry Analysts Global Top 100 Women in Recruitment and the Top 100 Staffing Professionals in Europe for the last six consecutive years.

Shóna’s innovative, authentic and purposeful leadership has resulted in the growth and transformation of Osborne into a multi-award-winning international recruitment firm and her knowledge of the employment market and trends is second to none. Under her guidance, the organisation has increased its footprint, turnover, profits and headcount tenfold over the past nine years, adding numerous awards to its repertoire whilst leading the organisation to successfully help thousands of job seekers and employers in the recruitment process to ‘find the right person, for the right job, no compromise’. 

Previously Vice-President of the Employment Recruitment Federation, President of Drogheda & District Chamber she currently serves on a number of Boards as Board Director including Drogheda Port and she is Co Chair of the The Mill Enterprise Centre in Drogheda. Shona is involved in Regional, National and Government committees and strategic work groups and chaired an EU funded research project through the Department of Trade, Enterprise and Employment and lead by TU Dublin titled ‘Leading The Way: Investing in Management Development for SME Productivity and Growth’

Miriam and the panellists will bring their experience of adapting to rapid change in business environment and will discuss the future of business and the opportunities and challenges ahead

After the panel discussion there will be time for  Q&A

A networking lunch will be served and spot prizes will be on offer.

Each guest will leave with a goodie bag*

To Book >>> https://www.localenterprise.ie/Louth/Training-Events/Online-Bookings/National-Women-s-Enterprise-Day-2022.html