Stones and Glass Houses….

The media whirlwind surrounding the unwholesome revelations of Glenda Stone’s treatment of her employees has raised important issues. It highlights the issues of the way we work today, equality at all levels and the checks and balances we have in place to ensure employee rights are respected.

As a highly successful woman entrepreneur, Glenda Stone was cherry-picked to sit on the Women Enterprise Task Force. A group that, over a period of three years, provided evidence to argue for government support initiatives - to increase the contribution made by women led businesses in the UK. Due to her ambassador work, through Aurora, promoting women entrepreneurs and equality, the recent news has hit home hard.

The ironic twist in this case is one of the main reasons why the story has received such prolific coverage, which is no bad thing, as long as we ensure the reputation of other women entrepreneurs’ is not tarnished and that it doesn’t degenerate into a ‘gender-attack’ on women bosses.

Issues of this nature must be raised; employers, both men and women, have the same responsibility to protect and respect the rights of their employees. It’s so important to have checks and balances in place within a business to avoid unpleasant situations occurring. And if this framework is absent, it is an example of bad leadership and management which is potentially damaging to the individuals involved and to the business as a whole.

However, the most profound issues laid bare in this story are not ones of gender or governmental error (no matter how entertaining they may be!). Instead, they revolve around mitigating against the type of unethical and counterproductive management practices the story highlights, whether it be through education, legislation, or good old fashioned awareness building.

In effect, through her actions, Glenda Stone has hurt herself more than anyone in this case, and her lack of people and management skills have now sadly surpassed the positive work she contributed to women’s entrepreneurism.

Secret Millionaire’s Top Tips for being a successful entrepreneur

Emma Harrison took to the stage at the Enterprising Women Awards in November, and didn’t pretend she wasn’t nervous – she talks her mind, tells it how it is and isn’t afraid to do so. She shared her inspiring life story with over 100 women entrepreneurs, highlighting the fact that there is no ‘normal’ path through life and to becoming an entrepreneur. It was a matter of survival at first, and she never stopped – never lost her passion and vision. During her talk, she gave us some great tips and insights into starting up and running a business. So what is the secret to Secret Millionaire Emma’s success?

1) Always ask – no matter what it is. What have you got to lose? Don’t be intimated or afraid to ask, just go for it. What’s the worst that can happen? They say no! But you might get a surprise – they might say YES!

2) Never lose the passion – no matter what challenges you come up against or how successful your business becomes, don’t lose the passion you had on the very first day!

3) Make sure your passion isn’t just about making money – you need more than that. Emma’s passion is improving people’s lives.

4) Vision – you need a vision. Tell everyone what your vision is. Don’t hide it. If you tell people, they might just help you!

5) Take little steps everyday – don’t try to do it all at once. And remember to tell everyone where you want to go!

6) Leadership qualities – Inspire, encourage and elevate everyone around you. If you behave like a leader, people will follow.

7) Get a mentor – Emma has always had a mentor and she swears by it – someone to talk to for a couple of hours every month.

8) 4 marketing activities each day – get an A4 sheet of paper, divide it into quarters and write down 4 marketing activities which you need to do that day. Be it calling customers, updating your website, placing an advert, designing a leaflet; make sure you do 4 marketing activities each day.

9) Don’t get too busy and forget about getting new business – it’s great to be busy, but remember that you need to keep bringing the business in.

10) Don’t use up energy being afraid – be brave and focus on what you want to achieve.

Enterprising Women Awards celebrate Exceptional Women Entrepreneurs throughout Britain

It was really great to see so many talented and innovative women entrepreneurs from around the UK at the Enterprising Women Awards last week. There was a fantastic, buzzing and vibrant atmosphere both at the Christmas Fair and at the Awards Lunch, with everybody networking and enjoying the opportunity to look around the excellent Christmas Fair stalls and to talk to the Business Support services.

The Awards Lunch was a festive occasion, with last year’s overall winner, Sally Aspinall talking about how winning the top award has opened up many doors for her and her business. Emma Harrison then gave an inspirational talk about her life and experiences, starting from nothing to become a hugely successful Millionaire. She shared a host of invaluable top tips with us all on how to be successful in business which we’ll be blogging about next so keep your eyes peeled for those...

It was then time for the part we’d all been waiting for; the Awards’ presentation. Congratulations goes to our Overall Enterprising Woman of the Year 2009, Sarah Fuller of Full Support Healthcare Ltd, who also won the High Flyer Award category. Jo Behari of Home Jane Ltd was Runner-up Enterprising Woman of the Year 2009 and winner of Young Entrepreneur Award.

You can see photos of all the winners of each category at Enterprising Women and photos of all the finalists.

Stay tuned to find out about Emma’s top tips and for all our upcoming news at Enterprising Women.

Don’t miss out on Enterprising Women’s event programme this Autumn and Winter

We’ve been really busy at Enterprising Women organising a large variety of events for this Autumn and Winter – our programme’s jam-packed and we’re looking forward to meeting up with you all face-to-face. We’ve blogged about the importance of networking and this is your chance to come along and put our tips into practice. You might meet potential clients, suppliers, mentors and friends...our community means you’re not alone, but have a support network to help you progress with your business and to stay focused on what’s important. Our events will be covering topics including ‘Blogs, tweets and pokes – the benefits of social media’ to ‘Attracting customers’ and ‘Achieving a work-life balance’. We’re also running a programme on ‘Going for Growth’, which incorporates 10 key topics from our growth training programme to create an exciting and informative day.

Our event which took place earlier this week, was a great success. Angela Peacock, the Chair of The People Development Team and founder of www.thecompletetrainer.com, lead on a dynamic and interactive session on ‘Driving your strategy through discovering your culture.’ Participants were asked to assess where their business is now in terms of characteristics, leadership, management of employees and strategy, and then envisage where they want to be in 2 years and how they can get there. Angela categorised the different cultural characteristics found in businesses, grouping them in The Clan, The Adhocracy, The Market or The Hierarchy family - getting the balance right is really important.

Register online and come along to our events this Autumn and Winter. Check out our events calendar here.

PowerPoint presentations - good for business?

I'm sure we've all sat through a PowerPoint presentation which seems to be never ending, the dull tones of the presenter and the endless slides appearing and disappearing. Or a presentation where we're trying to take everything in, but there's just too much! So what's the answer to perfecting PowerPoint presentations and are they the best means of communication for you and your business?

If you are preparing a PowerPoint, here are a few useful tips:

1) A PowerPoint presentation should be an aid to presenting, not an excuse to read from the screen directly with your back to the audience. Eye contact with your audience is extremely important as is your body language.

2) Trying to read, listen and make notes all at the same time is a big ask. If you have hand-outs or are emailing everyone a copy of your PowerPoint presentation, say so at the beginning so that people aren’t frantically copying the slide before it disappears – and not listening to a word you’re actually saying!

3) Make sure your slide is not overfilled with text. Mix it up with images.

4) Make sure the text is big enough - there's nothing worse than your audience complaining that they can't read it.

5) Avoid rambling; plan your presentation carefully. Your presentation should clarify to your audience what you’re saying – it’s not to remind you of everything you want to say.

6) An information overload should be avoided at all costs – don’t assume that your audience will be able to take in huge amounts of information, even if it is all bullet- pointed. Make it a realistic length as learning through listening and speaking is very different to reading and writing.

7) Use creative images and not just lines and lines of words – the audience may loose interest completely through being uninspired!

8) Have as few slides as possible - too many slides will just distract everybody.

Remember, a great PowerPoint presentation relies on a good speaker so practice these skills as much as you can.

Check out the Enterprising Women website for more top tips for running your business. If you have any great tips, share them with us here.

Enterprising Women Awards 2009 open for entries

We’ve just announced that the Enterprising Women Annual Awards 2009 are now open for entries. It’s certainly been a really tough year for businesses, battling against the recession, and we know that there have been some huge achievements made by women across Britain this year.

Our Awards cover nine categories, from Inspirational Business Mum to Young Entrepreneur and, from which the Enterprising Woman of 2009 will be chosen. We’re looking forward to receiving nominations for the awards, the winners of which we’ll be announcing at our Awards Lunch on 24th November.

Last year’s EW nominees and winners said that the Enterprising Women awards brought them real business and personal rewards as well as great promotional opportunities from press coverage to speaker events. This acknowledgement and recognition together with the validation by the wider business community, made the whole experience rewarding at every level for them.

If you know somebody who you feel deserves an EW Award, or you would like to nominate yourself, visit The Enterprising Women Annual Awards 2009 to find out more. You can also register to attend the Awards Lunch and take part in our Christmas Fair.

Top Twitter tips for your business

Businesses, especially SMEs, are all at different stages of discovering social networking sites and how best to use this new technology within their businesses. With Dell reporting that offers from its Dell Outlet Twitter account had led to more than $1 million in revenue, it just shows us the potential of these sites. We’ve read countless articles on how and why to use Twitter and have come up a top tips list of our own:

Use Twitter to...

1. Find out if people have any issues with your product – and if they do, you can resolve any problems quickly and engage directly with them

2. Track your reputation – search to find out exactly what people are saying about you

3. Promote your business to followers – your sales may increase

4. Drive more traffic to your website and blog by using links in your Tweets

5. Network with people to increase your customer base

6. Search for potential customers who you think would like your product or service – although this may seem a bit like stalking!

7. Build your brand and profile through Twitter and ensure your business has its own personality and your customers feel comfortable contacting you directly.

8. Keep an eye on all your competitors too...

Have a look at our Enterprising Women Twitter account and become one of our followers to hear all the latest news in starting up and growing your business.

How important are qualifications to business success?

Even though kids are sailing through their exams, with 97.5% passing their 'A' levels this year, concerns have been voiced that this won’t resolve the skills gap problem. Most businesses feel that students are unprepared for work - that the gap between education and work is too large. As the students are fighting over university places, the Forum of Private Business dropped the bomb shell that most of its members would value school-leavers over graduates, with 77% of small business owners saying they don’t even need employees with university skills. Is there a misconception somewhere along the line – that you'll have more chance of getting a job if you have a degree? But we’ve already seen that unemployment among graduates is at an all time high. Student placements, internships and graduate schemes are one answer as this is beneficial to businesses and students, bridging the skills gap. Time and time again, experience and on-the-job training outweighs qualifications in the world of enterprise.

More women than men in high-status jobs

There are now officially more female doctors, lawyers and architects than male ones in the UK, according to research by the University of Cambridge. So why are we not shouting about this fact from the roof tops? It’s being called the ‘quiet revolution in the workplace’, but it seems to be a silent one. Is this not a huge achievement, a milestone, something really positive? Yes, and it ties in with women excelling academically, a higher proportion of us securing places at top universities and achieving higher grades than men.

However, perhaps the one thing stopping us from celebrating is the fact that women are still earning much less on average than men – about 22.6% less. Um, where’s the equality in that? And in some areas, the pay gap is actually widening.

If the ‘quiet revolution’ fails to grab anyone’s attention, nobody will raise the pay gap as a problem. The limited opportunities for women to progress to senior roles such as company director are also affecting the pay gap. But the more these issues are brought into the spotlight, (in the same way Harriet Harmen brought women in politics to the forefront), the more recognition women will receive, both in professional status and in their pay cheques.

So what about a very loud and noisy revolution in the workplace?

Harriet Harman gets women in politics back on the agenda!

Harriet Harman, Minister for Equality, may be a well-known feminist and has confessed to putting men’s noses out of joint, but she gets issues that matter back in the spotlight. And the absence of women in senior political positions does matter. What she said makes perfect sense:

“I think it’s a thoroughly bad thing to have a men-only leadership. In a country where women regard themselves as equal, they are not prepared to see men just running the show themselves. I think a balanced team of men and women makes better decisions.”

But how many people, especially men, would have just ignored her views on this? But with the controversial, “Men cannot be left to run things on their own” comment, she’s managed to make this front page news.

Indeed, cries of sexism from men can be heard from every corner of the room, retorting grumpily, “what if we said that about women? We’d never get away with it”.

But the point is, she whipped the media into a frenzy and now the issue of women in politics is back on the agenda! Clever, eh?

Access to finance for growth

So it’s official – according to the recent Women’s Enterprise Task Force (WETF) report, woman-led businesses are not charged more by banks for finance and may, in some circumstances, even pay less. We’re seen as ‘lower risk’; better at making repayments and business planning; and we’re more likely to get our finance from banks full stop. Encouraging news for start-ups especially as only 28% of the self-employed are women.

However, it’s also been recognised that we’re less likely to access venture capital and equity funding, useful for when you want to grow your business. In our experience, which doesn’t reflect the findings of the Task Force report, it isn't so much that women ‘lack the confidence’ to apply for funding. The problem is that typically the nature of their businesses and their ambitions to grow, means that equity finance is not appropriate for many women.

And according to the Quarterly Survey of Small Business in Britain report, 48% of women-led small businesses are content to remain the same size – and that growth isn’t on the agenda. So isn’t the issue about supporting enterprising women's growth ambitions and enabling access to the right finance?

At Enterprising Women, we run a woman-specific access to finance programme which can help you to access the right finance which is appropriate for your business, whether debt or equity.

Aspirations come from Mum

Following on from our last blog about aspirations and social mobility, I heard a snippet of information on the radio … “children’s educational aspiration is directly linked to their mother’s educational aspiration level.”

This ‘sudden statement’ from Radio 4 meant, in my mind, that science and the Beeb, and therefore by default, the government, had finally caught up with what any of us working in any kind of ‘women’s development’ area have known for ages!

I began some research into the subject and according to academic reports, if a Mum goes back to ‘learning’ of any kind it has a really positive impact on her children’s attitude to education. In other words, “If Mum can do it, it must be OK, so I want to do it!”

I then started thinking about enterprise, as we work in the promotion, support and creation of women’s enterprise activity. If Mum returning to education can have such a positive, and now acknowledged impact on their children’s learning aspirations, then the same can surely be said of enterprise. If Mum decides to start a business, no matter what that business is, then her children are more likely to view enterprise in a positive light and see it as something that they can do – and might actually WANT to do.

So, to all the policy makers out there: to all the funders and decision makers who are steering the ship of economic development through the wreckage of previous attempts to ‘raise aspirations’, ‘create an entrepreneurial society’ and ‘effect change at grass-roots level.’ It all seems blindingly obvious: Support a woman to start a business and you will change the entrepreneurial aspirations of her children. I’d take it a step further … support a woman in any way to develop herself socially, economically, educationally, financially, and you will positively impact on, and change the attitude and aspirations of her children.

Social mobility - it’s all about your aspirations

'Birth, not worth, has become a key determinant of people’s chances,’ are the words of former Labour MP Alan Milburn, as the heated debate about social mobility, or lack of it, rages on.

But instead of pulling apart our schools and businesses, why not look instead to our own aspirations and children’s aspirations? Ask yourself what you want out of life and how you are going to realise your ambitions to make your business work?

In Britain today, maybe the real problem isn't social mobility. Maybe that’s the symptom or a catch 22. The problem is the lack of aspiration, the indifference, the apathy. Attitudes and work ethics are changing and the ‘get-up-and-go’ is lacking in so many people. There are many reasons which could be attributed to this: the recession, unemployment or it could be a general outlook on life and the belief that we can’t achieve our goals because of who we are and where we’re from.

Aspirations are what drive people and especially entrepreneurs and the concept of social mobility, or the lack of it, is a direct result of our mindset.

Role models inspire success

Do you have somebody who inspires and motivates you, someone who focuses you on achieving your ambitions and goals? Be it in sport, music or business, role models play a large part in our lives.

This week, Dame Judi Dench was named the nation's favourite female role model in a poll conducted for A Woman of Substance awards. She was followed by Joanna Lumley and Julie Walters, with JK Rowling, author of the legendary Harry Potter, and round-the-world yachtswoman Ellen McArthur in joint fourth place. The 1,000 British women polled, aged between 18 and 65, also named the Queen, Dawn French, Lady Thatcher and Paula Radcliffe as top ‘women of substance’.

Many of us are also inspired by the success and determination of people who may not be famous, but have achieved a great deal. Such inspirational women feature in Management Today magazine's annual list of top 35 young businesswomen. 19-year-old Ruth Amos is the youngest entrant with her successful StairSteady business, a huge achievement which we’re sure will inspire many other teenagers to start up their own businesses.

And we also think that Jamie Neal is an inspiration after his resilience, resourcefulness and determination helped him survive a fortnight in the Australian bush. Surviving tough times is a test of character and having the drive and courage to go forward can bring positive results.

Tell us about what inspired you to set up your business and who or what drives your ambitions?

From Graduate to Entrepreneur

This week, the media has been reporting that our graduates will have a tough time finding a job in the current economic climate after leaving university. But is it really all doom and gloom or can new opportunities be explored, benefiting graduates, the economy and existing businesses?

Could this be the time for young people to rely more on their own ideas, to create opportunities for themselves and be proactive? Well, according to a recent article, many are doing this already. Apparently the recession is having little or no effect on the young entrepreneurs of the future who seem to be thriving on the current economic challenges.

Many are using the recession to identify new business opportunities and technology to give them a competitive edge, in contrast to their more mature counterparts who are apparently tightening their purse strings to ride out the recession.

This proactive attitude could be attributed to young people being at a time of their lives when risk is minimal – many don’t have children or mortgages – and the world is their oyster. Some of the world’s most innovative ideas have come from students including Facebook and Google.

Alternatively, a Graduate Talent Pool Initiative is being launched by the government this month to support businesses during the economic downturn whilst also enabling graduates to improve their employability skills.

So there are options out there – whether you want to start-up your own business or look into the Graduate Talent Pool Initiative. If you are a young entrepreneur, we would love to hear from you. For more information on business start-up and growth, visit Enterprising Women.

Is running your own business the answer to a good work/life balance?

The continued existence of discrimination against women who take maternity leave has been brought to the forefront by the launch of The Alliance against Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace. This campaign was launched last month in response to the sharp increase reported in the number of women losing their jobs during pregnancy or maternity leave .

According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, about 30,000 women lose their jobs as a result of pregnancy every year. And it’s feared this number will increase during the recession with many mothers-to-be reportedly being first in line to be considered for redundancy.

Pregnancy and maternity leave are seen as huge barriers to women progressing to senior levels of business. We need to question why women are still in danger of being sidelined, missing out on promotion, being made redundant or having their commitment doubted for having a baby. Surely women don’t have to choose between their career or a family? It’s possible to do both, but how many women actually get the opportunity and support within their workplace to do it?

Juggling family and work commitments is common for many mothers and fathers too. And often, having your own business can mean more flexibility. However, conversely starting up your own business is extremely hard work and many treat it like their baby, with little time to do anything else.

So what are your views and experiences on pregnancy and maternity leave with regard to your career? And if you have your own business, do you find it a more or less flexible set up?

Are you making the most of your website?

At the heart of Enterprising Women’s recent networking event, which brought together entrepreneurial women from the EW community, was an invaluable presentation on ‘Making the most of your website’ by Liz White of E-Design Consultancy. It’s not enough nowadays just to have a website – you really need to make the most of it especially as more and more people are using the internet as their main information, communication, entertainment and e-commerce resource. So how do we make our websites really effective? Here’s some tips from our event:

1) Build your website for your customer – not for you.
2) Know who your visitors are by analysing your website statistics.
3) Update your website regularly with new content – this will encourage search engines to visit your site and help to rank your pages higher in search results.
4) Personalise your copy, using ‘you’ instead of ‘they’.
5) Make sure it’s easy to navigate around your site.
6) Make your site accessible to alternative technologies e.g. readable text.
7) Use good quality copy, but try not to duplicate it.
8) Ensure important copy isn’t added to an image or in flash as search engines can’t read this.
9) Be page specific – incorporate keywords in the individual page copy, title, headings and links. Be careful not to overfill your copy with keywords as the quality is still more important.
10) Try to get links to your website added to good quality sites that are highly ranked and that are relevant to your business.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, so if you want to share your ideas, add them to our blog. We’d also love to know what your favourite websites are and why. To learn more about website development, visit the Enterprising Women Resource Centre.

Top of the class!

It seems that women are excelling in the area of intellectual pursuits, considerably outperforming their male counterparts. It has been reported that women are gaining a higher proportion of places at top universities and are achieving higher grades in their degrees in comparison to men. Is this because we now have more opportunities, are more focused on what we want, more determined or are simply smarter?

The Higher Education Policy Institute’s report challenges the notion that men dominate the top subjects and institutions, revealing that women outnumber men in high-status subjects including law and medicine. And staying with the subject of medicine, it has also been reported this month that in 4 years time, half of all GPs will be women, who reportedly make up 40% of all doctors to date. And by 2017, women will be in the majority.

From doctors to showbiz, women have also dominated the media with their impressive performances on a number of top shows; Yasmina fighting her way to the top in The Apprentice; University Challenge’s brain box, Gail Trimble, who was said to be the cleverest contestant of all times; and now Nancy Dickmann, winner of Mastermind 2009. Nancy Dickmann, a children’s publisher, boasted the highest score of the series after breezing through her specialist questions on The Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-06.

So what are your views on women being top of the class? Let us know what your experiences are.

Economic recovery or meltdown?

Over the last few days, we’ve heard contradicting reports about the economy. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research has suggested we are now recovering from the recession as the UK economy enters a period of growth. Reports from the manufacturing and property sectors support these claims and it has been predicted that the official GDP figures could now return to growth in the third quarter, ahead of the Chancellor’s own predictions in the Budget.

However, it’s also been reported this week that 350,000 jobs in the public sector could be cut, UK unemployment has reached a 12-year high and that the airline, British Airways, has asked its staff to work for a month without pay due to the economic crisis.

With this national picture developing, how do your experiences of running a business in the current economic climate compare? Do you feel you’re coming out of the recession? Or are you still finding new ways of working on a shoe-string?

Some of Britain’s top entrepreneurs are still preparing for a tough year ahead according to a report carried out by accountants, Baker Tilly. However, although most businesses appear to be taking a cautious approach, they are refusing to allow the recession to dampen their ambitions and plans.

Networking Success!

Yesterday, members of Enterprising Women came together in what was a vibrant and buzzing networking event. So many women entrepreneurs have extolled the importance of face-to-face contact in building successful business relationships. So our event was valuable on two networking fronts; it gave us the opportunity to meet with other members of the EW community in a relaxed and welcoming setting; and it also included an inspirational and interactive session led by EW member, Dee Clayton on networking success.

Connecting with people is at the heart of all our businesses and being able to communicate clearly helps to establish and grow business relationships. To connect with people more effectively, it’s good to put yourself in their shoes. Knowing who your audience is, matching your language to suit them, and finding the best way to get your message across, can help you all to connect. And humour can also be a great way to break down barriers and create a bond.

And I’m sure we’ve all experienced, at some time or other, self-doubts in our heads when we’ve had to present to others, casting up worst case scenarios. Dee referred to these as our ‘monkeys’ which affect our confidence, and need to be controlled through positive-thinking, planning, practising and praising ourselves.

A great example: What if your best friend had presented to a room of people? Would you say, ‘that was boring, you weren’t clear enough, it went on for too long’? No, in short. You’d be supportive and proud they had made a great effort. So why are we so unforgiving and hard on ourselves? We can be our own worst enemies, but in order to build confidence, praise your efforts and attempts. At least you tried which is more than some!

Let’s hear about your networking experiences and what works for you. To come along to the next EW networking event on 25th June, visit Enterprising Women. And contact Dee Clayton for more info on her presentation and courses.

Jobs for the boys? Claims of sexism in the government overshadow reshuffle

As Harold Wilson once famously said, "a week is a long time in politics". So Gordon Brown must feel he’s stuck in a nightmarish Groundhog Day with one disaster after another.

Last week saw minister after minister leaving the cabinet, as support crumbles away in the midst of the expense fiasco. Among those who resigned are 4 women ministers – Jacqui Smith (first woman to have taken up the post of Home Secretary), Hazel Blears, Caroline Flint and Beverley Hughes.

And they haven’t gone quietly. Caroline Flint accused the PM of treating her like ‘female window dressing’ in her extraordinary exit. This attack on alleged sexism has received mixed reactions with some believing she has undermined the long battle of equality in politics with her petulance. Others have supported her claims of casual chauvinism and sexism within the government.

Jacqui Smith raised the point that not enough women are in top cabinet jobs, which is certainly the case now. Since Friday’s reshuffle, only Yvette Cooper is in charge of a large spending department. And with less than 20% of MPs in Britain being women, has this reshuffle damaged women’s prospects within politics? But bearing in mind that the government is in a unique state of transition and instability, could women use the circumstances to their advantage?

Well, the reshuffle certainly hasn’t damaged Peter Mandelson’s prospects as he was effectively propelled to deputy prime minister status. Or some even argue he is the real PM now saying he’s been integral in influencing the reshuffle and supporting Brown who’s apparently ‘paralysed with indecision’. Whilst Blairites like Purnell turned against Brown, Mandelson has stayed loyal...so is it jobs for the boys?

Yasmina shows her entrepreneurial flair

At the end of 12 gruelling weeks of the ‘job interview from hell’, Yasmina was crowned Sir Alan Sugar’s next Apprentice. In Sir Alan's eyes, she's proved that she has the ‘indefinable’ entrepreneurial spirit, already boasting a successful restaurant business of her own. Sir Alan might have seen his own qualities reflected in her; considerable business acumen, leadership skills and a nose for finance...if not chocolate flavours.

This may also go someway to explaining his comment, 'My instincts are telling me that Yasmina's the right one for the job'. Although her determination and focus were etched on her face throughout, was she chosen on a 'gut feeling' and, if so, is this fair to her opponent, Kate, who performed flawlessly?

However, in some ways, her entrepreneurial spirit almost cost her the job. Throughout the process, it felt like Sir Alan was analysing why Yasmina was there. A successful entrepreneur who makes all her own decisions, who is her own boss – why loose this ‘freedom’ in order to work for someone else? Would you?

It’s been an exciting series and a testimony to the achievement of women in business. It was also announced this week that women are excelling academically with both more women attending University and getting higher grades than men.

So do you feel that the right woman became the Apprentice? Lets hear your comments!

Welcome to the EW blog!

Hello all! Welcome to the Enterprising Women blog where we’ll be holding lively discussions on everything from The Apprentice (if you get time to watch it!) to all the news and hot tips we hear about.

We know you’re all flat out with your businesses so we want to give you a really quick way to get your point across and share in our community discussions. So come and blog with us!

Let us know what you think of our website, which we’re currently redeveloping and the courses that we’re offering.

Visit our website at Enterprising Women and keep checking the blog for more updates and discussions – make sure you watch The Apprentice this week as it’s the final between two professional women battling it out to work for the Entrepreneurship Tsar, Sir Alan Sugar.