Mint Ventures: Making Angel Investment More Accessible for Women Led Businesses Looking To Grow Their Companies
10am - 11am
Mint Ventures: Making angel investment more accessible for Women Led Businesses looking to grow their companies.
Starting and growing your own business is hard for any entrepreneur. It’s a rollercoaster journey of massive highs and lows and many years of work without any guaranteed income or success at the end.
Seeking external investment is one route which can support growth both through funding, connections and bringing in expertise and coaching.
Research has shown that for women entrepreneurs there are additional challenges through unconscious bias, gender-based discrimination, societal pressures, access to networks, and in particular access to finance.
Join Gillian Fleming, CEO of Mint Ventures, a women led angel investment group supporting diverse teams in the under represented sectors including creative businesses in Scotland, as she gives an introductory session on what is involved in angel investing for start-up businesses, business owners and future entrepreneurs.
Speakers
Gillian Fleming
Gillian’s expertise includes Advisor, Investor and Non-Exec to start-up and spin-out companies with 20 years’ experience in the entrepreneurial ecosystem advising and nurturing early-stage ideas through to company creation. Specialising in technology commercialisation her expertise covers energy, oil and gas, infrastructure, engineering, biotech and food & drink sectors.
With a grounding in sales and marketing within the energy and engineering sector across Europe she progressed into the University commercialisation and has successfully developed numerous startup / spinout companies from the Universities of Strathclyde, West of Scotland, Heriot Watt and Dundee.
Currently Founding Director and CEO of Mint Ventures (Syndicate) Ltd, an angel group focused on investing in women led and diverse teams with a social ethical or environmental purpose. She also represents Kero Developments Partners in Scotland, a private VC that invests in early-stage engineering related start-up companies.
She is also Entrepreneurial Scotland Saltire Fellow, a mentor for Women’s Enterprise Scotland (WES) as well as being an active angel investor.
Joan Johnston
Founder, Ava Innes / Fashion, Craft & Textile Sector Specialist, XpoNorth
Joan Johnston has over 20 years’ experience working with global luxury brands in senior creative and commercial roles. From creative design and board director, to business owner and university programme leader, Joan’s wealth of knowledge and expertise encompasses concept development through the design process, to high end client-centred promotion online and service delivery. Most recently Joan has developed an innovative sustainable bedding range using the by-product of the cashmere industry, launched under premium brand Ava Innes.
Joan is the Fashion, Craft and Textile Specialist for XpoNorth.
