Celebrating Woman Power
Over the course of the last 35 years, StartUp Croydon has helped budding entrepreneurs to venture into the world of self-employment. Of these, a significant percentage are women. Last year, 61% of attendees on our training courses were women and we have seen a 10% increase this year. A university study found that although only 5.5% of women run their own business compared to 10.4% of men, the number of women who have set up their own business in the last decade, rose to 45%, compared to just 27% among men.
We have several female-owned businesses spread across our office premises at Weatherill House and Park House:
Annette Musgrove, is the founder of Demon Recruitment, a small, independent recruitment consultancy that prides itself on providing bespoke recruitment solutions. Annette commented:
“I have been in recruitment for many years and prior to that I was a Senior HR Manager, specializing in in-house recruitment so I do know and understand recruitment, both from a recruiters and clients point of view with the main purpose of the relationship being to identify the right candidate(s) quickly and efficiently by fully understanding the role, culture and variances of the company they will be working for. I formed Demon Recruitment over 14 years ago to provide an energetic and thorough approach to recruiting, taking on vacancies where an injection of genuine expertise was needed, therefore providing a personalised service so those companies felt I had added sufficient value for them to continue to use us in the future.”
My Outspace is an award winning and accredited social enterprise which specialises in supporting women and parents into employment and self-employment.
My OutSpace was launched in 2012 by a local mother who experiencing challenges after quitting work because she was refused flexible working. Yuliana Topazly is now committed to help other women to achieve their career aspirations.
My OutSpace offers training in employability, business development, digital skills, financial capability as well as mentoring, access to networking events and potential work opportunities. Yuliana has been named as one of the Top 100 most inspiring entrepreneurs in the UK by The Sunday Times and won Croydon Business awards in 2017. Working with over 400 women each year, she is now on a mission to change the attitude of employers towards parents and well-being practices in the workplace to support local talent. Yuliana is part of the Best Start Croydon Council initiative and recently launched www.buddywith.org.uk – an online platform to encourage organisations to support back to work parents and offer them necessary tools and resources to deliver well-being services.
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