International entrepreneur will open six month business festival

INTERNATIONAL CEO, female entrepreneur and writer Margaret Heffernan will be coming to Frome this month as part of a six-month business festival.

Margaret, who is also the author of three books ‘The Naked Truth’, ‘Women on Top’, and ‘Wilful Blindness’ – shortlisted for the Financial Times award, will be spending the day in Frome on the first day of the Discuss and Do festival on Friday 25th January, where she will be a guest and mentor at a women in business lunch.

During the afternoon she will be giving a keynote speech about the topic ‘Women in Business’. Margaret draws upon her own experience; research and shared stories of women she has interviewed about this topic. Margaret says she is looking forward to the festival.

Frome and District Chamber of Commerce is helping to organise the festival, alongside workhub operators Forward Space and Frome Creative Network, with support from Somerset County Council, Mendip District Council and Frome Town Council.

Neil Howlett, president of Frome and District Chamber of Commerce said, “We feel it’s a real coup for the town to secure a speaker of Margaret’s calibre, she has a great resume of talents in business as well as media and literature.

“There will be plenty of opportunities for local businesswomen – whether they’ve got an idea for a new business or are already established – to tap into Margaret’s expertise throughout the informal lunch event. After lunch, Margaret will deliver her keynote speech about Women in Business open to both men and women.

“If you’re on Twitter we’re offering people the chance to win two tickets to her afternoon event if you can ‘tweet’ @discussanddo telling us why you’d like to attend the talk. We’ll also be offering other giveaways throughout the festival, such as one to one business support, start-up help and mentoring,

“We’d like to thank Burton Sweet Accountants for supporting the events of the festival.”

The Discuss and Do events are running from 25th January to 18th July  and will also include talks from local retail CEO Nick Sinfield, Andrew Denham founder of The Bicycle Academy and Yumble Crumble’s Isobel Noctor, awarded Gold at ‘The Taste of the West Awards’.

Experts in their field will be giving a wide variety of talks across the six months, from how to start using social media for business, learning the perfect elevator pitch to using finance to grow your company. There will also be a special event for ‘under 25s’ to get information on how to start their own venture and learn from other young entrepreneurs in Somerset.

All tickets for events are affordable and event organisers say there is something for everyone. All bookings and information about what’s on across the whole festival can be found at www.discussanddo.co.uk

There are also three ‘Brown Bag Lunches’ planned by Frome Creative Network in the schedule where people are invited to bring their packed lunch and hear interesting talks from creative industries. Find out when and where they are at www.discussanddo.co.uk or www. fromecreativenetwork .co.uk