On Thursday of next week, November 21, representatives of the local creative community will gather at the Pegasus Hotel for the media launch of the Fifth Edition of the Women in Business Expo, an event that affords glimpses into the pursuits of a mix of some of the country’s emerging talents and other kindred spirits that have already made a mark for themselves.
The event itself will be held at the same venue on March 21 and 22, 2020.
With Guyanese women beginning to carve out a notable niche in business across several sectors, host of the event and local fashion icon Sonia Noel told Stabroek Business during an interview earlier this week that as is customary the event is expected to open new entrepreneurial vistas for women across the sectors. Noel’s Foundation for the Creative Arts is providing the stage for the event usually staged to mark International Women’s Day. While she says the event seeks, critically, to shine a spotlight on new talent among women across the sectors, it seeks as well to open up potentially lucrative entrepreneurial opportunities that can be created through collaboration amongst the women who will be participating in the event.
Much of the value of the Women in Business Expo reposes in the interaction that it offers between newcomers to the event and seasoned businesswomen with something to share. In 2018 the event benefitted from the involvement of Minister of Public Telecommunications Cathy Hughes whose reputation as a businesswomen prior to her appearing on the political stage made her one of the more sought-after personalities at the event. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, Hughes used the 2018 stage to seek to mount a lobby for more women to seek out the ICT sector as an entrepreneurial option.
If Noel herself is best known for her high profile in the creative sector, notably fashion, she told Stabroek Business during an interview earlier this week that, as is customary, this year’s event seeks to paint with a much broader brush and will, this year, seek to offer glimpses of the range of talent and business options that Guyanese women have been pursuing. Having enjoyed an outstanding year on account of their own effort coupled with the support of institutions like the Guyana Marketing Corporation women agro processors are expected to share centre stage with the various other sectors that will feature at the event this year, Noel says. She says that this year the energies of the organizers will be focused on making the event a stage on which those who dare can shine.
Setting aside the seventy-odd designers, craftswomen, caterers, stylists and manufacturers of cosmetics who will have yet another opportunity to persuade local consumers that their products are well worth taking seriously, Women in Business Expo will be attracting guest participants from Barbados, The Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago and the diaspora. Noel says that the growth of the event beyond its indigenous moorings is aimed at “fostering entrepreneurship, partnerships, and sisterhood” and providing new opportunities for women to demonstrate their business acumen. “It is, among other things, a matter of grooming women to harness their talents and to take charge of the opportunities that they have created for themselves.
She believes that the Women in Business Expo can transcend even those goals. The event, she says, can also serve as a valuable incubator for the further growth of the craft and fashion sectors and will also afford opportunity “for us to enjoy our clothing and our cuisine.” The event, she said, “can even serve as a tourism thing.” What she most hopes for, she says, is to have the Women in Business Expo open new vistas of self – awareness and a confidence in who we are and what we do. She noted that the event provides opportunity for the women to further raise the profile of their products and perhaps even to create alliances with potential investment partners. This, she believes, is an altogether logical step for a group of intrepid businesses who have more than ‘earned their corn’ in the world of business and have altogether earned the right to secure the embrace and support of both the public and private sectors. They are, she says, the next wave of talent and entrepreneurship.
In the weeks leading up to the event the organizers will be undertaking various initiatives, Noel says, to build momentum and to encourage optimum public participation in the two-day event.
