Reflections on a day well spent - Highland Women Growth Summit

I had an absolutely energising day at the Drumossie Hotel in Inverness last Friday where over 100 women business leaders and policy makers gathered at the first ever Highland Women Growth Summit. Huge credit goes to Jill McAlpine from inpurpose for bringing the whole event together. It was brilliant hearing from so many inspiring women founders and leaders, investors and policy makers - each sharing what drives them in their own businesses and organisations but also what motivates them to tackle the wider challenges facing women in business today.

Indeed, some might ask why we need a growth summit specifically for women in the Highlands and Islands right now. The recent Scottish Government Pathways report lays out, in stark terms, the significant headwinds that women founders face in Scotland today. For example, women-founded startups in Scotland receive only around 2% of total investment capital, even though the evidence shows women are just as capable and ambitious as their male counterparts. It’s a huge, missed opportunity in economic and social terms, and it keeps gender imbalance firmly in place.

The report also talks about systemic and unconscious bias that still shapes decisions across investor and support networks. Relative to men, society commonly assigns the role of primary carer or home manager to women and doesn’t provide sufficient balancing support – this situation is not compatible with the intensive demands of starting and scaling businesses. Sadly, this means that women frequently have a sense of “not belonging” in entrepreneurship, which affects their confidence and self-belief. And then there’s the fact that women often have less access to tailored advice and support – so it’s no surprise that only one in five businesses in Scotland is women-led. 

At HIE, supporting women founders and leaders is something we’re truly committed to, and I’m proud that our track record reflects that. Women consistently make up around 60% of participants across our leadership and entrepreneurship programmes. In Scotland overall, women head up 20% of businesses, yet they make up 40% of the organisations HIE supports. In terms of HIE itself, we continue to have more women than men in our senior leadership team. 

One of the highlights of the day for me was launching our new HIE Impact Women Programme, which is now officially open for applications. It’s a fully-funded 16-week programme for women in leadership roles across the region who have big ambitions and are ready to grow their businesses. It offers residential workshops, mentoring, expert webinars, and culminates in a Dragon’s Den style pitching session. The aim is to build confidence, strengthen leadership, grow networks, and support real business growth, and we’re grateful to the Scottish Government for supporting it. We’re also providing funding for participants to help with care costs for dependants so that they can attend events.  

But we know there’s still more to do. A big part of the Summit was reflecting on what practical actions we can take – both individually and collectively – to make things genuinely better for women entrepreneurs and female-led businesses. 

For HIE, I committed to three things: