Latest news with #DebbieWosskow
Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Times
Too female to fund? The gendered gap in business investment
Debbie Wosskow tells Gaby Griffith that if women entrepreneurs had the same support as men, it could add £250 billion to the UK economy – and she has a plan to make it happen Entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow is co-chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce When entrepreneurs Debbie Wosskow OBE and Anna Jones set out to raise capital for their latest venture, wellness company Better Menopause, they encountered a familiar obstacle. Despite a formidable track record – Wosskow founded the home-swapping platform Love Home Swap, Jones is the former UK CEO of Hearst Magazines – one well-known male investor said he loved them but he thought the idea was 'a little niche'. This, says Wosskow, is what happens when women founders pitch female-focused businesses to male investors. Ventures addressing the needs of half the population are too often dismissed as marginal. Women, she argues, are still expected to prove legitimacy twice over – once for the idea, and again for daring to lead it. New research from the wealth management firm Charles Stanley bears this out. Just 24.8 per cent of female founders say it's easier to secure funding as a woman. More than half – 55 per cent – report facing heightened scrutiny because of their gender, while 63 per cent say they have to work harder than men to be recognised as leaders. There is, in other words, significant ground to gain. The UK is home to 7,696 high-growth companies with at least one female founder, accounting for 13.7 per cent of the country's high-growth business population. Of these, 4,224 are majority female-founded. According to the Invest in Women Taskforce – co-chaired by Wosskow – if women were supported to scale their businesses at the same rate as men, it could add as much as £250 billion to the UK economy. Alongside plans to create a dedicated investment fund for female founders, Wosskow and the taskforce are focused on encouraging more women to become investors themselves. As she points out, women are twice as likely to invest in other women as men are. 'We need to create systemic change,' she says. But it isn't only about capital. 'Mentoring is super important,' says Mia Kahrimanovic, chartered financial planner at Charles Stanley. 'I love that quote – 'You can't be what you can't see.' Women need access to mentors and advisers who can help them build and scale. Taking an idea and making it work becomes easier when you know someone else has already walked the path.' A sense of community among women entrepreneurs is key here. Research by Charles Stanley found that 70.8 per cent of female founders expressed a desire to support other women – something that has been evident throughout Wosskow's career. After exiting her first business, Love Home Swap, in 2017, she co-founded AllBright the following year with Jones. The global community connects ambitious women through female-only members' clubs in London and Hollywood, as well as a thriving online network. It's a space for sharing expertise, offering support and building lasting professional relationships. 'Women's networks are just not as strong as men's – for all sorts of reasons – and we wanted to create a global sisterhood of women who had each other's backs,' says Wosskow. Whether formal or informal, having a trusted network to turn to is invaluable for female founders. 'Most of the entrepreneurs I work with say the journey is lonely,' says Kahrimanovic. 'Advisers are an ideal extension of a start-up team, especially when navigating funding, legal or financial issues.' Following the closure of Allbright, Wosskow went on to co-found WJV – an investment firm focused on backing diverse founders – once again teaming up with Jones. 'I've backed only female entrepreneurs in the past six years of investing,' she says. 'As women, when we have money, we tend to show up for each other.' Her goal now is to drive greater economic empowerment among women and encourage them to become investors themselves. She wants women to build wealth, speak openly about it, and use their capital to support the next generation of female founders. 'There is a great wealth transfer coming,' says Wosskow. 'Partly through divorce, partly through inheritance – and I want to equip those women with the understanding that angel investment is a powerful tool.' For some, as she points out, wealth may come from personal transitions, such as divorces. But for founders, it's business exits that unlock the capital needed to reinvest in others. According to Charles Stanley's latest research, 2024 saw 82 exits by female-founded high-growth companies – a promising signal for the future of women backing women. The average age of the female founders behind those exits was 51. As a multi-exit entrepreneur herself, Wosskow has advice for those considering it. 'I have always started a business with a clear plan for how I'm going to sell it,' she says. 'You might mess everything up the first time, but in my experience, you just get better at it. That's why I want women to do it again and again.' For many women founders, however, an exit can feel like a distant prospect as they work through the realities of building a business. For those still in the trenches, Wosskow offers one piece of advice: 'When things go wrong – which they will – give yourself 24 hours to mourn it, then move on. Take a day to lie on the couch, moan and wail, but that's it. Get up and keep going.'
Fashion United
27-05-2025
- Business
- Fashion United
BGF commits three billion pounds in investments for UK businesses
Barclays-founded BGF has outlined a three billion pound commitment to invest in high-potential UK businesses as it looks to scale support for growth in early-stage firms. Over the next five years, the firm, which has previously invested in fashion brands like Seasalt and Strathberry, wishes to back British businesses to help drive their success, the company's chief executive officer, Andy Gregory, said in a release. He continued: 'BGF is an investment platform built to solve a hard problem. With our platform advantage, we've proven we can deploy scaleup capital into a broad base of UK businesses, in a way that is commercially rigorous, regionally inclusive, and can help businesses grow in all conditions. 'Few investors have the nationwide reach to deploy capital at the scale required to make a meaningful difference to the UK's scaleup landscape, and this next phase is about leveraging our platform advantage to unlock even greater impact for UK plc.' As part of the pledge, BGF is dedicating 300 million pounds of the fund to supporting female-powered businesses, an extension of its prior 25 million pound commitment to the Invest in Women Taskforce initiative. In her own statement, Debbie Wosskow, co-chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce, said the investment is 'one of the largest ever made in the UK'. She added: 'It marks a turning point in how we back women-led enterprise and is exactly the kind of action that can start to reshape our business landscape for the better.'
Telegraph
13-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Former TalkTalk chief bids to lead Channel 4 board
The hunt for a new chairman, which is being overseen by Lord Grade, the chairman of Ofcom, comes at a critical time for Channel 4. Alex Mahon, the chief executive, last month announced she will also step down this summer. The new chairman will be expected to lead the search for her replacement. Jonathan Allan, Channel 4's operations chief, will replace Ms Mahon on an interim basis, while veteran media executive Dawn Airey has taken up the role of interim chairman. Ms Airey, who in previous media jobs sparred with Lord Grade, is not in the running to lead the board permanently. An appointment is expected by autumn. Dame Tristia is bidding to become the first female chairman of Channel 4 since it was founded in 1982, in competition with the entrepreneur Debbie Wosskow. Ms Wosskow, 51, is already on the board as a non-executive director, and is seeking the chairman role, Sky News reported. She founded home exchange website Love Home Swap and is co-chairman of Invest in Women, a government-backed scheme supporting female entrepreneurs. The new chairman will also be tasked with leading the channel through a period of turmoil for traditional TV. Channel 4, which is publicly owned but commercially funded, last year crashed to a record £52m deficit after it was hit by an advertising downturn. The company slashed around 240 jobs and said it would sell its London headquarters in an effort to balance the books. Bosses have said they expect to broadly break even this year. Nevertheless, the broadcaster is facing a significant challenge as it tries to stem the exodus of its target Gen Z audience to streaming rivals and social media apps such as TikTok and YouTube. The shift in viewing habits has also hurt rival ITV, which is now facing the prospect of a potential merger or sale, while the BBC is locked in talks about the future of its licence fee funding model. The challenges have led many industry observers to speculate about the need for mergers to take on deep-pocketed US rivals.
Sky News
13-05-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Love Home Swap founder Wosskow screened for Channel 4 chair job
A start-up founder who leads a government-backed female entrepreneurship initiative is among the contenders to become the next chair of Channel 4. Sky News understands that Debbie Wosskow is among the names featuring on a list of candidates to replace Sir Ian Cheshire, who stepped down earlier this year. The race to lead the state-owned broadcaster's board has acquired additional importance in recent weeks after the resignation of Alex Mahon, its long-serving chief executive. Ms Mahon, who was a vocal opponent of the last government's proposed privatisation of Channel 4, is leaving to join Superstruct, a private equity-owned live entertainment company. The appointment of a new chair is expected to take place by the autumn, with the chosen candidate expected to lead the recruitment of Ms Mahon's successor. Dawn Airey, the veteran television executive, is serving as Channel 4's interim chair but has reportedly ruled herself out of the running for the role on a longer-term basis. Ms Wosskow is already on the board of Channel 4, having joined as a non-executive director in January last year. It was unclear on Tuesday whether any of the broadcaster's other non-executives have thrown their hat into the ring to succeed Sir Ian. Ms Wosskow, who now jointly chairs the Invest In Women taskforce, founded the home exchange start-up Love Home Swap before selling it to Wyndham in 2017. The appointment of directors of Channel 4 is technically led by Ofcom, the media regulator, in agreement with the culture secretary.
The Guardian
28-01-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
AllBright, London's women-only members' club, enters administration
AllBright, the women-only members' club with a five-storey townhouse in Mayfair, London, has entered administration, the Guardian can reveal. The networking and events business – which was co-founded by the Telegraph Media Group's chief executive, Anna Jones, and the co-chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce, Debbie Wosskow – emailed members last week to say it was closing the doors of its building just off Regent Street. Still, some staff and business members did not learn of its administration until Tuesday morning. The club first opened on International Women's Day in 2018, and its name was inspired by the former US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, and her famous remark: 'There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other.' AllBright had struggled in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the disruption to working patterns. Still, its closure comes amid a supposed boom in the wider private members' club sector. The club's individual memberships started at £1,950 a year, with corporate membership at £1,500. Its townhouse on Maddox Street boasted two restaurants, a bar, a hair salon and roof terrace. The company's latest set of accounts are overdue, according to filings on Companies House. Jones and Wosskow stepped back from their roles as directors at the company in February 2023. Viviane Paxinos, a former media executive, had taken over as chief executive the previous year. In the year to March 2022 – the latest set of available accounts – AllBright reported a pre-tax loss of £6.2m. The new administration comes two years after Cain International, co-founded by a director and co-owner of Chelsea football club Jonathan Goldstein, wrote off AllBright's debts and reinvested in the business via a pre-pack administration. Private members' clubs were described as one of the fastest-growing real estate sectors by lettings and property agents Knight Frank in a report in September. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Members were emailed last week to be told that they would have access to 'dedicated lounge' at the Old Session House in Farringdon. The email read: 'Sadly, with rising rents and the scale of the building, combined with its premium location, the Mayfair townhouse is no longer viable. While events, networking opportunities and learning programmes remain in high demand, the social and dining spaces were underutilised.' A spokesperson for AllBright declined to comment.
