Women Mean Business at the Baileys Book Bar

On Thursday night at the Baileys Book Bar at Waterstones Tottenham Court Road, a panel of jaw-droppingly impressive women in business joined bestselling author and Founder Director Kate Mosse to talk about the female authors and books that played a part in their incredible success, and how women are reshaping the world of work. Our brilliant panelists included 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction judge and Digital Entrepreneur Sarah Wood, founder of the Black British Business Awards Melanie Eusebe, Jess Butcher MBE, Co-Founder of Tick & Blippar, serial tech entrepreneur, angel and advisor, and Sharmadean Reid MBE, founder of WAH Nails and Beautystack.

First up the brilliant Sharmadean Reid told us the story of setting up WAH Nails, ‘I was always obsessed with how people use fashion and culture to share their personal identities… I was trying to figure out my identity at the time. And I wanted that identity to have clothes on it.’

Next up 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction judge Sarah Wood explained how she and her husband came to set up Unruly: ‘We didn’t know anything other than Web 2.0 was kicking off and we wanted to be part of it.’

Next Jess Butcher spoke of her love of being a serial entrepreneur, ‘I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.. For the whole of my twenties I had a very ugly CV. It said ‘gets bored easily’, ‘can’t be managed.”

The fantastic Melanie Eusebe then discussed how she came to set up The Black British Business Awards: ‘It’s all about empowering people, about making sure they know they can succeed’ and also about the importance of perception and representation ‘I don’t judge white people based on what is coming out of Nigel Farage’s mouth.’

Sharmadean Reid then spoke about knowing your company’s numbers: ‘As a woman I find people go much harder for you on the data and the metrics. We don’t do anything unless we can measure it’ and also about the importance of splitting childcare with her ex-partner: ‘He’s 50% your DNA, you can look after him 50% of the time.’

The brilliant Sarah Wood rounded off the evening by highlighting the gender imbalance in business: ‘We’ve had years of very mediocre men running businesses. They haven’t needed to be brilliant, they’ve just needed to show up.’

Stay tuned to our Twitter @WomensPrize for a chance to win all four brilliant books! And be sure to join in the conversation #WomensPrize.