Investing Women is a growing community of women angel investors.
Scotland has one of the most active business angel communities globally and the UK has a favourable tax regime which incentivises investment in early-stage companies and is the envy of angel investors around the world.
Despite this and despite the fact that women hold 46% of UK wealth, only 5% of Scotland’s angel investors are female.
It’s time for change. Scotland’s businesses and economy need new investment for growth. Investing Women is leading change to help more women into this space.
Find out more about being an Investing Women Angel here
We believe in female founders. We believe teams with female founders perform better. We believe there is huge potential for more female founders to scale their companies internationally.
The AccelerateHER programme of events and trade missions is designed to inspire and support female founders’ journey to growth and scale. Balanced teams which include female founders have been shown to perform better and there is huge potential for more female founders to scale their companies internationally.
We are seeing great results from our dual focus on angels and ambitious founders. Female investors and scalable female founded businesses are increasing; and more investment is going into these exciting innovative companies. The results are delivering diversity and economic growth for Scotland.
Find out more about the AccelerateHER programmes and missions here.
Jackie Waring, Founder & CEO Investing Women
Jackie is an entrepreneur with a passion for helping other entrepreneurs.
Having set up her own company in 2003, Jackie has run 3 companies, including a turnaround 50 employee business, and she has served on multiple boards.
At 25 Jackie was the youngest CEO in the UK enterprise sector. Learning from some of Scotland’s top entrepreneurs on her Board, she quickly developed a ‘can do’ approach to business and leading change. This approach earned her the title Scottish Young Career Woman of the Year and a finalist Entrepreneur of the Year, along with several other awards.
Jackie led the Access to Finance for Women Agenda for the UK government as an external advisor which led to a passionate interest to increase the UKs level of Women Angels; recognising this as a major market opportunity. She was also appointed the UK’s first Advisory Board Member to the Global Banking Alliance for Women, based in Washington DC.
Support Team
Elizabeth Pirrie
Elizabeth Pirrie is the newest member of the Investing Women team working alongside CEO, Jackie Waring to develop the strategic direction for Investing Women.
Elizabeth brings with her over 20 years of accounting experience including 10 as Finance Director of what was one of Scotland’s largest, independent care home providers. For the past six years she has worked in economic development in Scotland supporting start up and growing companies across several sectors including life sciences, technology and tourism.
Elizabeth also runs her own consultancy business, Piuthar Ltd. Piuthar (pronounced pewer) is Gaelic for sister and offers business growth consultancy and virtual financial controller services with a mission to inspire founders to achieve more in business than they thought possible.
linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-pirrie-700b231/
Elaine Bone
Elaine Bone has an established career history in event management and in 2000, set up her company, Brightstar – focussed on events and association management.
Elaine and Brightstar associate, Alison Jones, provide operational support to the Investing Women team and its wider network.
linkedin.com/in/elaine-bone-57b02520
Alison Jones
Alison Jones supports Scotland’s all-female business angel group, Investing Women, and its sister programme, AccelerateHER. Her background includes marketing, events design, governance and business management. A graduate of Political Science and Political Communication, she has a keen interest in policy, female empowerment, economic development and strategic communications.
She works with Investing Women providing operational and executive support, working and supporting high growth founders and collating angel investment.
linkedin.com/in/alison-jones-8a3a7582
The Board
Sanja Moll
Rhona has over 20 years’ experience in global marketing for technology companies and is currently working with start-up and investor-funded companies to assess, commercialise and launch new products. She has been a member of Investing Women since inception and has invested in and mentored a number of early stage companies as well as represents IW on company boards.
Jackie Waring
See above for Jackie’s bio.
Evelyn Simpson
After a successful international career with JP Morgan Chase, specialising in corporate finance for shipping companies, Evelyn Simpson trained as an executive coach. She co-founded global executive training company, Thriving Abroad and co-authored a book about her work. She continues to mentor executives and entrepreneurs and is an active business angel investor.
Kirsty Paton
Entrepreneurial tax specialist at accountants Chiene + Tait, is appointed as board advisor