Pathways in entrepreneurship, by Nick Freer

Through our longstanding advisory work with St Andrews-based investment firm Eos, we got the opportunity to meet Eos partner Ana Stewart a few years’ back, from memory the first time around was with our go-to contact at the firm, Mark Beaumont, and very possibly at Contini’s in Edinburgh.

I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like Ana Stewart, and I’d worry about anyone who bucks the trend, and then there’s obviously her acumen as an entrepreneur, investor, and non-exec, with those NXD roles including a notable first as the first ever female board member at the Scottish FA.

Arguably, Stewart is now best known for chairing and co-authoring ‘Pathways: a new approach for women in entrepreneurship’, commissioned by Kate Forbes in 2022, at that time the Scottish Government’s finance secretary, subsequently published the following year in February.

During 2023, our agency became a key adviser to Ana, managing PR and comms, with former BBC broadcaster and associate Vanessa Collingridge and I managing a series of events and related media coverage, advising on overall strategy, leading to the creation of Pathways Forward to help guide the recommendations of the Stewart Report towards tangible outcomes and effective change.

Next week, Pathways stages the inaugural Female Founders Growth Summit at RBS Gogarburn, which in Stewart’s own words, “brings our scale-up founders together with the investment community and is focused on energising this often challenging growth stage of the founder journey.”

Our press announcement earlier this week illustrates how far Pathways has come in eighteen months, with Pathways ‘Pledge partners’ - who now include Deloitte, Scottish Enterprise, the University of Strathclyde, the Scottish National Investment Bank, CodeBase, and many others - committing to a number of measures, ranging from the capture and publication of enhanced gender data to evidential increases in female participation rates.

When in Bordeaux

On our summer holiday this year, we travelled to Southwest France, about an hour’s drive west of Toulouse.  Out in the sticks with no WiFi or TV, it was an interesting experiment for the family.  Somewhat ironically, it was difficult to watch the Olympics that were taking place only a few hundred miles north in Paris, but on the night of the men's 1500m final we huddled into the back of a local cafe with locals to watch Josh Kerr’s bittersweet silver medal performance.  Work wise, a couple of urgent matters arose, but by hook or by crook, I was able to jump on a few calls and exchange the necessary emails.

On a trip to Bordeaux, taking a TGV train to the capital of France’s Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, an Airbnb with fully functioning WiFi brought smiles back to young faces.  Alas, those same young faces found it difficult to be torn away from their devices when we ventured out to find a restaurant on the first night in the city often described as ‘Petit Paris’.

To my shock and horror, the majority of our ‘hangry’ bunch decided on an Italian restaurant, and to make matters worse there was not a single Bordeaux on the wine menu… sacre bleu!  Fortunately, we found an authentic local restaurant the following night, the Bordeaux flowed, and I would jump at the chance to return to this charming city.