South: Santander launches further Women in Business mentoring programme

To celebrate National Mentoring Day (October 27), Santander, in association with the award-winning social enterprise Cause4, has launched the Breakthrough Women in Business (WiB) Programme, a mentoring scheme for the next generation of female UK entrepreneurs. The launch follows on from the huge success of Santander’s Women in Breakthrough mentoring programme in 2015.

The Women in Business Programme 2017 will support 30 female entrepreneurs and match them with female mentors who themselves are running successful businesses with multi-million-pound revenues. To be eligible for the programme, entrepreneurs must:

- be the majority shareholder of a business, with an annual turnover of between £250,000 and £6 million;

- have been trading for at least three years;

- employ between five and 40 individuals; and

- be capable of scaling up their business idea and boosting local employment. 

The deadline for mentoring applications is December 8, 2016. Applicants will be told by December 23 if they have been accepted onto the programme. The mentoring will run between January and June 2017.

Santander Breakthrough is an award-winning suite of products and services to help ambitious businesses grow and prosper. There are five pillars to Breakthrough: access to talent, support with international success, connections and events, knowledge masterclasses and access to finance. 

Cause4 works in partnership with corporations, charities and people to develop charitable projects, create new business models and raise vital funds, working across the charity, arts, sports and education sectors. Since being set up in May 2009, Cause4 has raised over £46m for clients, and is committed to helping attract the best graduate talent to work on some of the charitable sector’s most pressing issues. 

Sue Douthwaite, ‎managing director of Santander business, said: “This dedicated initiative is one of the most comprehensive programmes of its type and offers real value to the selected entrepreneurs.  The Women and Work Commission found that unleashing women’s full potential could be worth £23 billion a year to the Exchequer but that only 4% of women are engaged in entrepreneurial activity compared to 9% of men – we are focused on addressing this shortfall.’’ 

Michelle Wright, chief executive of Cause4, said: “The mentoring programme is led by 30 of the country’s leading female entrepreneurs who are all committing their experience and time free of charge to support other female founders to build successful growth businesses.”