Women are the largest sector by far within under-represented enterprise groups, with only around 15% of businesses across the UK being owned by women.  This represents a huge amount of untapped economic potential, which can be unlocked through a gender specific approach to business support. Women often have different drivers and motivations to men, and usually take a different approach to the management and growth of their businesses.

YTKO’s experienced team have developed best practice programmes for engaging and supporting women from pre-start through to high growth.  In 2009, Enterprising Women was selected by the government’s department for Business, Innovation and Skills as one of three UK best practice programmes for SME support, and was showcased at the European Commission Charter Conference in Stockholm in October.

In the Yorkshire Enterprise Fellowships for the commercialisation of innovation in bioscience, healthcare and medical devices, 30% of the Fellows are women, who have raised over £2.4m funding to date.  YEF was acclaimed as “A Flagship during the lifetime of this RDA” by Simon Hill, Yorkshire Forward’s Director of Innovation.

YTKO are the only organisation who hold the Prowess Flagship Award for excellence in Women’s Enterprise Support across all locations and in both public and private sector work. In 2008 we were also honoured with one of two special awards recognising best practice within Flagship organisations.

YTKO conceived the business model for the UK’s 2nd women’s enterprise centre, launching it in March 2010 and establishing it as fully operational by the end of the year.  The centre offered a wide range of services to encourage more women to start up in business, and to help existing businesses to grow.

The centre proved highly successful – in its first, ‘virtual’ three months before the centre opened, five new businesses were up and running as a result, and over 100 women were engaged in the training programme. By the end of the year it had surpassed all expectations, supporting over 600 women, helping create 28 new jobs and businesses, and assisting over 160 women into employment.  We were delighted that it was selected as an example of UK best practice by WINNET8 – a european project promoting gender equality.