Tuesday 8th March marks International Women’s Day, a global day to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women.
This year we wanted to shine the spotlight on Liverpool’s very own business women who truly deserve the recognition for their contributions to the different sectors of one magnificent city, and how they can help inspire the future women of Liverpool.
Ann Chambers
Age: 49
Business name: iStay Apartments/Tres Liverpool
Sector: Hospitality
About: Luxury apartments and party pad specialists, I created the business when I saw the gap in the serviced apartment market in our great city of Liverpool. I chose iStay for the prime locations in the city centre! We are in all the key areas of the city from the Ropewalks with Duke Street to the Cavern Quarter with the UNO building. We are the higher end company of short stay accommodation in all the key areas of the city. Put simply we are high spec, purpose built group stay accommodation.
Also recent opened my first bar Tres Liverpool, a chic new cocktail bar which has regular events ranging from live singers, DJ sets and Drag Queens.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: To strive to improve each day. I am up very early and go to bed very late every single day! Hard work and persistent pays off.
Alishia Thomas
Age: 30’s
Business Name: M0THER
Sector: Gin | Marketing | Gifting
About: M0THER was created to be there every step of the way throughout a woman’s motherhood journey. As we’ve grown as mother’s so has our business, and in 2019 we created our very own gin to celebrate life & motherhood.
Handmade in Liverpool, our gin is a timeless metaphor of life & our reminder to enjoy every single moment of it. Because as the saying goes in Japan, MONO NO AMORA, which simply means ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’, due the short flowering life of the cherry blossoms and because as us mums know, our babies aren’t little for long.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: My current mantra is ‘don’t look around you, just look forward’ It’s easy to get lost in someone else’s headlights, just focus on you and your own journey.
Louise Kissack
Age: 42
Business name: Spaghetti Group & Liverpool Food Network
Sector: Hospitality
About: Spaghetti Group supports hospitality businesses of all sizes, helping them to make the right decisions on everything from site location to marketing strategy. Liverpool Food Network is the city’s first dedicated membership network for food and drink businesses, providing them with affordable resources as they develop and grow their brands.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: One of my favourite quotes is “You can always tell who the strong women are. They’re ones building other women up instead of tearing them down.” There are plenty of successful women out there supporting the next generation of female entrepreneurs, so don’t be afraid to reach out to a woman you admire and ask her how she built her business!
Jen Clarke
Age: 37
Business name: LV Pilates
Sector: pilates/fitness
About: LV Pilates is a Reformer Pilates studio which offers both small group classes and private sessions for all levels.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: There will always be times when you doubt yourself or wonder if you’re good enough. Believe that you CAN inspire others, live in that energy for a moment and give yourself that chance to shine!
Michaela Sandringham
Age: 44
Business name: Fitbox Fitness/ Health
Sector: Fitness/Lifestyle
About: We are a small boutique gym which specialises in strength and conditioning, we also run spin and circuit classes alongside personal training. Our classes are inclusive to all, and pride our classes on accommodating to the needs of all that walk through our doors.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: You’re never too old to start! age is just a number don’t let that stop you from pursuing a career in something that you are passionate about.
Jamie Cook
Age: 27
Business name: Dorathy & J
Sector: Fashion jewellery & piercing
About: Female owned brand specialising in dainty and enchanting ear stacking pieces and recently ventured into the world of piercing!
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: My top tips for anyone running a brand is to be unapologetically yourself. Let your vibe shine through. Work as hard as you possibly can and when it gets tough never give up
Georgia and Jade Morgan
Age: 28 and 32
Business Name: Propel PR
Sector: Public Relations
About: Propel PR is an innovative PR and Communications Agency that specialises in delivering tailored PR strategies for businesses and individuals who want to propel themselves forward and make waves in their industries.
We create cutting-edge, multi-channel campaigns that get everyone talking utilising a range of services including Press Releases and Media Relations, Content Creation, Event Management, Influencer Engagement, Celebrity Endorsement, Social Media Management and Crisis Comms. We help businesses connect with their target audience and communicate who they are and what they do, as well as helping them stand apart from their competitors.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: Work hard and believe in yourself! Our main focus is client satisfaction and this is at the forefront of our business every day. There’s really nothing more valuable to us than consistently producing our best work so if you’re hardworking and dedicated, you can and will succeed. Find your niche or what makes you different and channel that into your work; this will set you apart from other businesses and give you an edge.
Tracy Colley
Age: 50
Business name: Hilton Liverpool
Sector: Hospitality
About: Hilton Liverpool is based in the heart of the City, ideally located for those who are looking a city break with the Albert Dock and Liverpool One right on the hotel’s doorstep. Liverpool is a fantastic location for National and International Business, from the Central Station, you can go anywhere in the Uk – its only 2 hours to London and 30 minutes to Manchester.
Here at Hilton Liverpool we have event space catering for over 350 delegates with floor to ceiling windows on every floor giving you the best views of the city. More importantly we have the team that is full with passion and energy who always strive to ensure your visit, event, celebration is memorable.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: One word ‘Team’ – that’s the whole team!! I couldn’t do my job without them. Take time to nurture the team, help them grow and reach their full potential, find out what their interests are, their strengths their weakness and their ambitions. By doing this at every opportunity not only do your team flourish but your business will grow – the team are the Heart Beat of the hotel we must never forget this. Oh and have fun every day as laughter attracts people filling the hotel with happiness – I always turn up to work with a smile and share it with everyone I meet.
Charlotte Donoghue
Age: 31
Business name: Say It With Diamonds
Sector: Retail and Design
About: Starting in 2016, Say It With Diamonds is a jewellery brand that strives to offer affordable luxury to our customers. From baby bangles to stack bracelets for your baby, right through to engagement/wedding rings and bespoke pieces, Say It With Diamonds also specialises in redesign of old jewellery too. You’ll find beautifully created necklaces including our best selling initial range, earrings, bracelets and rings as well as special gifts at Say It With Diamonds.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: My advice would be: Don’t be scared to take a risk and to read more. One key finding from any book can change your life. Meet new people and say yes to opportunities even if you’re not sure how you’re going to do it just yet!
Emma McAllister
Age: 39
Business name: E M hair & beauty clinic, E M Lasers, EM Skin
Sector: Beauty
About: I do all aspects of beauty, nails, facials, laser hair and tattoo removal, semi permanent make up and I’m also a beauty training academy teaching accredited courses. And now my own range of vegan friendly cruelty free products.
IInspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: Never forget your passion for this job. Our line of work is not commended enough. We make people feel loved, happy, special and good about them selves helping with mental health. There’s no better feeling then when you do a treatment on your client and they are over the moon they hug you and thank you and leave feeling confident and happy. We are not just a beauticians, we are your friend and councillor all rolled into one.
Tori Rosero
Age: 23
Business Name: Glow & Blade Academy
Sector: Beauty & Aesthetics
About: Glow & Blade Academy is a Semi Permanent Makeup Academy focusing on providing treatments including microblading, lip blush, eyebrow lamination and aesthetics, as well as being an award-winning Training Academy. Owner Tori Rosero has taught many students with both beginners and advanced courses available which she spends most of her time executing. Glow & Blade won Gold at the British Hair & Beauty Awards for Training Centre of Excellence and she’s also a Finalist in The UK Hair and Beauty Awards for Semi Permanent Makeup Artist of the Year, with the results being announced in March.
IInspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: If you complete a course and you don’t see any bookings coming through the door it makes you feel so deflated and you’ll question whether this was the line of work you were supposed to go down. But remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day and you will get there with perseverance and a great mindset! Mindset for me was everything! I think setting small goals each week and achieving them will set you up to complete your bigger goals! It’s like your building blocks to your foundation, secure your foundation and you’ll reach the top of the pyramid in no time.
Everyone has got a chance in this industry, it’s just whether you’re prepared to work every single day until it does work out! It can take it out of you, but the end result is so worth the struggle to find complete balance in your life whilst loving your job.
Amy Gwynn
Age: 34
Business name: Avenue, Jaloux and Rude
Sector: Hospitality
About: Avenue and Jaloux are two of Liverpool’s much-loved bars. Avenue is an Instagrammable playground providing a completely different type of nightclub experience. From a ballpit to a swing, and Avenue’s plush booths that have their own colour scheme and phrase, the club has been created with the most unique decorations including a spectacular suspended butterfly bar installation. Jaloux is equally picture worthy with the club being adorned in an entire floral ceiling as well as its ‘You Can’t Sit With Us’ private booth.
Rude is the UK’s largest strip club, with owner Amy pioneering a new type of gentleman’s club; one where the dancers are put first and where there has been thousands invested into the aesthetics of the club and beautiful changing rooms for the ladies that are uplifting, feminine and of course Instagrammable so that they can get their pre-work shots. When opening Rude, Amy was appalled at how the girls in the industry were treated and has since made it her mission to ensure all dancers are treated with the utmost respect and have confidence in themselves.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: My advice to any girls working as dancers, hostesses or in any form of hospitality is to embrace it. We live in a nocturnal world that only you and your co-workers understand. We are so lucky to work a job where we can work and party at the same time, meeting new people every week. But working on the front line in service can be testing at times, not every customer is going to make your shift easy. But you learn to smile, be polite and rise above it. We grow from every experience life throws at us.
Helen Goodwin
Age: 38
Business name: Goodwin Events & Marketing
Sector: PR & Marketing
About: GEM is just over 2 years old now and we offer our clients on and offline marketing plans & strategy, PR, social media management & fundraising consultancy for registered charities. We also offer Event management where we organise and market your event from start to finish. Another key part of our business is influencer engagement & marketing and we work with a range of celebrities.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: You should never give up something you can’t stop thinking about..i kept toying with the idea of setting my own business up but just never had the courage to do it. It has definitely been the best career decision I’ve made! Remember the industry is very competitive but There is enough business to go round, so stay focused, positive, keep smiling & enjoy being a succesful woman in a business & life.
Ellis and Rowan Williams
Age: 29 & 27
Business name: Sist•E•R
Sector: Beauty
About: Sist•E•R is a beauty salon aiming to make all of its clients feel and look their very best. Owners Ellis and Rowan are sisters and wanted to create a Sisterhood when opening their own venue. With friendliness and a sense of familiarity at the forefront of Sist•E•R, Ellis and Rowan have created a home away from home for their clients, with a welcoming atmosphere and chatty team members on hand to help anyone that comes through their door. Offering makeup, nails, aesthetics, skincare, beauty, LVL lashes and semi-permanent eyelashes, Sist•E•R is based on Rose Lane.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: Our advice would be to put in the hours, build your clientele and keep working really hard! We both spent years working long hours and never said no to any bookings. We both moved into our own rooms in separate locations where we were able to expand on our knowledge, skills and treatments available so always keep learning and developing your talent.
We’ve both worked so hard to develop our own individual brands and knew one day that we’d work together but never imagined we’d be in a position to own our own salon. To anyone starting out in the beauty industry, or if you want to build your client base; never look back unless it’s to appreciate how far you’ve come to motivate your next move. We were apprehensive to take the next step to owning our own salon but now we only look back to reflect on what we’ve achieved so far to motivate ourselves.
Carla Lim
Age: 50s
Business name: Elite Realty & Lettings
Sector: Property Management
About: An experienced property management company based in Liverpool specialising in
the management of short-term lettings and AST. We have over 20 years’ experience jointly
with our sister company of the property investment world.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: 3 reminders for you, Dream it, Believe it, Achieve it.
Rachel Boyle
Age: 41
Business name: Dean (elect) of the Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University
Sector: Higher Education
About: We deliver both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in the area of education. This involves training teachers for Primary, Secondary and Further Education settings in addition to Nursery practitioners. We also deliver a Renee of degrees that equip our students to enter the wider educational workforce and further training. This includes community and social work careers amongst others.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: Don’t ever give up. Find something you are passionate about and commit to it. Never underestimate the impact you will have and the contribution you can make. Small acts in education change lives and you are capable of that everything single day.
Kier Smith
Age: 31
Business name: BDM at iStay Liverpool & TRES
Sector: Hospitality
About: Luxury apartments and party pad specialists, the business saw the gap in the serviced apartment market in our great city of Liverpool. I chose iStay for the prime locations in the city centre! We are in all the key areas of the city from the Ropewalks with Duke Street to the Cavern Quarter with the UNO building. We are the higher end company of short stay accommodation in all the key areas of the city. Put simply we are high spec, purpose built group stay accommodation.
Helped relaunch Tres Liverpool, a chic new cocktail bar which has regular events ranging from live singers, DJ sets and Drag Queens.
Inspiration advice to give to women in your line of work: To support and compliment other women, often Women can be too harsh particularly with each other. I think we should empower each other and celebrate wins, there’s enough room for us all to succeed your only competition is yourself, so lets all support each other.
