Lord Willie Haughey will be the principal speaker at the inaugural meeting of Inspiring Entrepreneurs. The project, based in Inverclyde, will focus on identifying and encouraging young business talent in the area, and Lord Haughey will be joined by two successful local business owners.
Sam Coley of SamTeq, and Mariessa Develin managing director of Enchanted Forest Early Learning will take part in interactive workshops.
The initiative has the backing of Inverclyde Council, West College Scotland, Greenock Chamber of Commerce, Business Gateway and PG Paper Company.
Helen McCormick, chief executive of Greenock Chamber of Commerce, said: “Together we have a strong collective desire and commitment to help guide, encourage and inspire those embarking on the difficult initial phase of their entrepreneurial career.”
Puneet Gupta, chief operating officer at PG Paper, said: “We are delighted that Lord Haughey has accepted the committee's request to speak.
“We are all aware of the difficulties which can be faced during the many different stages of starting and growing a business and we are pleased that this initiative will be a tool to help and support our local community.”
Any budding entrepreneur or local business owner who would like to take part should register their interest by emailing inspirationalentrepreneurs@gmail.com.
The first of six planned events will take place at West College Scotland on March 10 between 5.30 and 8.30pm.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here