Supporting women-led business through our purpose driven ethos
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” Those words from a passage in Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll are an apt way of illustrating the importance of knowing what you want to achieve both in life and work.
They can also be applied to those leading the charge for businesses. Purpose led leadership. Words that are used often and can sometimes sound nebulous, but if you’ve ever witnessed a leader who understands and lives their vision, and passes that enthusiasm and ethos to their employees, the impact is incredible.
Currently 19.1% of active UK companies are women led (almost one million businesses in the UK, according to Prowess UK), and women occupy over 43% of roles on company boards, according to a report released by FTSE Women Leaders Review and the UK Government.
Women-owned businesses have a positive spillover that goes beyond the financial and have a profound social and cultural impact. Women-led firms achieve significantly higher ESG scores and outperform non-women-led firms in terms of the likelihood of offering training opportunities to their workforce.
Purpose led and impactful leadership should be celebrated, as many choose to spotlight on International Women’s Day, which is marked in various ways by many people. Most recognise and use it is an opportunity to uplift and celebrate women and their achievements. Others feel that the meaning of the day has been lost, and this level of awareness should be being fought for each day, not on just one.
However you choose to mark International Women’s Day, it’s clear to see that while there is still a long way to go in gender equality, progress has been and is being made. Recent research from the House of Commons Library show that in the UK, the aggregate contribution of improvements in women participation to the UK’s GDP from 2011 to 2023 is at £74.4bn.
Women now also make up one-third of high-growth-oriented entrepreneurs, according to research from the GEM’s 2023/2024 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report.
At Muckle Media, led by our very own Nathalie Agnew, winner of Director of the Year at the 2025 Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce Awards, we are lucky to work with a wide range of clients that share similar values to ours: Be kind, get results, and leave the world in a better place. These include women leaders that are driving their companies forward with purpose, at the forefront of their respective fields.
From pioneers in the animal health sector such as entrepreneur Dr Eve Hanks, who is on a global mission alongside her gender balanced team of experts, to improve health outcomes for animals through earlier disease diagnosis using revolutionary biomarker technology and artificial intelligence, to Carol McLaren, CEO of RSABI who leads the charity with passion and dedication, working to ensure vital support is available to farmers, crofters, and agricultural workers across Scotland when they need it most. Or how about Kirsty Talbot, director of the Orkney 2025 International Island Games, whose leadership has brought together athletes, volunteers, and the local community, to create a lasting legacy for the island that will inspire future generations. We’re also delighted to be working with Florence Rolland, a business negotiation specialist who has made it her life work to empower women to negotiate and advocate for themselves.
With the theme of ‘accelerate action’ leading 2025 International Women’s Day activity, we couldn’t write this blog without also mentioning What Matters to You. An approach supported through an investment from The Hunter Foundation and BBC Children In Need, the predominantly women led team work tirelessly to put community voice – many of who are women – at the centre of systems change.
These incredible women, and many others like them, are a living embodiment of action over rhetoric, and we love being able to support and amplify their voices, sharing their personal, and their companies’, achievements with the world.