Women-led businesses are building some of the UK’s most trusted, innovative, and culture-shaping brands yet, they remain dramatically underfunded and underrepresented.
Despite their impacts, these women-led businesses still receive six times less funding on average than those founded by men.
Research shows that closing that gap could add £250 billion to the UK economy.
At Ideas Fest this September, five women who are breaking through those barriers will come together to explore what it really takes to build, scale, and support brands led by women. The session, The Power of the Purse: Backing Brands Built by Women, led by Sahar Hashemi OBE, will challenge outdated norms and show why funding women isn’t charity, it’s smart economics, stronger business, and the future of entrepreneurship.

Sahar Hashemi has spent her career turning bold ideas into movements. In the mid-90s, she and her brother Bobby transformed the UK’s coffee culture by launching Coffee Republic, the country’s first US-style espresso bar chain. It grew to 110 locations and £30 million in turnover, proving how quickly a single idea could reshape an entire market. After stepping away in 2001, Sahar became a champion for entrepreneurship through her bestselling book Anyone Can Do It and was later awarded an OBE for her services to the UK economy.