The Rose Review was highlighted in our recent ‘Investing in Women’ campaign by Roxanne Goodman, but what actually is it and what does it mean for UK SMEs?
In 2019 the Treasury commissioned Alison Rose,the Deputy CEO of NatWest Holdings and CEO, Commercial & Private Banking, to lead an independent review into female entrepreneurship within the United Kingdom.
To summarize, Rose highlighted the barriers that were faced by female entrepreneurs in starting and growing businesses, and Rose also provided suggestions to unlock this untapped talent. You can read the full review with all of Rose’s analyses and recommendations, here.
The Government responded to this review by announcing their ambition to increase the number of female entrepreneurs by half by 2030, this would be equivalent to roughly 600,000 additional entrepreneurs.
Rose Review Progress Report 2022:
The 2022 report set out the full extent of the progress made since the initial report in 2019. The report outlined that female led businesses still need extra support in order to survive and thrive. The original review highlighted that if women scaled businesses at the same rate as men then up to £250bn of new value could be added to the UK economy.
So far, around 134 institutions with an investment power of almost £1 trillion have signed up to the investing in women code. This is a commitment by those in the financial services sector to improve female entrepreneurs’ access to funding, resources, and tools. Those in the financial services sector collect and report on data relating to female led firms.
You can read more information on this here.
The investing in women code:
Our organisation is a proud signatory to the Investing in Women Code, and commits to adopting internal practices to improve female entrepreneurs’ access to finance, tools, and resources they need to grow their businesses.
Goodman Corporate Finance is committed to a culture of inclusion and to advancing access to capital for female entrepreneurs.
A diverse and inclusive business ecosystem is good for customers, entrepreneurs, businesses, investors, and society. BEIS and the signatory firms share a commitment to work in partnership to make the United Kingdom one of the most attractive countries in the world to start and grow a business by advancing female entrepreneurship.
The Investing in Women Code recognises that there is already valuable work underway by individual organisations to help women who are seeking to start or scale up their businesses. Signatories to the Investing in Women Code aim to build on this work.