Scottish Women in Business introduced Debbie Shields as their new president at an event at Glasgow’s stunning House for an Art Lover.
Previous president Zaynab Al Nasser welcomed Shields into the role to boisterous applause from the SWIB members. Born and raised on the south side of Glasgow, Debbie, who is an associate director of Scottish executive search firm Aspen People, plans to usher in a new era of the not-for-profit organisation.
With several new committee members, Shields intends to breathe new life into women’s networking, and has already seen a surge in new members.
Discussing the new approach Shields said: ‘It’s time to provide women with real business opportunities and spaces to collaborate. Many of our members have said that they find women’s networking groups can be focussed around the venues where events are held, and these groups often feel like a place to go for cupcakes and a catch-up.
‘Essentially there is nothing wrong with that, you will make good friends at SWIB and enjoy socialising. However, our primary objective is creating genuine, lasting business connections and helping businesses become profitable and prosperous.’
Fiona Frew, operations director at Murphy Wealth and new SWIB committee member, said:’What we’re creating at SWIB is not just a support group for women in business. We offer members genuine, advantageous and profitable business relationships that will help their businesses flourish and thrive.’
Keen to learn from the excellent earlier work of SWIB, thanks to previous president Al Nasser, Shields maintains a sincere appreciation of core goals of the not-for-profit.
Debbie continued: ‘SWIB is about encouraging women to be more in control of their business lives and have the confidence to share what they are doing with pride.
‘If we can help one woman move her career or business to the next level by offering this kind of environment, then I’ll be happy we’ve done our job. At this crucial time for Scotland and the UK, having a robust and effective business network is more important than ever.’
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