Fifteen female entrepreneurs running businesses with an average growth rate of 115 per cent annually will be travelling to the US to strengthen London’s connections with Silicon Valley and learn about global opportunities.

The three-day event, which will take place on 19th June and will be led by London & Partners Chairman Rajesh Agrawal, London & Partners Principal Advisor on Growth Janet Coyle and SVC2UK Co-Founder and Chair Sherry Coutu CBE, will give female founders the opportunity to connect with US founders and potential clients and investors.

Barclays is searching for female business talent in the North West region for the bank’s Celebrating North West Women in Business Awards 2017.

The awards will be recognising women and female-led businesses that have made a difference in business over the past year, with finalists being given the opportunity to attend an awards lunch at Tatton Park, Knutsford on Thursday 6 July. 

Businesses need to take action to help tackle the gender pay gap, according to Young Women’s Trust.

The charity, which provides support for women aged 16 to 30 who are on low or no income, is calling for more support as new reporting requirements are set to be put into action this week. 

UK businesses need to encourage more women into the information security industry, according to GCHQ Director Robert Hannigan.

He called for more women to be recruited into cyber security after the latest Global Information Security Workforce Study showed that the infosec industry has the lowest proportion of women at just 8 per cent. 

A national campaign that is led by British businesses and aims to end discrimination of pregnant women and mothers in the workplace is celebrating reaching 100 members. 

Pet care retailer Pets at Home has become the latest business to join the Working Forward campaign, which focuses on making employers aware of the best ways in which they can attract, develop and retain women at work and provide them with a better workplace. 

Vodafone is to launch the world’s largest programme to help women who have taken a career break to get back into work.

The programme follows research that has highlighted the problems that women face when re-entering the workplace, such as restricted opportunities for pay rises and promotions. 

Female entrepreneurs in the UK generated £3.51 billion for the economy and helped to boost employment in 2015, creating over 75,000 jobs, according to research by NatWest.

The research also showed a growth in the number of female-led businesses between 2009 and 2012, with the proportion of businesses increasing from 3.7 per cent to 7.1 per cent.

Facebook has partnered up with Enterprise Nation in order to provide support to female business owners across the UK.

The partnership is part of Facebook’s #SheMeansBusiness initiative. The initiative aims to provide 10,000 female business owners with training to help them to learn the digital skills that they need to boost their business. 

Innovate UK has celebrated 15 of the UK’s most innovative women at an awards ceremony at London’s Royal Society of Arts.

The Innovate UK awards, which was launched in May this year, will be awarding £50,000 and a tailored business package to each of the winners.

A business pitch competition has been launched to give female entrepreneurs in Scotland the opportunity to secure angel investment.

Organised by Investing Women, and in its second year, the AccelerateHER competition is open to female entrepreneur-led businesses throughout Scotland and is the only pitch competition for women in the country.

The number of female inventors is on the rise, with an increase of 60% worldwide since 2000, according to research from the Intellectual Property Office.

The research showed that the number of female inventors in the UK has risen by 16% over the past ten years, with Taylor Wessing’s Global Intellectual Property Index recently naming the UK as the best place in the world to patent.

Over 20 female finalists for this year’s NatWest everywoman Awards have been announced. The awards, which is in its 14th year, celebrate the success of female entrepreneurs in Britain, from women who are running an early-stage business to those who own a more established organisation. 

This year’s finalists are from a diverse range of industries, including design, technology, professional services and manufacturing, and were selected for their drive, their appetite for risk and their focus on growing their business.

A new programme that aims to encourage more women to consider a career in technology is set to be launched this week.

The F-Disruptors programme was developed by CEO Debbie Edwards and set up in the North West by a group of women aiming to raise awareness of job opportunities in technology.

Over 60 per cent of accountancy firms do not have any women in senior roles, according to a study by Visible Women.

The Women in Finance: Not Adding Up! report showed a shortage of women in senior roles such as executive board members, partners and senior accountants in two-thirds of companies. 

The UK’s first ever crowdfunding platform to support female entrepreneurs has been launched to help tackle the funding gap between female-led and male-led companies.

Launched by Love Home Swap Founder Debbie Wosskow OBE and Hearst Magazines UK CEO Anna Jones, London-based platform AllBright Crowd aims to discover and fund the best female entrepreneurs in the UK and will invest in start-ups, seed stage businesses and established companies. 

MassChallenge has announced that 42 of the 100 UK start-ups chosen for its programme are led by a female entrepreneur.

The accelerator, which is the largest in London, selected the companies using an unbiased application process.

Over 80 per cent of female business owners say that they would recommend that other women set up their own business, as said by the Women-owned Micro Businesses Trend Report from Vistaprint.

The report surveyed 1,200 female entrepreneurs from the UK and US, and revealed that respondents are confident about their business, with over 50 per cent expecting their enterprise to financially improve this year.

Women make up nearly a third of all self-employed, according to research from insurance company Towergate.

The amount of women in self-employment has risen significantly over the past eight years, increasing by 40 per cent, compared to a 13 per cent increase in the total of self-employed men over the same period.

Women with children face a wider gender pay gap than men, according to new research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

The research showed that the gap widens year on year after a woman has her first child, reaching 33 per cent by the time the child is 12 years old. 

Gender diversity is fast becoming a business priority in the UK, with large businesses taking measures to recruit and nurture more female employees in senior positions.

Armstrong Craven, a talent mapping and pipelining company that operates globally, has stated that recent research conducted by a UK university shows that less than 6 per cent of women have made it to the top post of executive director. The company also points out that the research found that just 5.6 per cent of executive directors in FTSE250 companies are female. Armstrong Craven believes that these figures indicate that organisations and businesses still need to work harder to ensure that more women occupy senior and top positions. 

A Government spokesperson has said that closing the gender pay gap is “essential” for improving the UK economy.

Industry leaders are now also calling for businesses to encourage women to take on more senior roles to tackle the problem of inequality in the workplace.

Over 70 banks and city companies have signed up to a charter to help improve gender balance in companies within the financial sector.

Leading banks, such as Lloyds and Barclays, have agreed to link their bosses’ bonuses to gender diversity targets in order to get more women working in senior roles.

More young women should be encouraged into a career in technology, according to the Tech Partnership.

The digital skills advocate has called for more support from parents and teachers for young girls to enable them to study technology whilst in school. 

London provides the most opportunities for female workers in the tech sector, according to technology recruitment company Mortimer Spinks.

The research, which surveyed over 3,700 workers across the UK, showed that 40 per cent of the country’s female tech workers are employed in the city. 

A campaign has been launched to help provide more support for female entrepreneurs. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is aiming to increase the number of women in business and has called for the UK and Welsh Government to provide more support and better access to finance.

According to the UK Government, providing more support for female entrepreneurs could help to boost the economy by £600 billion.