Most people talk about starting a business in terms of the idea, the decision and taking the leap.
But what happens after that doesn’t get talked about as much.
I never planned for The Female Panel to become a business. It began as a place for women from the North East to meet while working on their careers, businesses and ideas.
My goal was simple: to create a space where conversations were genuinely helpful, not just for show.
No one really tells you how fast something small can turn into a real responsibility.
Once people start showing up, your idea turns into a responsibility. You begin to think about their experience, the value you provide and whether your work can really become a business. That’s when it all feels real.
A lot of people assume founders are confident from the start, but real confidence comes later.
You make decisions before you feel ready, try things without knowing if they’ll work and get used to a level of uncertainty that never really disappears.
In the beginning, being busy can feel like progress, but it’s not the same as being responsible. It’s easy to get caught up in output, events, content and growth.
Eventually, you start to see the bigger picture, think about the people involved and realise your choices have lasting effects.
Building The Female Panel showed me how important it is to stay connected to the people you’re building for.
The best insights don’t come from trends or outside opinions; they come from listening. Sometimes that means talking at events, getting feedback after a session or just hearing what people are really going through in less busy moments.
A lot of founders lose their way because they feel pressure to move faster, be more visible or follow what others are doing.
Not all founders are the same
What works for someone else might not work for you. It’s just as important to know what to ignore as it is to know what to focus on.
People also don’t often talk about the work that happens behind the scenes. The decisions that shape a business often seem small at the time. Most of the time, it’s about steady choices on direction, positioning and whose advice you listen to.
The Female Panel has grown into a platform with events and a quarterly publication, bringing together founders, investors and professionals from across the region. That growth didn’t come from one big moment, but from steady, thoughtful progress.
The Female Panel was set up at the start of Q4 2025. It began as a small networking event in the North East, with the intention of bringing together women through different stages of their careers, from early professionals through to founders and investors.
I started it because I saw a clear gap. There were plenty of networking events, but very few were genuinely useful or commercially relevant. Most focused on surface-level conversations instead of practical insight.
The goal was to create a space where women could have honest, practical conversations about building careers, businesses and navigating growth. Not just inspiration, but something people could actually use and apply.
We gained traction fairly quickly after the first event. What stood out was how engaged people were afterwards; they stayed in touch, made introductions and returned for future events.
We’ve seen attendees get promotions, build partnerships and grow their networks in ways that have really helped them. That kind of retention and word of mouth has been one of the clearest signs that it’s working.
The Female Panel has become a steady community across the North East, with regular events that bring together founders, professionals and investors.
We’ve hosted multiple events with strong 48-hour sell-out attendance and repeat engagement, and the network keeps growing both in person and through the publication.
The focus has been less on scaling for its own sake and more on keeping quality and relevance as we grow.
UK expansion
The long-term vision is to make The Female Panel a recognised platform for women building careers and businesses, not just in the North East but more widely. We’ve already started conversations in Middlesbrough, Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh.
That means continuing to grow the events, the publication and the network in a way that stays commercially relevant. The aim is to create something people come back to, whether they’re looking for insight, connection or perspective at different stages of their career.
The magazine was launched as a natural extension of the events. The conversations happening in the room were valuable, but they were also temporary.
The publication creates something more permanent. It brings together founders, investors and professionals to share how they make decisions, handle growth and manage challenges, in a way that people can return to.
It’s already helped extend The Female Panel’s reach beyond the events themselves, allowing more people to engage with the community and its insights, even if they can’t be in the room.