Secret Millionaire Star speaks at Female Entrepreneurship Seminars Serial entrepreneur, author and women in business expert Margaret Heffernan, who recently featured in Channel Four’s “Secret Millionaire”, addressed a series of nationwide seminars on Female Entrepreneurship. The seminars, organised by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), took place in Waterford, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Dublin on dates from 15th April - 6th May. Up until 2007 Irish women entrepreneurs were ahead of their EU counterparts in terms of narrowing the gap between men and women setting up their own businesses. Between 2005 and 2008 there were on average 2,700 new business start ups each month in Ireland of which 700-800 were by women with almost 1 in 3 businesses in the retail, hotel or restaurant sector*. In the EU and OECD twice as many men were early stage entrepreneurs than women. Significantly, in lreland, that gap had narrowed by 2007 but in 2008 the gap increased again with almost three men for every woman accounting for early stage entrepreneurs, reflecting the economic decline. In the US, over 10 million women own their own business (almost half of private companies), generating two trillion dollars in sales and employ more people than the global Fortune 500 combined. According to the bestselling author of ‘How She does it’ - how female entrepreneurs are changing the rules for Business Success, recessions can be a great time to start a business particularly if you are female, “ Recessions can be a great time to start a business because there's more talent around than ever, partners are more open to newcomers and consumers are starved for new and interesting products. Governments always look to entrepreneurs to save the economy and all the evidence shows that women in particular excel at such times. I can't think of any better way to revitalize an economy than to back women's businesses. They're profoundly motivated, understand the market and have the enormous stamina every new venture requires. What I will never understand is why everyone appreciates that investing in women makes sense in the developing world -- but they can't seem to see that it makes sense here too”. Margaret Heffernan www.mheffernan.com has risen to top positions in large corporations - and she's also built businesses from scratch in both the US and Europe. She is currently Professor of Entrepreneurship at Simmons College, Boston and Executive-in - Residence at Babson College. She was born in Texas, raised in Holland and educated at Cambridge University. In her early days, she worked in BBC Radio for five years where she wrote, directed, produced and commissioned dozens of documentaries and dramas. As a television producer, she made documentary films for Timewatch, Arena, and Newsnight. She was one of the producers of Out of the Doll's House, the prize-winning documentary series about the history of women in the twentieth century. She designed and executive produced a thirteen part series on The French Revolution for the BBC and A&E. During her presentation, Margaret covered: Why women go into business for themselves (and how their motivations contribute to their success) The characteristics of successful female entrepreneurs and why they are so effective How they exit their businesses (which can be well or badly!) What all of us - men included - could learn from the way that women run their businesses *Source: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report published by Forfas and Enterprise Ireland .