.png)
.png)
Female Founders: Confidence-Building Business Support Programme
-1.png "bbb_logo_2020_rgb (6)-1"){kind=logo}
%20(2).png "CEnt Main Image (1600 x 400 px) (2)")
%20(400%20x%201600%20px)%20(2)-1.png?width=400&height=1319&name=CEnt%20%20Main%20Image%20(1600%20x%20400%20px)%20(400%20x%201600%20px)%20(2)-1.png "CEnt Main Image (1600 x 400 px) (400 x 1600 px) (2)-1")
Meet The Mentors
.jpeg?height=2000&name=Cath%20Ellington%20(1).jpeg)
Cath Ellington
Erica Wolfe-Murray
Sarah Tierney
Vanessa Chapman
Cath Ellington
Beginning her career as a Sales Executive at TFM in Stockton, Cath progressed through the organisation to become Managing Director, building a reputation for strong commercial leadership, strategic vision and an ability to inspire teams to achieve exceptional results. In 2006, she was entrusted with launching and leading the nationwide initiative of Cash for Kids, the charitable network aligned to local radio stations across the UK. Under her leadership, the charity established itself as a powerful force for supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable children, delivering meaningful impact in communities nationwide.
Following five successful years leading the charity arm of the business, Cath returned to the core operations of Bauer Media as Managing Director North East, overseeing sales, marketing and programming operations across a portfolio of dozens of market-leading media and audio brands. She subsequently progressed to lead the commercial division across Bauer Media’s entire network, holding responsibility for driving revenue growth, commercial strategy and business performance at scale.
In 2019, after a career spanning more than three decades in media and radio, Cath established her own consultancy. Since then, she has worked intensively with dozens of businesses across the creative and screen sectors, helping founders and entrepreneurs navigate the complexities of growth that align with their personal values.
Her work spans in-depth business and commercial strategy, governance, organisational development, brand positioning, investment readiness and leadership coaching, supporting businesses at critical stages of their development as well as coaching founders and senior executives through personal and professional challenges, helping them build resilience, confidence and clarity as they lead their organisations through change. Her expertise includes holistic person-centred growth planning, governance, brand and vision development, leadership effectiveness and investment preparation.
Erica Wolfe-Murray
I see opportunities for creative businesses everywhere. Whether on screens, harnessing the power of audio, developing events or thinking of new products and services. It’s what I’ve been doing my whole life – helping creative people build imaginative, profitable, resilient ventures.
Starting my creative sector career in an international ad agency working on British Airways, London Transport and Newsweek, I moved role and industry to work as the in-house copywriter at the Conran Design Group, before being headhunted to build the B2C arm of a south London design studio. After winning clients like NatWest and Next, two years later I concurrently set up my own design businesses and an indie doc production company with a partner. The former launched its own home furnishing & garden accessory range whilst also doing project work for clients such as Historic Royal Palaces and London Zoo. Meanwhile the latter won awards for BBC and C4 work filming in difficult locations around the globe, before internationalising the business with commissions from NatGeo and A&E, with me as the FD up until 2011.
At the start of 2012, I set up Lola – an innovation studio focused on helping creative, cultural and tech sector clients to harness the potential of their existing intellectual assets and IP to generate new audiences, revenues, products and services across the spectrum, combining both creative and financial perspectives. I’ve worked on projects with Disney, NatGeo, UK Parliament, NotontheHighStreet, Marriott, Puma, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and 400+ ventures across the breadth of the creative industries. I led Creative Enterprise’s Female Founders Scale-up Programme for 3 years combining talk-the-talk workshops involving leading industry figures with 1-2-1 walk-the-walk hands-on business growth coaching with each of the 38 company founders. I am on the advisory board of 3 companies encompassing VR, games, scripted/unscripted, podcasts, createch and branded content, work closely with a virtual production incubator and am a trustee of the Gordon Russell Design Museum.
In 2020 my book Simple Tips, Smart Ideas: Build a Bigger Better Business was a finalist in the Business Book Awards, I have an IP for Creative Entrepreneurs course on 8 million+ creative platform Domestika and am an advisor on US investor platform Tegus.com.
Sarah Tierney
Sarah is a commercial leader with over 20 years’ experience across media and the creative industries. She has launched and scaled multiple businesses and propositions in the Television, Film, Sports and EdTech sectors. She now advises broadcasters, investors and entrepreneurs on maximising the global value of IP, fundraising and growth, and technology-enabled models of audience engagement, content distribution and monetisation.
Prior to working as a consultant, Sarah was Director of Distribution and member of the Executive Leadership Team at ITV, the UK's largest commercial broadcaster. She joined to help launch and scale ITVX, the new AVOD/SVOD streaming platform. Before that, Sarah was a serial entrepreneur, founding and scaling content and media-tech businesses. These include global film streaming platform We Are Colony, scaled into 130 markets; and independent production company, Clarity Productions, producing Specialist Factual for the BBC, Channel 4 and other broadcasters. Across her businesses, Sarah has raised venture capital from Angels, HNW and Venture Capital Funds, and with two successful company exits.
Sarah is also an experienced Non-Executive Director and Trustee.
Sarah’s expertise covers monetisation of IP, scaling up, leadership, business strategy, identification of new markets, finance and investment, legal affairs, and new business models.
Vanessa Chapman
Vanessa Chapman runs VJC Media, a creative and business agency that works internationally with IP owners, media companies, brands and investors.
An award-winning senior media executive, Vanessa has developed, produced, commissioned and acquired intellectual property across multiple platforms and supports a wide variety of clients on corporate strategy, business planning, fundraising and M&A activity.
Vanessa sits on the advisory board of several companies, working with founders and management teams on their day-to-day business as well as growth and investment planning.
With nearly 30 years’ experience in the entertainment industry, Vanessa is a frequent speaker/panellist at major industry events in the UK, Europe and the US, a juror on BAFTA panels and the Rose D’Or and acts as chair and content director at numerous Cartoon Europe conferences, including Cartoon Business and the innovative CartoonNext.
A former Controller of Children’s & Family Programmes at ITV, where she ran a £40m+ production and acquisition budget, Vanessa went on to help develop and spearhead the strategy for the LEGO Company’s entry into the global television and movie industry. She then became MD of the business.
Vanessa started her career as a national newspaper journalist, before joining BBC Radio and then London Weekend Television’s current affairs and popular factual department. She rose to be a senior programme editor before joining the ITV Network Centre in the 1990s as a programme commissioner.
-1.png "square post - creative enterprise (28)-1")
-1.png)
%20(1)-1.png?width=1000&height=369&name=FF%20Conference%20Speaker%20Asset%20(Email%20Header)%20(1)-1.png "FF Conference Speaker Asset (Email Header) (1)-1")
-1-1-1.png "square post - creative enterprise (8)-1-1-1")
-1.png "square post - creative enterprise (32)-1")