Award will help Glansin Glass with marketing

Unst-based company Glansin Glass has won a start-up award from W-Power, a Northern Periphery and Arctic programme project dedicated to women entrepreneurs.

Glansin Glass will use the prize and mentoring that goes with it to set up a marketing campaign aimed at growing global markets.

Owner Cheryl Jamieson said the award came at a crucial time for the company. They had just started the construction phase of our new visitor centre in Unst and the high costs of that did not leave much in the pot for marketing.

She said: “We’re delighted to be selected by W-Power as one of the five companies offered both a financial prize award, but also highly delighted to be given business support by first class business women over the Arctic region.

”We were up against 15 teams from Sweden, Finland and Scotland, and had to deliver an online presentation pitching our idea.

“To win this against some strong competition is really fantastic. I am sure this will open up great networking opportunities and the marketing campaign will introduce our work to a whole new audience globally.”

The W-Power team works with women entrepreneurs in sparsely populated areas across the northern and Arctic communities. Eight organisations have partnered to deliver world class business advice to women and Karelia University of Applied Science, Finland is the lead partner.

In Scotland two entities, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Shetland-based Pure Energy Centre, provide support to local women entrepreneurs.

The aim of W-Power is to encourage women to set up, develop and grow their businesses. The project is currently achieving that through capacity building and providing opportunities for transnational learning as well as creating and piloting a gender-aware business support concept.

Elizabeth Johnson from Pure said: “We are very pleased that Cheryl won this award. The judges were highly impressed with what she has achieved and where she wants to go with Glansin Glass.”