WBA CEE Angel Club | Demo 1

This time two CEE startups will consult with the Women/Business/Angels executive board. The startups are in accounting and urban mobility. Founders can learn how to pitch to potential investors and how to get feedback.
Executives learn how to become business angel investors. Startups will be introduced by Imre Hild.

Please register at womenbusinessangels@gmail.com to receive the Zoom meeting credentials!
Only registered attendants can participate. Please also share this invite to this event.
The session will be held in Hungarian.

 

12 January 2021, 18.00 – 20.00

What is the potential of women as entrepreneurs and…

Innovation and entrepreneurship are the cornerstones of resilience and growth in the era of economic turbulence and disruption. Yet, the number of prospective innovative enterprises able to compete on global markets are still below its potential in Central and Eastern Europe.

WINGATE FORUM – Real innovative business talks about the role of women, capital needed and regional collaboration among stakeholders.

9 November 2020, 14.00 – 18.00

Learn more about the event

Women/Business/Angels 5th Innovation Workshop in Budapest. Women business angels:…

 

Great results with our organizing partners: H13 Diák- és Vállalkozásfejlesztési Központ and HUNBAN. Thank you!

The organizers were very happily surprised by the huge number of participants in an English speaking workshop on innovation – women-region. 80 participated with 10% men included. Even for the pro-action café, several hours later (facilitatiors: Antónia Imre, Eszter Szabó and Ágnes Puskás) on the future of Women/Business/Angels angel investor and startup training, we had 30 people putting in their extra hours. The success was beyond expectation and serves as a stepping stone for the one-and-a-half-year organisation.

Women/Business/Angels founders and all Hungarian and international partners participated at the event. Apart from the main organizing partners mentioned above the intellectual power came from the partners:

CEE Business Angels (CEEBAN), and Business Professional Women Budapest (BPW), Vállalatvezetők Üzleti Közössége (MVÜK) representing 400 CEOs and Hungarian Economic Association.

Some examples from the speakers

Ambassador of Finland to Hungary, Markku Virri stressed that he was pleased with the invitation to the workshop. „ We are looking forward to finding ways to cooperate with Women/Business/Angels in Budapest. We hope to be able to contribute to this very important, growing sector also in 2019,”- said the ambassador.

Emilia Mamajova founder of Espira Investment in the Czech Republic inspired the audience with her personal motivations as an investor. She explained why she chose education as the found’s first investment. She gave a positive example, what it means to have a female investors, highlighting the importance of a “gender lense” for venture capital investments. Espira’s EUR 50 million fund’s first investment was in an education company with a very young man as a founder. Besides the founder, his assistant was responsible for several areas of the management. By the end of the closing of the investment she promoted to the COO of the company from an assistant. An external point of view was needed for this promotion to happen. Mrs Mamajova stressed the importance of women in the decision making of the economy.

“There is no gender in professionalism,”- said Eszter Szabó, the founding president of the Women / Business / Angels Association. “However, with the greater role of women in investing, we activate a previously hidden financial and knowledge capital. As a side effect we create a stronger, more collaborative culture in the innovation ecosystem here. Women need to believe that their contribution is necessary for international competitiveness in Central- and Easter Europe”- she added.

All participants agreed that business angel investment happens if the idea is original and the founder has self-confidence to execute, while on the investor’s side trust in the founder is crucial. The second most common reason why a start up fails is the lack of capital, but if they do not start, we all lose. First of all we are building the next generation of businesses for a better economic future. “

Andrea Dintser and Imre Hild talked about the lesson learned from the association’s 14 monthly pilot training sessions so far as well as the next phrase of the training.

An all female business success stories panel was moderated by Péter Szalay, Managing Director of IBM Hungary (COO), a member of the Advisory Board of the Women / Business / Angels. This panel scored the highest based on the feedback form after the workshop. Participants were: Virág Réti, founder and managing director of Capsolutely, Nóra Szeles, founder and leader of the Capital Portal, and Antónia Imre is the strategic advisor to the Invendor Innovatiton Academy. They shared results, national and international experiences in building a business.

Virág Réti as a bionic engineer together with her husband changed from a researcher to a startupper. They build a business in the USA and in Hungary with the help of an American angel investment.

Nóra Szeles, a market management consultant and founder of Tőkeportál, Hungary’s first crowdfounding equaty portal just about to start operation. She stressed crowdfunding is becoming more and more popular worldwide, and its principles must be fully understood by all stakeholders.

Antónia Imre has been shaping the Hungarian startup culture since 2012 working with numerous CEE companies. Her own company’s, the InVendor’s team organizes start-up events every year in Budapest. As a businesswoman who was born in Bulgaria and lives in Hungary, she is committed to helping more women and young people to become entrepreneurs in our region.

Look for Women/Business/Angel’s next phrase of training and follow it on social media for the new and see you at the 6th workshop.

14th Angel investor training

14th Angel investor training at Nestlé in February. Guest: The Tailor Network company was recommended by one of Women/Business/Angels members,  Orsolya Péter. What it is? “Tailor Empowerment trains men and women in economically weak regions throughout Europe to become independent tailors.” Budapest  (Budapest, 04.02.2019)

10th Angel Investor Training: Business networks for innovation –…

Nine angel investor training and nearly fifty international conference, gathering and business meeting and growing membership: the Women/Business/Angels Association celebrated its first anniversary in September 2018.

As the next strategic step, we organized a roundtable discussion focusing on „Business networks for innovation – designing the economic future” and invited key experts and business networks from Hungary. Peter Szalay, COO, IBM Hungary, member of our Advisory Board was kind and hosted the event. During the conversation we discussed the role of the business networks in strengthening the innovation ecosystem, their influence and connections. The outcome of the roundtable discussion was shared with the wider audience in the second half of the evening.

After the first part, the 10th pragmatic business angel investor training followed that was opened for all who had not joined the Association yet. This way they had the opportunity to gain experience about how unique these training sessions are, and enter into the Association, become a member.

This time Peter Tanczos, Director, Euroventures was our guest speaker. He talked about EPAM and Tresorit, why the investors saw the opportunity in them, and predicted their global success. Also, he explained why Euroventures had been working together with angel investors for a long time. He replied to all of these questions and many others coming from the audience with the moderation of Imre Hild, Partner, Global Traction.

 

  

Krynica Economic Forum and Women/Business/Angels Association have become official…

 

This year Women/Business/Angels Association participated in the Krynica Economic Forum not only as one of the guest speakers, but we have become one of the official partners of the largest Davos like economic forum, organized in Poland on the 2nd week of September that attracts more than 4,000 decision makers and 800 journalists every year.

Hungary was represented by Adam Szigeti, State Secretary responsible for Innovation, Eszter Szabó, President of the Women Business Angels Association. This event was a significant opportunity for the Women/Business/Angels Association as we believe that winning in the global innovation competition is possible only if we think regionally, or even globally.

What can be the next economic model for CEE’s growth? This was the center of a debate among six known macroeconomists, from various countries and the President of Women/Business/Angels, Eszter Szabo on 6 September. Panelists of “The Difficult Escape from Stagnation. How to Boost Central European Economies?” session agreed that the region has caught up with the Western World by offering low-cost labor force.

The current question is how to develop a higher value-added economic model. Innovation, creativity, education, brand, regional collaboration within V4+ and the EU, labor force migration, all were among the possible tools touched upon.

Eszter Szabó talked about the role of local capital accumulation and introduced EBAN – The European Trade Association for Business Angels, seed funds, and other early stage markets as intellectual platforms with 300K members. Members who represent an additional source of capital, they invest their own money, knowledge, business network, and experience in somebody else’s company as angel investors. This money is an additional tool for boosting local entrepreneurship with global growth aspirations. It is not a surprise that this tool would be more effective, if we engaged more women together with more men for more innovation in CEE.

Snapshot of the mall of Krynica Economic Forum where every attendee meets during a dense get-together of regional decision makers and influencers every September. In 2018, it was the 28th time.

Krynica Economic Forum and Women/Business/Angels joined female executive breakfast 2018. This is the third time Krynica and Eszter Szabó hosted this breakfast. Women/Business/Angels has been on the Forum’s council for three years.

First anniversary of the Women Business Angels

 

Nine angel investor training sessions, almost 50 international conferences, gatherings, business meetings, and increasing membership: the Women Business Angels Association celebrated its first anniversary in early September 2018.

Please click here to watch the video.

By working together with Hungarian Business Angel Network (HunBan), the ultimate strategic objective of the Women’s Business Angels Association is to increase the number of female decision makers in the innovative entrepreneurship sphere in Central and Eastern Europe. To achieve this, the Association applies three key initiatives: firstly, co-educated business angel investor trainings; secondly, acting as a knowledge center and disseminating information about new investment schemes; and thirdly linking cross-border networks innovation ecosystems.

The international recognition of what we do has been significantly increasing. We have already visited Norway, Israel, and lately we have been invited to Prague as well to meet the key players of the local innovation ecosystem. What’s more, we have already hosted business women delegations from Norway and Albania.

As one of the guest speakers, we participated in the Krynica Economic Forum, the largest Davos like economic forum, organized in Poland on the 2nd week of September that attracts more than 4,000 decision makers and 800 journalists every year. Hungary was represented by Adam Szigeti, State Secretary responsible for Innovation, Eszter Szabó, President of the Women Business Angels Association. This event was a significant opportunity for us as we believe that winning in the global innovation competition is possible only if we think regionally, or even globally.

At the latest occasion of our business angel trainings that are unique in the Hungarian market, we celebrated our first anniversary, where one of the members of our Association, the well-known data scientist, and innovative social platform builder, Attila Petróczi talked about a very thought provoking topic that generated lots of lively conversations among the participants: „What does it like going through the growth phases of a startup company within the organization?” Attila took an active part in the formulation and development of the Data Science Budapest Meetup group in Budapest, and one of the key organizers of the global CRUNCH Data Engineering and Analytics Conference.

  

StudyHungary18

#StudyHungary18  Hungarian and Norwegian workshop at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Budapest

Participants: 30 with 10% men

Outcome to focus on
● Build innovation momentum through connecting SheInvests and Women/Business/Angels and partners
● Bilateral business relationship building through x-border mentoring of women’s networks– Kvinner I Business and Seed Foundation
● Healthcare+tourism+innovation

Reception for the #StudyHungary18 workshop participants and other Hungarian stakeholders by the Norwegian Ambassador. The Hungarian Ambassador to Norway also attended as well as CEOs or representatives of Norwegian companies active in Hungary. Photo: Andrea Dintser

Who Will Make Hungary Future-proof in Today’s Global TECHtonic…

Executive Salon
at Budapest Chamber of Commerce, Budapest, January 30, 2018

Partners: Budapest Chamber of Commerce, the Women/Business/Angels, the SingularityU Hungary and Sparks Institute@IBS as partners
Participants: 95 with 40% women

The third ‘Global Leaders on CEE stage’ Executive Salon was organised by the Budapest Chamber of Commerce, the Women/Business/Angels Association, the SingularityU Hungary and Sparks Institute@IBS as partners. The latter three partners were led by women executives – strong believers of Hungary’s economic potential if we build a stronger ‘can do attitude’. The evening covered future scenarios & bold choices for governance and corporate leadership with a focus on who and how can improve Hungary’s innovation and digital capabilities. The keynote speaker was Zoltán Cséfalvay, Hungary’s Ambassador to the OECD who shared his three-years of experiences with the world’s leading professional think-tank and multilateral standard-setter of the global economy in his latest book – TECHtonic Shifts – that has recently been published in English by Kairosz Publishing House.

The game changer hardcover on tectonic global economic transformations walks laymen decision makers through all aspects of inevitable challenges driven by technology and business model revolution in the digital era. It summarises transformations all countries have to face if they want their citizens to become winners of the future. The list of policy alternatives to address changes for countries and regions is very handy.

“The OECD considers the digital transformation as the main driving factor of the global competitiveness of its members and has recently set up a horizontal project, called ‘Going Digital’. With this book, I wanted to support decision makers to understand and manage their country, region and company position, and to contribute to the intellectual debate on how to become leaders of changes, not losers. At OECD meetings, I usually have only three minutes to discuss, now I have 400 pages instead” – said Dr. Zoltán Cséfalvay.

The salon was opened by Zoltán Szép, Secretary General of BKIK. The moderator of the business panel was Imre Hild, Managing Partner at Global Traction. The panlists were Marian Gazdik, Managing Partner at IPM LLP, Zsigmond Bodnár, Founder of TechTeamer Inc, Péter Küllői, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Rita Veres, Chapter Lead, SingularityU Hungary, Nick Zimmerman, Chief Operating Officer at SAP Labs Hungary.

Video about the event is available here:

Santa Claus by the Danube workshop and roundtable in…

Multistakeholder roundtable at the Budapest Chamber of Commerce, Budapest

Guests: Kata Keveházi on EU founded SEEWBAN South East Europe Women Business Angels Network and Christian Gedeon from Austria, Managing Director, Rare Moments Kft. & Co KG,

Participants:
10 with 30% men