The Glasgow School of Art has joined Ana Stewart’s pioneering Pathways Pledge, alongside Maven Capital Partners, BTO, within a Pledge community that now totals over 40 organisations.
Pathways Pledge is an independent initiative where companies sign up to specific actions aimed at driving diversity, equal opportunity and female participation in entrepreneurship and business. Pledges being committed to in this launch of the seventh cohort include The Glasgow School of Art setting up a cross-disciplinary creative network, Maven launching a survey of female founders and leaders, BTO initiating diversity and equality training for all senior leaders within the firm, and Nile will engage in anti-bias training and run related workshops.
Ruth Cochrane, Head of Future Skills at The Glasgow School of Art, said: “GSA is joining the Pathways Pledge as part of our Entrepreneurial Campus ambitions. We want to help reshape how entrepreneurship is understood and accessed within the creative economy, recognising that our diverse community has significant untapped potential.”
Ana Stewart, Chair of Pathways Forward, said: “The seventh cohort launch demonstrates the growing influence and impact of the Pledge initiative. It brings together a diverse group of organisations to collaborate and deliver new, measurable and additive initiatives to existing strategies. It’s great to see both internal and external facing pledges which will be tracked and monitored over a twelve month period. We’re excited to welcome the latest cohort and look forward to connecting them to our Pledge community.”
Lorna Kelly, Strategic Development Director at Maven Capital Partners, said: “Maven is committed to supporting diversity in access to finance and the Pathways Pledge closely aligns with our commitment to increase investment opportunities and support women-led businesses. We aim to strengthen engagement with female founders, help to foster a more inclusive business ecosystem and encourage greater knowledge and confidence in approaching investors.”
In March, analysis by the ScaleUp Institute in partnership with Pathways Forward revealed that while the growth of female-founded and co-founded Scottish scaleups is outpacing the UK national average, challenges remain in areas including access to investment, talent, and support. The research also identified 139 female-founded scaleups in Scotland, businesses generating in excess of £10 million in revenue or £5 million in assets, collectively generating £1.5 billion and employing over 16,000 people.
In addition, Pathways Forward is pleased to be supporting a new Pledge collaboration between Venture Café and Scottish EDGE – focusing on the engagement between the investment community and female entrepreneurs. ‘Funding That Fits: A Night for Female Founders, Funders, and Investors’ event will be held at Edinburgh Futures Institute on 28th May.
Pathways Forward was launched in September 2023 following the publication of the Pathways: A New Approach For Women in Entrepreneurship report.
Register for ‘Funding That Fits: A Night for Female Founders, Funders, and Investors’ HERE.
For further information contact press@gsa.ac.uk
About The Glasgow School of Art
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) is internationally recognised as one of Europe’s leading independent university-level institutions for education and research in the visual creative disciplines. Our studio-based, specialist, practice-led teaching, learning and research draw talented individuals with a shared passion for visual culture and creative production from all over the world.
Originally founded in 1845 as one of the first Government Schools of Design, the School’s history can be traced back to 1753 and the establishment of the Foulis Academy delivering a European-style art education. Today, the GSA is an international community of over 3,500 students and staff across architecture, design, digital, fine art and innovation in our campuses in Glasgow and Altyre (in the Scottish Highlands) and a thriving Open Studio programme delivering non-degree provision to over 1,500 students annually.
