The Twenty Ten Club is an award-winning organisation that strives to connect, inspire and support Black female entrepreneurs. Named one of the UK’s leading social enterprises at the Future 100 awards, part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, the Twenty Ten Club was founded by Octavia Goredema.

Reconnect Africa spoke to Octavia about The Twenty Ten Club and its Interview an Entrepreneur programme, which is providing the opportunity for pupils of all ages to interview Black female business role models they admire.

ReConnect Africa (RCA): What was the inspiration behind starting the Twenty Ten club?

Octavia Goredema (OG): I decided to start the Twenty Ten Club back in early 2010 as I was busy working on the business plan for my first business. I realised that I desperately needed to network with other business owners on a regular basis in order to push my own plans forward.

I was caring for my newborn baby at that time so couldn’t attend all the networking events I wanted to. So, I decided to start my own networking group. That’s how the Twenty Ten Club started.

At the same time, I was inspired and motivated by Black female business role models I encountered as I was finding my feet as an entrepreneur. I wanted to provide a platform to showcase their achievements. That’s how the weekly entrepreneur profiles on www.twentytenclub.com began.

RCA: What issues do you think women entrepreneurs in particular face in starting and growing businesses?

OG: Government statistics show that women can struggle the most to get the funding and support needed to get their business ideas off the ground. Despite this, there are scores of women who are running brilliant businesses.

Without a doubt entrepreneurs, regardless of their race or sex, face numerous obstacles along the way. When starting and growing a business it’s important to know that even though it can be a hard road, you can do it. It’s vital to draw on the resources and financing you need to grow your business during the tough times.

RCA: How frequently does the club meet and what are its key objectives?

OG: The Twenty Ten Club meets once a month and the primary goal is to provide a supportive, enabling environment for our members, who are business owners from a broad cross section of industries.

We use our meet ups to discuss what’s going on in our respective companies, celebrate our successes, brainstorm opportunities and share useful business development tools and resources.

We also have some fantastic partners, Metric Accountants, Edward Daniel Solicitors and personal development firm Distinctly Different, who provide discounted business development services to our members.

RCA: What led you to create the schools programme?

OG: The Interview an Entrepreneur school programme is our brand new initiative that invites pupils of all ages to interview Black female entrepreneurs they admire. The interviews are then published as part of a series of special interviews for the Twenty Ten Club site.

Each week the Twenty Ten Club interviews a successful Black female business owner to share her story on www.twentytenclub.com . Now we’ve opened up this opportunity to school children around the UK.

The idea for the programme came into being out of blue. At the start of the year I was approached by St Matthew Academy in Lewisham, the country’s leading enterprise academy. The school was hosting a special event to celebrate International Women’s Day and their Vice-Principal had reached out to the Twenty Ten Club to invite our members to participate in the event.

I loved the sound of the event and it suddenly occurred to me that it would be fantastic if some of the St Matthew Academy students could take over the editorial duties on the Twenty Ten Club site on International Women’s Day. The school loved the idea and three of their year 10 students interviewed celebrity make-up artist Eryca Freemantle for a special feature.

It was a really great interview and when I read it for the first time I realised this was a wonderful opportunity for young people to ask the questions they want to pose. At that point I decided that interviews conducted by school children would become a regular feature on the site moving forward.

RCA: How can schools participate in the 2011-2012 Interview an Entrepreneur programme?

OG: We are currently inviting schools to participate in the programme during the 2011-2012 academic year. Schools can contact the Twenty Ten Club office on info@twentytenclub.com or by phone on 0207 193 4615 to find out more about the programme and request a registration form.

RCA: What other activities does the club undertake?

OG: The Twenty Ten Club hosted its first teen mentoring evening in May which was so much fun! Eighteen of our members took part in an evening of speed mentoring with 70 young ladies aged 11-15 years from St Matthew Academy in Lewisham.

I’m also a business volunteer with Young Enterprise London as I love spending time with young people!

RCA: How can readers find out more about the Twenty Ten Club?

OG: You can read our latest entrepreneur profiles online at www.twentytenclub.com and find information about membership of the club on our About Us page - http://twentytenclub.com/about-us/

You can also call our office on 0207 193 4615 or email info@twentytenclub.com if you’d like to find out more.