WECOE

The Women's Enterprise Centre of Expertise (WECOE)
Supporting Women’s Enterprise Development in the West Midlands

WECOE supports the growth of women's business ownership, through the development of effective women-friendly business support policies, infrastructure and enterprise culture across the West Midlands Region. 

We achieve this by raising awareness, providing capacity building support to organisations which provide enterprise support services and by fulfilling a ‘critical-friend’ role to all those involved with mainstream economic and business development policy and practice – ensuring business support services are ‘women-friendly’ and fit for purpose.

Our goal is to significantly increase the numbers of women starting and/or growing sustainable businesses across the region. At the moment only 14% of businesses in the West Midlands region are majority-owned by women - encouraging and enabling more women into business is not only good for the economy and the vibrancy of the regional business culture, it's good for its communities and social infrastructure too.

Key Areas of Work   

• Providing strategic support for the development, growth and sustainability of women’s enterprise across the West Midlands
• Influencing policy development and economic corporate planning
• Capacity building specialist business support providers

WECOE Commissioned Research and Policy Recommendations - Dec 2009: