Entrepreneurship Society launch their programme of student events with successful speed networking session

The event was hosted by Craig Davison, the Entrepreneurship Society's Event Officer, who engaged with the audience before introducing the two guest speakers. First Craig welcomed Julia Kala, a current BA Business and Management student at Henley Business School and the former president of the Entrepreneurship Society for the 2019/20 academic year. Julia is currently undertaking her placement year at Foundation SP in the role of Client Services Executive. Julia spoke to the audience about her experience in the society and the importance of networking, referring to her personal experiences of securing a placement to illustrate this.

The second guest speaker that Craig introduced was Louize Clarke, one of the Co-founders of ConnectTVT. Louize shared an invaluable insight to the audience about her tips for growing a LinkedIn network, with her own LinkedIn consisting of over 16,000 connections, and spoke about the advantages of online networking for an introvert. Louize Clark is the host of the Festival of Digital Disruption (FoDD), an exciting entrepreneurship event, which many Henley Business School students are involved in, and she invited the audience to get involved with the FoDD themselves.

The audience then had the opportunity to try speed networking sessions by utilising Zoom breakout rooms. The audience members were randomly allocated into two groups of two for five minutes each and gave the members an opportunity to practice their abilities in making a good first impression and gaining more contacts to widen their network.

The event was concluded by Lewis Bull, a current BA Entrepreneurship and Management student with Henley Business School. Lewis introduced the University of Reading's new free of charge consultancy service, where student and alumni consultants share their experience, resources and network to help students with their start-up businesses.

Sarah Mohd-Haslizan, one of the Entrepreneurship Society's Co-Presidents, said:

"The event was truly insightful and has taught me that there is no doubt we must learn and rehearse all the techniques required to increase our networking skills. It is one of the most important elements in the business industry."

You can find out more about HCfE's Entrepreneurship Society here.