The Women in Business Expo will take place at the Marriott Brantford and Conference Centre on Wednesday, March 8, 2023.
This will be the expo’s flagship annual event and is being held in celebration of International Women’s Day and women in business.
The event will be a place to network, learn and showcase women in business from Brantford, the County of Brant, Norfolk County and other surrounding communities.
Sam Gernhart is the owner of Clarity Marketing and Design and has been running her business since she was 18 years old. As a mother, a business owner and a professor at Conestoga, Gernhart knew she wanted to create an event that could help provide fellow women in business with an opportunity to support each other and learn more about business.
With the help of Jaime-Lee Ridge, Clarity’s Social Media Manager and Photographer, the two began planning for the modern event in late November.
“We don’t have an event like this in the city, so I saw an opportunity to add – not take away – but to add to the community because we don’t have a trade show type of expo that really focuses on women in business,” said Gernhart.
The event will feature a tradeshow, photobooth area, prize give-away, swag bags and six speakers that will cover dealing with burn-out, real-estate, marketing, finance, business start-ups and public relations.
“We are offering a relevant resource where women can come find people looking to connect with, but there is no competition in that community – we wanted to create a really welcoming space to cheer each other on,” said Ridge.
Attendees can choose to stay the whole day or come to for a few hours to check it out and meet new contacts from other communities.
“We wanted to connect and expand the network, we have a lot of vendors from not just Brantford and Brant County but from all over the place including: Hamilton, Stratford, Cambridge, Simcoe, St. Thomas, and Ingersoll,” said Ridge. “We wanted a chance for women looking to expand and to meet new people, so I got excited about pulling all of our sources together and showcasing these women in business that we should be supporting.”
“A lot of the businesses that we have met from the digital main-street, started their businesses during the pandemic and so that was another component of this – while it’s located in Brantford, it’s not just for the locals,” added Gernhart. “We wanted to really spread outside of our city as well because these kinds of events don’t happen in those other communities and people want to network in person.”
The event is free to attend, and all are welcome to come out and support women in business – men and women alike.
