The Editor's Post: A braw day out in Glasgow celebrating the UK’s top women in social enterprise
Pioneers Post takes the WISE100 awards to Scotland for the first time.
Our annual WISE100 awards ceremony has been on tour this year. Instead of our usual London event, we were in Glasgow, Scotland, this week. It was a drizzly, grey day, but our fourth-floor venue in the RBS–NatWest office was filled with brightness and joy. Many of our WISE100 community members had got dressed up and managed to make the necessary work and family arrangements to take a day out of their usual lives to join us to find out who had won this year’s awards.
And the day was about much more than the awards ceremony. It was about connection, inspiration and positivity. The predominantly women guests had a rare opportunity to meet other social entrepreneurs and to celebrate their achievements.
The WISE100 2025 awards ceremony in Glasgow brought together women working in social enterprise from across the UK.
Our keynote speaker, Susan Aktemel, a long-time social entrepreneur and founder of Homes for Good, Scotland’s first social enterprise lettings agency, summed up the importance of taking time out to connect with others. She said social entrepreneurs’ work could often feel overwhelming, especially in the current economic and political environment, so it was important to have “a real laser focus for each other and for ourselves”.
She added: “We need to think about self care…we need to think about our family and our friends and all the relationships and make sure that with all the things we're grappling with, we still have room for some fun and some joy. That's what's going to help keep us going and keep us being creative and pushing for better.”
Susan Aktemel, founder of Homes for Good, encouraged attendees at the WISE100 awards 2025 to prioritise self care alongside the hard work of leading social enterprises.
Our award-winners were truly inspirational. Do take some time to read our report of the day. We hope their stories give you impetus to continue your own social enterprise journeys. Congratulations to them all!
STOP PRESS: We’ve just heard that Mark Simms, CEO of UK social enterprise P3 and 2020 SE100 Leadership Champion, has been appointed interim chair of the Charity Commission for England and Wales, which is the regulatory body for charities. Simms was awarded an OBE in 2024 for services to social enterprise. He will hold the post for six months while a permanent chair is recruited.
This week's top stories:
WISE100 Women in Social Enterprise 2025: Award winners revealed
Opinion: ‘Funders, treat Black-led organisations fairly or accept responsibility for our erasure’
Impact 101: What is gender-lens investing?
The Impact World This Week: 27 March
WISE100 2025 event photography by Marina Solar
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