Managing Director of The Speakers Agency and womenspeakers.co.uk Sylvia Tidy-Harris started out as an air stewardess for Monarch Airlines at age 18.
She has also been personal and business manager to the cartoonist Bill Tidy, a programme researcher for Granada, Central and BBC TV & Radio, a charity fund-raiser and an international tour manager leading tours to over 50 countries around the globe
Launching The Speakers Agency in September 2001, Sylvia has achieved an enormous amount of success in a very short time. She launched the UK's first and only womenspeakers.co.uk 2004 and is now regularly called upon to address audiences with her inspirational story.
It certainly hasn't been all plain sailing and as a result she is passionate about the quality of advice available where people wishing to start up their own businesses is concerned. She often volunteers herself as a mentor and advisor to people wishing to follow in her footsteps and get their own business off the ground.
An East Midlands Business Champion, an FSB Amazing Volunteer and a member of the East Midlands Assembly Business Scrutiny and Survival Panel, Sylvia appears regularly in the business press and has also guested on BBC Radio’s 5 Live and The Jeremy Vine Show.
She has also been personal and business manager to the cartoonist Bill Tidy, a programme researcher for Granada, Central and BBC TV & Radio, a charity fund-raiser and an international tour manager leading tours to over 50 countries around the globe
Launching The Speakers Agency in September 2001, Sylvia has achieved an enormous amount of success in a very short time. She launched the UK's first and only womenspeakers.co.uk 2004 and is now regularly called upon to address audiences with her inspirational story.
It certainly hasn't been all plain sailing and as a result she is passionate about the quality of advice available where people wishing to start up their own businesses is concerned. She often volunteers herself as a mentor and advisor to people wishing to follow in her footsteps and get their own business off the ground.
An East Midlands Business Champion, an FSB Amazing Volunteer and a member of the East Midlands Assembly Business Scrutiny and Survival Panel, Sylvia appears regularly in the business press and has also guested on BBC Radio’s 5 Live and The Jeremy Vine Show.
Leading business woman Sylvia Tidy-Harris is known for speaking her mind and she does frequently on various TV and radio programmes fighting red tape, inequality issues and supporting enterprise.
SHOULD I OR SHOULDN'T I?
Since starting up her businesses just over four years ago (with £1000 for a website only) Sylvia hit and overcame many hurdles – particularly at the beginning in the area of seeking official advice from the various business links and enterprise agencies. As a result she has taught herself to act on instinct, identify the fine line of when to take a risk and when not to, and to fly for the most part by the seat of her pants.
She didn't realsie that the first hurdle she would come up against was the fact that her business, not a run of the mill everyday start up, would flummox most of the advisors and bank personnel she met – it still happens today - not acceptable but that is how it was.
As a resutl Sylvia had to learn not to be scared of voicing her thoughts on the pro’s and cons of family friendly policies on radio/TV and in the press and the positive/negative affects they have on SME’s– I am passionate about women start ups, SME successes and introducing business leaning into schools. Many consider me to be controversial because I am willing to stick my neck out about subjects considered to be taboo – I only speak on things I know a lot about and I always do my homework.
I am a rising entrepreneur – not a multi million pound dream but a hugely successful and ever expanding “this really could happen to you” story. From the ubiquitous back bedroom, the two agencies are employing five people in two offices. Sylvia kept her tour managing job until May 2003 (took The Speakers Agency's first booking on the Yangtze, the second whilst touring Graceland in Memphis and the third on a swamp tour outside New Orleans.
The Speakers Agency and subsequently womenspeakers.co.uk have far exceeded her expectations in growth and turnover and they have attracted so much interest that she is now often asked to contribute on a number of business issues. She has been featured in all the broadsheets, appeared on BBC Breakfast, most of the 5Live programmes, BBC New 24, C4 News at 7pm, ITN news, Woman’s Hour etc, etc. She has written for the Sunday Express Business Supplement and Leicester Mercury on a number of occasions, and has been recently been commissioned to write a bi-weekly column on SME issues for the Daily Telegraph’s business pages.
Her story is an inspiration to anyone who is about to embark on a similar journey or indeed already has and her understanding of what most people go through in their quest to start up, whether they be one man band or a large manufacturing unit. She can identify with the hurdles they face as they grow their businesses and her story
of the problems she has encountered along the way are both amusing and thought provoking.
Since starting up her businesses just over four years ago (with £1000 for a website only) Sylvia hit and overcame many hurdles – particularly at the beginning in the area of seeking official advice from the various business links and enterprise agencies. As a result she has taught herself to act on instinct, identify the fine line of when to take a risk and when not to, and to fly for the most part by the seat of her pants.
She didn't realsie that the first hurdle she would come up against was the fact that her business, not a run of the mill everyday start up, would flummox most of the advisors and bank personnel she met – it still happens today - not acceptable but that is how it was.
As a resutl Sylvia had to learn not to be scared of voicing her thoughts on the pro’s and cons of family friendly policies on radio/TV and in the press and the positive/negative affects they have on SME’s– I am passionate about women start ups, SME successes and introducing business leaning into schools. Many consider me to be controversial because I am willing to stick my neck out about subjects considered to be taboo – I only speak on things I know a lot about and I always do my homework.
I am a rising entrepreneur – not a multi million pound dream but a hugely successful and ever expanding “this really could happen to you” story. From the ubiquitous back bedroom, the two agencies are employing five people in two offices. Sylvia kept her tour managing job until May 2003 (took The Speakers Agency's first booking on the Yangtze, the second whilst touring Graceland in Memphis and the third on a swamp tour outside New Orleans.
The Speakers Agency and subsequently womenspeakers.co.uk have far exceeded her expectations in growth and turnover and they have attracted so much interest that she is now often asked to contribute on a number of business issues. She has been featured in all the broadsheets, appeared on BBC Breakfast, most of the 5Live programmes, BBC New 24, C4 News at 7pm, ITN news, Woman’s Hour etc, etc. She has written for the Sunday Express Business Supplement and Leicester Mercury on a number of occasions, and has been recently been commissioned to write a bi-weekly column on SME issues for the Daily Telegraph’s business pages.
Her story is an inspiration to anyone who is about to embark on a similar journey or indeed already has and her understanding of what most people go through in their quest to start up, whether they be one man band or a large manufacturing unit. She can identify with the hurdles they face as they grow their businesses and her story
of the problems she has encountered along the way are both amusing and thought provoking.
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