Athena Magazine and the West Country Business Show collaborate to put women in business centre stage

We are so excited to finally be able to share something we’ve been working on behind the scenes.

Athena Magazine is officially collaborating with The West Country Business Show for this year’s event, and we’re particularly excited about this collaboration because it’s putting something we deeply care about prominently in the show – women in business!

The West Country Business Show takes place on Tuesday 10^th November at Westpoint Arena in Exeter and brings businesses, entrepreneurs and business leaders from across the region together for a day of networking, learning and connection. Tickets are free for visitors to come along, meet exhibitors and enjoy talks and seminars throughout the day.

And this year, there will be something new – a Keynote panel celebrating women in business!

As part of our collaboration, Stacey will be taking part in a brand-new Women in Business keynote panel on the main stage on behalf of Athena Magazine.

It’s something we’re really pleased to be involved in because it feels like a really positive step forward for the show. Women-led businesses are a huge part of the economy and the West Country business community, and giving women in business a dedicated space on the keynote stage means we’ll be able to have some of the conversations that really matter in a really visible way. And it’s already shaping up to be a brilliant panel.

Devon Women in Business and Alexis Bowater from West Country Business Women Awards have already joined the line up, with more details to follow.

We’ll be there not just as a magazine, but as part of the conversation too, helping to bring together women, stories and business from across Devon.

And on top of that, Fran will be the official women in business/female empowerment photographer at the event, going around highlighting women at then event and female led businesses. We’ll also be covering the event in our January issue so we can really share how the West Country Business Show is supporting the women in business in the region.

But this is only the beginning of our collaboration. We’re already starting discussions for an even bigger project for next year. The West Country Business Show has been really open to our ideas around creating something more dedicated to women in business at the show, and there just wasn’t time to do everything before the show this year, so we’re planning some exciting things for the show in 2027. We don’t want to share too much about this yet, as we’re still working on it, but trust us, it’s going to be brilliant if we can pull it off!

This collaboration matters so much to us. When we launched Athena Magazine 2 years ago, one of our main aims was to create a space where women in business in devon could be seen heard and connect with so many other women who are doing wonderful things in the area. And that is still very much what we are doing. Being able to work with big events and organisations like the West Country Business Show really helps us to create even more space for women to feel welcome and celebrated for all the brilliant things they are doing, so it’s a perfect fit.

We’ll be sharing more about all of this as we get closer to the event, but we just couldn’t wait to share the news about it as soon as it was finalised.

We’re so excited for the show and the panel, to be exhibiting there and to be listed on their website as one of their partners too. So please do come along and chat to us, support us and all the other female led businesses that will be there.