Annie Bartley, the 37-year-old founder and creative director of I Am Female, a creative agency located in Clapham, southwest London, typically focuses on generating ideas and concepts behind the scenes. However, last week marked a significant shift for her as she joined 13 other female entrepreneurs in a campaign designed to motivate a new wave of women to launch and expand their businesses. Their images, accompanied by the empowering message, “You’ve got what it takes,” are currently displayed in 62 outdoor advertising locations, including billboards, bus stops, and gyms throughout London and Birmingham.

This initiative originated from Emmie Faust, who leads Female Founders Rise, a networking organization for women. Over the summer, she posted a concept on LinkedIn featuring a mock-up billboard that highlighted a statistic from the Rose review on female entrepreneurship, revealing that the UK economy could gain an additional £250 billion if women launched and scaled their businesses at rates comparable to men.

The post garnered an overwhelming response, prompting Clare Benson-Geddes, managing director and co-founder of the branding agency YeahNice Studio, to reach out with a desire to help bring an outdoor advertising campaign to life that showcased female founders.

Faust, 46, expressed, “We aimed to inspire more women to venture into business by exhibiting a diverse range of women engaged in various fields. I wanted to create a positive narrative since there is ample coverage discussing the challenges faced by female founders, which can discourage aspiring entrepreneurs. Women might think, ‘With all this negative news about securing funding, why should I even try?’”

Research has previously underscored the scarcity of female role models in the entrepreneurship realm. A study conducted by Santander indicated that 81% of individuals aged 11 to 18 could not identify a single female entrepreneur.

Bartley shared that her participation was driven by the need to showcase a diverse representation of women, specifically highlighting the visibility issues faced by queer women and women in the creative industry. “Only 1% of agencies are led by women, and I aspire to change that,” she stated.

She conveyed her pride in seeing the large billboard in Shoreditch, east London, appreciating what it symbolizes and the conversations it can generate.

The billboard campaign also features notable women such as Dr. Dupe Burgess, founder of Bloomful, a service offering reproductive health advice to women; Victoria Peppiatt, co-founder of Hey Savi, a fashion matchmaking service; and Siddhi Mittal and Henin Zhang, co-founders of yhangry, a platform for booking private chefs.

Each of the entrepreneurs involved in the campaign contributed their time voluntarily, while the creative elements were produced pro bono by YeahNice. The advertising space, provided by JCDecaux and Glooh, is projected to reach millions and holds a value worth tens of thousands of pounds.

Faust is actively seeking partners to extend this campaign across the UK. “I envision it reaching every city in the UK,” she remarked.