Julia Kala, a BA Business and Management student at Henley Business School, has been selected as the new President of the University of Reading’s Entrepreneurship Society for the 2019/20 academic year.
Julia spoke openly about her reasons for wanting to take on the role of President, saying, “My personal entrepreneurship journey put me in touch with Henley Centre for Entrepreneurship – it was very exciting to get involved with their Business Idea Clinic, Entrepreneurship Hub, IDEAFEST Competition and Greenshoots Seed Finance Award. It has been life changing to work on my own business idea and I wanted to share these experiences with other students.”
The Entrepreneurship Society has several major plans coming up for the coming academic year, which Julia elaborated on. “Rather than individual events, myself and the other Committee members want to make the Entrepreneurship Society run a series of interconnecting events that cover the different stages of an entrepreneur’s journey – how to develop an idea, marketing and branding, legal requirements, seeking finance and so on. The aim is to give students confidence in building their own start-up.”
Making the Society more student facing was another of Julia’s priorities. “We intend to hold a flagship conference in the spring of 2020, inviting different entrepreneurs to come in and share their experiences. Our members can network with these entrepreneurs and establish connections. We are also going to hold weekly ‘drop-in’ sessions at the Entrepreneurship Hub, where members can ask our committee members questions or catch up, and we are looking into the launch of an online portal to link our student members with the Entrepreneurship Society’s sponsors so that they can gain employment opportunities, access events and more.”