Edinburgh global growth summit targeting female founders looking to scale-up

The Female Founders Growth Summit 2026 comes to Royal Bank of Scotland’s Gogarburn base on October 1, bringing together women actively scaling businesses beyond £1 million turnover, with founders, investors and operators coming from across the UK and internationally.

Now in its third year, the event is designed for women who are already going through the scale-up journey and who are pondering what comes next.

The 2026 programme brings global entrepreneurship to Scotland. Speakers include Stina Ehrensvärd, the Swedish-American founder of Yubico and co-inventor of the YubiKey, now used by nine of the world’s ten largest internet companies; Christa Pitts, co-founder and co-chief executive of The Lumistella Company, the business behind The Elf on the Shelf, whose products have reached families in more than 33 countries; and Liz Upton, co-founder of Raspberry Pi, who led marketing as the company passed 60 million units sold and floated on the London Stock Exchange.

Other speakers include Clare Roberts, founder and chief executive of Kid’s Planet, built from two nurseries in 2008 to more than 200 across the UK; and Leeanne Hundleby, co-founder of luxury leather goods brand Strathberry, which sells internationally from its base in Scotland.

Sessions will cover international growth, leadership, investment, marketing and building impact at scale. Delegates will also take part in dedicated growth clinics covering international growth strategy, culture and leadership, and funding routes, alongside one-to-one time with investors and ecosystem partners.

The summit is being hosted by Pathways Forward, the initiative founded by Scotland’s chief entrepreneur Ana Stewart, following her Pathways report, and delivered in partnership with SuperScalers, Buy Women Built and The ScaleUp Institute.

Stewart said: “Scotland has never been short of ambitious women starting businesses. Where we lose ground is at the point of scale, and that gap costs the economy far more than most people realise. Whilst one in five companies in the UK are female-led less than one in 50 are scaling beyond £10m.

“This summit brings UK and global female entrepreneurs to Scotland to share their lived experiences and inspire others to continue on their growth journeys.”

Hundleby, co-founder of Edinburgh-based Strathberry, will be a guest speaker for an in-conversation session with Joanna Jenson, one of the UK’s most distinctive voices on entrepreneurship, on going global at the summit.

“Building a global brand from Scotland has been one of the most rewarding and challenging parts of the Strathberry journey,” said Hundleby. “Going into new markets isn’t simply about selling internationally; it’s about understanding your customer, protecting what makes your brand distinctive and having the ambition to compete on a global stage.”

Sam Smith, co-founder and chief executive of SuperScalers, added: “Scaling is a very different job from founding, and we’re building a network to help more women to grow. We’re on a mission to increase the number of female ‘SuperScalers’, which we define as a founder or co-founder who has scaled a business to £50m-plus revenue.

“To do this, community and inspiration matter and I’m excited to present our latest research and some scaling techniques in Edinburgh.”

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