Eve Davies: International Women’s Day 2025 and why it is important

Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce’s International Women’s Day 2025 event takes place this Friday with ProtectaPet’s Co-Founder and Communications Director Eve Davies among the speakers. 

Here, she talks about why it is important to celebrate the day, and her tips for success. 

“It’s important for us to celebrate what we, as women, have achieved and how far we have come in a comparatively short period of time. 

International Women’s Day gives us the chance to get women together, showcase what they can do and bring that network around them to support one another. 

Staffordshire has got a really good track record of female founder businesses. The national average is around 30 per cent, but we’re bucking it massively – it’s well over 40 per cent in our county. 

That’s a really great thing we need to celebrate, and we should be evaluating what we do well to share nationally. 

I believe women have so much to give. If you look at the consumer, women make the large majority of purchasing decisions in a house or workplace. This means they have so much to offer businesses in terms of their expertise and insights. 

Learning how to capitalise on the skills that women bring to the table is fundamental to the success of any business. 

I co-founded Protectapet with my husband Simon in 2014 and never dreamt we would get as far as we have. We had no funding or backing, we stepped out of salaries into the abyss.  

We started with £3,000 to invest and now we’re reaching circa £3 million a year turnover. It has been a huge rise for Protectapet. We won a King’s Award in 2023, we have 52 unique products and several patents. 

Simon and I have completely opposite skillsets and they dovetail together really well. He’s the visionary one and I’m strategic. 

Simon and I also share parental responsibilities such as the school run, after school clubs and things around the house. 

As a mum, you’re told you can have it all and have big career aspirations, but the reality is, you can only do that if you have a really strong supportive network around you. 

I’m lucky to have that with Simon, but it also highlights the importance of places such as the Chamber, where you can meet other women, see how they are doing it and what works for them. 

It’s a real pinch-me moment to speak at the International Women’s Day event. It’s an opportunity to reflect on how far I have come and I hope to be inspiring to people who have got dreams and are a bit fearful about taking the next step. 

For those starting out in business, I’d say take the minimum viable product over the line to test and market and then reinvest any money you make back into improving and optimising that. 

A second tip would be don’t listen to your friends and family who say it will never work because the majority of those people you speak to aren’t going to be your customer. The feedback that you really need is from those who would be your typical customer. 

Having been to previous Chamber International Women’s Day events, I know there will be people in that room who will literally change the outcome of other peoples’ lives. I hope to be just as inspiring.” 