Businesswoman Siobhan Boyle, founder of a VTCT training academy and Sculpt Cosmetics, has been named as Donegal’s Best Established Business of 2019, in the county finals of Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur competition.
Siobhan runs her own store in Letterkenny, in the North West of Ireland, along with her own online shop and also heads up Donegal’s only private VTCT training academy.
Siobhan has a background in TV and film make up, with over 14 years of experience working with major Irish broadcasters such as RTE, before moving into the education side of the industry, which also took her to London. She moved back to Ireland and created her business in 2012 to provide a professional training school that is accessible and affordable for everyone, enabling many talented make-up artists to gain qualifications and employment in the industry. She offers limited class sizes, to ensure learners can access personalised and one to one training.
Siobhan believes that the right training can empower women to a successful and rewarding career. She says “It is really important that women know that they can do absolutely anything they want. There is most definitely a divide in pay and top jobs, we aren’t going to change it from talking about it, but rather by doing things to better ourselves and teach younger girls that they can do anything they desire.”
Reflecting on her recent award, she adds “I am really honoured to have won and proud to say that I believe our VTCT training really helped.”
As the goal of the competition is to develop business skills and opportunities, all competitors were offered access to a “Business Bootcamp” during the process and from that Siobhan has gained vital business insights in marketing, branding and sales to help her take Sculpt Cosmetics to the next level. She aims to grow her business further to enable her to employ more people in her local area. She also now moves on to the Regional finals, to be held in June.
Siobhan has this advice for other budding businesswomen:
“Just go for it, take well thought out calculated risks and ensure you are passionate about what you do! You will make mistakes and that’s okay, it is about how you recover that counts. There will always be negatives and people telling you (that) you are crazy, but keep your eyes focused on you and your goals.”