The founder of what has been called the UK’s fastest-growing drinks company is heading back to Edinburgh to share her story at a summit aimed at giving women in business a serious boost.
Kylie Reid, who was born and raised in the capital, built her company Egg into one of the most talked-about drinks brands in the country. Now she is returning to her home city to speak at an event designed to help other women do the same kind of thing.
The summit is pitched squarely at women who want to grow their confidence, build connections and pick up practical ideas they can actually use. It is not the kind of event where you sit through a load of corporate waffle and leave with a tote bag. The organisers want something more tangible than that.
Reid herself summed it up pretty directly. “We want every woman to leave feeling more confident about taking up space, alongside new contacts, practical ideas and potential collaborators,” she said.
That phrase, taking up space, is doing a lot of work there. It speaks to something a lot of women in business talk about, the feeling of holding back, second-guessing yourself, or waiting for permission that never quite comes. Reid has clearly thought about this stuff and it sounds like she has plenty to say.
Building a drinks company from scratch in the UK is no small thing. The market is crowded, the margins are brutal and getting shelf space in retail is a constant battle. The fact that Egg has grown as fast as it has puts Reid in a fairly rare category, and the kind of experience she carries into that summit room is exactly what attendees are likely to find useful.
Edinburgh has a lively entrepreneurial scene and events like this one have become a regular part of the city’s business calendar. There is genuine appetite among women here for networking that goes beyond swapping LinkedIn details over a glass of something fizzy. People want to meet others who are actually doing interesting things and who are willing to talk honestly about how they got there.
Reid fits that bill. She is not coming in as some distant success story to be admired from afar. She is an Edinburgh woman who went out and built something real, and now she is coming back to talk about it in front of an audience who might be at the beginning of their own version of that journey.
The summit is shaping up to be one of the more worthwhile dates on the Edinburgh business calendar this year. If the goal is to leave with more confidence, better contacts and a clearer sense of what is actually possible, then having someone like Kylie Reid in the room is a pretty good start.