Though they are mindful not to strike an ultra-feminist posture, both Judy Semple-Joseph and Michelle Johnson are unpretentious about the role which the Venture Out! programme has been playing in helping to balance a business climate that continues to favour men.
Semple-Joseph is the Managing Director of EMPRETEC, the organisation that invented Venture Out and Johnson is the Marketing and Communi-cations Manager of Republic Bank, the local commercial bank that has embraced Venture Out! for the past three years.
The bank’s backing for Venture Out!, Johnson says, is an expression of confidence in the capacity of women to match their male counterparts in fashioning and sustaining viable entrepreneurial pursuits. More than that, the Republic Bank/EMPRETEC relationship is