inbusiness: Making the most of her retirement

This week's inbusiness magazine of The Oxford Times featured an article about Venturefest Oxford's Executive Chair Lynn Shepherd. Lynn at the 2015 Venturefest Oxford networking event Now retired, former group director of communications at Oxford Instruments is putting her expertise and experience to good use, steering the strategic vision of Venturefest. Lynn spoke to inbusiness about the upcoming Venturefest annual networking event on 29 June, and mentioned how, after 18 years, Venturefest has grown into a year-round series of activities, including the bi-annual Pitchfest event for high-tech entrepreneurs and investors. One company, Chief Executive of BioMe Soren Thomsen, who participated in Pitchfest and attending the upcoming event in June said of Venturefest:

While working as scientists at the University of Oxford, the advice and feedback we receive from new business nurturing organisations such as Venturefest is invaluable and we are looking forward to further developing our business skills.

Moving to the new "gem" of a venue at the King's Centre in Osney Mead and introducing a new, dynamic online networking system are part of the exciting new developments to the annual event. Another spin-off event is the launch of TechTonic, a new networking support group for female entrepreneurs. Besides Venturefest, Lynn has taken the advice of her former company chairman Nigel Keen who said to divide your retirement in three: one third for paid enterprise, one third for yourself, and one third giving back to community.  Of this, Lynn said:

I have discovered I have a talent for painting and am really enjoying attending classes, while I travel as much as I can and see my four grandchildren. And the other third is taken up with being a Samaritan which is really giving something back.

For more details about the annual event, register and get connected at: http://www.venturefestoxford.com/venturefest-2016/  To read the full article, visit: http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/eeditions/