Image Source Founder Christina Vaughan Launches everywoman's Modern Muse - A Major Initiative Designed to Inspire and Engage the Next Generation of Female Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs

LONDON, Dec. 2, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Image Source Founder and CEPIC President, Christina Vaughan, as part of the everywoman team launches Modern Muse, a major initiative designed to inspire and engage the next generation of female business leaders and entrepreneurs by showcasing successful women of today in all walks of business life.

Karen Gill, MBE, Co-founder of everywoman said, "The UK is suffering from a female 'role model' shortage, yet there are thousands of wonderful women in differing roles and industries, from diverse backgrounds and education who can demonstrate the range of exciting career options that many girls don't even hear about. Younger women today tend to have a strong focus on celebrity role models and we want them to be exposed to a much broader canvas, to women who have built businesses or are working in major organisations, whose lives are equally glamorous in very many ways.  Britain is a great place to nurture talent and showcase diversity.  Now is the time to put out a powerful call to action that will create the momentum to make a real and sustainable difference to young females in the UK."

The Modern Muse project is setting out to reach one million young women and girls over the next 3 years, to inspire and motivate them to look at business careers and entrepreneurship as a way to achieve their dreams. This project will help this group to aspire to a career in business by communicating stories of real women whose experiences encompass ambition, passion, success and failure; showing that business is fulfilling and can also be fun and rewarding.

Modern Muse is launching with the publication of a book and a photographic exhibition which shines a spotlight on 100 inspirational women who are all vibrant, successful entrepreneurs and business women, personifying the 'Modern Muse.'  Their stories will encourage and inspire young women and girls to follow in their footsteps.

Christina is one of 14 patrons that include such high profile individuals as Chrissie Rucker MBE (The White Company), Dame Mary Perkins (Specsavers Optical Group) and Judy Craymer (producer of Mamma Mia!).  The patrons are photographed by Mary McCartney, who was inspired by her mother Linda McCartney, herself a pioneering businesswoman.  

These Muses will undertake practical activity in their own workplace and local community; nurturing existing female talent, taking the Modern Muse story to schools and universities, creating more opportunities for women to start, own, run and grow companies, as well as climb the ladder as corporate employees.

"It is vital that we motivate the next generation to embrace business and carve out fulfilling lives for themselves," commented Christina. "We are calling on all women who share our vision to sign up as a Modern Muse at http://www.modernmuse.co.uk where they too, can get involved in the project. I got involved because I am only too aware that there is such a fine line between success and failure, inclusion and disenfranchisement, hope and despair. It sometimes takes just one word, a sign or a symbol of hope, to change the direction and opportunity in a young person's life. Life can be like 'Sliding Doors' and I would like to ensure that the enormous opportunity that I have encountered in my life has a positive cascading effect on those around me."

Notes to editors

About everywoman

Founded in September 1999 by Karen Gill and Maxine Benson, everywoman is an organisation dedicated to the empowerment, inspiration and support of women in business in the UK. With 40,000 members and growing, it is the UK's largest female business community - the online community and offline network are hives of activity, contact-building and business debate. Events, training and awards programmes are designed to educate, inspire and support both those women who have already started their business journey and those who have yet to set off. everywoman's ambition is to become the world's largest and most influential female business network, inspiring generations of businesswomen and championing their cause, talents and prospects on a global scale. Karen and Maxine were both awarded the MBE in January 2009 for services to women's enterprise. For more information, please visit: www.everywoman.com

About Image Source

Image Source is the world's leading producer of premium royalty free stock imagery, motion and Cross-Media content. Headquartered in London, UK, with a regional office in New York, the company also supplies imagery through over 200 partners worldwide. This strong international sales network enabled the company to win the Queen's Award for Enterprise in 2005. http://www.imagesource.com is currently the only platform in the industry able to showcase matched still images and motion clips displayed side-by-side for any given keyword search result, enabling creative art buyers to fulfill an integrated multimedia campaign brief in one simple purchase path. Search for royalty free high quality stock photos, images, video, footage, clips and Cross-Media content 24/7.

About CEPIC

CEPIC stands for the Coordination of European Picture Agencies Stock, Press and Heritage. Its goal is to be the centre of the picture industry. CEPIC was established in Berlin in 1993 as a European economic interest group (E.E.I.G.) not for profit in accordance with the European Communities Regulation and registered in Paris in 1999. CEPIC has Observer Status at WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organisation and is an Associate Member of I.P.T.C., the International Press Telecommunications Council. CEPIC represents over 1,000 picture sources in Europe with members from most different European countries. www.cepic.org

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SOURCE Image Source