Beth Kume-Holland: "Investors went from £300k to £30k when I told them I was disabled"
Award-winning entrepreneur Beth Kume-Holland is the founder and CEO of Patchwork Hub, a pioneering disabled-led employment platform and recruitment consultancy that’s shaking up the industry.As a disabled person, Beth is used to overcoming daily barriers in a world that can feel like it’s not built for her. And although these barriers can be physical ones, often the biggest challenges she faces are attitudinal.Despite graduating Oxford, Harvard, and single-handedly securing FTSE100 clients, Beth still experiences discrimination which impacts her business’ access to funding. She’s previously been in rooms with investors discussing a £300,000 investment, only to have the offer lowered to £30,000 as soon as the nature of her disability was disclosed.At the root of it all lies underrepresentation. Being underrepresented has led to all sorts of misconceptions around Beth’s work. Some mistakenly assume that because her solution is built around disability, it must be a charity-focused model or a lifestyle business.On this episode of Sound Advice: Entrepreneurs Unfiltered, Beth takes us on a deep dive into the kind of discrimination she’s had to overcome, how she did it, and what you can do to build a more accessible, inclusive business for all.