Sharing an inspirational business model

Through making and selling the chocolates the women receive support, training, work experience and the opportunity to raise their self-esteem and resilience which helps lower the barriers they face in finding meaningful employment.

Founder and Director of Grace Chocolates, Joyce Murray has recently started what we hope to be a long lasting relationship with the School of Business and our students.

Most recently Joyce took time out to come and talk about her business to a group of our Master’s students, as part of their Marketing Management & Strategy module. She provided an oversight to the business, how it came to be and her own background. This initial overview had clearly inspired the students as a very active discussion followed, with them asking a number of insightful questions about competitors, market segmentation, communication and future aspirations.

One student commented. “The lecture was encouraging, refreshing, thought provoking and quite moving. Joyce is a transformational leader – one who motivates and inspires others to strive for and achieve extraordinary outcomes. Joyce is passionate about making a positive difference in the lives of these socially excluded women, and successfully uses Grace Chocolates to empower the women, so that they may have a voice, an identity and future, to become more of an active agent in their society. I think this social enterprise is an invaluable source of transformation for the women but also the wider community.”

Dr Daniel Clarke, lecturer and module leader said, “We are delighted to welcome Joyce to speak to our students. She is an inspiring individual and her talk generated one of the most interactive and student led discussions I have seen for a long time. Exposing our students to a range of businesses is very important to us and Grace Chocolates is a very exciting organisation which I hope has given our students some ideas about their own future aspirations.”

Joyce commented, “It was a privilege to be asked to speak to the students and a joy to be questioned by such an engaged and interested group.”