Empowering you to thrive in business and beyond
At Inspire UK, we love helping women nurture their dreams of accomplishing more than financial success through our network and masterminding memberships.
Yes, we support you in achieving financial stability – that’s essential. But we believe that once our basic needs are met, we’re most fulfilled when driven by something deeper.
We’re driven by heart and purpose, a genuine care for others, and a desire to make a positive impact in the world. We lead with kindness and work towards our common goal of achieving financial success and increasing our impact within our supportive memberships.
We invite ambitious women in business who share our vision to join us. Together, we celebrate each other’s successes and empower one another to thrive. Because when you succeed, it creates a ripple effect that enriches not only your life but also the broader community.
At Inspire UK , to inspire isn’t just motivational; it’s life-giving
Business can be a powerful force for good.
But we can't succeed on our own.
Together we are stronger.
Our values
Kindness
Whether we’re offering support during challenges or celebrating successes, kindness is woven into how we interact and lift each other up. We believe that #kindnesswins.
Honesty
Transparency is essential – it’s not just what you say; what you don’t say matters too. We give genuine feedback. When we see someone’s stuck, we’re honest and point it out with kindness.
Integrity
Integrity guides our decisions and actions and is the essence of our relationships. We uphold ethical standards to ensure authentic connection within our communities.
Trust
Trust underpins our relationships. It means everyone feels confident to share openly without fear of judgement and can depend on one another. Both within memberships and beyond.
Relationships
We value meaningful relationships and see them as a goal, not a means to achieve a goal. We focus on real connections that blossom into friendships, enriching all aspects of our lives.
Fun
We don’t take ourselves too seriously. It’s good to laugh! Fun is important for enjoyment of life, including when we’re talking about our challenges. Inspire UK is a joyful place to be.
Our mission is simple… to connect heart-led, purpose-driven women in business and empower them to grow, so they increase their impact in the world.
Inspire UK - Our story
Founded in 2010, Inspire UK (originally called The Inspire Network) is one of the longest-standing women’s business networks in the country. Originally based in the North-East, it was taken over in 2020 by our leader Nikki Tapley, who expanded it to become a national online network.
The Inspire Network grew and flourished under Nikki’s careful leadership, and she expanded the membership to include business masterminding and support. These aspects, over time, became as important as the ‘networking’ aspect.
Nikki rebranded the organisation in 2021, renaming it Inspire UK, and offered memberships to suit the different needs of members.
Over the last few years, Inspire UK has welcomed hundreds of businesswomen and nonprofit founders, from start-up sole traders to established business owners, charity leaders, and company directors.
In 2023, Nikki added a heart shape to the ‘P’ in our logo to reflect the importance of being heart-led within Inspire UK. She began to contemplate the future of the organisation and how it might stand out as ’not a business networking group‘, but a vibrant community where members join to grow themselves as well as their businesses, with a shared desire to increase their impact, not just their income.
In 2024, it was time to evolve the brand, keeping the essence but reducing the formality and corporate-ness of our identity to reflect our truly unique, fun, informal, more personal-feeling approach, which is what we’re all about and what makes us different. This marked the end of a period of deep research, consultation, and revision of our memberships to ensure we moved forward, offering more of what brought our members the most value.
Now, we are as you see us today, with two simple membership options:
The Inspire Network
An online-first community open to ALL women in business, with diverse groups for women operating in different capacities, including those who are employed or leading nonprofits. We encourage local and national get-togethers, so women build their contacts without being confined to one location. We also encourage members to arrange their own get-togethers as well as enjoying our organised get-togethers on and offline.
Inspired Women Mastermind
Exclusively for heart-led, purpose-driven, growth-focused business owners and nonprofit founders who see the value in surrounding themselves with a small group of like-minded women and a professional mentor and experienced business and nonprofit leader who shares their values.
Meet Nikki Tapley: Leader of Inspire UK
A Businesswoman with Heart
Nikki isn’t your typical business owner – as well as growing businesses of her own and investing, she’s an experienced professional mentor, business growth strategist, sales/marketing consultant, and charity founder.
She also takes on short-term roles to help businesses grow in a Fractional C-Suite capacity. She has a kind heart and puts people at the centre of everything she does.
Nikki the Networker
Between 2018 and 2020, before Covid and before her leadership of Inspire UK, she built ‘Collabor8 – People in Business’, a local business network, from scratch with a vision to expand this to create a wider impact across the nation.
Nikki’s knack for bringing people together to share ideas and expertise saw her business grow rapidly, into something really special. At one stage she was affectionately known locally as ‘Nikki the Networker’ because of her successful leadership of Collabor8, and her commitment to connecting people, facilitating quality relationships, and making professional introductions.
Working with Women – Why Nikki leads Inspire
Covid thwarted Nikki’s plan, but in the meantime, just weeks before the lockdown of 2020, she acquired The Inspire Network (TIN). Nikki admits she was never ‘a big fan’ of women-only organisations as she felt they were unnecessarily exclusive and has always worked well with men, so she didn’t really align with this idea of segregation. However, in early 2020 she’d been approached to lead a group for women of faith (voluntarily) and during that time, she really discovered her heart for supporting women in a safe space.
When Nikki became aware that TIN was at risk of closure in early 2020, and the former owner needed someone else to take it on, she felt strongly that she should step up. It was predominantly a North-East network, although open to women everywhere; she decided to ensure it became inclusive for women all over the UK.
Nikki hadn’t seen the pandemic coming. But despite homeschooling small children while leading Collabor8 and another business, she grew our free Facebook community from less than 6,000 members to more than 11,000 at our peak. Several hundred women also joined our highly valuable members-only workshops, networking sessions, peer support sessions and privileges within our membership.
A professional Mentor
Nikki has mentored hundreds of individuals on a 1:1 basis and is not only experienced and professionally trained as a business growth mentor, but also as a professional mental health, ADHD and Autism mentor. As an experienced money mentor, she has also helped people organise their finances and make changes in their life to support financial wellbeing.Nikki hadn’t seen the pandemic coming. But despite homeschooling small children while leading Collabor8 and another business, she grew our free Facebook community from less than 6,000 members to more than 11,000 at our peak. Several hundred women also joined our highly valuable members-only workshops, networking sessions, peer support sessions and privileges within our membership.
A Business Consultant facilitating growth
For over a decade, Nikki has consulted for dozens of organisations, from rapid-growth tech startups to established B2C companies. They needed her expertise in PR and marketing to build their brand, and her sales strategies to drive revenue, bring cash into their businesses, attract investors, and build brilliant teams.
Fractional CSO and CMO - building brilliant businesses
As a fractional CSO and CMO, Nikki has supported numerous clients with marketing and sales strategies, including advisory services, as well as building teams and overseeing them. She’s successfully guided small businesses to growth and helped small companies save thousands, make millions and secure significant investment.
All about people
But for Nikki, business isn’t just about numbers. It’s about people. She believes metrics help to measure how well we are helping others, and that’s why we need to track them. But they’re only a measure, not the focus. She’s on a mission to help people to lead well and serve others well, as this is what leads to success in business. She’s focused and passionate about making a positive difference in others’ lives, creating a ripple effect when they go on to help others – that’s her way in business and beyond.
Nikki within Inspire UK
Nikki wants to make sure that Inspire UK isn’t focused on her, although she acknowledges her input is essential to ensure her ethos and values stay central. She’s been part of memberships where leaders have withdrawn and seen how they have changed and lost their soul somewhat and doesn’t want this to be our story.
But, despite Nikki’s intensive involvement in the Mastermind, the close relationships and mentorship of Mastermind members, and her commitment to bring knowledge and contribute in the network where she is able, she makes it clear that it’s the members who really make it what it is, and expresses this to anyone who’ll listen! It’s very important to her.
Beyond business
Outside of work, Nikki is a happily married mum of two girls and two fur babies (a dog and a cat). She has a heart for animals and is a shameless flamingo fan. She loves all things pink, and spending time by the sea or in nature makes her happy, as does watching musicals. Her relationship with God is important to her, underpins her decisions and guides her in all she does.
What our members say
“The Inspire membership has been invaluable for me personally and for my business. Hearing about other peoples’ successes is inspirational and motivating, but more than that, their stories have enabled me to learn and grow by drawing upon their experience. It also provides a network of lovely ladies that I can go to for ongoing advice and support, and on occasions, I have had the privilege of helping them too. It has also been beneficial for business growth – within a short period, my membership fee had paid for itself several times over in sales. Joining the network has been my best business decision year to date.”
Rachel Keen
About
Inspire UK offers Network and Masterminding memberships to heart-led, purpose-driven women in business. Connect with like-minded peers and get support to grow and boost your impact and income in business and beyond.