Upcoming Talks

Join us on the VBC network call insightful discussions and exceptional talks. Don't miss the chance to connect and share ideas with like-minded individuals. We look forward to seeing you there!

Sofia Kalfa - Date: 2nd September

Sofia Kalfa is the founder of Fzin Coffee, a sustainable coffee and beverage business built from her background in global operations, programme management, and global supply chain. Through Fzin Coffee, she has built a multi-award-winning business recognised across product quality, leadership, sustainability, and commercial innovation. Her work includes developing an 80-plus product sustainable beverage portfolio and introducing Ireland’s first biobased and home compostable coffee pod under the Fzin brand.

Sofia’s recognition includes Global Business of the Year, Woman of the Year in Leadership, three EU awards through Women Changing the World, the Three Ireland Business Award, and selection as a recipient of the FBD national advertising campaign. Her work focuses on building credibility through evidence, using recognition strategically, and turning clear business positioning into commercial opportunity.

Talk Description

In this talk, Sofia Kalfa shares the practical thinking behind building an award-winning business. Drawing on her own experience with Fzin Coffee, she explores how clarity, credibility, evidence, and positioning can help a business become more visible, more trusted, and more commercially attractive.

The session will look at what makes a business ready for recognition, how to build proof into the business before applying for awards, and how founders can use recognition strategically without confusing visibility with growth.

Gabriela de Paula - Date: 16th September

Gabriela de Paula is the Managing Director of Canopy Creative, a Dublin based creative marketing agency helping purpose led businesses, from SMEs to NGOs and impact focused brands, turn content into genuine community.

Gabriela works across social media strategy, content creation and brand communications, with a growing focus on tourism, hospitality and impact focused work. She also hosts a regular social media expert segment on Dublin City FM.

From Content to Community: How Businesses Grow on TikTok and Instagram

Gabriela shows established SME owners how to turn TikTok and Instagram into a real growth channel. Attendees will walk away with:

The truth about who's actually on TikTok, and why your audience is probably already there
How to build hooks that stop the scroll
A practical framework for what your audience actually engages with
Proven content formats SMEs can use immediately
A simple system for building a repeatable content series that scales

Lesa Malone - Date: 25th September @ 11.45am

UNDERSTANDING ROS WITHOUT THE FEAR

For many business owners and self-employed individuals in Ireland, Revenue can feel confusing, stressful and something they avoid until there’s a problem.
This practical masterclass takes you inside Revenue Online Service (ROS), where I’ll walk you through the system step-by-step, showing you where to find the information that matters, what it means and what you should be checking on your own Revenue profile.

Whether you’re self-employed, running a business, freelancing or using an accountant, understanding your own Revenue record is essential.
The aim is simple: to remove the fear around Revenue and give you the confidence to understand and manage your own tax affairs.

We will cover:

 Tax Clearance – why it matters and what can affect it
 Tax Registrations – Income Tax, VAT, PAYE & RCT
 Revenue Record – what Revenue holds and what to check
 My Enquiries – understanding Revenue communications
 Tax Credits & Employment Details – where to find them
 Common Revenue Issues – real-life situations and mistakes
 Q&A – your questions and scenarios

About Lesa Malone
Lesa Malone has over 20 years’ experience working with business owners and SMEs across finance, taxation, payroll and business processes. Through Brady Management Global Ltd, she helps businesses simplify their finances, improve their systems and take control of their numbers.
Lesa is passionate about making complex financial matters easier to understand and giving business owners the confidence to manage their finances.

Kirsty Franks - Date: 30th September

Kirsty Franks is the CEO and Founder of Frank Marketing, a specialist property marketing agency built to help estate agents and property businesses grow through clearer strategy, stronger brands and marketing that actually delivers.

With more than 20 years’ experience across B2B and B2C marketing, Kirsty has worked across multiple sectors, but has become best known for her work in the property industry. Alongside leading Frank, she is Fractional Chief Marketing Officer for The Property Franchise Group, the UK’s largest property franchising business, Vice Chair of Women in Estate Agency, an industry speaker, podcaster, mentor and Non-Executive Director.

Kirsty is passionate about helping people and businesses get clear on who they are, what they stand for and how to show up with confidence, creating marketing that is commercially sharp without losing the personality that makes them different. She is also a proud mum, which she says remains her most important, most grounding and occasionally most demanding leadership role.

Katelin O'Shea - AI Webinar - Date: TBD

No More Night Shift: the AI systems that took over my evening admin

Live Webinar, one hour.

I would regularly finish my admin at nine or ten at night, proposals, emails, working out what tomorrow was supposed to look like, you know what I'm talking about.

Although I'm happy to report that these days most of it runs without me, and on July 10 I'm going to show you exactly what that looks like, live.

You'll watch three systems do their actual jobs:

My daily planning meeting with my AI PA.
Every morning I sit down with an AI that knows my goals, my offers and my real calendar, and we plan the day together. At the session you'll watch it plan that day, my real one, not one of those demo's set up to look good.

My proposal system.
Discovery notes go in, a fully branded and aligned to your business PDF proposal comes out. I'll put a timer on it so you can see for yourself how long it actually takes! I'm guessing 20 mins or so ;)

My inbox cleaner.
It runs three mornings a week whether I'm at my desk or not, and I'll open up and show you exactly what it did that morning for me.

To be honest, none of this comes down to clever prompting. Most people are using AI like they've hired a brilliant new team member, pointed at the desk, and said go. No introduction to the business,no context, nothing. These systems that I've built work and save me time, because the AI knows my business, it can see my calendar and my inbox, and it runs on an automatic schedule. In this session I'm going to show you how each one is put together, the actual method behind the scenes, this session is definitely not a teaser with the good bits held back.

You'll also leave with a starter prompt you can use that same day, plus my honest numbers on what these systems save me each week.

Who it's for: solo and small business owners who use AI here and there, get patchy results, and are starting to wonder if it's them, and it's not, I promise, and YOU DON'T NEED TO BE TECHNICAL! But one thing you do need... is to be fed up doing your own admin!

Who it's not for: anyone after hype or a tour of 50 tools.

One hour, real systems, real work, that's it.

Cheers and hope to see you there!

Katelin, Founder & CEO of AI That Works
aithatworks.io

Connect with us today and start building valuable business relationships and partnerships.

Email: paul.pcmconsulting@gmail.com

Tel: 086-8532152