BRADENTON, Fla. — Sara Hand, local business woman and global thought leader from the Sarasota-Manatee area, is a featured speaker at the CEED Global Conference hosted in Tunisia this October 17-19th. The CEED Global Conference is structured to facilitate the expansion of attendees’ business networks with spontaneous and planned business-to-business meetings, side events, and opportunities to converse before and after central sessions.
Sara will continue her work making an impact around the globe in this first visit to North Africa where an eager audience wants to learn about the successful diversification of Manatee County’s economy and business environment and what challenges and possibilities exist for women entrepreneurs. She’ll join a cadre of other global business leaders and entrepreneurs sharing their approaches to innovation and business growth to each other and to a worldwide audience. Sara’s background as the CEO of Spark Growth includes identifying opportunities for growth, and fostering wealth creation by connecting people, ideas and capital to create value in the marketplace. According to Ms. Hand “CEED is a great forum to implement the new rules of economic development – where going global is essential, relationships matter, and collaboration is key. If you want to win – you have to show up and participate.”
Spark Growth’s Smart Cities and Innovation Districts work also dovetails with CEED’s ambitions to provide jobs and opportunity in emerging economies. Smart Cities initiatives can allow developing nations to bypass some traditional development steps by applying technology, methods, and management principles as a means of discontinuous innovation.
With a population of over 11 million, Tunisia has a unique geographic position as a platform to both Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Their economy is diverse and market-oriented including the #2 African producer of car components, #1 exporter of organic produce, and they have a developed textile and apparel industry. Energy exports and minerals, mechanical and electrical components, tourism and ICT is fast developing.
About Sara Hand:
Sara Hand is a regular speaker for technology audiences. She has a diverse business development background across public and private sector enterprises, which includes early stage investment experience. Her motto is “Think Big. Keep it Simple. Make it Happen.” Sara is widely recognized for driving action-focused agendas for business and community development using agile strategies.
As the CEO of Spark Growth, Sara uses her strengths to find and leverage unique value propositions and create synergistic partnerships. Working with thought leaders internationally has led to opportunities with the State Department, the United Nations Launch of WED, the 2015 Harvard Future-Ready Economies Summit, International Strategic Doing Leadership Conference, the DWEN 2016 Symposium, MC for annual TiECon Conference, Startup India Rocks 2016, and Smart Cities Innovation Accelerators and the 2018 CEED Global Conference in Tunisia.
About Spark Growth:
As an innovation consulting firm, Spark Growth projects take shape across cultures, time zones, industry clusters and business sectors, leveraging expertise across the innovation value chain from ideation to exit. Spark Growth works alongside our clients to identify potential and possibilities for growth and to develop authentic solutions specific to each client’s needs.
