Claire Alexander
Director, Africa Scotland Business Network "Brave, fierce and proudly Scottish, Menstrie lass Claire is a business owner who swapped corporate life for entrepreneurship."
About this speaker
Brave, fierce and proudly Scottish, Menstrie lass Claire is a business owner who swapped corporate life for entrepreneurship in 2012. She’s a graduate of Strathclyde University’s Business School in Glasgow after serving as Deputy Head Girl of Alva Academy. Glasgow is also where Claire excelled in sport, training out of City of Glasgow’s elite swim team and representing Scotland in 100m and 200m butterfly. After surviving a head on car crash at 17, Claire took up her beloved football upon recovery, going on to represent two Scottish premier league teams and the Scotland national university football team.
Claire moved to South Africa in 2007 after working in Australia and USA after university. She currently travels between Scotland and South Africa and her husband’s homes in Botswana and Zambia. Before 2012, Claire made her name in the South African events industry, as an award winning event producer for celebrities, global brands, rising businesses and international charities. She launched Firecracker (a nick name her former boss gave her) with Nicola probyn in 2012, an award winning integrated event, marketing and design company which has grown into a thriving agency with clients on 3 continents. Although a mostly client led agency, Firecracker is currently building assets in the form of an partnership with a Cape Town event brand and additionally launching Firecracker’s own community event brand ‘Illumi.Nation’ in 2019.
The entrepreneur bug clearly bit when Claire spotted an opportunity to connect Africa and Scotland directly and meaningfully in the form of an international business network. After 8 months of research, bringing an esteemed board of advisors together and gaining endorsement from Scottish Government, Africa Scotland Business Network was launched in November 2019. The network is currently in 9 countries and working on seven international trade projects. ASBN has even assisted one of their NPO members in South Africa gain successful employment for one of their beneficiary students with a member company in Edinburgh.
