- Mar 8
- 3 min read

Women-Led Businesses: How Far We've Come

A REFLECTION BY CAPERS OWNER & FOUNDER, EMMA ROBERTS

While racing through the continuous rush of life, we all know how silently minutes creep into hours…days…weeks...months...and years. I sometimes feel those fleeting moments accelerated into hyperdrive when I wasn’t looking—like I blinked while getting Capers Catering off the ground, and 30+ years flew by. Yet no matter how much time has passed, I’ll never forget how it felt to be just starting out as a woman business owner in 1992.

At that time, other than a few female peers, I was an anomaly in Boston’s events industry—leading my freshly minted catering company amid what felt like a sea of male business owners. Though I was fiercely determined to build Capers into a success, summoning the continual courage and positivity to make it happen was often an uphill climb. Routine cold calls that led to dead ends left me in tears—was it even possible to carry out all the necessary tasks to build and sustain a small business? As those minutes morphed into years and decades, more women business owners gradually joined the field. Event networking groups arrived on the scene, and what had once felt like a lonely playing field blossomed into a welcoming, thriving community of women supporting women.

When I look around today at the vast, incredible pool of talented women running their own event planning, design, venue, floral, stationery, décor, photography, videography, DJ, rental, styling, and so many other creative businesses, it’s hard to imagine our industry ever existing any other way. Capers Catering and Olive & Twist Bar certainly wouldn’t have survived the pandemic years without tapping into our surrounding, supportive community of helping hands—and likewise, we were happy to do what we could to buoy colleagues struggling to get through. Though we often hear people talk about how far women have come, seeing our progress with my own eyes and feeling this sisterhood has instilled in me a gratitude I’m not sure I can adequately put into words.

I was therefore thrilled when Kelly Golia and Kate Murtagh reached out a few weeks ago, inviting us to join an event designed to shine a spotlight on creative collaboration in the name of community over competition. The evening celebrated the talent and dedication of women in the events industry—offering a rare moment to come together to create a gorgeous event and custom menu for all of us to enjoy together.

We were honored to cater to this illustrious table, and raise a glass to each other in celebration of the fabulous community of talent that surrounds us. May it grow, strengthen, and continue for many generations to come.

Feast your eyes on the gorgeous images created by the following long list of (linked!) talented businesses we were privileged to collaborate with in this celebration of each other.