omen impact entrepreneurs have been a force to reckon with when it comes to creating market-based solutions to social and environmental challenges. Women represent 1 in 3 high-potential entrepreneurs globally, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2021/22 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report: From Crisis to Opportunity. Women are leading promising businesses and have strong aspirations for growth and impact. They are also highly innovative, accounting for almost half of the entrepreneurs around the world who offer new products or services to their local markets. Positive impact is often firmly embedded in their business models alongside profitability.
As business owners, women have had entrepreneurial journeys that are both impressive and uplifting. Gender equality is one of the key UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Less than a decade remains to meet these goals. To achieve gender equality, those developing entrepreneurial ecosystems have a responsibility to provide support to women impact entrepreneurs that is timely, relevant, and targeted. The GEM Women’s Entrepreneurship Report has highlighted concrete ways to do this.
Amplify Visibility of Women Entrepreneur Role Models
There is a dominant narrative that women are overrepresented among the poorest and most vulnerable businesses in the world. While the numbers show that subsistence entrepreneurship is indeed a reality of many women entrepreneurs, this narrative tends to overshadow another truth: that today, across the globe, women entrepreneurs are building large, successful businesses in all sectors. These businesses have a considerable positive impact on their families, communities, and economies.
Seynabou Dieng is a woman entrepreneur in Mali. Her company, Maya, turns local produce into processed food products. This creates more demand for produce from area farms, offers local alternatives to imports, and fosters a sense of cultural pride. In Iraq, Basima Abdulrahman’s company Kesk offers green building services that are transforming the way that buildings are designed, built, and maintained.
Women are just as likely as men to succeed in entrepreneurship, when starting similar businesses in similar industries. Yet too often they must battle negative stereotypes that characterize them as less capable. They also find themselves working harder than men for access to enabling resources. As a result, their own perceptions of entrepreneurship as a life choice are affected. For instance, the GEM report shows that, compared to men, women are less likely to feel that it’s easy to start a business, less likely to identify new business opportunities, and less likely to recognize they possess the necessary skills to start a business, while they are more likely to be deterred by fear of business failure.
To break down the fixed mindsets and stereotypes, it is incumbent upon all stakeholders to shine a light on successful women impact entrepreneurs. Stakeholders also must provide these women with platforms that amplify their voices and inspire other potential impact entrepreneurs. Studies have shown that having a role model can encourage women to venture off the beaten path and consider entrepreneurship as a career choice. For example, the Cartier Women’s Initiative’s a global community of almost seven hundred members is helping to shift prevailing stereotypes and provide access to a support system for entrepreneurs leading up-and-running businesses.
Create Wide-Ranging Networks to Support Women Impact Entrepreneurs
The power of a community cannot be overstated. Being part of a network of entrepreneurs has numerous payoffs. It improves access to investors, partners, suppliers, mentors, and training. Yet, on average, across all countries in the 2021 GEM survey, women were 11% less likely than men to report knowing an entrepreneur, which is indicative of a serious dearth of access to networks for women entrepreneurs. Moreover, according to GEM’s National Expert Survey, experts generally rate the enabling environment for women entrepreneurs as being very low in most of the 50 countries involved in the research, which makes it vital to focus on developing reliable support networks for women.
In addition to serving as sounding boards and support systems, such networks can also help business owners catalyze new collaborations. For example, Cartier Women’s Initiative fellows from North America, Stephanie Benedetto (Queen of Raw) and Benita Singh (Nest), both lead businesses that fight waste in the textile sector. By connecting as part of the same network, they were able to identify ways to collaborate. Stephanie provided Benita’s community of artisans with access to her platform, so that they could view and appraise donated deadstock fabric prior to delivery. This perfectly illustrates how being part of diverse and extensive communities expands the range of possibilities available to entrepreneurs, and sparks ideas for innovative collaboration.
Privilege Funding, Support for High Potential Sectors
While women are well represented in high-impact, high-growth businesses, sectoral imbalances remain a persistent challenge to overcome. For example, women are woefully underrepresented in tech: only 2.7% of women compared to 4.7% of men are starting businesses in the Information, Computers, and Technology (ICT) sector that, significantly, draws most venture capital worldwide.
Research has shown that in many countries, the tech gender gap starts early, and part of the solution is policy-centric. For example, women in North America were 78% more likely to report being active in the ICT sector, which is likely to be a result of STEM education programming targeted at girls.
There is also an opportunity here for entrepreneurs as agents of change. For example, Dora Palfi from Sweden worked as the only woman developer in her organization for years before she founded imagi, which produces fun, easy-to-use education tools to draw a new generation of women into tech.
Dora is one among many entrepreneurs who are leveraging tech to advance diversity and inclusion. For example, Jennifer Clausell Tormos from Denmark created Develop Diverse, an AI-powered software that automatically detects social biases across an organization’s communication platforms and suggests inclusive alternatives.
Both Dora and Jennifer are undertaking vital work; on the one hand, showing young women what is possible, and on the other, harnessing tech to build better and more inclusive working environments for everyone’s benefit.
The other part of the solution, of course, is improving access to funding. Often, traditional venture capital may not be the best form of investment to seek, for entrepreneurs who are looking to challenge prevailing systems. The good news is that new financial vehicle structures and types of capital are emerging, which provide greater flexibility to entrepreneurs that are focused on solving complex social and environmental problems.
Women impact entrepreneurs are a diverse community of forces for good, dedicated to delivering positive impact. All over the world, they have set in motion the ripples of change we need to see by 2030. Are we ready to be a part of the next big wave? In a nutshell, that means using all available platforms to shine a light on women’s successes and directing support to the most promising sectors. In other words, entrepreneurial ecosystem enablers need to play their part by deliberately embedding impact in their models, just as many women entrepreneurs are tending to do.
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Embracing Intentionality to Support Women Impact Entrepreneurs
Photo by Romane Gautun on Unsplash
February 17, 2023
Women impact entrepreneurs are a rising force behind important market-based solutions for social and environmental challenges. Yet barriers still hamper their potential-we must embrace intentionality to change that, write GEM's Aileen Ionescu-Sommers and Cartier Women's Initiative's Wingee Sampaio.
W
omen impact entrepreneurs have been a force to reckon with when it comes to creating market-based solutions to social and environmental challenges. Women represent 1 in 3 high-potential entrepreneurs globally, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2021/22 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report: From Crisis to Opportunity. Women are leading promising businesses and have strong aspirations for growth and impact. They are also highly innovative, accounting for almost half of the entrepreneurs around the world who offer new products or services to their local markets. Positive impact is often firmly embedded in their business models alongside profitability.
As business owners, women have had entrepreneurial journeys that are both impressive and uplifting. Gender equality is one of the key UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Less than a decade remains to meet these goals. To achieve gender equality, those developing entrepreneurial ecosystems have a responsibility to provide support to women impact entrepreneurs that is timely, relevant, and targeted. The GEM Women’s Entrepreneurship Report has highlighted concrete ways to do this.
Amplify Visibility of Women Entrepreneur Role Models
There is a dominant narrative that women are overrepresented among the poorest and most vulnerable businesses in the world. While the numbers show that subsistence entrepreneurship is indeed a reality of many women entrepreneurs, this narrative tends to overshadow another truth: that today, across the globe, women entrepreneurs are building large, successful businesses in all sectors. These businesses have a considerable positive impact on their families, communities, and economies.
Seynabou Dieng is a woman entrepreneur in Mali. Her company, Maya, turns local produce into processed food products. This creates more demand for produce from area farms, offers local alternatives to imports, and fosters a sense of cultural pride. In Iraq, Basima Abdulrahman’s company Kesk offers green building services that are transforming the way that buildings are designed, built, and maintained.
Women are just as likely as men to succeed in entrepreneurship, when starting similar businesses in similar industries. Yet too often they must battle negative stereotypes that characterize them as less capable. They also find themselves working harder than men for access to enabling resources. As a result, their own perceptions of entrepreneurship as a life choice are affected. For instance, the GEM report shows that, compared to men, women are less likely to feel that it’s easy to start a business, less likely to identify new business opportunities, and less likely to recognize they possess the necessary skills to start a business, while they are more likely to be deterred by fear of business failure.
To break down the fixed mindsets and stereotypes, it is incumbent upon all stakeholders to shine a light on successful women impact entrepreneurs. Stakeholders also must provide these women with platforms that amplify their voices and inspire other potential impact entrepreneurs. Studies have shown that having a role model can encourage women to venture off the beaten path and consider entrepreneurship as a career choice. For example, the Cartier Women’s Initiative’s a global community of almost seven hundred members is helping to shift prevailing stereotypes and provide access to a support system for entrepreneurs leading up-and-running businesses.
Create Wide-Ranging Networks to Support Women Impact Entrepreneurs
The power of a community cannot be overstated. Being part of a network of entrepreneurs has numerous payoffs. It improves access to investors, partners, suppliers, mentors, and training. Yet, on average, across all countries in the 2021 GEM survey, women were 11% less likely than men to report knowing an entrepreneur, which is indicative of a serious dearth of access to networks for women entrepreneurs. Moreover, according to GEM’s National Expert Survey, experts generally rate the enabling environment for women entrepreneurs as being very low in most of the 50 countries involved in the research, which makes it vital to focus on developing reliable support networks for women.
In addition to serving as sounding boards and support systems, such networks can also help business owners catalyze new collaborations. For example, Cartier Women’s Initiative fellows from North America, Stephanie Benedetto (Queen of Raw) and Benita Singh (Nest), both lead businesses that fight waste in the textile sector. By connecting as part of the same network, they were able to identify ways to collaborate. Stephanie provided Benita’s community of artisans with access to her platform, so that they could view and appraise donated deadstock fabric prior to delivery. This perfectly illustrates how being part of diverse and extensive communities expands the range of possibilities available to entrepreneurs, and sparks ideas for innovative collaboration.
Privilege Funding, Support for High Potential Sectors
While women are well represented in high-impact, high-growth businesses, sectoral imbalances remain a persistent challenge to overcome. For example, women are woefully underrepresented in tech: only 2.7% of women compared to 4.7% of men are starting businesses in the Information, Computers, and Technology (ICT) sector that, significantly, draws most venture capital worldwide.
Research has shown that in many countries, the tech gender gap starts early, and part of the solution is policy-centric. For example, women in North America were 78% more likely to report being active in the ICT sector, which is likely to be a result of STEM education programming targeted at girls.
There is also an opportunity here for entrepreneurs as agents of change. For example, Dora Palfi from Sweden worked as the only woman developer in her organization for years before she founded imagi, which produces fun, easy-to-use education tools to draw a new generation of women into tech.
Dora is one among many entrepreneurs who are leveraging tech to advance diversity and inclusion. For example, Jennifer Clausell Tormos from Denmark created Develop Diverse, an AI-powered software that automatically detects social biases across an organization’s communication platforms and suggests inclusive alternatives.
Both Dora and Jennifer are undertaking vital work; on the one hand, showing young women what is possible, and on the other, harnessing tech to build better and more inclusive working environments for everyone’s benefit.
The other part of the solution, of course, is improving access to funding. Often, traditional venture capital may not be the best form of investment to seek, for entrepreneurs who are looking to challenge prevailing systems. The good news is that new financial vehicle structures and types of capital are emerging, which provide greater flexibility to entrepreneurs that are focused on solving complex social and environmental problems.
Women impact entrepreneurs are a diverse community of forces for good, dedicated to delivering positive impact. All over the world, they have set in motion the ripples of change we need to see by 2030. Are we ready to be a part of the next big wave? In a nutshell, that means using all available platforms to shine a light on women’s successes and directing support to the most promising sectors. In other words, entrepreneurial ecosystem enablers need to play their part by deliberately embedding impact in their models, just as many women entrepreneurs are tending to do.
