Women Entrepreneurs GROW Global

Yes to India on Supporting Women-Owned Businesses

India-based Yes Bank (private sector) has received $150 million funding from the US government and Wells Fargo to increase lending to support women entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises in India.

This is the third round of funding to the bank as part of arrangement with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) – the US government development finance institution – and Wells Fargo.

An estimated three million women-owned businesses in India employ over eight million people. However, only about a quarter of them are able to get the finance they need to grow and create jobs.

Hopefully, this will drive future economic growth and job creation in India for women entrepreneurs.

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Note: Don’t miss our next WEGGinar™ 8/2/17 on “How Two Savvy Moms Started a Bed Business and Took It Global,” and presented by Betsy Mikesell, CEO, and Angie White, CFO, of Beddy’s (www.beddys.com). Register here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1512287365281961985.
Event is free of charge but you must register in advance to attend.
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Female Entrepreneurs Are About to Transform the Global Economy

Published July 8, 2017 Finance , Gender challenges , global women entrepreneurs Leave a Comment
Tags: global businesses, helping women globally, transform the global economy, Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, World Bank

The World Bank (WB) unveiled a new program, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, that is designed to boost women entrepreneurs in developing countries and fight the norms that hold them back, such as uneven access to loans and shaky property rights. WB has raised $325 million from numerous countries, with $50 million coming from the United States and other contributions from Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and the Netherlands.

Less than a third of global businesses are owned by women, and the initiative aims to grow women-run enterprises across Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. It will also help facilitate loans to entrepreneurs, ranging in size from between a few hundred dollars to several hundred thousand dollars, depending on the applicant’s needs. World Bank officials said they hope to make the capital available later this year or in early 2018.

We cheer on the WB because it has a long history of providing support to women who are challenged by economic disadvantages. For example, they launched the Women’s Leadership in Small and Medium Enterprises (WLSME) program, supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Read more about how the WB will help women globally to reach their full potential here.

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Note: Don’t miss our next WEGGinar™ 7/12/17 on “How to Finance Your Exports,” and presented by Xiomara Creque-Bromberg, Export Finance Manager, Minority and Women Owned Business & Multiplier Outreach Division, Office of Small Business, Export-Import Bank of the United States. Register here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4467897765873413377.
Event is no charge but you must register in advance to attend.
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Helping Young Girls, Women Entrepreneurs, and Business Owners Take on the World

Published July 2, 2017 Equality , Gender challenges , Young entrepreneurship Leave a Comment
Tags: give her the confidence, push boundaries, rock the boat, shake things up, take on the world, young girls become strong

At WEGG, we are all about educating women entrepreneurs and business owners on how to go global but we also are fearless in helping young girls become strong and take on the world too.

We believe that it is at a young age when girls develop confidence and the ability, through encouragement, to speak up and demand what she wants in life.

We are a strong proponent of encouraging young girls to take risks — push boundaries, color outside the box, rock the boat — early on, so they can get comfortable with the possibility of failing, recovering fast, and not being perfect at everything.

These characteristics toughen a young girl and give her the confidence she needs to start a business, go places, shake things up a bit, and take on the world.

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Investing in Women-Owned Businesses Will Enhance Africa’s Productivity

Published June 25, 2017 Barriers to trade , Country specific , Economic growth , Education , Equality , Gender challenges Leave a Comment
Tags: Africa, boost economic growth, enhance Africa's productivity, women's empowerment, women-owned businesses

It is the objective of Synergy Systems Consults (UK) Limited, a company that specialises in promoting and identifying partnership and investment opportunities within Africa, to influence dynamic changes in terms of exporting international expertise that will enhance productivity in Africa. For example, the Association of Certified Protocol Practitioners in Nigeria (ACPPN) is a non-profit and non-governmental organization aimed at promoting and raising the standards of protocol practice in Nigeria and sharing best practices globally.

Another initiative is the empowerment of women, which has a great potential to boost economic growth and facilitate the goal of an inclusive sustainable development throughout Africa. Social, cultural, legal and gender specific barriers tend to deprive women of engaging in specific industry supply chains. There is a need to promote the successes and transformative framework for women that will eliminate barriers and build stronger economies.

Investing in women-owned business and assimilating them into corporate supply chains can also contribute significantly to the world’s economy. Today’s economy records less than one per cent of spending by large businesses on suppliers as produced by women-owned business, generating new employment opportunities and so on.

To strengthen competitiveness, a country must focus on women’s empowerment to achieve an innovative and growth-oriented environment.

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Lack of Capital for Women Business Owners Might Lead to Forced Creativity

Published June 17, 2017 Capital (working) , Finance , global women entrepreneurs , Innovation Leave a Comment
Tags: forced creativity, forced innovation, forces innovation, lack of access to capital, taking a business global

Ottawa, Canada researchers Clare Beckton and Janice McDonald are eager to try to determine if factors such as a lack of access to capital make women more likely than men to devise inventive new ways of doing business out of necessity, such as taking a business global. That could be construed as forced innovation or creativity. It’s time to find out.

“When you are underfunded and perhaps don’t have resources, you get pretty darn creative,” she says. “It forces innovation. Given that we know that access to capital is very challenging for women entrepreneurs, has that limited access to capital shaped outcomes in terms of how they’ve approached innovation? We’re not saying that those two are necessarily linked. We’re just wondering, are they? If so, in what way?”

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The Story of Happy Beginnings: Women Entrepreneurs

Published June 10, 2017 Enlighten Me! , Equality , Gender challenges , global women entrepreneurs , Innovation , Mentoring (Peer to peer) , Networking Leave a Comment
Tags: diversity in innovation, empowering equality, fear of failure, gender differences, happy beginnings, optimism and self-confidence, start a business, women entrepreneurs

In this post we focus on: Why women don’t see themselves as entrepreneurs; five challenges faced by women entrepreneurs; gender differences in perceptions and propensity to start a business; and, diversity in innovation. It’s really a story of happy beginnings about and for women entrepreneurs. Read on.

1. Why women Don’t See Themselves as Entrepreneurs (The New York Times)

This article addresses why don’t more women become entrepreneurs?

Key point at the end:

She [Sheila Lirio Marcelo, the founder of Care.com] also advised women to develop thicker skin. “Men tend to shake off rejection more quickly than women,” she said, “but it’s absolutely true that entrepreneurs are made or broken by how they bounce back from adversity.”

2. Empowering Equality: 5 Challenges Faced by Women Entrepreneurs

This article focuses on what holds women entrepreneurs back? Why are women-owned firms less likely to also be growth-oriented firms?

3. Seeing the World with Different Eyes: Gender Differences in Perceptions and the Propensity to Start a Business

Across countries, women own significantly fewer businesses than do men. The authors in this paper show that this is due primarily to the fact that “the propensity to start businesses of women is significantly lower than that of men. The lower propensity of women, in turn, appears to be highly correlated to women’s lower average levels of optimism and self-confidence, and higher fear of failure.”

4. Diversity in Innovation – Working Paper (Harvard Business School)

In this paper, the authors document the patterns of labor market participation by women and ethnic minorities in venture capital firms and as founders of venture capital-backed startups.

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Diversity is Correlated with Business Performance

Published June 3, 2017 Culture , Equality , Sustainability practices , Training (entrepreneurial) Leave a Comment
Tags: business performance, diversity, global diversity, inclusion, McKinsey, WEGGinar™

Many people think that if you can build a case on global diversity, things will shift and improve. That’s not necessarily true. The reality is that a lot more work needs to be done.

In the interview below with McKinsey’s Rik Kirkland, Harvard Kennedy School professor of public policy Iris Bohnet talks about what is working—and what is not—when it comes to building a more equitable workplace. An edited version of her remarks follows.

Here’s a snippet on one of Kirkland’s remarks relative to diversity and inclusion:

Based on that evidence, maybe we shouldn’t be quite as shocked that diversity training doesn’t have the impact that we were hoping it could have. Because even though you and I might agree now that we will be inclusive tomorrow, it is hard to follow through on those virtuous intentions.

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Note: Don’t miss our next WEGGinar™ 6/7/17 on “Go! Go! Global With Sourcing Products,” and presented by Jodi Bondi Norgaard, speaker, consultant and founder of Go! Go! Sports Girls and JB Norgaard Enterprises, Inc. Register here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7576894438194026755.
Event is no charge but you must register in advance to attend.

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Think BIG While Doing the Small Things

Published May 27, 2017 Country specific , global women entrepreneurs Leave a Comment
Tags: global front, knowledge hub, think big, WEGGinar™, while doing small things

Listen up women entrepreneurs based in India. Weatwork.In, a knowledge hub for women entrepreneurs aiming to move up to the next level in her entrepreneurship venture, has been launched to increase awareness about relevant areas of entrepreneurship that also gives details of options that exist both in domestic as well as global front.

“It is our endeavour to support women who are looking at starting an entrepreneurship venture that in is line with their abilities, interests and skills,” we@work Founder Ruby Sinha said.

Weatwork quotes Alvin Toffler: “You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.”

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Women Entrepreneurs GROW Global

Yes to India on Supporting Women-Owned Businesses

Female Entrepreneurs Are About to Transform the Global Economy

Helping Young Girls, Women Entrepreneurs, and Business Owners Take on the World

Investing in Women-Owned Businesses Will Enhance Africa’s Productivity

Lack of Capital for Women Business Owners Might Lead to Forced Creativity

The Story of Happy Beginnings: Women Entrepreneurs

Diversity is Correlated with Business Performance

Think BIG While Doing the Small Things

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