Exporting Is High-Potential Entrepreneurship: What New GEM Data Means for Women

When the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) publishes new research on women business owners, I [Laurel Delaney] read it closely. Its newest study, the GEM 2025/2026 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report, How Metrics Shape the Narrative, released October 8, 2026, should matter to every woman who has thought about selling beyond her borders.  The reason is simple: GEM now counts exporting as a core marker of a “high-potential” business.

What GEM measured

The report draws on GEM’s 2025 survey of nearly 151,000 adults across 48 economies. Its new high-potential index combines three signals: product and process innovation, export intensity, and job-creation expectations.

One of the world’s most respected entrepreneurship research bodies treats selling to international customers as a defining trait of a business built to grow. As I like to say, “Exporting is the new growth normal for women entrepreneurs.”

The good news: women are already in the game

• About 12% of women surveyed were running new businesses in 2025, compared with 14% of men.
• A little over half of new businesses qualified as high-potential, and women led about 40% of them.
• Women made up about 40% of entrepreneurs targeting international markets and 37% of those expecting more than a quarter of revenue from exports.
• Women were strongly represented in digitalization (44%) and AI innovation (43%).
• Women are not waiting on the sidelines. They are launching innovative, export-minded companies today.

The hard news: the drop-off at maturity

GEM found that women’s high-potential activity was 6.0% at the early stage but just 0.1% at the established-business stage, a 98% lower rate. The gender gap in established business ownership was the widest of any stage in the entrepreneurial life cycle.

Women start strong, but too few high-potential ventures survive and scale. The report points to reasons: women were 55% more likely than men to cite family or personal circumstances for exiting a business, fewer women reported recent business investment (6.7% versus 9.2% of men), and roughly 70% of informal investment went to men.

Why exporting is part of the answer

After decades of helping small businesses go global, I’ve seen exporting make companies more durable:

• Diversified revenue. When your home market slows, international customers can keep you steady.
• Increased profitability. Spreading fixed costs across more sales, and reaching markets that value your product, can lift margins.
• More customers for the same product. Exporting lifts sales without reinventing what you make.
• A stronger case for capital. International revenue signals scale to lenders and investors.
• Built-in innovation. Adapting to new markets sharpens products, processes, and digital systems.

If the challenge is survival and scale, exporting belongs in the strategy, not on a someday list.

Four things you can do now

1. Measure your potential. What share of your revenue comes from outside your country today? What could it be in three years?
2. Start small with one market. Pick a country where demand, language, regulations, or existing contacts give you an edge.
3. Use available resources (like wegg®). In the U.S., your local U.S. Export Assistance Center and SBA international trade programs offer counseling, research, and financing.
4. Build your network. Peer communities (similar to wegg’s cohorts) shorten the learning curve.

The bottom line

GEM has confirmed what Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global® has championed for years: going global is a hallmark of high-potential entrepreneurship, and women are already doing it. The task now is making sure those businesses don’t just start strong, but stay strong.

Read the full GEM report at gemconsortium.org.  And if you’re ready to take your business global, join us at wegg®.