The Journey to Female Entrepreneurship

If you look around, it may seem like just about everyone around you is tapping into their entrepreneurial skills. However, starting a business – and keeping it afloat – is no walk in the park. And, if you’re a woman, the challenges associated with operating a business are even greater. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report for 2020, several factors such as a systemic lack of access to capital, credit, land, or financial products, prevent women from starting businesses. The extent to which these challenges may affect women is highly dependent on which part of the globe they’re located, but the fact still remains that women in business are at a disadvantage when compared to their male counterparts.

With the odds seemingly stacked against women entrepreneurs, navigating the way to successful female entrepreneurship is almost always against the current. With this in mind, Republic Bank, in partnership with BPD Associates Limited, recently embarked on an entrepreneurial support initiative specifically geared at developing the business acumen of our Caribbean female entrepreneurs.

The Entrepreneur Business Builder (EBB) programme is designed to assist established women entrepreneurs with creating technology-enabled and sustainable, profitable businesses. As a Group-wide initiative, the EBB hosts participants from over ten Caribbean countries and seeks to propel the region even further along on our journey to sustainable development; specifically the promotion of gender equality, industry innovation and infrastructure, and sustainable consumption and production patterns.

A key component of the EBB programme is its focus on networking; giving participants the opportunity to meet other female entrepreneurs in their respective fields who have gone through and overcome some of the challenges they may be facing now. These EBB Ambassadors are women who have championed female entrepreneurship in the Caribbean for several decades.

We got a chance to have a sit-down with three of these ladies as they shared about their journeys; their challenges, what keeps them going, and their hopes for the future.

The first step to becoming a successful entrepreneur is a simple one, but in other ways it may be the hardest part. This step is starting – taking your dreams out of your head or off of your vision board and actually doing what you planned to do. There may be several deterrents and detractors at this stage, but these voices must be silenced if success is the end goal. St. Lucia based EBB Ambassador, Natalie Glitzenhirn-Augustine, founder of Glitzenhirn Augustine and Company, had this to say on starting her law practice, “In the end… I realised the only thing I could actually do was to do it my way. I started in 2000, took a deep breath in a country that is not mine and went off on my own…and I haven’t really looked back since.”

After overcoming the first hurdle of getting your business up and running, other challenges are sure to present them over time. These may come in the form of sourcing clients, maintaining production to meet increasing demand, or even dealing with an overall halt in production due to a global pandemic. Here’s what Trinidadian fashion designer and creative icon, Meiling Esau, shared on dealing with these challenges: “You have to learn to pivot and you have to learn to deal…if you are passionate about what you do, you will always find a way. With the pandemic, it made me pause, it made look at my brand again and refresh my brand.”

When asked about what makes her go on, EBB Ambassador and Guyanese entrepreneur, Davitri Doerga maintains that she looks at the positives of every situation and thinks about how each situation can impact other women. This gives her the drive to go on. She goes on, “Believe in yourself and your dream. Once you trust your judgment, believe you can do it and you can overcome many challenges.”

The journey to ‘success’ as a female entrepreneur is surely no smooth sea, however, I’m sure we’ve all heard the famous saying by Franklin Roosevelt – “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” If you’re embarking on your entrepreneurial journey, keep in mind that encountering challenges and obstacles is inevitable, but it’s your perseverance and willingness to overcome that will get you and your business through those tough times.