Can Women Build A Better Future?

One new investment model offering financial support to public-spirited female entrepreneurs aims to accelerate social progress through a combination of creative thinking and radical generosity

Vicki Saunders spent decades as an entrepreneur and CEO, launching and leading multiple ventures in Europe, the US and her native Canada, before deciding to focus on the bigger picture: changing the way we do business in the 21st century.

“I’d witnessed over and over the biases that exist in our structures, all based on a dominant view of what a leader looks like – and it wasn’t like me,” she says. “Right now, women make up half of the global population but receive less than three per cent of all venture capital, and the figures are even worse for women of colour. So I asked myself, how could I design an ecosystem that works for everyone?” Her solution is SheEO, an international initiative founded in 2015 to accelerate social progress by proposing a new model for financing start-ups led by women. Female entrepreneurs working on what Vicky calls “the world’s to-do list” – ventures designed to tackle critical issues linked with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals – can apply for zero-interest, five year loans provided by members of the SheEO community. These ‘activators’ donate a regular monthly amount in return for the chance to vote on and support the businesses that inspire them the most, in a model that doubles as a progressive form of philanthropy and a route into a loyal community collectively focused on sustainable job creation.

Journal, Dhs90, Ark

“As women, we are oriented towards relationships rather than transactions,” explains Vicky, pointing out that female representation in the crowdfunding industry is far higher than in venture capital. “We also prefer to spread our money across a number of asset classes, so this model holds more appeal than super-risky investments based on gambling.”

To date, SheEO has supported more than 70 new businesses in five countries, and held its UK launch event in September, a month after Vicky was named one of UBS’ Global Visionaries. Much of the organisation’s success lies in its ability to champion women who have brilliant ideas but do not necessarily align with the entrepreneurial stereotype. “We are conditioned to think that a leader is a white, young male in a hoodie who dropped out of school,” says Vicky. “Almost 90 per cent of investment partners in the US are men, and they’re essentially looking for a younger version of themselves.” In fact, creativity comes under many guises, and may exist in the form of raw potential rather than a fully formed package. “There’s a persistent narrative that to succeed you have to be this individual superman or superwoman who knows all the answers and can do everything alone, but at SheEO we prefer to encourage entrepreneurs to focus on what really motivates them. For anything they’re not so good at, we can help them find people with the skills they’re missing,” she explains.

Pot, Dhs200, Bridie Hall

This optimistic outlook, which Vicky says “comes from a mindset of abundance rather than scarcity”, teaches women an important lesson about asking for help, something that many of us find difficult. “The idea is that everyone is only one step removed from what they need – they just have to have the courage to ask,” she explains. Old boys’ networks have been doing this informally for decades – the ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ approach to business – so there is much to be said for encouraging women to apply the same philosophy, particularly in today’s Covid-stricken economy. “During the pandemic, not one of the ventures we support has gone under – in fact, we’ve seen entrepreneurs thrive during this time, simply by being part of a community,” says Vicky. She cites as an example the founder of a Vancouver-based zero-waste grocery store, who was able to pivot her business to e-commerce after a SheEO activator helped set her up with an online sales platform

Notebook, Dhs100, Fee Greening for Papier

All SheEO enterprises seek to address pressing global challenges, from health and wellbeing to education and the environment. “The concept of a care economy is absolutely vital,” says Vicky. “Look at the state of the world right now: why would we put millions of dollars into getting hotter, faster pizza – as one venture-capital fund did for a start-up earlier this year – given the multiple crises we are facing?” She observes that, unlike the predominantly male investors in Silicon Valley, “women tend to focus on having a positive social impact in their communities”, as well as being less likely to follow the pack when it comes to making investment decisions. “With men, I notice there’s a herd mentality: someone says an idea sounds good and then everyone piles in to agree, so tonnes of money gets put into it. Women are more inclined to sit back and point out that something doesn’t make sense.” As a result, we are often unfairly labelled as risk-averse when, argues Vicky, we are actually extremely “risk-savvy”.

Notebook, Dhs50, Liberty

As a result, female-run businesses frequently achieve better results with fewer resources – surely the holy grail in our cash-strapped times? “At SheEO, we’re unbelievably capital-efficient because we’ve had to learn to go a long way with very little,” notes Vicky. One company that has benefited from support, the Baltimore based medical-device manufacturer Sisu Global, recently received a Patent for Humanity award for its pioneering blood-transfusion mechanism, and went to market on “about a tenth of what its male-led counterparts would usually expect”, according to Vicky.

Such a lean, resourceful approach to running a company, underpinned by a strong social conscience, is precisely what we need as we head into continued economic uncertainty – and with female entrepreneurs leading the charge, there is reason for optimism.

“I believe it’s a massive competitive advantage to be a woman in business because we look at things differently,” says Vicky. “That fresh perspective will serve us well in tough times.”

For more information, visit SheEO and Vicki Saunders is one of UBS’ Global Visionaries

Lead image courtesy of Jason Llyod Evans.

From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s March 2021 issue