By Roger James Hamilton, CEO, and Founder of Genius Group
The rise in the number of entrepreneurs globally during the last two years has been very exciting, as the pandemic affected the way we work and live, many people made huge changes to their lives which included starting their own ventures.
What’s been even more exciting, is that among the ever-growing number of entrepreneurs emerging, there are a larger number of women becoming business owners.
According to a recent report carried out by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), the world’s largest survey of entrepreneurship and the only global research source that collects data on entrepreneurship directly from individual entrepreneurs, women represent about one in three growth-oriented entrepreneurs active in the world today.
Supporting women in business is a strong economic decision as experts globally debate the possibility of a recession. In the US alone, women are making history as the primary breadwinners for their families while also leading about 40% of households. When we look at these factors combined, supporting small businesses owned by women from all socioeconomic groups means supporting companies that contribute to local economies and provide good jobs.
Our EdTech lifelong learning platform GeniusU has had more women than ever signing up to upscale their business or seek mentorship and strategies to start their own ventures, many of which have become partners and are invaluable to our global community. Entrepreneurial education is crucial to anyone embarking on their own business venture as these inspiring global entrepreneurs discovered.
Esmerelda Herrera, based in Chile, South America is the Founder of Academia del Bienestar, an e-learning start-up that mixes wellness and business, including personal and entrepreneurship development and growth. Esmeralda was creating her own content, marketing it, and then selling it, which became a struggle. After joining the GeniusU community in 2020 and finding our core values and ethos reflected those of her own, she became a valued GeniusU partner and now shares our content and programs with her own Latin American community. Esmerelda plans to find her own partners for every Latin American country and thus share the learning even further. Her intention is to reach 1 million entrepreneurs in the next five years!
Tamami Ushiki, partnered with the GeniusU community after discovering there was a significant lack of self-education content and material available in her home country of Japan. She signed up for the Wealth Dynamics program for her own personal development which subsequently led her to become one of our partners and creating Japan Dynamics. Like Esmeralda, Tamami translates our content and programs into Japanese and shares it with an ever-growing community of entrepreneurs in Japan.
Deborah Harris, based in Australia, is another fast-track growth entrepreneur, as co-founder of Grow CFO, which helps purpose-driven businesses to create the key strategies to maximise revenue, profit and cash flow available for growth. A passionate philanthropist, speaker and entrepreneur, Deborah has always been involved in the financial and accounting side of the business. However, finding the role of filing her clients’ tax returns unfulfilling, as many companies did not enjoy nor want to pay their taxes, when the pandemic hit, Deborah decided to shift from offering a service to educating her clients. She set out to create a company from which she could bring wealth and prosperity to companies and entrepreneurs and her previously side hustle of offering strategic forward financial planning became her main offering.
Sectors like healthcare and social care have traditionally been women-centric fields of work, but in recent times, women are stepping into new fields, such as finance and investment, and more technical roles. The World Economic Forum (WEF) notes that in the Global Gender Gap report 2022, one of the positive trends highlighted, was the increase in the number of women moving into newer areas of work and business.
The great thing about this rise in women entrepreneurs over the last few years is that they are not only running businesses, but they are also providing jobs for other women, which in turn will help to reduce the gender pay gap. As we see more women rising up into senior positions within large organisations and now many starting their own ventures and empowering other women, we hope the pay gap between the genders will cease to exist in the future.
With more and more women becoming successful entrepreneurs in new areas, they are, in turn, inspiring the next generation to emulate their success.
About the author
Roger James Hamilton is a New York Times bestselling author and Founder and CEO of Genius Group (NYSEAM: GNS), a multi-million dollar group of companies, headquartered in Singapore, which currently includes companies such as GeniusU, Entrepreneurs Institute, Entrepreneur Resorts, Education Angels, E-Squared Education, Property Investors Network and the University of Antelope Valley.
Roger is also the creator of Wealth Dynamics, Talent Dynamics and Impact Dynamics profiling tools, used by millions of entrepreneurs to find and follow their flow.
