Women entrepreneurs example not exception Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

we do not invest in victims we invest in

survivors and in ways both big and small

the narrative of the victim shapes the

way we see women you can’t count

what you don’t see and we don’t invest

in what’s invisible to us but this is

the face of resilience six years ago I

started writing about women

entrepreneurs during and after conflict

I set out to write a compelling economic

story one that had great characters that

no one else was telling and one that I

thought mattered and that turned out to

be women I had left ABC News and a

career I loved at the age of 34 Business

School a path I knew almost nothing

about none of the women I had grown up

with in Maryland had graduated from

college let alone considered Business

School but they had hustled to feed

their kids and pay their rent and I saw

from a young age than having a decent

job and earning a good living made the

biggest difference for families who were

struggling so if you’re going to talk

about jobs then you have to talk about

entrepreneurs and if you’re talking

about entrepreneurs and conflict and

post-conflict settings then you must

talk about women because they are the

population you have left Rwanda in the

immediate aftermath of the genocide was

77% female I want to introduce you to

some of those entrepreneurs I’ve met and

share with you some of what they’ve

taught me over the years I went to

Afghanistan in 2005 to work on a

Financial Times piece and there I met

Kamala a young woman who told me she had

just turned down a job with the

international community that would have

paid her nearly $2,000 a month an

astronomical sum in that context and she

had turned it down she said because she

was going to start her next business and

entrepreneurship consultancy that would

teach business skills to men and women

all around Afghanistan business she said

was critical to her country’s future

because long after this round of

internationals left

business would help keep her country’s

peaceful and secure and she said

business was even more important for

women because earning an income earned

respect and money was power for women so

I was amazed I mean here was a girl who

had never lived in peacetime who somehow

had come to sound like a candidate from

The Apprentice so I asked her how in the

world do you know this much about

business why are you so passionate she

said okay oh this is actually my third

business my first business was a dress

making business I started under the tall

bun and that was actually an excellent

business because we provided jobs for

women all around our neighborhood and

that’s really how I became an

entrepreneur think about this here were

girls who braved danger to become

breadwinners during years in which they

couldn’t even be on their streets and at

a time of economic collapse when people

sold baby dolls and shoelaces and

windows and doors just to survive these

girls made the difference between

survival and starvation for so many I

couldn’t leave the story and I couldn’t

leave the topic either because

everywhere I went I meant more of these

women who no one seemed to know about or

even wish to I went on to Bosnia and

early on in my interviews I met with an

IMF official who said you know Gail I

don’t think we actually have women in

business in Bosnia but there is a lady

selling cheese nearby on the side of the

road so maybe you could interview her so

I went out reporting and within a day I

met narcistic of as ovitch who at that

point was opening a new factory on the

Wars former frontlines in Sarajevo she

had started her business squatting in an

abandoned garage sewing sheets and

pillowcases she would take to markets

all around the city so that she could

support the 12 or 13 family members who

were counting on her for survival by the

time we met she had 20 employees most of

them women who were sending their boys

and their girls to school and she was

just the start

I met women running essential oils

businesses wineries and even the

country’s largest advertising agency so

these stories together became a Herald

Tribune business cover and putting the

story posted I ran it to my computer to

send it to the IMF of visual and I said

just in case you’re looking for

entrepreneurs to feature at your next

investment conference here are a couple

of women but think about this

the IMF official is hardly the only

person to automatically file women under

micro the biases whether intentional or

otherwise are pervasive and so are the

misleading mental images if you see the

word microfinance what comes to mind

most people say women and if you see the

word entrepreneur

most people think men why is that

because we aim low and we think small

when it comes to women microfinance is

an incredibly powerful tool that leads

to self-sufficiency and self-respect but

we must move beyond micro hopes and

micro ambitions for women because they

have so much greater hopes for

themselves they want to move from micro

to medium and beyond and in many places

they’re there in the u.s. women-owned

businesses will create five and a half

million new jobs by 2018 and South Korea

and Indonesia women owned nearly half a

million firms China women run 20% of all

small businesses and in the developing

world overall that figures 40 to 50

percent nearly everywhere I go I mean

incredibly interesting entrepreneurs who

are seeking access to finance access to

markets and established business

networks they are often ignored because

they’re harder to help it is much

riskier to give a $50,000 loan than it

is to give a $500 loan and as the World

Bank recently noted women are stuck in a

Productivity trap those and small

businesses can’t get the capital they

need to expand and those in micro

businesses can’t grow out of them

recently I was at the State Department

in Washington and I met an incredibly

passionate entrepreneur from Ghana

she sells chocolates and she had come to

Washington not seeking a handout and not

seeking a micro loan she had come

seeking serious investment dollars so

that she could build the factory and buy

the equipment she needs to export her

chocolates to Africa Europe the Middle

East and far beyond capital that would

help her to employ more than the 20

people that she already has working for

her and capital that would fuel her own

country’s economic climb the great news

is we already know what works theory and

empirical evidence have already taught

us we don’t need to invent solutions

because we have them cash flow loans

based on income rather than assets loans

that use secure contracts rather than

collateral because women often don’t own

land and kiva.org the micro lender is

actually now experimenting with

crowdsourcing small and medium sized

loans and that’s just to start

recently has become very much in fashion

to call women the emerging market of the

emerging market I think that is terrific

you know why because and I say this as

somebody who worked in finance 500

billion dollars at least has gone into

the emerging markets in the past decade

because investors saw the potential for

return at a time of slowing economic

growth and so they created financial

products and financial innovation

tailored to the emerging markets how

wonderful would it be if we were

prepared to replace all of our lofty

words with our wallets and invest five

hundred billion dollars unleashing

women’s economic potential just think of

the benefits when it comes to jobs

productivity employment child nutrition

maternal mortality literacy and much

much more because as the World Economic

Forum noted smaller gender gaps are

directly correlated with increased

economic

Hennis and not one country in all the

world has eliminated its economic

participation guess not what so the

great news is this is an incredible

opportunity we have so much room to grow

so you see this is not about doing good

this is about global growth and global

employment it is about how we invest and

it’s about how we see women and women

can no longer be both half the

population and a special interest group

oftentimes I get into very interesting

discussions with reporters who say to me

Gail great stories but you’re really

writing about the exceptions now that

makes me pause for just a couple reasons

first of all four exceptions there are a

lot of them and they’re important

secondly when we talk about men who are

succeeding we rightly consider them

icons or pioneers or innovators to be

emulated and which when we talk about

women they are either exceptions to be

dismissed or aberrations to be ignored

and finally there is no society anywhere

in all the world that has not changed

except by its most exceptional so why

wouldn’t we celebrate and elevate these

changemakers and job creators rather

than overlook them this topic of

resilience is very personal to me and in

many ways has shaped my life my mom was

a single mom who worked at the phone

company during the day and sold

Tupperware at night so that I could have

every opportunity possible we shopped

double coupons and layaway in

consignment stores and when she got sick

with Stage four breast cancer and could

no longer work we even applied for food

stamps and when I would feel sorry for

myself as nine or ten-year-old girls do

she would say to me my dear on a scale

of major world tragedies yours is not a

three

and when I was applying to business

school and felt certain I couldn’t do it

and nobody I knew had done it I went to

my aunt who survived years of beatings

at the hands of her husband and escaped

a marriage of abuse with only her

dignity intact and she told me never

import other people’s limitations and

when I complained to my grandmother a

World War two veteran who worked in film

for 50 years and who supported me from

the age of 13 that I was terrified that

if I turned down a plum assignment at

ABC for a fellowship overseas I would

never ever find another job

she said kiddo I’m gonna tell you two

things first of all no one turns down a

Fulbright and secondly McDonald’s is

always hiring you will find a job take

the leap the women in my family are not

exceptions the women in this room and

watching in LA and all around the world

are not exceptions we are not a special

interest group we are the majority and

for far too long we have underestimated

ourselves and been undervalued by others

it is time for us to aim higher when it

comes to women to invest more and to

deploy our dollars to benefit women all

around the world we can make a

difference and make a difference not

just for women but for a global economy

that desperately needs their

contributions together we can make

certain that the so called exceptions

begin to rule when we change the way we

see ourselves others will follow and it

is time for all of us

to think bigger thank you very much

you

我们不投资于受害者 我们投资于

幸存者,无论大小

受害者的叙述塑造

了我们看待女性的方式 你无法计算

你看不到的东西,我们不投资

于我们看不见的东西 但这

就是六年前的复原力我

开始写关于

冲突期间和之后的女企业家的文章

我开始写一个引人入胜的经济

故事,这个故事有一个没有其他人讲述过的伟大人物

,一个我

认为很重要的故事,结果证明了这一点

成为女性 我

在 34 岁时

离开了 ABC

新闻和我热爱的职业

忙着养活

孩子和付房租,我

从小就看到,体面的

工作和过上好日子

对那些苦苦挣扎的家庭来说是最大的不同,

所以如果你要

谈论工作,那么你 必须谈论

企业家,如果您在

谈论企业家以及冲突和

冲突后环境,那么您必须

谈论女性,因为她们是种族灭绝后立即

离开卢旺达的人口,

我想介绍的女性占 77% 致

我遇到的一些企业家,并

与你们分享这些年来他们

教给我的一些东西 我

在 2005 年去阿富汗为《

金融时报》的一篇文章工作,在那里我遇到了

一位年轻女子卡玛拉,她告诉我她

刚刚拒绝了一份在国际社会工作的工作,在这种情况下,这份工作

每月将支付她近 2,000 美元的

天文数字,

她拒绝了,她说,因为

她将开始她的下一个商业和

创业咨询公司,该公司将

教授商业技能 对阿富汗各地的男人和女人

说,生意对她国家的未来至关重要,

因为在这一轮国际人士离开很久之后,

生意将有助于留住他 r 国家的

和平与安全,她说

商业对女性来说更重要,

因为赚取收入赢得了

尊重,金钱对女性来说是力量,所以

我很惊讶我的意思是这里有一个

从未生活在和平时期的女孩,不知

何故听起来像 一个来自 The Apprentice 的候选人,

所以我问她,你到底是

怎么对生意如此了解的

,你为什么如此热情,她

说好吧,哦,这实际上是我的第三个

生意,我的第一个生意是做服装

生意 这实际上是一项出色的

业务,因为我们为

附近的女性提供了

工作,这

就是我成为企业家的真正原因 在

经济崩溃的时候,人们

为了生存而卖掉了婴儿娃娃、鞋带和门窗,这些

女孩让

生存变得与众不同 很多人都饿死了,我

不能离开这个故事,我也不能

离开这个话题,因为

无论我走到哪里,我都意味着更多这些

似乎没有人知道或

什至希望我去波斯尼亚的

女人 在我的采访中,我遇到了一位

国际货币基金组织官员,他说你知道盖尔,我

不认为我们在波斯尼亚实际上没有女性在

商界,但

路边附近有一位卖奶酪的女士,

所以也许你可以采访她,所以

我去了 出去报道,一天之内,我

遇到了一个自恋的奥维奇,

当时她正在萨拉热窝的战争前线开设一家新工厂,

她开始蹲在一个

废弃的车库里缝制床单和

枕套,她会带去

周围的市场 这样她就可以

养活 12 或 13 名

在我们见面时依靠她生存的家庭成员,

她有 20 名员工,

其中大多数是送男孩

和女孩上学的女性,而她

只是明星 t

我遇到了经营精油

企业、酿酒厂甚至是该

国最大的广告公司的女性,所以

这些故事一起成为了先驱

论坛报的商业封面,并将

故事发布到我的电脑上,然后

发送到视觉国际货币基金组织,我说

只是在 如果您正在寻找

企业家参加下一次

投资会议,这里有

几位女性,但请考虑

一下,国际货币基金组织官员并不是唯一

一个自动将女性提交给

微观偏见的人,无论是有意还是无意的偏见

普遍存在,因此也是如此

如果你看到小额信贷这个词会产生误导性的心理印象

大多数人会说女性,如果你看到

企业家这个词

大多数人认为男性为什么会这样,

因为我们的目标很低而且我们

认为女性小额信贷是

一个非常强大的工具 这会

导致自给自足和自尊,但

我们必须超越女性的微小希望和

微小野心,因为她们

他们对自己的希望更大,他们希望从微型

转向中等甚至更远,在美国的许多地方,

他们都在那里。 到 2018 年,女性拥有的

企业将创造 550

万个新工作岗位,韩国

和印度尼西亚的女性拥有近 50

万家公司 中国女性经营着 20% 的

小企业,而在

发展中国家,这一

比例几乎在所有地方都占 40% 到 50% 我的意思是

非常有趣的企业家,他们

正在寻求融资进入

市场和建立的商业

网络,他们经常被忽视,因为

他们更难提供帮助

,提供 50,000 美元的贷款比提供 500 美元的贷款风险更大,

而且

世界银行最近指出,女性陷入了

生产力陷阱,那些小

企业无法获得扩张所需的资金

,微型

企业也无法从中成长。

最近我在华盛顿的国务院工作时

遇到了 一位

来自加纳的非常热情的企业家,

她卖巧克力,她来

华盛顿不是为了寻求施舍,也不是

为了寻求小额贷款,而是为了

寻求 seri 我们投入大量资金,

这样她就可以建造工厂并购买

巧克力出口到非洲、欧洲、

中东和远远超出资本所需的设备,这将

帮助她雇用

她已经为她工作的 20 多名员工

和资本 这将推动她自己

国家的经济攀升 好消息

是我们已经知道有效的理论和

经验证据已经告诉

我们我们不需要发明解决方案,

因为我们有基于收入的现金流贷款

不是使用安全的资产贷款 合同而不是

抵押品,因为女性通常不拥有

土地,而小额贷款机构 kiva.org

现在实际上正在尝试

众包中小型

贷款,而这种方式最近才刚刚开始

,将女性称为新兴市场已成为一种时尚。

新兴市场我认为这很棒,

你知道为什么,因为我说这是

一个在金融行业工作过

至少 5000 亿美元的人,哈哈 我们

在过去十年进入新兴市场,

因为投资者

在经济增长放缓的情况下看到了回报的潜力

,因此他们创造了针对新兴市场的金融

产品和金融创新

如果我们

准备好取代所有这些,那该多好

用我们的钱包和投资

5000 亿美元来释放

妇女的经济潜力,想想

在工作

生产力 就业 儿童营养

孕产妇死亡率 识字等方面的

好处,因为正如世界经济

论坛指出的那样,较小的性别差距

直接 与经济增长相关

Hennis 并且世界上没有一个国家

已经消除了其经济

参与 猜测不是什么 所以

好消息是这是一个令人难以置信的

机会 我们有很大的增长空间

所以你看这不是做好事

这是关于 全球增长和全球

就业 这关乎我们如何投资

,关乎如何 我们看到妇女和

妇女不再是

人口的一半和一个特殊的利益集团

我经常与记者进行非常有趣的

讨论,他们对我说

盖尔很棒的故事,但你现在真的在

写例外情况,这

让我停顿了一下 有几个原因,

首先是所有四个例外,其中有

很多,它们很重要;

其次,当我们谈论成功的男性时,

我们理所当然地认为他们

是值得效仿的偶像、先驱或创新者

,而当我们谈论

女性时,他们要么是 排除例外

或忽略异常

,最后

,世界上任何地方都没有改变,

除了最特殊的,所以

我们为什么不庆祝和提升这些

变革者和就业创造者,而

不是忽视他们这个话题

韧性对我来说非常个人化,并且在

很多方面塑造了我的生活

晚上上衣,这样我就可以有

每一个机会,我们在寄售商店购买了

双倍优惠券和临时服务

,当她患上第四期

乳腺癌并且

无法再工作时,我们甚至申请了食品

券,当我为自己感到难过

时 九岁或十岁的女孩,

她会对我说亲爱的,在

世界重大悲剧的规模上,你的不是

三岁

,当我申请商学院时,我

确信自己做不到,

而我认识的人都没有 做到了,我去找

的姑姑,她在丈夫的多年殴打中幸存下来,逃脱

了虐待的婚姻,只保留了她的

尊严,她告诉我永远不要考虑

别人的限制,

当我向祖母抱怨时,她是一位

二战老兵 她在电影界工作

了 50 年,

从 13 岁起就支持我,我很害怕

如果我拒绝了 ABC 的一项梅子任务以

获得海外奖学金,我将

永远找不到另一份工作,

她说孩子 我要告诉你两

件事,首先没有人拒绝

富布赖特,其次,麦当劳

一直在招聘,你会找到工作

的,我家的女人也不

例外,这个房间里的女人,

在洛杉矶看球等等 世界

各地也不例外 我们不是一个特殊的

利益集团 我们是

多数人 长期以来我们低估了

自己并被他人低估了

现在是时候让我们在女性方面提高目标,增加

投资和

部署 我们的钱让全世界的女性受益

我们

看到自己其他人会跟随,现在

是我们

所有人思考更大的时候了,非常感谢你