Linda Rottenberg is chief executive of Endeavor, a nonprofit that identifies and supports high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets.
Anita Dharapuram is interim director of C.E.O. Women, a nonprofit that creates economic opportunities for low-income immigrant and refugee women in California.
Rehema D. Jaldesa
Every day brings a new challenge, an interesting opportunity or an exciting enterprise for me. One of the most important projects my companies have worked on was drilling boreholes for water exploration in the arid lands of Northern Kenya. Running my companies is rewarding as they have a strong culture of corporate responsibility. Inspiring women with an entrepreneurial spirit is a major element of that culture.
In fact, my life revolves around placing women in control of economic matters, thereby giving them more power on issues that matter to the entire society. This vision comes from the examples of people like Melinda Gates and Dr. Yunus Muhammad, who have improved lives of people around the world.
I have mentored women from marginalized communities for years. I encourage them to discover business opportunities that will drive them toward self reliance and economic empowerment. I often subcontract work to women or companies associated with women, encourage women to participate in the tendering process by lending them my company’s equipment, and act as a loan guarantor for women running small businesses. I particularly care about the empowerment of rural and nomadic women as they face the most difficult obstacles.
I begin my day by searching newspapers for work-project advertisements (tenders for work to be done) by government agencies and private entities. Next, I call my field workers and engineers to learn what they are doing, and then discuss operational matters with other staff. The rest of the day is for meeting prospective clients and following leads to attract new ones. In between, I must find time to work on new business ideas. I plan to expand my business, taking advantage of the trade links created by the East African Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa to export goods and services to the Horn of Africa and Central Africa.
Linda Rottenberg
Rehema is an excellent example of an entrepreneur with high-impact potential—someone with big ideas and a scalable business, who creates opportunities for others and serves as a role model for success.
When it comes to supporting women entrepreneurs in emerging markets, too often we think of microfinance. Indeed, microloans have played an important role helping lift people out of poverty. But Rehema is thinking bigger. She recognizes that to achieve true economic empowerment and social mobility, women entrepreneurs need to build scalable businesses and this in turns requires structured mentoring and access to role models.
For over a decade, my own organization Endeavor has been connecting entrepreneurs in emerging markets (with Kenya on the near horizon!) to successful local business leaders, who serve as mentors. Too often in emerging markets, wealth and opportunities are controlled by few top families and powerful interests, resulting in networks closed off to new entrepreneurs. Innovators like Rehema (an excellent example of an entrepreneur who is also a mentor) are dismantling this tradition, building bridges between the business community and the next generation of entrepreneurs. When entrepreneurs achieve high impact, everyone wins. In addition to creating jobs and wealth locally, an investor community takes root and young people are inspired to think big.
The point is clear: to reduce inequality and ensure shared economic growth, women entrepreneurs must be empowered to take their small businesses and scale them into successful, high-growth companies. They must become High-Impact Entrepreneurs.
Anita Dharapuram
We increasingly see the roles of women changing across the globe, in some places for the better, in others for the worse. It is in the best interest of us all to foment a positive change.
I am inspired to see women such as Ms. Jaldesa making an extra effort to empower women through entrepreneurship. By embracing social entrepreneurship as second nature, Ms. Jaldesa can provide access to economic opportunities to many women business owners who otherwise might have had none.
At C.E.O. Women (Creating Economic Opportunities for Women), we, too, create economic opportunities for underprivileged women, in our case, low-income immigrants and refugees to the U.S. We teach them English and communication and entrepreneurial skills, so they can establish successful livelihoods. They also can count on mentoring, coaching and access to capital when they are ready to start small businesses. C.E.O. Women believes that all women who come to the United States have unique skills and intellectual assets, which, with the right support, can be used to improve their lives.
I believe that every woman in Kenya also is unique in this sense. Similar to women I work with in the United States, many Kenyan women may simply need tools to navigate the local educational and legal systems to be successful.
Most of our graduates register increases in their incomes and participate more actively in their communities. Some become the pillars of their families and communities similar to those whom Ms. Jaldesa mentors and supports. That’s why it is so important to invest in the advancement of women around the world. Without doing so, we often deny entire communities a chance of development.
