Empowering Women Is Good Business
Three days at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017 reminded me why having women in leadership matters.
Two weeks ago I was in Hyderabad, India, for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017. I got to spend three days with 1,600 of the world’s most ambitious entrepreneurs.
The best part? More than half of us were women.
No exaggeration: sharing three days with women in power changed me. It renewed my confidence not only in my own work, but in the idea—rather, the reality—that we’re owning global impact and innovation.
I’m the co-founder of a company that helps people become climate changemakers. We have a theory that most people are already doing something to protect the environment, whether it’s turning off the lights when they leave the house, or walking to the store instead of driving.
We make it easy for people to turn these small, simple actions into habits — and then turn those habits into massive impact.
One of the best parts of my job is sourcing new ideas for climate action. So I was super interested to learn what people at GES2017 were already doing back home.
I spoke with more than 200 people representing 50 countries. I asked them all the same question: “What action are you taking on climate change?”
Their answers blew me away.
Here’s one. Matilda Payne is the founder of M.Y. Extreme Decor, a Ghanaian company that recycles old car tires into furniture for homes and gardens. Ghana has roughly 2 million scrap tires. Most of them end up being burned in open piles. Burning releases tons of carbon and toxic chemicals into the atmosphere and helps make Ghana one of the most polluted countries on Earth. Each tire that Matilda recycles is a step toward changing that.
Another young woman, Izza Soubiane, is the economic advisor to Groupement d’Économie Verte (Green Economy Group), an organization that advocates for policies that protect the environment and create sustainable livelihoods for people in Chad. “If you want to protect the earth,” Izza told me, “it has to be for people to use. If we didn’t need it, we wouldn’t be concerned about protecting it.”
Izza’s words resonated with me because I believe that the most powerful actions come from a place inside people where personal need connects with global need. If people can find that place, they can make a big difference.
I watch people discover this place in themselves almost every day in the areas where I work.
In Hyderabad, I saw 1,600 people who had already discovered it.
The need I felt the strongest connection to at GES2017 was gender equality. This was no coincidence. The summit’s theme was “Women First, Prosperity for All.”
As a mother, I experience this need deep in my bones. I want my three girls to be creators. I want them to be able to do anything their minds dream up. But there are still too many obstacles in their way. Only 27 percent of women worldwide are actively participating in the workforce. Entrepreneurs who are women received less than 3 percent of venture capital funding in 2016.
The gender gap pollutes every country and every industry.
This is partly the result of structural injustices that need to be fixed. Women need access to capital and mentors and fair laws. But there’s another side, too, which Cherie Blair captured in what I thought was the most powerful moment of the whole event:
“You’ve got to believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself and what you’re doing, how can you possibly convince anyone else?”
Cherie’s words gave me shivers.
If we hope to solve our world’s biggest problems, women need to be out in front. If the energy and aggressiveness I saw in the women at GES2017 is any indication, it’s not a question of if we’re going to make this happen, but when.
The entrepreneurs I met in Hyderabad showed me that my instincts about individual climate action are right — and that our daily work at DOMI is going to have positive ripple effects for millions of people.
They also reminded me that I’m stronger than I usually give myself credit for. I’m grateful I was able to share in the energy of so many assertive and brilliant and courageous women—women who are making (and repairing!) dents in the universe.
Ladies, keep up the good work.
