Veronica Chau says supporting women entrepreneurship cultivates a source of solutions to major environmental and social challenges.

“I truly believe that women are a relatively untapped source of innovation, both with regards to new sorts of business models but also new ways of solving big challenges that have continued to elude our society,” she tells Axiom News.

	Veronica Chau

Veronica is a partner at strategic advisory firm Dalberg, and is co-chair of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) working group on women entrepreneurship. She recently attended the Criterion Ventures Convergence X: Investing with a Gender Lens event Oct. 24-26 in Connecticut.

“We are seeing so many fabulous women starting and successfully growing businesses,” says Veronica.

She says the Convergence event was encouragement that more women have been successful at running their businesses and are looking to invest their own money in the next generation of women entrepreneurs.

Attendees discussed how to bridge the two worlds, between the women who have successfully run and operated companies and connect them to women in emerging markets who are looking for inspiration, mentorship, financing and role models — and create a mutual value for all involved, says Veronica.

ANDE has partnered with Criterion, and Veronica says the most inspiring part of Convergence was to hear the stories of women entrepreneurs who overcame challenges and had been assisted by some of the people who were in the room.

“Each of those individuals is like a bright spot of light that really inspired us and I see it as our collective mission to change some of the fundamental forces at play so it’s not just a few spots of light but rather a much broader spotlight,” says Veronica.

With expertise in emerging markets, Veronica says a barrier some women face when wanting to take on an entrepreneurial venture is risk, as in many developing countries the support systems and social safety nets are not well developed.

Veronica notes in many societies where she’s worked women are primarily responsible for supporting the family, and the idea of taking on the risk of a new venture with many other responsibilities can be challenging.

“A really interesting opportunity for those of us who are looking to support women entrepreneurs is how can we find ways to offset some of their risks,” she says, adding this could be through providing training, mentoring and support networks.

“If we just look at things a little bit differently I think we’ll find there are indeed many entrepreneurial women who have many wonderful ideas,” says Veronica.

She adds supporting women entrepreneurs may need to be customized to address the specific cultural challenges.

“Maybe we can open up the conversation and say how can we take things we know that work and understand the local culture and sort of challenges and make those little tweaks which will unlock large amounts of capital of opportunities for women,” she says.

For example, where child and elder care falls on women the hours in the day in which an entrepreneurship training program is offered affects whether a woman can participate.

Another challenge is the structure of financial markets in many emerging economies, says Veronica. She points to some economies where to get a loan you need to own property.

The International Finance Corporation has been doing “wonderful” work to look at changing some systemic rules and regulations to unlock more sources of finance for women, she says.

Her aspiration for the future of entrepreneurship is to see breakthrough ideas be actualized, regardless of gender.

“No matter if one is a young man or a young women that if you have a breakthrough idea that has the potential to change the world in some way that the systems and support structures are in place that you can bring that idea forward and take those risks and make that dream come to life,” she says.

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