Women-Led
Entrepreneurship
From first-time founders to seasoned CEOs. From artisan workshops to corporate boardrooms. FOWES builds the infrastructure, access, networks, and capital that women entrepreneurs need to start, scale, and lead - on their own terms.
Women don't lack ambition, talent, or ideas.
They lack access - to capital, to networks, to infrastructure, to the same starting line.
FOWES exists to build that starting line - and everything beyond it.
The Entrepreneurship Pillar
Every Stage.
Every Scale.
Every Woman.
The Entrepreneurship pillar is not a single programme for a single type of founder. It's a full-spectrum support architecture for women at every stage of the entrepreneurial journey - from the woman considering leaving her corporate career to launch something of her own, to the artisan turning a generational craft into a global brand, to the growth-stage CEO raising her Series B.
We meet women where they are. An aspiring entrepreneur in Lagos needs a different kind of support than a scaling founder in London or a master weaver in Jaipur building her first cooperative. But they all need the same thing at the core: access, infrastructure, and a system that doesn't require them to shrink themselves to fit.
They already are.
We build the systems that stop getting in their way."
Who We Serve
Built for Every Woman
With a Vision
Whether you're dreaming, building, scaling, or pivoting - there's a place for you in the Entrepreneurship pillar.
Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Women with a business idea but no clear path to launch. We provide ideation workshops, feasibility support, early mentorship, and the confidence framework to take the first step - from concept to commitment.
Startup Founders
First-time and early-stage founders navigating the chaos of building from zero. Access to incubation, seed-stage capital, pitch coaching, legal and financial frameworks, and founder peer networks.
Artisan Entrepreneurs
Craftswomen turning generational skill into commercially viable enterprise. Brand development, market access, cooperative formation, and the commercial infrastructure to reach global buyers directly.
Growth-Stage Leaders
Women running established SMEs ready to scale. Growth capital, strategic advisory, operational optimisation, leadership development, and access to expansion markets - regionally and globally.
Corporate Transitioners
Women leaving the corporate world to build their own ventures. Transition planning, skills mapping, financial runway strategy, and a community of women who've made the same leap.
Established Women CEOs
Senior women leaders running large enterprises. Executive peer networks, board readiness, global platform access, legacy planning, and pathways to mentor and invest in the next generation of women founders.
How FOWES Supports
The Infrastructure
Behind the Ambition
Six interconnected areas of support designed to remove the barriers women face at every stage of entrepreneurship.
Access to Capital
From micro-finance for artisan enterprises to growth-stage investment facilitation. Grant program readiness, seed funding, trade finance, and connections to impact investors and lenders who understand women-led business.
Mentorship & Advisory
Structured mentorship from women who've built, scaled, and led. One-on-one advisory, cohort programmes, and a global mentor network spanning industries, geographies, and stages of growth.
Market & Network Access
Connections to buyers, retailers, distributors, and partners worldwide. Trade facilitation, export readiness, e-commerce enablement, and the introductions that turn potential into pipeline.
Business Education
Practical, contextualised learning - not theory in a vacuum. Financial literacy, pricing strategy, digital marketing, operations, leadership, legal fundamentals, and more. Delivered in formats that respect how women learn and lead.
Operational Infrastructure
The back-end that businesses need but founders often can't afford early on - shared workspaces, logistics and supply chain support, technology platforms, and administrative frameworks that let founders focus on building.
Community & Belonging
Entrepreneurship is isolating - especially for women. Peer communities, founder circles, regional chapters, annual summits, and a global sisterhood of women who understand what it takes because they're living it too.
Our Approach
Meet Them Where They Are.
Build From There.
No single formula. A flexible framework that adapts to each woman's stage, industry, geography, and ambition.
Listen & Understand
Every engagement begins with understanding - the woman, her context, her goals, her barriers. Not an application form. A conversation. We don't prescribe a path; we co-design one.
Match & Resource
Based on stage and need, we match each woman with the right combination of capital, mentorship, education, infrastructure, and community. An aspiring founder gets ideation support. A scaling CEO gets growth advisory. An artisan gets market access. Nothing generic.
Build & Launch
Active support through the critical building phase - whether that's launching a first product, securing first funding, forming a cooperative, hiring a first team, or entering a new market. We're in the work, not above it.
Grow & Reinvest
As women grow, they become part of the ecosystem - mentoring the next cohort, investing in emerging founders, opening doors they once needed opened for them. Growth is not the end of the journey. It's where the cycle deepens.
Their Stories
Women Building on Their Own Terms
Different industries. Different stages. Different continents. The same refusal to wait for permission.
Dubai, UAE → Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Nadia Osmania
Former Corporate Director → Founder, Halyon Supply Tech
After fourteen years in corporate supply chain management, Nadia knew the inefficiencies she wanted to solve - but leaving a six-figure salary with two children felt like stepping off a cliff. FOWES' corporate transition programme gave her the financial runway planning, founder mentorship, and investor connections to make the leap with clarity instead of fear.
"I didn't need someone to tell me I could do it. I needed someone to show me the bridge between where I was and where I wanted to be."
Dakar, Senegal
Amara Diallo
Master Indigo Dyer → Founder, Diallo Collective
Amara inherited her indigo dyeing technique from four generations of women in her family. For years, she sold through local intermediaries who set the price and took the margin. Through FOWES' international trade partners, she formed a cooperative, built a brand, and now exports directly to boutique retailers in Paris and New York - on her terms, at her price.
"I always knew the value of what I made. Now the world pays that value, not just what a middleman decides."
Singapore
Rachel Chen
Founder & CEO, GreenLoop Packaging - Scaling Across Southeast Asia
Rachel had built a successful sustainable packaging company. What she needed wasn't startup help - it was strategic advisory for her next phase: expanding across four Southeast Asian markets, building a senior leadership team, and navigating Series B fundraising as a woman founder in a male-dominated sector.
"At growth stage, the loneliness is different. You're not struggling to survive - you're struggling to find peers who understand the complexity."
Programmes
Entrepreneurship Programmes
Explore the programmes driving women's entrepreneurship across stages, sectors, and geographies.
Aspire - Ideation & Launch
For women with a business idea and the courage to pursue it. Ideation workshops, business model validation, early mentorship, and micro-grant access to get from zero to one.
Founder Lab - Startup Incubation
A 12-week incubation programme for early-stage founders. Seed funding, pitch coaching, legal frameworks, go-to-market strategy, and a cohort of women building alongside you.
The Pivot - Corporate to Founder
For women making the leap from employment to entrepreneurship. Financial runway planning, skills translation, founder mindset coaching, and a network of women who've made the same transition.
Global Market Connect
Trade facilitation, export readiness, and direct connections to international buyers and distribution networks - for artisan enterprises and product-based businesses ready to go global.
Scale — Growth Advisory
For established businesses ready for their next chapter. Strategic advisory, AI & automation integration, growth capital facilitation, senior hiring support, market expansion planning, and executive peer networks.
Legacy Circle - Women CEOs
An invitation-only network for senior women entrepreneurs. Board readiness, legacy planning, angel investing pathways, and structured mentorship of emerging founders. Where leaders give back.
The Five Pillars
Explore the Other Pillars
Entrepreneurship is one of five interconnected pillars that drive the FOWES mission.
Empowerment
Agency, voice, and decision-making power for women everywhere.
Education
Learning that opens doors and builds capability at every level.
Equity
Fair systems, fair access, and fair representation at every level.
Economic Development
Building resilient economies powered by women-led enterprise.
Your Journey Starts Here
Whether you're an aspiring founder, a scaling CEO, a corporate leader ready to make the leap, or a partner who believes in women-led enterprise - there's a place for you.