Women Entrepreneurs: Obstacles Overcome

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw started her business with Rs. 10,000 of capital in her garage. Her applications for loans were turned down three times due to gender discrimination from banks in India. In 1978 she founded the company Biocon India and is the richest woman in India today.

Surprisingly enough, there are still only about 9% of women in India who participate in ownership of a firm according to the World Bank Enterprise Survey data. Like Kiran’s story, Doing Business would like to hear about the many women entrepreneurs who may not be in the spotlight, but who have faced and overcome such obstacles as Kiran did in establishing her businesses.

The Doing Business project is conducting a two-year research effort to identify legal and regulatory barriers facing businesswomen in 178 economies. The program will provide analysis on reforms that benefit women in business. As a part of this effort, the team will prepare profiles of women entrepreneurs describing reasons for their success, as well as highlighting some of the main legal, regulatory, and practical obstacles they faced in expanding their business. These case studies will help identify strategies to alleviate such obstacles, as well as communication approaches to promote the benefits of reform.

Doing Business welcomes nominations of woman entrepreneurs who have an experience that offers lessons that could inform reform efforts. Nominations can also be sent to doingbusiness@worldbank.org. We will select from amongst the nominations, contact them, and prepare profiles on each. These profiles will be published by Doing Business.