Women from emerging markets shine in ‘500’ list

STOCKHOLM — From a Peruvian trout farm manager to the head of an Indonesian meat ball company, a list of 500 women entrepreneurs in emerging markets was launched on June 8 to challenge the stereotype of a typical company boss and to inspire women globally.

The “Foundation 500” list features the portraits and careers of 500 female entrepreneurs in 11 emerging markets, where women are often refused the same access to education, financial services and bank loans as men.

The list, an initiative of humanitarian agency CARE and the nonprofit H&M Foundation, is inspired by the Fortune 500 list of US companies but highlights unusual chief executives, ranging from a Zambian woman who set up a mobile drugstore to a woman in Jordan who set up a temporary tattoo studio.

Karl-Johan Persson, CEO of Swedish retailer H&M that founded the H&M Foundation, says the project was designed to create role models for women in emerging markets and to challenge perceptions in developed countries of business leaders.

“The entrepreneur is our time’ s hero and a role model for many young, but the picture given of who is an entrepreneur is still very homogenous and many probably associate it with men from the startup world,” Persson says.

He says all the women in the list had made an incredible effort.

“But one that stands out to me is Phil omene Tia, a multientrepreneur from the Ivory Coast (or Cote d’Ivoire) who has overcome setbacks such as war and being a refugee, and who has, in spite of it, always returned to entrepreneurship to create a better future — and a strong voice in society,” Persson says.

Tia is the owner of a bus company, a chain of beverage stores, a hotel complex and a cattle-breeding operation in Cote d’Ivoire.

“I often tell other women that it is the force inside you and your brains that will bring you wherever you want to go. I mean, I started with nothing and I don’t even speak proper French, but look at me now,” she is quoted as saying.

The women featured are from Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Peru, Guatemala, Jordan, Zambia, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire and Yemen.

One of the women portrayed is Andrea Gala, 20, a trout-farm manager in Peru and president of the women-only Trout Producers Association.

“This business has worked out so well for us now we don’t depend on our (farm) fields anymore, which is hard work and often badly paid,” Gala says in a report on the project.

“With the association we want to open a restaurant one day, next to the trout farm, so we can attract more visitors. We want to turn the area into a tourist zone, where people can come and relax and enjoy our trout-based dishes.”

The H&M Foundation, funded by the Persson family that founded retailer H&M, says this was part of a women’s empowerment program started with CARE in 2014 in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

H&M Foundation Manager Diana Amini says about 100,000 women in 20 countries had received between $2,250 and $16,900 in seed capital and skills training to start and expand businesses.