Enterprise

Hurdles standing in way of women entrepreneurs

KIM

Evelyn Kimathi, who is fighting to eliminate roadblocks hurting business women. PHOTO | COURTESY

In 2007, Evelyn Kimathi was running a manufacturing firm, Chantaleps Limited, in Nairobi. Supply orders kept growing which meant more money flowing into the company’s account.

She expanded production to feed this growing appetite and even bought 13 vehicles to run the business.

“We would buy a pick-up every month and in cash,” says Ms Kimathi, revealing how circumstances had favoured a company he had started with a Sh8 million loan.

However, in 2015 things went horribly wrong and the business collapsed, leaving her holding Sh12 million in debt. While this crushed the business, her entrepreneurship spirit lived on.

A few years later, Ms Kimathi has turned into a business warrior fighting for bigger space for women folk in entrepreneurship.

As she recovered from the business failure, Ms Kimathi says she started researching on the challenges that face women entrepreneurs and she found many including access to credit, lack of information and unfavorable policies.

“In the current situation in Kenya, a woman is facing twice the hurdles a man would have faced while establishing himself as an entrepreneur,” she says, quoting the research, which informed the launch of the Women Entrepreneurship and Innovation Summit, held in Nairobi last week.

The annual summit, organised by Expodium Africa, Ms Kimathi’s newest events company, sought to unlock the economic and strategic potential in women entrepreneurs.

At the summit, attended by over 100 women, female entrepreneurs shared their experiences in business with startup capital emerging as the foremost hurdle followed by ignorance.

Ms Ekra Nding’u, the chief executive of German Institute of Professional Studies, moved the delegates when she recounted how she started a college with just Sh6,000 and how she would hire well-dressed men to pose as her partners to strike the right image to get an office space in Nairobi’s city centre.

“I was still young and revenues were low and landlords would dismiss me offhand,” she said.

Although her college has grown, she now faces challenges related to expansion.

Speakers at the summit urged women to formalise their businesses to attract financiers.

It emerged that out of the six million unregistered businesses operating in the country, majority of them are actually owned by women.

The survey, released in 2016 by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) established that out of the cumulative 7.41 million micro, small and medium businesses in the country, only 1.56 million were licensed.

Ms Lillian Marenya, Head of Catalytic Support at Growthafrica said women entrepreneurs should learn to keep records and accounts of their businesses.

She said financiers heavily rely on books of accounts and other records to make decisions on supporting businesses.

“Most women make their businesses part of their personal lives and mix up finances and other operations,” she said.

“They should run the small businesses professionally which allows them to grow and attract investors or even bigger market.”

As Ms Kimathi researched on women business while making a comeback in business, she also discovered that the economic environment had conspired against women in spite of the government introducing affirmative policies to lift women.

Currently, there is the Women Enterprise Fund, Youth Fund and a provision for 30 per cent procurement businesses reserved for women and the special category groups in both national and county governments.

However women still find it tough navigating the entrepreneurship world and the quest for solutions continues at Expodium Africa and within many other organisation pushing for the plight of women.

“It is time we work towards creating an enabling environment for women entrepreneurs,” said Ms Kimathi.