AWEP – Accelerating female CEOs in Ethiopia

Situation

AWEP stands for Alliance for Women Entrepreneurship. The goal of AWEP Ethiopia is to empower Ethiopian women entrepreneurs and widen their connections to global markets while building their capacity and competitiveness in local and international business.

Most of AWEP’s members are SMEs having a lack of knowledge in fundamental principles or science of business such as on business case development, branding, promotion & communication, access to finance and financial management, networking, and customer service. 

There is also a lack of sufficient resource to bridge this gap in knowledge and skill. Most SMEs start a business without careful study of the business case and the business environment. It has become a custom to establish SMEs just by imitating other previously established firms without adding any significant value to the business case. 

Assignment

Develop a tailor made training for members of AWEP to build their organisational capacity that will make them more successful in scaling their business and being more customer-centered and unique.  

Approach

Proportion firstly did intakes with AWEP and various members to better understand their needs and desires as input for the design of the tailor-made training. 

Based on the intakes the subjects have been defined:

• How to develop an idea into a strong business concept?
• How to make your business more unique and authentic?
• How to increase customer value and impact on society?
• How to develop a marketing strategy?
• How to pitch to investors?

Based on the scoping, Proportion developed an accelerator program that is highly based on HCD principles; consisting of 3 bootcamps in Ethiopia, practical research & design homework assignments, peer-to-peer mentoring, and access to investors. 

Results

The 20 companies showed a transformative change over just a period of 3 months. Not only when it comes to a revised strategy of their businesses, but also their personal confidence and performance in pitching to investors. 

All women CEOs have pitched to local investors. Three pitches have been rewarded. 

This project was commissioned by the Alliance for Women Entrepreneurship(AWEP) and led by Thomas and Proportion Global consultants in Ethiopia. If you’ve enjoyed reading this case and want to dive deeper, we’d love to hear from you and we will connect you with relevant designers like Thomas, who worked on this project Contact Us