Postcards from the Edge : Women

CA dreamin'....

claireoh — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:57:00 GMT

This week sees our Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston. I hear it's hot and humid. If you're not there in person you can see some of it online. Getting texts from the guys there. They get funnier as the night goes on. Whereas, I have just arrived in a hot and sunny San Fran, leaving a rather autumnal London behind.

I love this place. I don't know why I feel so at home here. Perhaps it's the weather, the way you order eggs sunny side up (that puts you in a good mood in the morning), the buzz, or the fact that as a Manic Paddy (as my former boss calls me) I fit right in. That and the marvelous shoe collection at Barney's. At the hotel I was instantly relieved of my bags and handed a glass of chardonnay. I walked into my room, docked my ipod and got online. It's all so civilised. It might be 2am for me right now but I'm wide awake and ready to soak it up...

Tomorrow I meet up with the leadership team to talk about all things start-up and entrepreneur; we're building up to launching major programs and doing this worldwide does take some orchestrating, I can tell you. We may suffer from overwhelming levels of potential and possibility right now, but what a nice position to be in. Finding focus is they key. Changing the world is never easy. So we have to bite off manageable chunks...

After a few days assimilating, debating, plotting and strategising, it is on to a quiet hotel down the coast to chill - and run. 12k in an hour - between vineyards. More exercise and sleep is required - and less fine dining and fine wining. Now that I have my NY marathon place I am compelled to don the shorts and ipod every day. Not easy when you are shifting timezones and working long hours. But hey, I am glad I signed up to the challenge. You're dead long enough. And as my friend Rob said the other day - I believe in life before death.

I was practicing partying technique in the sunshine at Henley Regatta on Friday where several tankers of Bollinger and Laurent Perrier were consumed. So Tuesday night I resisted the fizz (wow) at the launch of politicsandthecity.com - brainchild of the wonderful June Sarpong. I love the fact that June is so unapologetically feminine and - dare I say it - girlie; and at the same time a successful businesswoman. She has great charisma...as seen in Brussels at our recent summit when she hosted the student session for me.

Last night's launch party at the ICA in London was a total celeb fest, complete with paparazzi snapping outside and "mwwaaw hello dahling" exclamations echoing all over the room. June's speech was inspiring (as always) and I was so proud watching her. Look at me getting all maternal. It's a great site and we will see some cool content in the coming months. It does address an interesting thing though. Serious Girls. They are everywhere. One minute discussing IRR on Venture funds or a new project in South Africa and the next someone is admiring your Louboutins. Alistair Darling and Diane Abbott looked on as June eloquently described her passion, mingling effortlessly with size zero's and telly types, techies, entrepreneurs, City folk, corporate types even (me and the guy from Sun Microsystems having our perennial debate about who is more cool). June asked me to write a blog on the site a few months ago and I know there is plenty of material for this - I just need to stop long enough to write it.

From here I'm off to Atlanta (which is also going to be pretty hot and sticky). We just closed our fiscal on 30 June so we are now in kick-off mode. 10,000 Microsofties from around the world will convene to reflect on the year just gone, celebrate late into the night (they are never quiet affairs) and hear from SteveB about our plans for the year ahead. Then I have a weekend in Miami to recover on the beach. And no doubt burn a few calories on the dance floor. I hear the Delano is just awesome. Decadence is certainly something that has not been in short supply of late. It's a hard life. You wouldn't guess I was in training for the NY marathon by my routine for the last few months. 18 weeks and counting. But for now, I am off to sample what SF has to offer. The Clift (in Choo's) will be on the list. Awful place. Bye for now.

Silicon Valley to South Africa

claireoh — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:38:00 GMT

It's been a while since I had time to reflect and update my blog. Where did May go? After my US trip in April, things have been a little hectic.

I spent the first week of May in SA meeting Partners, Govt officials, seeing our facilities and programs and discussing our plans with the local Microsoft team - who are really something. We made some good connections while on the ground: HPV-A and Enablis both finance start-ups and are keen to work with us. Several partners are looking to grow export revenues and target markets outside SA, or raise VC funding for growth.

I was hugely impressed at what David and team have achieved thus far and in a relatively short time, with e.g. SmartXchange in Durban, JCSE in Joburg, Citi in Cape Town.

SA is a vibrant economy but, like many emerging markets, it can still be a challenging environment. The Reconstruction and Development program in 1994 set out an ambitious course for economic improvement, redressing the imbalance that existed post Apartheid, when so many were excluded, lacking access to skills and employment. SA recorded 10 years of strong economic growth since and in January 2004 the President signed the BEE Act. Actually the BEE strategy doc provides good bedtime reading. Investment in BEE is massive: in 2002 the Govt allocated R2.2bn and a further R1.3bn in loans was provided by Khula - 79% to BEE's and 56% to women-owned businesses. Enablis are funding entrepreneurs in conjunction with Khula: two funds of R50m and R100m and 300+ member entrepreneurs in their network.

Mmabatho Matiwane who leads the DTI's Gender and Women's Empowerment Unit is an impressive creature. In 2006 the Govt decided to focus on this as a jobs/wealth creation strategy. They set up SAWEN to get more women into enterprise and they now have a network of 5,000 women entrepreneurs in 9 provinces with 4 offices in the main centres already and more planned, providing walk-in centres for business advice and mentorship. They also launched a fund to support women-led companies which, from memory, is around R500m. We're discussing how to support the TWIB program which helps women-led companies embrace technology and become more successful. I'm also working on a very cool project with Trestle co-funded by VFI focused on finding more 'girl geeks'.

While presenting on a panel at the INSEAD Alumni re-union event in Paris last Friday, I pointed out how SA has such a large proportion of women in senior policy-making roles in Govt and how European country cabinets and boardrooms are not so representative. This rather lively debate was moderated beautifully by Frank Brown who tabled the notion of quotas like they have applied in SA (30% of Govt positions will be held by women) and in Norway (women should comprise 40% of public-listed companies boards). Sitting in a room on the Fountainbleu campus it really didn't seem that much of an issue - smart, successful women (and men) were everywhere. It's enough to give you an inferiority complex. Not only is Ninie Wang an INSEAD MBA grad, she's young, driven, attractive, dynamic, fun, and running her own company in Beijing which is launching a new website and platform to connect and empower senior citizens in China.

Another event, this time organised by CIDA at the British Embassy in Brussels, addressed the issue of "improving the lingua franca in Creative Industries financing" and I found myself on a panel - a rather ecclectic mix - including Wendy Malem (Centre for Fashion Enterprise), Mark Fenwick (NStar Finance) and Leon Hill (Universal Music). I thought I was out of my depth when I realised a penchant for Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin did not in fact qualify me to talk about investment in fashion but nevertheless it proved a fascinating event and I made some great connections. One of which was an introduction via Sydney Levinson to Kaospilot. A business school with a difference, n'est pas?

While in Brussels I also had the opportunity to meet Javier Echarri who heads up EVCA. Georges Noel is one of the panelists at the event I am busy organising in Brussels on 11/12 June. We should have 100+ investors and start-ups attending day one. From there I took off to Dublin to check in with the MS team there on proposed start-up engagement plans and meet up with Enterprise Ireland, IDA and Science Foundation Ireland. Great meeting. Much to do. Managed to squeeze in a visit to MSR in Cambridge and witness a day of awesome future technology. Then back to London to meet with PERA, NESTA and EBAN, UKIBC and TiE - with whom we are teeing up some very cool joint activities for the coming year.

Ah, so that's where May went.....

Regional Innovation

claireoh — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:18:00 GMT

In case you haven't seen these - the East of England development agency (EEDA) - in conjunction with Library house - are hosting their Destination Growth event tomorrow with some great keynotes. Then Advantage West Midlands are holding their annual ICT conference on 22nd November. You'll find representation from Microsoft at both.

I'm off to another regional enterprise event this evening supported by SEEDA and Finance South East and addressed at women business owners and women entrepreneurs in the SE region. We all know that cash is vital to the success of any ambitious small company and we're very pleased to be working with Finance South East who were recognised this year as manager of a leading angel investor network.

Women Ambassadors

claireoh — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:24:00 GMT

On Monday, fresh from a relaxing weekend in St Andrew's (where it rained a lot), I participated in a panel discussion along with Margaret Hodge, Minister of State for Industry and the Regions, at the launch of the Women's Enterprise Ambassador's Network.

The recruitment of 1,000+ to this network is so they serve as role models for the next generation of entrepreneurs and inspire more girls and women to choose a career in business. Obviously, our hope is to encourage more to choose a career in IT also - and to use technology as the basis for their innovations. We could do with more girl geeks. I met Sarah Blow at the event who runs London Girl Geek dinners. Marvellous.

Interestingly, the GEM report highlighted that women are twice as likely to launch a new business venture based on new technology (that wasn't available a year prior). However, women start-ups still face some challenges - such as the perceived barrier to access to finance - so it's important that the banks can help provide education and attract more women to use their services to fund their ideas. Claire Logie from Royal Bank of Scotland was also on the panel.

The other key pillar of the Taskforce is to simplify the Business Support Services - i.e. make it easy for entrepreneurs and owners of small, young businesses to access the right level of Government support. There is a lot out there but often people don't know what is available to them. The Small Firms Loan Guarantee offer for instance was news to me. So, lots to do. The guys at the SBS at the DTI are busy working on this as we speak.

I met Jackie Waring during my visit to the MS Edinburgh office last Thursday to talk about her idea for a web-based lending solution - where UK women provide an investment pot for women entrepreneurs in developing countries. One to explore a bit further perhaps and connect with the Trestle Foundation.

One final bit of goods news (I think so anyway)....is that there will be more women millionaires in the UK by 2020 than men. And before you ask, no, that's not as a result of generous divorce settlements!!!! We certainly could do with more women business angels investing in the next generation of women Web 2.0 entrepreneurs. And God knows, you always need more shoes....

Internet Peeps

claireoh — Wed, 09 May 2007 19:07:00 GMT

Last night I met up some folks at an Internet People dinner at Adam St club. I've heard good things. I felt like an imposter (and said as much) as I can't claim to know a fraction of what's going on 'on the scene' as the Web 2.0 entrepreneurs and the VC's out there in the thick of it. Or even our very own SteveC. But I feel better since I at least got a blog in January. And those Nike trainers with the chip in that talks to your iPod nano. Gotta take me up the cool stakes surely...

Saying that, it was amazing how the conversation always came around to Microsoft. Oh, and Google. Some questions pondered over fine food and wine: Is Google going to dominate in five years time? Is Google the next Microsoft? Is Microsoft going to buy Google? Is Microsoft the next Microsoft?

Some questions pondered long after the creme brulee was consumed and the Rioja flowing: exactly what did Paul Walsh say to Robert Loch about me after our first meeting? And what would you wear in the hot tub of Mr Rong's? Having thought myself priveleged to be invited along to this exclusive venue with some of the players on the London scene to sample what sounds like a hedonistic treat for the senses...Robert informed me they need to redress the male/female imbalance. Aha.

Talking of which, it's the next meeting of the Women's Enterprise Taskforce in town on Friday...

You can check out some of the Web 2.0 players in this report which was recorded in London while I was lying on a beach in Muscat end of April.

TGIF

claireoh — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:38:00 GMT

Happy Friday. Gosh....what a week. Looking forward to chilling out over the long weekend.

Got back from Seattle on Wednesday straight into a meeting with SEEDA about (primarily) women's enterprise and what we can together in the South East. Last night I attended the Thames Valley Economic Partnership dinner at Vodafone HQ in Newbury - again talking with people from the SE region about how we might work together. Met some great folks. Interestingly the guys from Dell and Oracle on our table didn't turn up. Oh well, more mindshare for Microsoft...

Talking with the guys from NESTA about their Future Innovators program yesterday, I was almost overwhelmed by the potential. We discussed ways of helping small businesses grow (technology as an enabler) and compete on the global stage; attracting and incubating more small, young, emerging ISV's and giving them access to the BT ‘sandbox' and to our Empower program; and reaching out to the ‘digitally excluded' and encouraging entrepreneurship.

The ICT Youth Challenge is one element. There's also good synergy with the Enterprise Insight campaign and the great initiatives with BT - TopCoder and Imagine Cup. Then there's the EEDA/Running the Gauntlet competition and the conversations underway with BA about an Innovation Prize and RSA Design Directions. Not to mention the chat I had with Virgin's innovation man a few weeks ago. Phew! Lots to do...

Really looking forward to the NESTA reception on 17^th May where we'll share some of our ideas. You should be able to sign up soon for that - watch this space. In the meantime you might want to sign up for NESTA's event on 8^th May about education and innovation.

Globalisation & Immigration

claireoh — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:29:00 GMT

George Magnus (senior economic advisor at UBS) writes in this month’s BA Business Life about skilled migrants – how the people arriving in the UK these days are often not escaping poor countries – but rather are “simply choosing to work in countries other than those of their birth”.

I am a case in point. I left Ireland and a good job with IBM in Dublin to come to the UK ten years ago. How time flies. I was actually aiming for South Africa and ended up in Milton Keynes. But that’s another story. A decade later, I’m still here (not in MK though – Henley is much nicer) and, I’d like to think, have contributed quite a bit to the UK Exchequer in that time. I appear to have missed out on the Celtic Tiger – much to my mother’s dismay. That's the ecomomic boom - not the Michael Flatley show. I am quite glad to say I missed that one.

I’m not the only one that is attracted to the bright lights of the UK: my brother texted to say he was sitting next to Damien Duff on the plane last night. See? We have our part to play. Even if it is for Chelsea. They paid £17m for him so he must count as 'skilled'.

George Magnus continues: the UN reckons “of the world’s 200 million migrants in 2005, roughly one third moved from one developing country to another. Moreover, almost half of those migrants aged 25 and over coming into OECD countries in the last 15 years, were highly skilled. In the UK, it is highly probable that immigration is largely responsible for raising the country’s potential growth rate from about 2.7 per cent to about 3 per cent”.

Intrigued, I did a a bit of digging and found a fascinating site with a section on the Highly Skilled Migrant Program. I particularly like the area where you can read about Commons debates and uncovered an enlightening exchange between MP's about Women, Justice and Gender Equality from International Women's Day on the 8th March. Good to know while I was having breakfast, lunch and dinner that day in the company of some fine women and celebrating success, our elected representatives were busy grappling with the more serious issues. We've come a long way but we've got so much more to do. And as a 'skilled' migrant I'm more than happy to contribute to the debate and perhaps even change the world.

Enterprising Women

claireoh — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 17:07:00 GMT

Well this week sees another series of interesting meetings and events (and meals) in London: the 8th is International Women's Day and I start the day off as a guest at the HSBC/Aurora breakfast over in Canary Wharf. Then it's off to the RSA to hear from George Osborne and others about the social impact of the web. Over lunch, I have the pleasure of catching up with Erika Watson from Prowess (they've just started a new blog) and Dr Rebecca Harding - great interview with her from NESTA here. Then it's time to work on (my favourite project right now) - Developing the Future 2007. If you haven't already seen it you can download a copy of Developing the Future 2006 here. Friday I'm seeing Liam Black and the guys from Caspian as guests of Fifteen - looking forward to my first visit to Jamie's place. Something tells me I might put on a few pounds this week!!!!!!!!!

Trestle Foundation and Group CEO honoured again

claireoh — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:50:00 GMT

Schonenbach Receives Government Award During the eServices Philippines: 7th Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition

EDSA Shangri-la Manila Hotel, Manila, Philippines – 15 February 2007

Trestle Group CEO and Trestle Group Foundation Board Member Ralph Schonenbach today delivered a non-traditional presentation titled “Survival of the Focused – A Collage of Perspectives” at the eServices Philippines: 7th Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition.

At the outset, Mr. Schonenbach joked, “As I begin, many people in the audience will probably ask themselves – what does this speech have to do with global sourcing?” Continuing the innovative presentation, Schonenbach merged four specific topics – entrepreneurship, shifting economies, environment and women – into a single theme and highlighted the following conclusions:

• “The next significant entrepreneurs – the next Bill Gates’ – will not come from the United States; they will come from here, from people like you. You will build the next billion dollar businesses - the billion dollar businesses that will shift economies.”

• “As governments recognize that global sourcing can provide significant new opportunities for their people, new infrastructure is being created, beautiful buildings built, highways constructed and telecommunications systems developed. But, through this build in infrastructure, we are also negatively impacting our environment.”

• “We need the entrepreneurs in this room to help find a solution for our environment. When I consider global sourcing today, I think, how can we use the collective intelligence of the world’s population to save our home for our children? And when I say collective, I mean collective and not 50% collective. In many societies, we are failing to engage the full promise and potential of women.”

• “Countries who do not engage both men and women will fail to realize their full potential. The sourcing of talent cannot be gender-based.”

Profit before Passion?

claireoh — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 14:36:19 GMT

Tuesday afternoon tea and biccies was had in the company of some very smart, passionate women. I seem to be making a habit of that lately.

This time it was to attend the inaugural meeting of the UK Women's Enterprise Taskforce set up by the Government "to champion women's enterprise and to increase the number of women setting up and growing businessess" announced by Margaret Hodge in November.

Over its three-year life, the taskforce will identify barriers to women's enterprise and suggest ways to remove them - ranging from the role of Finance and Technology to ways of delivering improved support services and advice in the regions.

Anyone see Dr Glenda Stone on the Paxman interview or BBC Breakfast recently? There's since been a fascinating debate raging on the whole subject of profit, passion, and the need for a women's-only taskforce at all. Read some of Glenda's comments here.

While 28% of businesses are owned by women in the US (or a whopping 48% if you take equal stakeholding rather than the 51/49 metric) the figure in the UK is a poor 17% so perhaps some affirmative action is required? Why not?

According to research presented by Prof Sara Carter, the UK female self-employment rate reached the 1m mark in 2006 but that still means that men account for 73% of the self-employed population. Compare 40% in the US to our 27%. Women's s/e rate is growing faster but the share of the overall population is static - which means they are exiting self employment as fast as they enter it.

Evidence also shows that women use one third of the financing that men do - but there is a correlation between early stage under-funding and failure. And why is it that only 2% of VC funding goes to women-led firms?

So what can we learn from the US? How do we encourage more women to start businessses and how do we support women leading and owning more scaleable, sustainable ones?

Certainly from my point of view we need to see more female Web 2.0 entrepreneurs and young female CEO's. Wouldn't it be nice if that's where the next 'killer app' came from....

With the average turnover of women-owned UK businesses being only £578,000 there's clearly room for more profit. And there's always room for passion. Helps to have both!!

Women Entrepreneurs in Developing Countries

claireoh — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:36:56 GMT

This week Trestle Group Foundation announced a collaboration with the World Conservation Union. Dana Smith, MD of Trestle Group Foundation says of the partnership:

“We believe entrepreneurship fuels the engine that drives economic and social change. We welcome the opportunity to work in partnership with the world’s largest and most important conservation network to promote women’s empowerment by directly supporting social entrepreneurs to achieve commercial success, while respecting communities and protecting the environment.”

Trestle have also just published a press release on the forthcoming conference at the UN Headquarters to Assess How ICT Improves Our Lives to be held at the United Nations on Friday 9th February.

The meeting, on “Age of Connectivity: Cities, Magnets of Hope”, will showcase how virtual communities and social networking can enhance the quality of life in cities. It will explore the way information and communication technology (ICT) can boost economic development and permit lifelong learning and employment in our “age of longevity”. Participants include experts on urban planning and development, ICT, finance, government, business and health.

Women in IT

claireoh — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 11:53:27 GMT

I mentioned earlier one of the vehicles we have created - Voices for Innovation - to help our partner community contribute to the IT debate and shape policy. Julie from VFI has just offered to help us with the next phase of our project with Trestle Group Foundation - we're taking our Empowering Women IT Entrepreneurs in Developing Countries initiative to South Africa now with help from the Director [Developer & Platform Strategy Group] out there, Danny Naidoo.

Trestle Foundation's first project with Luna Shamsuddoha from Dohatec in Bangladesh was a huge success - Luna is the only woman owner of an IT firm in that country and has faced adversity we couldn't even dream of. It's hard to fully appreciate the tenacity and strength required to be successful in that kind of environment. We take so much for granted.

Thanks to the wonderful Katie Ledger for travelling to Dhaka a few months ago to capture that story with Dana Smith - acquiring a nasty tummy bug in the process! Since we made this video, things haven't been great in Bangladesh. The government is in disarray. Dana sent us this story a few weeks ago. We send our best wishes to Luna and her family.

I was so pleased to hear that Trestle Group's inspiring CEO, Ralph Schonenbach, was invited to present at the UN next month. I met Ralph in Manila last year and we got involved in their great work helping women entrepreneurs shortly afterwards. Who could resist.

Sheetal Mehta is on the board of the Foundation and at the recent launch of VFI in India, shared the video of Luna's story. Sheetal is a force of nature. It was through Sheetal I had the opportunity to participate in the GEM Forum where - among countless others - I met the fabulous Dr Rebecca Harding.

Not only has Sheetal helped me connect with some amazing people this month, she is doing awesome work in the realm of 'social entrepreneurship' through her company. We hope to do a lot more together in the coming months. We are now talking with the Princes Trust and Liam Black of Fifteen Foundation and numerous other organisations and individuals. We have a gathering on the 6th Feb to talk about Life, Love and The Future Of The Universe. I have a feeling 2007 is going to be quite busy!

Busy January....

claireoh — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:08:25 GMT

What a crazy few weeks! Is it me or does the Christmas break seem a long way off now?

On the 10^th January, I had the privilege of representing Microsoft at the inaugural Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) forum in London along with our President of EMEA, Neil Holloway. The theme of the forum was how we create an environment where innovation and enterprise can prosper.

Here are just some of the people I met….

NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) with assets of £350m, aims to build a more pervasive culture of innovation in the UK to ensure we are competitive. They have already invested in over 300 businesses in conjunction with the private finance community. New programs like Insight Out (and Starter for 6 in Scotland) are particularly interesting.

Make Your Mark is a culmination of the CBI, BCC, IoD and Federation of Small Businesses. I love their campaign to help university/college students “turn their ideas into reality” and start their own business. They also run Enterprise Week.

Oli Barrett is one of the Social Entrepreneurs I met who has just launched Make Your Mark for a Tenner in schools. One of my colleagues said her daughter came home this week for £10 and is tasked with thinking up a great idea!!

Talking of Social Entrepreneurs, Tommy Hutchinson and Michelle McMahon told me about their latest venture: i-genius – speaking at the GEM conference Tommy said.. “Networks are crucial to the success of social entrepreneurs. i-genius has taken the very best features and technology of user-generated friendship and online dating networks such as myspace and Facebook to create a site which encourages social entrepreneurs from around the world to establish partnerships between people from diverse geographical and cultural backgrounds. We hope i-genius will enable a new generation to follow the journeys of amazing people doing amazing things and be themselves inspired to become social innovators.”

I also met Steve Moore and later on, at another event with Liam Black met James Plummer, both of whom are involved in WT2.

Liam Black of Fifteen Foundation gave an inspiring talk at Simmons & Simmons in the City on the evening of 17^th January. You’ll probably know them from Jamie Oliver’s venture in Shoreditch where they are helping disenfranchised young people. They now have restaurants in Amsterdam and Melbourne and are hoping to open one in South Africa. So I’ve introduced him to colleagues out there. By the way if you are organising any events in London and you need catering – give them a call. Great food - and a great cause!!!!

At Microsoft, I think we have a great opportunity to contribute to the wider social and community agenda by combining our efforts around Partnering for the Future, Local Software Economy, Emerging Business and Citizenship. Make sure you check out the article on the work we’re doing with Trestle Group Foundation and our Empowering Women IT Entrepreneurs in Developing Countries partnership in the next issue of the Microsoft Partner Magazine. Matthew Stibbe is a writer on this.