In 2018, EY conducted an independent study and found that women CEOs’ growth ambitions significantly outpace those of male leaders, despite their ongoing challenges in accessing capital. The global report, which surveyed 2,766 middle- market company leaders, also found that female-run businesses are more focused on increasing market share to become leaders in their respective industries, compared with male-led companies.The report further states that one in three (30%) of female-led companies are targeting growth rates of more than 15% in the next 12 months, compared with just 5% of the male-led companies.

The ambition of women CEOs is striking, especially considering that more than half of the women-led companies (52%) indicated that they have no access to external funding. This funding gap is critical because companies with high growth potential that are unable to secure early funding can have a harder time scaling up. These trends are also present in the Middle East, where funding is a significant factor to building a company’s agility. To support female CEOs and entrepreneurs, EY brought its Entrepreneurial Winning Women program to the MENA region. The program identifies high potential women entrepreneurs whose businesses show the potential to scale operations and provides them with ongoing support to help fast- track their business growth.

The free-of-cost mentoring program provides access to informal, one-on-one guidance as well as relevant learning opportunities, including e-training webinars. Participants of the EY Entrepreneurial Winning WomenTM program also benefit from access to a wide-range of innovative technology that can support the current consumer-centric approach to doing business. 25% of female CEOs, in line with their male counterparts, say that improving customer experience is the most important objective of their technology investment. Yet more than twice as many female CEOs (34%) as males (16%) cite customer demand as the biggest driver for innovation. Clearly, female CEOs and entrepreneurs understand the importance of innovation for their businesses and are keen to implement it for their growth plans, but they need to ensure that they are putting themselves forward and seizing opportunities that they wouldn’t normally say yes to in order to secure funding. The members of the Entrepreneurial Winning Women program are coached on five ways to win that will support the scaling of their small companies into large ones.

These ways are:

• Think big and be bold: Think ambitiously about your future business goals
• Work on the business, rather than in it: Cultivate a strong team so you can look ahead and plot your path to growth
• Establish key advisory networks: Establish relationships with other business leaders to secure advice and counsel
• Build a public profile: Put your brand to work — speak publicly, write about what you know, share your story
• Evaluate financing for expansion: Consider capital needs as you grow and align investor financing accordingly

As more female-led companies come into the MENA market and successfully face the hurdles of funding and scaling their companies up, male-led businesses will need to reconsider how gender diversity could benefit their own profit margins. It may very well be that before a business sets its growth rates, it will need to consider who has the ambition to achieve them.