Anna Wong, Co-Founder Of Female Entrepreneurs Worldwide Wants To Empower Women Business Owners
The founder of the Hong Kong-based Female Entrepreneurs Worldwide (FEW), an organization aimed at empowering businesswomen.
Anna Wong is the founder of the Hong Kong-based Female Entrepreneurs Worldwide (FEW), an organization aimed at empowering businesswomen. Hot off the heels of a successful Female Entrepreneurs Day conference, she talks with Jack McCormack about her background and what it means to be a female entrepreneur in Hong Kong.
I’m currently working on a couple of projects aside from FEW including a public relations business, and a company that launched in America last year.
The public relations industry is very male-dominated. When people think of communications or public relations, people think about a female industry. But when it comes to higher management, it’s all men.
If women want to move up to a higher position, they have to put in much more effort.
When I wanted to start my business, I didn’t see much of a support group in Hong Kong. In America you see a growing number of these support groups for businesswomen.
I thought to myself, why not just start one in Hong Kong?
We knew we wanted to bring businesswomen together to talk about business and share results.
In Hong Kong, women are quite independent; they have their personal and professional goals.
We want to help women grow personally and professionally. And we hope to help them grow their business.
My friend in the UK is a top technology developer and had to buy materials in China. Every time she called her Chinese manufacturer she would say hello, and since the manufacturer didn’t speak English, he would just hang up.
Through our platform she could be properly connected to her manufacturer. This is how our platform can help to grow businesses.
In the beginning, everyone wondered if this was a prestigious women’s club like a Rotary Club or a Lion’s Club.
We are more like a platform; we want to help women in terms of business leadership and entrepreneurship.
Usually it’s difficult for people to find a mentor or business advisor.
I found that when women start a business, they depend more on personal savings instead of investors because they don’t have much information on it. Through FEW we hope to be their first resource for that.
In the future we want to organize more entrepreneurial skills workshops of different topics so that women can learn through that platform as well.
