Women need to ‘get rich’ and fund other women to encourage more entrepreneurs, says AllBright co-founder Debbie Wosskow
- UK-founded AllBright seeks to help women build networks, develop skills to succeed in business and hosted its first event in Hong Kong this week
- Of women surveyed in Hong Kong, 68 per cent say they were denied investment funding, according to HSBC Private Banking report
When it comes to investment funding, women continue to lag behind.
Debbie Wosskow, a self-described “serial entrepreneur” and co-founder of Allbright, a women-only members’ club and empowerment network started in the United Kingdom, wants to change that.
The only way to increase the number of women entrepreneurs is for women to support and deploy their capital to each other, said Wosskow, the founder of Love Home Swap, a start-up that helps people swap homes for short holiday stays. Wyndham Destinations bought the business in 2017.
“Women need to get rich, talk about getting rich and invest their capital in other women because that’s what men do,” Wosskow said. “If you look at Silicon Valley, PayPal money begets Airbnb. [Airbnb] money begets Uber, with a bit of Tesla. There is no female equivalent of that.”
Allbright was founded two years ago by Wosskow and Anna Jones, the former chief executive of publisher Hearst UK, to provide networking and learning opportunities for women, similar to men’s only clubs in Britain.