Report: Female Entrepreneurs – The Saviours Of Our Economy?

On 10 September 2009 Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) hosted the event: “Female Entrepreneurs – The Saviours Of Our Economy?” in which three very experienced Dutch women shared their experiences on managing their business.

This event was the second organised by the female members of the RSM OneMBA Class of 2010 and on this occasion in cooperation with the European Professional Women’s Network (EPWN) and the School itself, hosted on the RSM campus.

The event was focused on hearing from three successful female entrepreneurs’ regarding their vision on their contribution to the economy and the chance to discuss and learn from their experiences.

At the start of the event there was an opportunity for attendees to chat informally with one another, which was followed by presentations and a workshop by the entrepreneurs. The evening rounded off with drinks where there was a chance to build upon the insights given in the presentations and workshops.

The Associate Dean MBA Programmes at RSM, Dianne Bevelander, opened the event by sharing some interesting points regarding female entrepreneurs versus male entrepreneurs. For example “What do Peru and Japan have in common regarding this topic?” In fact, in 2007 in these two countries, women were more active in starting a business than men were; (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2007).

Eleonore Breukel was the first to share her experiences with the participants. She is Managing Director of Intercultural Communications BV, an intercultural training and coaching firm, and has been an entrepreneur for 25 years. During her first ten years working independently, she started her own company in the Netherlands Antilles. She illustrated that being an foreigner can present difficulties when starting one’s own business, but using skills and abilities such as focusing on the objectives, having an open mind, resilience and hard work, things can work out quite well and you can overcome the barriers you face. After returning to the Netherlands, she started a new business that has been operational for 15 years now. Again, her success has been built on her strong decision making skills and ability to make things happen. The audience welcomed her contributions about things such as “walk the talk” that made much more sense after listening to her experiences, and understanding that “doing the right thing is not always being right”.

Ursula Rozemeijer was the second to speak. She completed the Management Development Program at VNU (media company) and later became a successful e-business consultant with her own consultancy Emio as well as with the office Beam’it. For the past three years she has been the director and co-founder of TC-One, a company that supports business in the sales area. Her presentation was based on her experiences dealing with internal stakeholders and how the “ego”, or the way of doing things right, are not always the right thing to do. Her insights gave the participants some tips on how to approach their personal competences concerning the business they wish to start, and to focus the efforts on the right activities to leverage business. Being a strategic consultant herself, she enlightened the group as to how the questions that need to be asked and answered regarding a start up venture must also be applied to the entrepreneurs themselves.

Last, but not least, drs. Patty Kruiswijk shared her experiences with the group. She has a Master’s degree in Social Sciences and has been active as a coach and a consultant since 1986. Patty has shaped her business since that time and her insights provided the audience with some tools that they needed to be aware of, such as “confront your fears” and “don’t give up”. She has applied this advice to herself in order to become an entrepreneur and to stand out in the crowd.

After the inspiring session the attendees participated in a workshop facilitated by the panellists. They had the opportunity to briefly discuss further regarding the topic, and the session concluded with a Q&A.

The participants at the event came away with some great learnings; Shabnam from One MBA2010 said “it has been a wonderful experience”. Teresa, also from the OneMBA2010 Program, stated “I enjoyed the diversity of the panel. I learned some lessons and I think we can support each other”.

But the event was not only created for women. Male participants from the OneMBA Class of 2010, such as David, came away with tips at the business level and some insights gathered from the panellists, for instance “confront your fears”, showing that the way women share is different to men, and hearing about both sides gave attendees a wider scope of information on how to do business.

Personally, I learned that entrepreneurs are not only the people that start a new business from scratch , but also anybody that starts a project and cooperates with others in order to succeed. So maybe women really are the saviours of the economy!

Patricia Tello
Full time MBA Programme, Class of 2010