Stabroek Business (SB) recently sat down with Rowena Elliot, the president of the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Guyana to discuss the issue of the ‘glass ceiling’ which is said to be inhibiting women’s upward mobility, especially in the corporate world, and the steps her organisation is taking to counter this and empower women in Guyana to achieve their full potential.
SB: What would you say have been the primary accomplishments of your organisation up to this time?
RE: The growth in membership, partially attributed to the collaborative work with the Centre for Local Business Development’s ‘Accelerate Her’ Programme.
The launch of WE3A Project, aimed at Strengthening Women Entrepreneurs in Value Chains.
The successes of the mentoring opportunities as a result of the MOU we have with The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, under their Mentee programme.
Successfully hosting our signature event for the second year, the Guyana Women and Girls Summit, an event focused on promoting women and girls and all they have accomplished.
SB: There used to be a time when there was a lot of talk about gender bias in terms of women becoming owners of sizeable businesses in Guyana. Would you say that women have now broken through that glass ceiling?
RE: Globally, we have seen the strides made with women leading and owning sizable businesses. However, locally, we are not quite where we want to be. We do recognise the strides made here in Guyana but the proverbial glass ceiling still exists in this regard. The glass ceiling hurts businesses, organisations, and all of society by limiting diversity. It creates a lack of representation for women and other minorities in leadership roles or decision-making and executive positions.
The WCCIG, with its specific interest in women’s development intentionally, stands to champion and advocate for a business environment that is conducive and leads to breaking the said glass ceiling. One of the Chamber’s signature events, Guyana Women and Girls Summit, is an event birthed to place specific focus on the achievements of our women and girls, highlighting and showcasing those women who have been able to overcome adversities and contributed to the development of their business, community and even society as a whole. This showcase of women, gives the larger populace a look at the work women are capable of and by extension building further confidence in women in business.
SB: Notwithstanding the fact that Guyana now has some prominent businesswomen, the two major Business Support Organizations [BSOs] the Private Sector Commission, and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, continue to be heavily dominated by men at the leadership level. Do you think that women have been indifferent in seeking high office in those organizations? If not, to what extent do you see the problem as being one of gender prejudice and [if it is indeed gender prejudice] how does your organisation propose to respond to this?
RE: We do not believe that women are indifferent to seeking high office in the larger BSOs, or otherwise. However, we are cognizant of the fact that in the working world women do not only deal with a full-time job, they’re often also responsible for raising families.
At times striking that ‘work-life’ balance can be challenging. Women tend to focus on their capacity building and development as a first step on the path to seeking out certain opportunities, especially in leadership.
However, it is safe to say that if the opportunity presents itself, women will take it, rather than falter. This is where organisations like ours are poised to advocate for the creation of better policies and opportunities for women while simultaneously calling for women to support, step up and forward, and overcome the habits that society has placed as barriers. We endeavour to equip and prepare women by fostering better relationships and paving opportunities through collaboration, empowerment programmes and advocating for more deliberate gender-less actions.
SB: As more and more women get into business, particularly in disciplines such as hair and beauty care, restaurants and snackettes, and Agro-processing, among others, the need for business coaching/training is becoming increasingly apparent. Is the issue of business training/coaching specifically for women something that your organisation plans to pursue aggressively, going forward?
RE: Absolutely! One of the primary objectives of the WCCIG is capacity building for our members. We have a sub-committee – Training and Development – which is dedicated to building and/or finding and matching the appropriate suites of training applicable to our members, in their various fields.
We have a host of qualified professionals within our membership, some of whom are already serving in certain training, mentoring and coaching roles. We have built relationships with other organisations and external professionals with whom we collaborate to provide for members and even the wider female populace.
We are the executing body for the WE3A Project here in Guyana and as mentioned, it is aimed at strengthening women entrepreneurs in value chains. It is a joint partnership with the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (WeFi) and IDB Lab. The project seeks to strengthen women-led/owned, SMEs [WSMEs] by combining value chain integration for women with high quality business training delivered through a range of innovative, digital means.
There are three components of the programme, Aspire, Activate and Accelerate, hence the name WE3A. Under the Activate component, we have the DreamBuilder, The Women’s Business Creator, and this is a massive training tool for women entrepreneurs. It is a self-paced programme and offers online courses that teach the skills and knowledge to start or grow a business. The platform has thirteen courses and is supplemented by two companion courses,
Financing Your Dream and Dream Big and Learning to Access Value Chains. This is open to the wider populace and the participants are guided through the programme via facilitators who are women in business and women in leading positions in various companies some of which are members of the WCCIG as well.
SB: To what extent do you believe that there is gender bias in terms of women’s access to business opportunities in Guyana, AND, has your organisation contemplated any particular response to this issue?
RE: We do believe and we have seen a great level of gender bias with regard to women accessing business opportunities. This is seemingly due to a host of contributing factors and we believe there is need for deliberate action and more inclusive policies within the public and private sectors to ensure women get equal access. Our Directors/Committee Chairs recently presented plans for the new year, which include increasing the visibility of the WCCIG and of our members, exposing our members to as much networking and business events as possible, calling on the wider business community to reach out to the WCCIG and engage with us so they can learn of the businesses within the Chamber and how they can collaborate and/or incorporate them into the value chains.
SB: There is a great deal of jockeying for ‘local content’ and other types of business opportunities arising out of Guyana’s oil and gas pursuits. Is it fair to say that the openings available for women are few and far between or is it that women are indifferent to those opportunities?
RE: We have not seen women being indifferent to pursuing opportunities within or as a result of the oil & gas sector. We actually have seen an uptake in the WSMEs searching for and going after opportunities that may come their way. Admittedly, there are fewer women offering the traditional male-dominated technical services, however, there are many women businesses in consultancy, accounting, recruiting, training, graphic design, manufacturing and HSSE who are servicing the sector. The Chamber’s membership includes some of these women who have grown and are successfully working within and supplying services and/or products to major players within the oil & gas sector.
SB: What goals have you set yourself as head of your organization during your term in office?
RE: A few key goals include:
Continuing to grow the Chamber’s membership.
Support and assist in the development of the members by elevating and publicizing their expertise.
Continuing the work we started with the WE3A and hit our targets as per that project. We have four more regions [regions 2, 5, 6 and 10] to tap into and extend the amazing Dreambuilder programme aimed at training the women entrepreneurs and begin work on the other two components – Aspire and Accelerate
Further engage and establish collaborative efforts with the other BSOs, the private sector at large, government agencies, and international partners.
