The ‘last bastion of extreme sexism’: life as a female entrepreneur

Jennifer Sieg sat down with Debbie Wosskow, behind the Invest in Women Taskforce, to hear how she’s managed to surpass the challenges on her entrepreneurial journey so far.

Despite all the valiant efforts being made to address the lack of finance available to female-led businesses, the funding gap between male and female-led businesses remains a pressing issue.

The statistics are actually worsening, because out of the total £8bn of private equity given out so far this year, female founders received just 1.8 per cent, down from 2.5 per cent last year.

This number has barely changed in more than a decade. Now at the forefront of this conversation is Debbie Wosskow (pictured), serial entrepreneur and co-chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce, a leader who seems rather keen on “getting sht done”. “

There have been lots of valiant attempts to address the conversation, but I’m super focused on getting sht done – and this is a get sh*t done moment,” Wosskow, 50, says.

Who is Debbie Wosskow – and what is the Invest in Women Taskforce?

The Invest in Women Taskforce launched in March of this year and is co-chaired by Wosskow and Hannah Bernard, head of business banking at Barclays.

The team’s mission is to build the world’s largest funding pot for female founders, which totals £250m.

The industry-led initiative was recently backed by the UK’s first female Chancellor Rachel Reeves, which Wosskow says is a step in the right direction.

Wosskow has well over two decades of entrepreneurial experience. She attributes her interest in business to the Young Enterprise National Competition she entered at school. At the age of 15, she set up a business selling scrunchies.

More recently, she co-founded Allbright in 2018, the London-based global career network for women, which she exited in 2022.

Her most recent venture includes The Better Menopause, a supplements brand supporting the health of midlife women, which she co-founded with business partner Anna Jones and nutritional therapist Joanna Lyall.

Even today, Wosskow can still remember the influence that her family’s dinner table conversations about money and business have had on her entrepreneurial ambitions.

I’ve been very, very fortunate to be surrounded by extraordinary women who are my biggest supporters and my harshest critics.

“I’ve been very, very fortunate to be surrounded by extraordinary women who are my biggest supporters and my harshest critics,” she says.

“I think that sense of matriarchy and female networks has been a big part of what has also given me that sense of ‘if you can, you should.’”

It’s this attitude in particular, she says, that will bring about a much-needed change to the persistent – and economically detrimental – female funding gap.

“It’s the last bastion of extreme sexism in this country to be a female entrepreneur,” she says. “The stats are absolutely stacked against us, and that holds the country back because if female entrepreneurs founded businesses at the same rate as men, that would deliver an extra £250bn to the economy.”

Can it be done?

The Invest in Women Taskforce seems to rest on the belief that in order to create change, there needs to be more women backing women, because “a female investor is twice as likely to back a woman”.

When only 11 per cent of senior investment roles at UK firms are held by women, according to data collected by Beauhurst, and 14 per cent of UK angel investors are female, that argument is clear.

But the question of why men, who already make up a majority of these investment decisions, can’t back women still remains.

“We can all hypothesise as to why, but I think one of the main explanations I will give is that we live in economically challenging times, and when we live in economically challenging times, investors back people that look and feel like themselves,” Wosskow says.

She adds: “If we put money in female hands, if we create the biggest funding pot in the world… and that money is ring-fenced to invest in female-led and mixed teams in the UK, then that is a generational shift in wealth allocation.

If we just tell people they should, or they could… nothing f*cking happens, and it hasn’t – and in fact, it’s getting worse.

“If we just tell people they should, or they could… nothing f*cking happens, and it hasn’t – and in fact, it’s getting worse.”

It is easy to assume that Wosskow has her hands full, as an entrepreneur herself and an angel investor, who only invests in women-led businesses. Rest assured though, the businesswoman is confident that she and her team have things covered.

“I think if you want something done, give it to a busy woman,” she adds, with a laugh.

“I think multiple projects is one thing [but] a common goal is another thing – the red thread through all of my initiatives is women and money.”

Why? Because making the UK “the best place in the world” for female entrepreneurs is something Britain’s entrepreneurial ecosystem desperately needs.

CV

Name: Debbie Wosskow OBE
Companies: The Invest in Women Taskforce, The Better Menopause, NED Channel 4
Title: Multi-exit entrepreneur & Co-Chair of the Invest in Women Taskforce
Age: 50
Born: Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Lives: Little Venice, London
Studied: Philosophy and Theology, New College, Oxford
Talents: Boxing and speed reading
Motto: What’s the worst that can happen?
Most known for: Doing everything that men do but backwards and in heels (apologies Ginger Rogers)
First ambition: To be an entrepreneur – my first business sold hair scrunchies (it was the 80’s)
Favourite book: I’m on the Board of The Women’s Prize for Fiction – recently reread the 2023 winner ‘Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver’
Best piece of advice: Get up early. I’m trying to land this with my teens.