Historically, Hong Kong’s economy has been frequently regarded as one of the freest and most venture-welcoming economies in the world. However, while women account for 48% of the city’s entrepreneurial community, they disproportionately face gender-related challenges such as fundraising, family resistance, technology-related decisions, and more.
This partly explains why women account for just 19% of high-growth entrepreneurs, and that there are 3.5 male employers to every female employer in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which account for more than 98% of the total number of enterprises and provide more than 1.2 million job opportunities.
For women, access to professional networks remains inequitably available, and effective mentorship opportunities are often limited or hard to secure without significant financial resources. These barriers often cause many promising female-led ventures to stall or fail before reaching their full potential.
At Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI), we are guided by our shared impact philosophy to resolve these barriers through facilitating broad cross-sector collaboration in our mission to uplift under-resourced entrepreneurs.
On 3 October 2025, we joined forces with Goldman Sachs to host the fourth edition of the collaborative Business Clinic for Women Entrepreneurs. The business clinic, an FSI Impact Jam held at Goldman Sachs’s office and attended by Goldman Sachs’s Community TeamWorks (CTW) volunteers, brought together 16 CTW volunteers for an afternoon of problem-solving and strategic guidance for the four women entrepreneurs from FSI’s community, including one mentee entrepreneur from our 2022-23 Mentorship Program for Ethnically Diverse Entrepreneurs and three from the 2025-26 cohort.
Impact-driven Women Entrepreneurs and Their Respective Challenges
The four women entrepreneurs attending the business clinic were:
- Aiman Nadeem, Co-founder of the Foundation for Youth Development (FYD), sought advice on refining FYD’s pitch deck following its transition from the student-led Project Empowerment (PEME), as well as guidance on pricing strategies for school workshops.
- Latha Chandrakant, Founder of Minmini Early Learning Solutions in India, aimed to strengthen her product pitch for Hong Kong parents and explore pricing models for a new play-based learning kit.
- Helena Cho, Founder of Chomade, wanted to create a straightforward system for tracking expenses and revenue, as well as to develop concise pitches suitable for networking events and pop-up markets.
- Rabia Aslam, a medical AI engineer and aspiring social entrepreneur, focused on identifying funding opportunities and refining the business model for her gamified STEM education platform.
FSI Business Clinic: Synergizing Employee Engagement with Women Entrepreneur Empowerment
Following their self-introduction, the four women entrepreneurs were each matched with Goldman Sachs volunteers in four different breakout sessions. To the challenges and perspectives shared by the entrepreneurs, volunteers drew upon their respective expertise in business modeling, marketing, financial planning, and sales to help the entrepreneurs strengthen their projects and explore new directions.
As one Goldman Sachs volunteer, Prasoon Agarwal, reflected, “It was inspiring to see the energy and ideas of entrepreneurs and their drive to have a social impact.” Another participants noted that “it was a great opportunity to hear from and share ideas with entrepreneurs, and “to be part of the initial business proposition brainstorming and shape it into a service delivery”.
For the entrepreneurs, the business clinic provided clarity and actionable next steps. Said Latha Chandrakant: “I now have more clarity on how to enhance product appeal.” Likewise, Rabia Aslam shared that she left the session with the knowledge of concrete strategic objectives, including “multiple funding opportunities, network building, reaching out, and marketing”, as well as a newfound confidence to transform the objectives into actions.
Following the business clinic, Latha, Helena, and Rabia – three mentee entrepreneurs of the 2025-26 Mentorship Program – will continue to receive support from FSI’s Community Business Support Team as they implement their next steps and translate insights from the clinic into action.
However, FSI’s shared impact philosophy means that past participants of our Mentorship Program, like Aiman, as well as the connections brought to us by our community members, can also benefit from our bespoke direct business support. This type of support is usually offered through another mutually beneficial engagement – our Community Business Internship Program, where underprivileged youth are trained to provide under-resourced entrepreneurs with business support while being equipped with human skills and transferable workplace skills themselves.
At FSI, we are once again delighted to witness the fruits of broad cross-sector collaboration. We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our long-time corporate partner, Goldman Sachs, and we look forward to seeing the growth of the participating women entrepreneurs. The business clinic’s success was also due to the support of FSI’s Impact Lab interns, Alejandro Abuín-Siret and Sarita Chan.
Work with FSI to Achieve ESG or CSR Goals
If you are interested in participating in our mutually beneficial Impact Jams, whether it is to kick-start your personal social impact journey, engage and develop your talents, or achieve your corporate ESG and CSR goals, FSI’s Impact Jams are customizable, impactful engagements conducive to creating lasting shared impact. Get in touch with us at communityconnections@shared-impact.com to learn more!
*The blog post was written by Alejandro Abuín-Siret, Community Connections intern at the Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI) during the Fall 2025 semester of the Impact Lab Course.
