Start-ups: a driving force for growth & competition in Germany

In the spotlight: Some promising women entrepreneurs from Germany

What is the role of women in business in Germany? They are entrepreneurs, founders, specialists, women in leadership positions and so on. Women are crucial to the economy across the globe, and they make a significant contribution to the German economy too.

The former Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Brigitte Zypries, created the awe-inspiring slogan -“Strong Women, Strong Economy” during her stint and supported several initiatives to strengthen female entrepreneurship.

The German government has started supporting ‘female entrepreneurship’ as a significant way to raise the bar of entrepreneurship. Most relevant support policies concentrate on extending and stabilizing the financial base of new women‐owned businesses.

The government has launched a number of initiatives to promote and encourage women’s entrepreneurship. Initiatives such as the portraits of female entrepreneurs in the programme “FRAUEN unternehmen”, the portrait gallery on the webpage of the bga (bgaGründerinnen-Galerie) and the “Digital Gründerinnen” videos, supported by the Advisory Board on Digital Economy of the BMWi (BJDW) are all promoting modern female role models and diversity of women’s entrepreneurship.

Germany is one of Europe’s most attractive countries for foreign investment. Its central location, easy access to other EU markets, solid infrastructure and highly qualified workforce contribute to make it an attractive investment destination. It is one of the largest and most stable trade economies in the world, with a stable, well-developed political and economic structure. Germany is also likely to maintain its significant influence within the Eurozone and serve as a regional stabilizing force.

Here’s presenting some promising women entrepreneurs in Germany.

Iris Braun is the founder of Share, which is a social consumer goods company. And they follow a really noble practice – for every Share product sold in a supermarket, the company donates an equivalent product to people in need. They have helped over a million people in social projects and she strongly believes that the lack of diversity in the start-up scenario reduces the chances of finding new approaches, new responses and more creative ways to solve existing problems. She opines that the only way to “arrive at the best solutions” is by working together.

> Maria Sievert, Founder, Inveox

Cancer in a global problem and in Germany alone, many cancer patients are misdiagnosed or wrongly treated each year, due to incorrect lab results. Maria Sievert identified the shortcomings in cancer diagnostics and her aim was to resolve them with her start-up Inveox. Laboratory processes had been carried out almost entirely by hand – from the recording of data to the handwritten compilation of patient information, and her company forged ahead to ‘automating’ pathology labs. The idea was to prevent mistakes being made in cancer diagnosis, eg due to data getting mixed up or samples being lost or contaminated.

> Nina Wöss, Co- founder, Female Founders

The main idea behind “Female Founders” is – women at the top help women to get to the top. Nina Wöss is one of the founders of this European network that – connects, promotes and trains women in the areas of digitization and entrepreneurship. “Female Founders” is one of Europe’s most relevant and fastest-growing organizations for female founders and entrepreneurs.

She is of the opinion that the world we live in is facing many challenges, that leads to the thought that a change is needed in business and society – a change that can be brought about by creative and innovative individuals. She was a finalist in the “Digital Female Leader Award 2021”. She firmly believes that it is time now – to take advantage of the untapped creativity, passion and economic potential offered by women.

> JaninaKugel, Consultant, Supervisory board member & Author

Today, JaninaKugel is one of the leading female voices in the German business scene. Prior to this, she served as Siemens’ HR director. Currently, her work covers many roles as consultant, supervisory board member and author. Most prominently, in her book “It’s Now” – she makes a strong appeal for the courage to initiate change, to relax rules and to re-think traditions. She believes that women and girls can achieve anything if they are only given the chance ( and if barriers to gender equality are removed). And that’s exactly her plan of action.

> Sarah Grohé, Co-founder, ErlichTextil

Sustainability is experiencing a real boom, as “ErlichTextil” founders Sarah Grohé and Benjamin Sadler are well aware. The objective of setting up ErlichTextil was to really shake up the textiles industry and drive a positive transformation, in an ecological and ethical sense. This textiles company operates in Europe and focuses in its supply chain on both sustainable materials and good working conditions. Strangely, it is seen that in the textiles industry space the weakest members of society often suffer the most – a fact that she feels strongly, and these members turn out to be women.

ErlichTextil has therefore taken on the task – “of highlighting where problems exist and sharing this knowledge”.

Source: https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/empowering-women-in-business-
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