Beth Brooke, an EY global board member and Global Vice-chair of Public Policy, visited Auckland last month to launch EWW in New Zealand.
She says women entrepreneurs become stuck in "the middle" of their development for the same reasons women in the corporate world hit the so-called glass ceiling: lack of visibility, and no access to networks and the inner sanctum of the business world. A lack of role models, mentoring and opportunities to hone business skills all play their part.
That's in spite of the fact that women tend to start businesses at a higher rate than men and, initially at least, grow them faster.
EWW aims to redress the balance.
The programme isn't aimed at start-ups. "We're not looking for micro-entrepreneurs," Brooke says. "We want women who have a real business that has plateaued and that we can scale up."
EWW operates alongside EY's global Entrepreneur Of The Year (EOY) awards but is not part of EOY - a programme where women still struggle to make the finals in Monaco each June. Last year, of the 52 country winners who gathered in Monte Carlo, only two were women.
"They are not growing their businesses to the level where they are capable of qualifying," Brooke says.
As she sees it, entrepreneurship is the clearest path to progression for women in business and EWW is intended to provide a pipeline for EOY contenders.
The patron of EWW in New Zealand is Diane Foreman, owner of Emerald Group, a former New Zealand EOY country winner and a judge at the EOY world event three years ago. A successful and high-profile entrepreneur who says participation in the EOY programme changed her approach to business, Foreman believes women wanting to be "part of the conversation" must learn to put their hands up.
Currently they're frozen out of the boardroom by the old boys' network which, she says, is still alive and well in New Zealand.
Progress in boosting the number of female directors is glacial and the gene pool of those who manage to get appointed is shrinking.
It's all about letting the ladder down to help other women into these top positions, but the problem is that too few of them are actually on the ladder, Foreman says.
EWW is about giving women the tools they need to get there - tools like preparing and writing good business plans, learning how to interact with the bank manager and thinking bigger about their businesses. Also important is learning to speak the language of business and the ability to discuss their company's "numbers".
Too many female entrepreneurs can speak about their passion for their product and their brand but can't tell the story around their bottom line, Foreman says.
EWW has worked particularly well in the United States, where revenues for programme participants' companies have grown almost 50 per cent each year on average for the past five years, creating jobs at an average rate of more than 25 per cent annually, according to a survey done by Babson College.
But while women own about 40 per cent of US businesses, only about 5 per cent of all equity capital investments go to businesses headed by women and just 3 per cent receive venture capital funding.
Women also tend to use more of their own money to start their companies, rather than seeking outside financing.
According to Babson's research, if women entrepreneurs started with the same capital as men, they would add six million jobs to the US economy in five years.
Women are the world's largest emerging market and by 2028 will control 75 per cent of the world's consumer spending.
• For more information about EWW and the nomination process, please contact EY tax partner Jo Doolan.
