Authors: Hilary Nichols, Anna Gincherman
Partners: Argidius Foundation, Dutch Good Growth Fund, and Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative.
Year: 2025
Women-owned and women-led businesses are a powerful part of emerging market economies, yet many still face barriers that limit their growth. This resource brings together two complementary pieces of work that tackle that challenge from both a strategic and practical angle: a segmentation framework that explains what drives the growth paths of women entrepreneurs, and a practitioner toolkit that helps organizations act on those insights.
The framework draws on extensive qualitative and quantitative research to move past traditional demographic segmentation and focus instead on the underlying motivations, constraints, and operating environments that shape how women run and grow their businesses. It highlights that women entrepreneurs are not a single, uniform group. Their goals, challenges, and opportunities differ widely, and understanding that variation is essential for designing programs and financial solutions that actually work.
Building on those insights, the toolkit provides a structured, step-by-step guide for financial institutions, investors, and business-support organizations. Using field research conducted in Uganda, Colombia, and Pakistan, it demonstrates how segmentation, market sizing, and product design can be turned into practical strategies. The toolkit offers methods, templates, and examples that help teams identify different profiles of women entrepreneurs, assess their needs, and design tailored financial and non-financial services.
Together, the framework and toolkit form a comprehensive package that helps organizations move from evidence to action. They provide a way to understand the diversity of women-led enterprises and the tools to build more responsive, commercially meaningful solutions. Whether the goal is to develop new products, strengthen support programs, or increase the flow of capital to women’s markets, this resource offers a practical pathway grounded in real market dynamics.
Developed through a collaboration between the Argidius Foundation, the Dutch Good Growth Fund, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, and ConsumerCentriX, the work reflects a shared commitment to advancing gender-inclusive economic growth. CCX contributed to the research, analysis, and co-authorship to ensure both the framework and toolkit are grounded in actionable insights and practical relevance.
