Cherie Blair understands the importance of role models.
The human rights lawyer and wife of the former British prime minister Tony Blair was inspired to enter the legal profession by Rose Heilbron, who became the United Kingdom’s first female judge in 1956.
Now, Mrs Blair is seeking to inspire Middle Eastern entrepreneurs on the path to success.
Realising that a lack of roles models can prevent women from aspiring to certain roles traditionally taken by men, she set up the Cherie Blair Foundation (cherieblairfoundation.org) in 2008 to match online mentors – male and female – to businesswomen around the world.
And like her husband, who is currently Special Envoy to the Middle East, Mrs Blair has a keen interest in the region, which she has made a priority for her foundation. It operates in 12 Middle East countries, including Lebanon where it has supported 42 entrepreneurs in the north.
“As you can imagine, that group has faced real challenges arising from the political situation, but despite that, the project has seen businesses growing, and 49 new jobs have been created,” she says in an interview. The foundation is now expanding the project to support 200 Palestinian and Lebanese women and create more than 100 jobs in the local economies.
Mrs Blair was in Dubai last month at a conference hosted by her foundation to discuss the challenges holding back women entrepreneurs. The biggest is a lack of access to capital, she says.
“Without being able to borrow money, women simply can’t expand their businesses,” the barrister adds. “Women entrepreneurs often have unregistered businesses without a rigorous business plan, which banks won’t accept. And sometimes the amount of the loan required doesn’t fit the bank’s lending criteria, in that it’s too big for the micro-level and too small for banks to consider worth bothering with.
“The result is that the small and growing businesses run by women can fall between the cracks.”
She says banks in the UAE are beginning to recognise that “with such a rapidly growing economy, women can play a much more prominent role in driving economic growth”.
“The National Bank of Abu Dhabi, for example, is supporting women-led small and growing businesses, through a partnership with the Khalifa Fund, dispersing loans on a case-by-case basis.”
But female entrepreneurs are hindered, she says, by lack of access to markets, a shortfall in business management training and technology and the way businesses are still often run as old boys’ networks that also hinder women entrepreneurs.
“The Middle East is a region where, while increasing numbers of women are receiving a good standard of education, there is nevertheless a significant gender gap when it comes to economic equality.”
The foundation’s Enterprise Development Programme provides tailored business training, and helps make it easier for women entrepreneurs to gain access to capital and markets, she says.
Mrs Blair commends the UAE for its “very good record on educating women, with the best ranking for education out of 136 countries covered in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report”, but points out the Emirates still ranks at the opposite end of the scale – 122nd – in terms of economic opportunity for women.
“I can see that there is a lot of interest in changing this and that momentum is building in the movement for women’s economic empowerment.”
Mrs Blair is so passionate about her foundation because she believes that she would not have achieved all that she has, if it were not for important role models in her life.
From humble beginnings in Liverpool, she was the first in her family to go to university. As Rose Heilbron, who was also the first woman to become a King’s Counsel, later Queen’s Counsel (QC, as senior advocates are known in the UK), also hailed from Liverpool. This made the then Cherie Booth, believe that it could also be a possible career for her.
“I thought if one girl from Liverpool can make it in this world then this one can too,” Mrs Blair says.
Once she had started on her career path, Mrs Blair was helped by senior colleagues who offered advice and encouraged clients to push work her way, without which she would not have got as far as she did, she says.
Mrs Blair became a QC in 1995 before co-founding Matrix Chambers, from which she still practices as a barrister. She also sits as a recorder (part-time judge), and is an active campaigner on equality and rights issues.
Through the work of her foundation but also through her own example as a working mother-of-four, she hopes to inspire other women to aim for the top.
“If people can look at me and feel I can do it too, I feel very proud about that.”
business@thenational.ae
