Empower Women Entrepreneurs: What Our Clients Teach Us
This International Women's Day, read what women farmers and entrepreneurs around the world have taught TechnoServe staff about resilience, leadership, and community.
International Women’s Day: Listening to Women First
At TechnoServe, we work alongside women farmers and entrepreneurs around the world. They are hardworking, determined individuals who show up every day under enormous pressure: managing their farms and businesses while caring for their families, often without land ownership, capital, or recognition. They face real and persistent barriers to economic opportunity, yet they persevere.
While they come to TechnoServe to learn the technical and business skills to grow their enterprises, TechnoServe staff often find themselves learning just as much from the clients they serve.
This International Women’s Day, we are flipping the script, asking TechnoServe staff what our women clients have taught them, rather than the other way around. These are lessons in resilience, leadership, community, and determination. We hope they inspire you as much as they have inspired us.
H2: What Women Entrepreneurs and Women Farmers Have Taught Us
Smriti Anand
India
Business Advisor, Greenr Sustainability Accelerator
“Working with women founders has been a masterclass in resilience, clarity, and quiet determination. Many are building purpose-driven businesses while navigating systemic barriers, constrained networks, and multiple responsibilities. What inspires me most is how they balance empathy with sharp execution and ambition. They’ve shown me that lasting impact is created not just through numbers, but through courage, community, and the discipline to keep moving forward.”
Lesly Moreno Salvador
Guatemala
Senior Business Advisor
“The adaptability of women producers always amazes me; I observe their great enthusiasm and how it has led them to generate new ideas and become excellent managers of their crops and their homes.
Through leadership workshops, I am moved to discover that these women still harbor the hope of realizing many of the dreams they had as girls. This inspires me deeply and motivates me to continue being an instrument that promotes the empowerment of more women farmers, encouraging them to persevere in the fight for their desires and to continue being the driving force behind the economic development of their families.”
Catherine Musangi
Kenya
Regional Program Director, Africa Coffee
“I have learned that given an opportunity, women can be as good as men or even better in leadership positions and also in managing farms. They just need to be empowered. Sometimes they need someone to bring out the best in them, especially women in rural areas like Ethiopia. They put in so much work on the coffee farms, but hardly ever earn from them or even associate themselves with ownership, mainly because they do not own the land. However, when we empower them through leadership training, we bring out the power within them, and they are able to look at things differently and take more ownership. It works best when both the woman and man are trained together on roles and responsibilities, and the benefits of collaborating and making decisions together.”
Jorge Monterroso Yanes
Guatemala
Senior Field Coordinator
“There is a story in each person. These women are not only in charge of their homes because their husbands have migrated to other countries, but they also take care of their coffee plots. It takes a lot of determination, courage, and willpower to take charge of the farms left to them by their husbands or inherited from their fathers or mothers, as they have to find people to work for them and therefore seek to learn how to manage the crop to know if this work is being done well or not. Between looking after their children, taking care of the home, and tending to the farms, they sacrifice a lot of themselves.”
Maria da Luz Quinhentos
Mozambique
Manager, Women and Youth
“Working with women farmers and entrepreneurs has taught me that women already play a critical role in farming systems, yet they face many barriers that go beyond technical farming skills. Often, women are not fully recognized and supported. Despite these barriers, women demonstrate innovation, resilience, and leadership when given the support and opportunity. Without the barriers, women are strong leaders in our communities. When we support women with farming skills and leadership skills, they become agents of change for entire households and communities. Women’s empowerment is individual success as well as transforming households and entire communities.”
Cristina Molina Hernandez
Guatemala
Senior Specialist, Women and Youth
“These are the personal lessons I have learned from my work with clients, mainly rural women who plant and harvest coffee and vegetables:
I’m struck by their ability to organize and stay connected with one another, even when there are long distances between homes. I deeply admire the trust they have built and the spaces they create to share the everyday worries and joys of life. These spaces feel very different from what many of us experience in a city.
When I visit groups of women, they are often gathered in the courtyard of one of their homes. It makes me realize how resilient and determined they are in the face of adversity. I greatly admire the way they take care of each other as women, as neighbors, and as communities. These are close, intimate relationships, very different from those that can be built in a city where you barely know your neighbors.”
Sione Simão
Mozambique
Field Coordinator
“I’ve learned that women in the community just need an opportunity, training, and support. I have a lead producer who, when I started working with her, didn’t know much and was using resources inefficiently, thinking she was doing the right thing. After training and electing her as a lead producer, she initially hesitated due to her husband’s disapproval. But after training, she was elected leader and now trains other women in the community. She’s increased her production area and productivity, and her farm is a model for others. Her husband is now proud of her, and she’s inspiring others.”
Megha Khairnar
India
Business Advisor, Greenr Sustainability Accelerator
“Working with women entrepreneurs across India has reshaped how I understand leadership. They have taught me grit, not the loud or performative kind, but the quiet persistence of showing up every day despite structural barriers, funding gaps, and social expectations.
They have shown me humility, the ability to listen deeply, pivot when needed, and build with community rather than ego.
They embody resilience as if it were a second skin, holding together business pressures and personal responsibilities, often without recognition. In traditional settings, they challenge societal norms, leading a quiet yet powerful revolution through their work and what they choose to build. They lead by example, demonstrating change through action rather than merely speaking about it.
Above all, they carry a genuine love for their work. Their enterprises are not vanity projects. They are extensions of their values. Their businesses reflect care for the planet, for their teams, and for their customers. Through them, I have learned that sustainable entrepreneurship is not only about carbon footprints or circular models. It is also about emotional endurance and moral conviction. It is about building something steady enough to withstand uncertainty.
Personally, building enterprises with these incredible women and carrying that responsibility forward effectively long term is work I consider both strategic and deeply meaningful.”
A Few Takeaways On How to Empower Women Entrepreneurs
TechnoServe’s work is built around this principle: that providing women with the right support unlocks potential that was always there, waiting for the right conditions to flourish. Access to training, opportunity, and resources is essential. So is community.
Inspired by Our Clients—and How You Can Help
Research consistently shows that when women earn income, they reinvest the vast majority of it in their households, improving nutrition, education, and health outcomes for the next generation. Investing in women’s economic empowerment is one of the most proven and powerful levers for reducing poverty worldwide.
At TechnoServe, we are committed to being a long-term partner in that work. From training women coffee farmers in sustainable agronomy practices to mentoring women-led businesses in some of the world’s fastest-growing markets, we address the barriers that hold women back and unlock the opportunities that help them move forward. We do this because we have seen what happens when women are supported and have the resources and trust to lead.This International Women’s Day, join us in championing women’s economic empowerment. Your support helps provide women with the training, resources, and opportunity to reach their full potential and to inspire the people around them to do the same. Donate today, and help us ensure that more women farmers and entrepreneurs have the chance to teach us all something new.
