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From Aspiration to Achievement for Women Entrepreneurs Worldwide: The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
For the rest of October, we will spotlight entrepreneurs and the people helping them turn ideas into opportunity. We begin with Cherie Blair CBE KC (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and King's Counsel), lawyer and founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, whose commitment to education and financial independence began with the strong women who raised her in Liverpool.
Tell us about your personal journey.
I grew up in Liverpool in a family of strong women. My father left when I was very young, and my mother and grandmother brought up my sister and me with a very clear message: education mattered, financial independence mattered, and being a woman was no reason to lower your ambitions.
My childhood role model was Rose Heilbron, England's first woman KC and then judge - an example of what a fellow Liverpool girl could achieve in the law. I knew that if she could do it, then perhaps I could too.
I graduated with a First (similar to a 4.0 GPA in the US) from the London School of Economics and came top of my year. I entered the law at a time when it was overwhelmingly male and upper-middle-class. One textbook I encountered during my training even suggested that women were better suited to being solicitors because a woman's voice was not strong enough to command a courtroom (solicitors don't argue in court only barristers do)
That experience taught me something I have carried with me ever since: talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. Giving women the means to make their own choices - to earn, to build, and to lead - is fundamental to equality.
What pivotal experiences shaped your current path?
My legal career taught me a great deal about rights, equality and the barriers women face. But travelling around the world while my husband was Prime Minister gave me another perspective. I met extraordinary women who were already doing everything they could to build businesses, support their families and create opportunities in their communities.
What they lacked wasn't ambition or ability. Too often it was access - to finance, technology, markets, networks and training. That was the real impetus for establishing the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women in 2008. I wanted to move beyond talking about women's potential and help give women the practical tools to realize it - to start, sustain and grow successful businesses on their own terms.
What are the most valuable lessons you've learned through your work?
The biggest lesson is never to underestimate women. Women entrepreneurs don't need us to tell them what their ambitions should be. They know. Our job is to help remove the barriers that stop them getting there.
I've also learned that access matters enormously. Give a woman the right knowledge, finance, technology and networks at the right moment and the effect can be transformational - not only for her, but for her employees, her family and her wider community.
And none of us achieves change alone. Partnership - between women themselves, business, government, philanthropy and local organisations - is how you turn individual success into systemic change.
What drives your desire to contribute and make a difference?
Impatience, probably! I have spent my career believing that equality doesn't happen simply because we agree it is desirable. You have to create the conditions that make it possible.
I also believe passionately that women's economic equality isn't a niche women's issue. At a time when countries everywhere are searching for growth, we are still failing to make full use of the talent, ideas and enterprise of half the world's population. That makes no economic sense and it certainly makes no moral sense.
I have nine grandchildren. I don't want my granddaughters - or my grandsons - to inherit a world in which we are still explaining why women deserve an equal chance.
What are your highest hopes for democracy to unite, uplift, and inspire?
Democracy depends on people believing they have a stake in society and a voice in shaping it. That becomes much harder when people feel excluded economically as well as politically.
Women's economic empowerment matters here. A woman who has the means to make choices for herself, who builds a business, employs others, and participates in her community has greater agency - not just economically but socially and politically.
My hope is that our democracies become better at widening opportunity rather than simply promising it. Hope matters, but hope is not enough. We need to give people the tools and opportunities to turn hope into reality, so they can see a route from aspiration to achievement. That is how we build confidence, participation, and ultimately stronger democracies.
How can GlobalMindED support leaders like yourself?
GlobalMindED brings together precisely the sort of people who can help turn ambition into scale. I would love its community to help us connect with businesses, investors, philanthropists and governments who share our belief in women's enterprise and can help us bring our programs to many more women in low- and middle-income countries.
But I would also encourage everyone in the GlobalMindED community to ask a broader question: what can I do, through my own organization, capital, networks or influence, to remove the barriers facing women entrepreneurs? If everyone in this network asked that question - and acted on the answer - the collective impact could be enormous.
Connect with Cherie Blair:
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