Democratising entrepreneurship for women around the world

Mandy Richards is a social entrepreneur who has dedicated her life to eradicating poverty and empowering people, especially women. Holding a Master of Human Rights Law, she is a leader, innovator and collaborator.

Mandy’s diverse career path over the past 20+ years has spanned the commercial and not-for-profit sectors where she has worked internationally on government business incubation programs in Botswana and New Zealand, as well as for high profile charities including the Hamlin Fistula Hospitals in Ethiopia and locally for the RSPCA.

She established Global Sisters to democratise entrepreneurship – with the goal of creating a scalable and efficient model for supporting women to create an income stream via self employment, when mainstream employment wasn’t accessible. 

Through creating her world-first initiative in 2016, Global Sisters has supported over 5,500 women and facilitated $7.6 million in pro-bono support from the corporate sector to emerging women-led micro businesses. Each of these women represent a new business, a new job created or a new pathway to employment and a real difference to Australian women’s economic participation and security – this is what creates systems change.

A country girl who spent her younger years growing up on a small farm outside Armidale, NSW before her family moved to Indonesia, Mandy now lives in Sydney. Mandy is this weeks change maker, read on for our fascinating recent interview with her!

Describe your career trajectory and how you got to your current position

I studied business at uni, but I had always intended on doing medicine. I got accepted into medicine, but at that time I was neck-deep in business and veered off in more of a human rights tangent, which has landed me here. My background is a mixture of charity work, economic development, innovation, business incubation and social enterprise. 

I was involved in some really interesting projects overseas, and I was always really passionate about working with women in the human rights space. I know the two main levers to make a difference in the world are employment and education, and employment and economic empowerment is something I am really passionate about. I combined all of my experience and knowledge and started working on Global Sisters about ten years ago.

Can you tell us a bit more about what Global Sisters is all about?

Global Sisters exists to make business possible for women, helping them overcome barriers so they can create and grow their own business and improve their economic future. 

For us, our overarching aims for Global Sisters are to impact four key areas. Those areas are: child poverty, women’s homelessness, women’s health and domestic violence. They’re all areas that are affected by income generation and financial independence – so we operate a two pronged approach. First, we help women to establish their businesses and achieve financial independence. The second stage is around systems change: tackling welfare reform relating to women’s self-employment, unlocking financial products and services for women to create an economic security pathway, and elevating women’s micro business so it gets the recognition it deserves. We also partner with corporates, businesses, and individuals who provide financial investment, pro bono support, coaching, market access, and connections to support the women grow and thrive.

Most importantly now it all comes wrapped up in this beautiful community of support, and for most of the women we support, that community is really important. A lot of them are isolated, and self employment can be a really lonely journey in itself. You need people around you for when it gets hard, but also to celebrate the wins and keep you moving forward. People that you can learn from and collaborate with. The community has evolved organically, but I think now it’s probably the most important piece. It certainly is the glue.

Take us through a typical day of work for you.

I don’t really have a typical day of work, every day is different. I first started working on Global Sisters a week before I had my son, and he’s turning eleven soon. It’s grown alongside my family, so as a working mum, everything for me has been around flexibility, efficiency and maximising my time. 

Every day varies. Efficiency is something that’s critical to Global Sisters, and it’s how we’ve operated successfully and how we’ve been able to achieve what we’ve achieved on a relatively small amount of money with a relatively small team. We’ve always had a focus on being efficient in everything we do, but also leveraging relationships (particularly corporate relationships) to provide the value that we can provide.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve encountered in your career, and how did you overcome it?

In my early 30’s I won Dragon’s Den – the one series that was aired on Australian TV. That would have been the biggest learning curve in my career: learning to trust my gut. Don’t think that just because someone is older or more wealthy or more experienced, that they know better than you do. 

If you could go back in time, what piece of advice would you give yourself as you first embarked on your career?

I once was told not to ever let a lack of money stop you from going after something. My family didn’t have money growing up, so mentally for me, money was a big barrier to get over. Don’t ever let money be a reason not to pursue something, or at least take the first step.

I never want to regret not having tried something – I’d rather try something and fail than spend the rest of my life wondering.

Another piece of advice I received was around the importance of community. I’ve learnt that surrounding yourself with people smarter or more experienced and who  complement your skill set is critical. 

How do you unwind after work?

The mum/work juggle definitely makes this a struggle, but I’m a water baby at heart so for me, unwinding is about being near the water. I take time to swim, walk on the beach, kayak or snorkel whenever I can. I have a free diving adventure coming up soon which I can not wait for.

What was the last thing you watched, read or listened to?

I love listening to the Rich Roll podcast – I’m so interested in health, so everything he talks about is really fascinating to me.