Women balancing it all to find success on their own terms

Who runs the world? For the main part, it's still men.

However, a growing number of women are starting and leading businesses with the latest Australian Taxation Office figures showing around 45 per cent of Australia's small business operators are women, a number that continues to grow.

Small business and family enterprise ombudsman, Kate Carnell, says this is a significant increase on recent years however there is still a long way to go.

"Women are really good at starting up businesses and getting to the micro business stage but there is still an issue with growing past successful micro business to a successful small business and medium business," she says. "Access to capital is an issue."

It's harder for women to attract funding for their business and they're likely to have less money to fund it themselves as a result of the gender pay gap.

Ahead of International Women's Day on Friday, we've put together a panel comprising Carnell, Small Business Minister Michaelia Cash and Council of Small Business of Australia chief executive Peter Strong to nominate the most influential female entrepreneurs in Australia.

The theme of International Women's Day for 2019 is 'Balance for Better' and balance is something all these entrepreneurs find a challenge.

They stress that the journey for female entrepreneurs is often not easy, from being a single mum with four kids while running a business to the "rollercoaster" ups and downs of creating a technology company.

Here are Australia's nine most influential female entrepreneurs for 2019.

Mikaela Jade, founder and chief executive of Indigital

Mikaela Jade is a Cabrogal woman from Sydney and drew on this heritage to launch Indigital, a technology startup that uses innovative ways to tell indigenous stories including an augmented reality app that brings indigenous pictures and places to life.

"We have had a fantastic year securing a partnership with Microsoft and working with womens groups across Northern Australia," Jade says.

Indigital had revenue of over $100,000 last year and Jade says the startup is now "trading in the positive".

"We started really slowly and took a long time to develop our first minimum viable product. Our biggest challenge was waiting for the market to catch up with the tech work we were doing."

Biggest influences

"So many things. I think being able to work with Microsoft has being a huge influence on me.

"It has helped me see the possibilities for our people, it is not very often you get exposed to emerging technology like that."

Influencing others

"I have a vision of where our people can contribute to the development of technology. I think doing rather than talking about it is how I can influence the community to be bold and follow their aspirations."

Balance for better

"I got really sick at the end of last year and had a really big health scare and that helped me reassess my work life balance. I am trying to be kinder to myself as I do have high expectations, I need to pace myself better.

"Something that is coming on my radar is the balance between progress and caring for our planet and caring for country."

Canva chief executive and co-founder Melanie Perkins.Credit: Jessica Hromas

Melanie Perkins, co-founder and chief executive Canva

Melanie Perkins always had "bat shit crazy" dreams for her graphic design company Canva but even she says its growth has been "astronomical".

The startup has 'unicorn' status after being valued at $US1 billion and has been used more than 1 billion times to create graphics and designs around the world.

Canva reported a profit for the first time of $1.86 million after tax for the six months ending December 31, 2017 but Perkins and her co-founders say they are "only 1 per cent done".

Biggest influence

"I’ve been really lucky to have a lot of incredible influences in my life - my parents always encouraged me to pursue my random goals and dreams growing up, I have incredible co-founders who have helped to build Canva and now an incredible team who work hard every day building Canva."

"Lars Rasmussen, co-founder of Google Maps had a very significant impact on my life. I had never met someone who had worked on a product that had such a huge global impact, let alone met the inventor of it. Meeting him completely transformed what I believed was possible."

Influencing others

"As we’ve built Canva one of our goals was to create a company we’d love to work at, I think that philosophy has spilled into everything we do. We try not to have arbitrary rules and red tape that we wouldn’t want to abide by ourselves and we don’t expect people to do things that we wouldn’t want to do ourselves.

"We also attempt to give everyone internally as much context as possible and have spent a lot of time devising ways to share context as our company has grown to try to ensure that everyone has the best information to make the best decisions. It’s always a work-in-progress and we’re constantly having to reinvent these systems."

Balance for better

"It's really important to find a job that you love and you feel passionate about. Everyone is different and there are so many jobs and projects out there to explore. For me, the constant challenges, our amazing team and the wins we achieve at Canva make it my dream job. It’s definitely a rollercoaster, but I can’t imagine a job that would be a better fit for me."

Georgina McEncroe is the founder and chief executive of ride sharing company Shebah.Credit: Mathew Lynn

George McEncroe, chief executive and founder of Shebah

Demand for Shebah, a ride sharing service catering exclusively for women with women drivers, continues to surge and founder George McEncroe says the business has recorded growth of 190 per cent "with no marketing budget to speak of".

"We have done this on a shoe string, imagine if we could really go for it with the kind of dollars which have been behind the other players in this sector, what we could do, it would be amazing," she says.

Shebah turned over $1.8 million last year and McEncroe is now seeking equity crowdfunding to grow the business further.

Biggest influence

"My biggest influence has been the safety of my children and my daughter.  Being with her and watching the ogling, the yelling, the tooting even when I am standing next to her. She and her friends coined the term they would rather be 'feet on the street' than in a dude's car."

Influencing others

"I started this off as a driver so I think I have a very collaborative approach with my drivers...  managing a double-sided marketplace is hard. We have two customers on this app and we have to service both. How we look after our drivers and our passengers is really essential."

Balance for better

"For me it is about finding no. I think this is something all of us as women have to find, especially if you tend towards being an empathetic person. There are lots of different styles of leadership, you often read about leadership in masculine terminology. I'm a single mum who had four kids under five, I don't need to be lectured to about endurance. It's hard, you want to say yes to everyone."

Andrea Escalante Padilla is the co-founder of BBQ Buoys.

Andrea Escalante Padilla, co-founder BBQ Buoys

After spotting floating barbecues in Germany, Andrea Escalante Padilla and her husband thought a similar concept could start here. The couple started BBQ Buoys in 2016 with Escalante Padilla juggling the startup alongside fulltime work.

"It was a challenge as it is a very unique product and it took around a year for us to get it ready to launch," Escalante Padilla says.

The business is now in its third year of operation with turnover of just under $500,000 a year and Escalante Padilla's newest challenge is her six month old baby.

"It's survival mode," she laughs.

Biggest influence

"For me definitely it was my mother, she was a very strong woman, she was a single mother in a very conservative society in Mexico. She managed to raise me and found her own accounting company. I took her example and she always told me I can do whatever I want and she proved it to me."

Influencing others

"From living in Germany and now in Australia I influence other international woman to stand up and work for what they want to do. I want to show that the difficulties in language and culture are not a barrier but to see it as a challenge."

Balance for better

"Right now that I am experiencing what it is to be a mother and at the same time running our own business. It is hard work but I think with good support and keeping focused on your goals very clear in your mind is a way to achieve balance."

Nicole Buskiewicz, founder of Advoc8.Credit: Christopher Pearce

Nicole Buskiewicz, co-founder Advoc8

With a background in politics and government relations Nicole Buskiewicz spotted a gap in the market for advocacy technology "for people talking to government on a regular basis" three years ago.

"I had the idea and teamed up with a fantastic co-founder who is the tech brains behind the operation," she says. "It's been a really exciting journey."

Advoc8 has around six staff and counts Uber, AGL and Unicef as customers.

It turns over around $200,000 a year and Buskiewicz, who worked for the NSW Liberal government and then Caltex, says the business has been "pretty much" boot strapped and profitable since day one.

Biggest influence

"I've had two really amazing bosses along my journey working in politics and then government relations. I've really admired their ability to keep calm in the most hectic situations."

Influencing others

"I try to have a bit of an open door policy at work and just try to chat to people and network, we are part of the Sydney startup hub in York Street, it is a great environment to support each other and share advice."

Balance for better

"I think balance is important in life because more than likely you have competing demands between work life, social life and home life and balance between all these are important. International Womens Day is very much around gender equality and equal pay but I think having balance whether you are a woman or a man means you can perform better in all aspects of life."

Vera Yan and Kati Santilli, founders of Nimble Activewear.Credit: Simon Schluter

Vera Yan and Katia Santilli, founders Nimble Activewear

When best friends Vera Yan and Katia Santilli were at school together starting a business wasn't really promoted as a career option.

Times have changed and Yan says entrepreneurship is now "a very desirable career path", inspiring the two to start Nimble Activewear five years ago.

Selling online and through two stores in Sydney and Melbourne Nimble Activewear turned over more than $5 million last year.

"Sustainability is a big part of our brand, when we can use recycled material we do," Yan says. "The core range is made from post consumer recycled bottles, in the last 12 months have helped save 300,000 plastic bottles."

Biggest influence

"My biggest influence day to day is Katia and our team," says Yan. This is echoed by Santilli, who says: "We have known each other so long ... it is more than a business relationship for us we work really well together. I would not be able to do this without Vera and I hope she feels the same way as well."

Influencing others

"Empowerment especially in the female space is important to us," says Santilli. "It is not just about making clothes it is reaching out to your community and how you can empower each other to move your body and the charities you can partner with as well."

"As our brand grows we are really lucky to have these platforms like social media and emails and we think it is important to promote something beyond our brand," says Yan. "It is nice to start using that platform to promote things that are important to us."

Balance for better

"Balance is something everyone strives to do whether at the workplace or home, you just realise you can't be doing 100 per cent every time," says Santilli. "You need to plan things in like moving your body and being present in that moment.

"Balance is hard to achieve and what we have learned is sometimes you don't have balance and that is ok," says Yan. "Unfortunately there are not always times you can do your work, your exercise your social life and I think it is time to be ok with that."

Hyper Anna co-founder Natalie Nguyen. Credit: Louise Kennerley

Natalie Nguyen, co-founder and chief executive, Hyper Anna

Hyper Anna caught the attention of Australia's startup sector when it raised $17 million in 2017.

"Hyper Anna is an artificial intelligence powered data analyst and one of the metaphors we use a lot is that it is like Siri or Alexa for data," co-founder and chief executive Natalie Nguyen says.

"We raised the funds to expand beyond Australia and since then we have tripled our size in terms of headcount."

Hyper Anna now employs more than 60 staff in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore and The Age and Sydney Morning Herald estimate it turned over around $5 million last year.

Biggest influences

"Seeing my mum and my sister both work really hard to have careers that is what motivated me and inspired me. My mum is a doctor and my sister owns her own business."

Influencing others

"It’s about sharing my story with honesty and to help people to see that anything is possible."

Balance for better

"Balance is one of the hardest things to strive for but is really, really important in the long run. I strive to get balance by making sure I do yoga every day, some small things like that, having a good routine to look after my health and spending time with my family."

Annie O'Rourke is the founder of 89 Degrees East.

Annie O’Rourke, founder 89 Degrees East

Former political staffer Annie O'Rourke decided to make a big change to her life and do more of the things that she loved.

"I wanted to keep doing communications work but much more on the creative side," O'Rourke moved to just outside Byron Bay and started 89 Degrees East which she named after the compass point from her balcony to the Byron light house.

"The business has grown rapidly and we have offices in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney despite me having two children on the way through," O'Rourke says.

89 Degrees East employs around 18 staff and turns over more than $10 million a year.

Biggest influence

"I come from a family of four sisters and a brother and I am the youngest and my siblings are a constant source of inspiration and they are very dynamic and they work hard. I worked for a long time for [politician] Jenny Macklin ...  she really firmly believed in stakeholder engagement not just a nod to it."

Influencing others

"I employ very talented senior female staff and I love doing that and I love the environment that creates, they get a lot of support to be the best they can be. That’s how I encourage them to be brave and to be creative and to think differently because they already have the skills and the knowledge."

Balance for better

"I live in a regional town and even though I have to commute each fortnight, on a day to day basis I am five minute commute from the school run to my office. It makes day to day life running a business more balanced. Also I have a husband who does all the cooking."

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