Goldman Sachs’ education programme helped 2,400 Indian women entrepreneurs generate 28,000 cr revenue

The investment bank funded a business and management education for 2,400 women in India. Later, the beneficiaries of this programme were able to generate round 12,000 new jobs in past 18 months.

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The graduation program by Goldman Sachs was launched for the first time in the country in 2008. The same programme was relaunched in India in 2021. At that time, the bank claimed to have funded the business and management education of 10,000 women under ‘Women initiative’.

The data of generation of job and revenue was shared by the Indian School of Business which carried out a study among 2,400 women entrepreneurs who participated in Goldman Sachs women initiative.

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The study also found that these 10,000 women doubled their existing workforce, quadrupled their revenue, and increased their productivity by five times on an average within 18 months of graduating from the programme. The research also found that most of them expect to increase hiring and grow revenue.

Women entrepreneurs are still significantly under represented in India and face several challenges to access capital, said Sonjoy Chatterjee, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs India. He said there is still a lot needs to be done to unlock their true potential.

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Sonjoy also said that only 20 per cent of the domestic businesses are led by women and they constitute a meagre 3 per cent of the total industrial output.

The study conducted by the ISB analysed on how women entrepreneurs implemented their knowledge gained from the course in their business and how they took the advantage of emerging growing themes.

The themes included adoption of digital technology for innovation and efficiency, boosting exports, etc.

Since the launch of the women entrepreneurs opportunity facility in a global partnership with the International Finance Corporation, loans of worth $720 million were sanctioned to more than 38,000 women entrepreneurs through the programme as of December 2021.