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We proudly reveal ”Foundation 500” – an all-female list of 500 business leaders

500 outstanding business leaders growing their companies in the harshest of startup environments. No, we’re not talking about Silicon Valley. With Foundation 500 – a list of successful female business leaders from emerging markets – the non-profit H&M Foundation and humanitarian agency CARE wanted to challenge stereotypes and re-define what a business leader looks like. Why? It can help reduce poverty and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals on Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality.

Two women featured in the Foundation 500 campaign.

Foundation 500 is a list referencing to the famous Fortune 500 list by Fortune Magazine. But the Foundation 500 reveals a different story.

By presenting power portraits and stories of women entrepreneurs from emerging markets in the same manner business magazines usually portray male business leaders, H&M Foundation’s and CARE’s message is that empowering women is one of the most effective ways to break the cycle of poverty and create economic growth. Entire economies lose out when a substantial part of the population can’t realize its full potential.

“The entrepreneur is the hero of our time. But, you can’t be what you can’t see.”

Diana Amini, Global Manager at H&M Foundation

“The entrepreneur is the hero of our time, and it is estimated that over the coming years over 1 billion women will enter the workforce – a majority through entrepreneurship. But, you can’t be what you can’t see. Women rarely make the covers of business magazines, in fact the last time a woman was on the cover of Fortune Magazine was October 2014. With the Foundation 500 list we wanted to re-define what a business leader looks like,” says Diana Amini, Global Manager at H&M Foundation.

The Foundation 500 list includes the owner of West Ivory Coast’s first bus company, a CEO from Indonesia growing her business by the means of Facebook and the President of a Peruvian Trout Farmers Association. The global public and media can explore and share the stories, images and behind the scenes material at foundation500.com.

The backbone of the Foundation 500 is the learnings from the Global Program on Equality initiated by H&M Foundation and CARE in 2014. The women on the Foundation 500 list are part of this program, which in its first phase has reached over 100,000 women in Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Guatemala, Indonesia, Jordan, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Yemen and Zambia. In Burundi, the average rate of increase in income among women in the program was 202.8%, the lowest being 104% and the highest 401%. Due to the success, a renewed three-year commitment is made.

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