Terri talks to Imène Maharzi about why she started OwnYourCash this year to educate and train 2000 new female business angels and get female founders greater access to capital for their startups.
Who is Imène Maharzi?
Imène Maharzi is a French based professional, who started working in the French Private Equity space 18 years ago. She started out her career as an auditor with Arthur Andersen, and then became an investment professional with Butler Capital Partners where she had the opportunity to explore several sectors, geographies, investment sizes and targets.
In 2013, she created Butterfly Partners, a company which invests time and money in start-ups and subject matter experts which demonstrate a social or environmental positive impact. In 2014-2015, she took over a majority stake in a school transportation company dedicated to exceptional children with autism, Down syndrome, etc.. As the CEO, she transformed a 15-year family business into a social business, with a resolution to trigger a positive social impact on both employees and beneficiaries, through a strong user-centric, quality-driven approach.
As she moved through her professional career, she noticed that there was a problem in getting access to capital for female founders that she saw resulted in a massive waste of both economic and social value. This led her to create OwnYourCash this year. OwnYourCash is an educational platform, both online and IRL, to train women (and men) to become Business Angels. By opening a conversation on biases, gender-lens investing and impact investing, OwnYourCash will contribute to smoother access to capital for projects co-founded by women.
With OwnYourCash, she is committed to training 2000 new female business angels by the year 2020. The mission of OwnYourCash is to foster economic independence for women leading to true male/female equality
Show Highlights
Imène shared her professional journey into private equity and ultimately starting her new company OwnYourCash to educate and train 2000 new female business angels by 2020.
Imène talks about social entrepreneurship in France…creating a social return and a financial return.
Imène shares the details on OwnYourCash and how the time is right to educate new business angels and create a new business angle network and how the change in the tax laws in France this year will be a positive thing for new business angels.
If Imène had a magic wand, she would make the ‘plain vanilla’ investing be impact investing with everyone going after economic return along with a social or environmental return.
Terri’s Key Takeaway
Investing is an information business.
References in the Podcast
Techstars Paris: https://www.techstars.com/programs/paris-program/
OwnYourCash: http://site-1317096-1533-8422.strikingly.com/
Arlan Hamilton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arlanhamilton/
Backstage Capital: https://backstagecapital.com/
Shannon Grant: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-grant-6164139/
Serendipity: https://www.guildserendipity.com/
Sephora Stands Accelerate: https://www.sephorastands.com/accelerate/
Nancy Hayes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyhayes2/
Maxie Koven: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxine-kozler-koven-7573633/
Shira Ronen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shira-ronen-590297/
Odile Roujol: https://www.linkedin.com/in/odileroujol/
Suzanne Andrews: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannemandrews/
Linnea Roberts: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linnea-roberts-10078570/
Kezia Wright: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kezia-wright-bb3755127/
Amaranthine Partners: https://amaranthine.vc/
Contact
Imène can be reached via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/im%C3%A8ne-maharzi-439294/.
You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium: https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.
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