“I have personally experienced the challenges of being a women entrepreneur,” says lawyer Rachel Eng, who serves as the chairperson of the Singapore Women Entrepreneurs Network. Here, she details why there was a need to set up the initiative and how it works to support female entrepreneurs, especially those in the Asia-Pacific region
As a corporate lawyer with close to 30 years of experience, Rachel Eng has met many entrepreneurs—both male and female—as well as business leaders across various industries. “Over the years, as a mergers and acquisition (M&A) and capital markets lawyer, I have interacted with entrepreneurs from the start-up space to publicly listed companies,” she shares. “Such extensive exposure has helped me understand the business and personal challenges faced by entrepreneurs.”
Eng is also no stranger to the hoops that many women have to jump through in traditionally male-dominated environments. These struggles have never set her back, however. She steadily rose through the ranks, making headlines as the first female to be appointed managing partner, and later deputy chairman, of one of Singapore’s Big Four law firms, WongPartnership LLP.
In 2018, she left the law firm for her current role; Eng is the founder and managing director of Eng and Co. LLC, a Singapore law firm that’s part of the network of member firms of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited (PWC).
Years deep into a career where she continues to make history, her past experiences has aided her greatly in her current role as the executive committee’s chairperson of the Singapore Women Entrepreneurs Network (SG-WEN), she reveals. “Having managed law firms, and in recent years, founded my law firm Eng and Co. LLC, I have personally experienced the challenges of being a women entrepreneur, allowing me to relate to the challenges faced by our SG-WEN members.”
Don't miss: 9 to 5: Why This Doctor Quit Her Job to Start Her Own Functional Medicine Practice in Singapore
Launched by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF), SG-WEN was established in late 2021 with an “aim to coalesce the women entrepreneurs in Singapore and connect them with other women entrepreneurs, business leaders and trade associations in the Asia-Pacific, in particular the ASEAN member states”.
I ask Eng why she saw the need to establish SG-WEN, and her reply is firm. Women in Singapore make up 44 per cent of the nation’s workforce, but only a quarter of business owners are women, according to the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs.
“This disproportionate statistic runs contrary to the fact that the women workforce in Singapore is a highly educated one,” says Eng. “No doubt there are a number of existing entrepreneur associations in Singapore, but they are typically dominated by male entrepreneurs at both the executive committee as well as the members levels.” She felt that there was a gap “which may be served by a network like SG-WEN where we could advocate not just for women leaders in general but more importantly, for women entrepreneurs and the unique challenges they face”.
In case you missed it: How to Give Back Differently to the Next Generation
