Cherie Blair: Unlocking Women’s Economic Empowerment through Technology
6 minute read
Here’s the hard truth: globally, women are 40% less likely than men to participate in the labour market – a gap most prevalent in low and middle-income countries. Taking on this mammoth challenge is human rights lawyer and campaigner for women’s equality Cherie Blair CBE KC. Her organisation, The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, is dedicated to eliminating barriers to entrepreneurship for women worldwide, empowering women in low and middle-income countries to start, sustain and grow successful businesses and to build fair and inclusive business environments. At Davos 2025, Blair spoke with Mia AI co-founder and CEO Janna Salokangas, exploring how emerging technologies and AI have the power to transform economic opportunities for women in the global workforce.
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JS: When you bring education to a woman, you educate a community. Could you share what the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women has achieved so far?
CB: Since we started in 2008, we have reached 300,000 women entrepreneurs in lower and middle-income countries across the world. We have lots of programmes supporting women to build on the skills that they already have: leadership, resilience, empathy. One of these is Mentoring Women in Business, which is very dear to my heart.
JS: Tell us more about this programme.
CB: We match mentors globally with women entrepreneurs who are growing businesses that are making a difference in their communities, connected through the internet. One of these women is Ellah Omezi, who runs an agriculture business in northern Nigeria, one of the more dangerous and impoverished parts of the country. Her business helps women farmers to process and sell their products worldwide through training and resources. She was paired with one of our PayPal mentors, Gwyneth, who supported Ellah with her plan to expand the business. She managed to penetrate a number of new international markets, increased profits by more than 50%, and is now supporting 1,500 women in lifting themselves out of poverty.
I remember Ellah saying: “There are so many people who are happy today, who have food on their table, who are able to send their children to school all because of this programme”. When we provide education to these women, we don’t just help one person; we help a family, we help a community, and we contribute to economic development. It’s a huge testament not only to the power of mentoring but also to technology and connectivity.
“There are so many people who are happy today, who have food on their table, who are able to send their children to school all because of this programme.”
Ellah Omezi
JS: How do you think AI technologies and education will level the playing field and enable more sustainable and scalable growth for women entrepreneurs?
CB: AI wasn’t on my horizon when I started the foundation, but I knew even then that digital tools were helping me as a small legal business owner while my husband was Prime Minister. I thought, if a fortunate woman can benefit from these tools, imagine what could happen if we put them in the hands of women who have capacity, foresight, the urge and resilience to use them to expand and grow – not as handouts, but as drivers of development.
JS: How many of these women entrepreneurs are using AI, and what are they using it for?
CB: We conducted a survey of nearly 3,000 women entrepreneurs in low to middle-income countries, in collaboration with World Bank and Intuit. We found that almost half of the women surveyed were already aware of AI and what it could mean for their business. However, 20% of the women hadn’t yet heard about AI’s possibilities.
“If a fortunate woman can benefit from these tools, imagine what could happen if we put them in the hands of women who have capacity, foresight, the urge and resilience to use them to expand and grow – not as handouts, but as drivers of development.”
Cherie Blair
We asked them what they were using AI for; many spoke about using it to improve their marketing: improving product descriptions, targeting the right customers – which enables them to sell better.
AI is also helping to assess these women’s creditworthiness in ways that haven’t been the case before, allowing women without formal credit histories to access that first vital bit of capital. We’ve also seen automated bookkeeping and expense tracking, providing affordable financial services.
JS: Let’s talk about confidence and leadership. Women face a lot of imposter syndrome, but confidence and leadership are essential for breaking barriers. How are you empowering women to be more confident to lead?
CB: Building confidence has always been very much at the heart of our programmes. The reality is that gender stereotypes worldwide tell women they’re unworthy, they can’t do it, that they don’t have the same skills or abilities as men.
We combine face-to-face training with digital learning in programmes like Road to Growth, Road to Finance, and we saw a particular need for Road to Leadership. We are also building confidence with our HerVenture app, which offers women entrepreneurs essential business training and support on the go. The app has supported 100,000 women around the world. We bring learning and skills to these women – enabling them to work out for themselves what’s best for their businesses. We’re not telling them how to do their businesses, but we are giving them the tools.
As we’ve been working with these women, we’ve come to understand that having the confidence to pitch yourself, your business, and to believe that people will want to do business with you is a crucial part of success.
This interview took place at the Finnish Flow Roundtables at Davos 2025. Finnish Flow coordinates the Finnish business community’s participation in the side events of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting held in Davos, Switzerland.
Header image taken during the Finnish Flow Roundtable with Cherie Blair and Janna Salokangas.
Inline image is of Cherie Blair and Bibi Mobarkhali in Guyana. Bibi has participated in the Road to Growth programme and Mentoring Women in Business programmes.
