Is there progress today in women’s entrepreneurship? Does a woman evolve more easily when she has financial support from her partner? What is the role of men in this context and how can we prevent the overstretched rope between career and personal life from snapping?
Parapolitika.gr reached out to Lina Tsaltambasi, president of the Hellenic Association of Women Entrepreneurs (HAWE), to clarify these questions and position the female entrepreneur in today’s world. The occasion was the global congress for women’s entrepreneurship “Femmes Chefs d’Entreprises Mondiales World Congress 2025,” which took place on November 4-5 in Athens with more than 800 delegates and women entrepreneurs from 72 countries, hosted by her organization.
The congress is characterized as “the event of the year,” as FCEM is one of the most important international women’s entrepreneurship organizations, with a presence in more than 120 countries and members exceeding 5 million women entrepreneurs worldwide.
After all, as she says, it’s not just a meeting of women entrepreneurs, it’s an action of significant developments around strengthening women’s entrepreneurship.
Mrs. Tsaltambasi, how do you see the progress of women’s entrepreneurship in the last five years and what are the trends that will shape it from now on?
In the last five years in our country, there has been mainly a qualitative change in women’s business activities. The new generations of women emerge more daring, more communicative, more extroverted and more assertive. They touch many different sectors that were traditionally male-dominated. Smart agriculture, IT solutions, startups in medical research topics and generally sectors that were off-limits for the average woman. Although we would like a greater quantitative increase of women in business, the qualitative characteristics I mentioned give us courage and positive attitude for the future.
Having significant experience from foreign markets, what do you believe is missing today from women’s business activities and who bears the greatest responsibility for this?
Look, to say that it’s only the state’s responsibility would be limiting. And that’s because we see foreign countries that, although they support women in general, their entrepreneurship indicators have not equalized. It’s a pan-European phenomenon for women to lag behind in business, and this is due to stereotypical perception. In the perception of older women that it’s not our place there. It’s also due to our own mentality that women are not accepted (which is largely true). I believe that new girls, clearly, don’t compromise and they do very well. They claim their space in the economy, and this is based on some other women of my generation and older who opened the way.
Unfortunately, however, where personal and social responsibility ends, state responsibility begins. How is a woman supported in her demonstrably multiple roles? We’re in a country where even all-day schools are under question of operation every year. So talking about other support infrastructures for women and families in general seems a bit utopian.
You’ve given us a foundation to approach the golden section for the unsolved “puzzle” of career – family / society. Has a solution been found? You as president of HAWE and after a continuous effort of actions and interventions by the association, do you believe that we have truly moved into an era of substantial change in women’s position through entrepreneurship – not only in numbers but also in social culture?
Unfortunately, what you call a puzzle is essentially an unsolved problem still. Each woman creates her own puzzle of solutions and without the participation of people around her, she can hardly make it.
The luckier ones have partners with empathy and that’s ideal. The others seek and create a support framework. We in the Association, what we could and offered to society was our own support framework through our Ecosystem and through WEHub – the first Women’s Empowerment and Entrepreneurship hub based in Thessaloniki. We see how women interact and support each other through the Hub and we realize how important this is.
Therefore, does women’s evolution often depend on whether there is financial security at home? Do you believe that a woman can achieve success in the business sector if she doesn’t have financial freedom? And what role does the man play in this?
First of all, financial freedom is a serious antidote to both domestic violence and several pathologies. When you stand on your own feet financially, you handle everything differently. I don’t think it’s a matter of men, but of the women themselves and their financial literacy. We must educate our children, boys and girls, about the importance of financial independence, autonomy and resource management. Only then will they not be vulnerable to difficulties, but also to the challenges of easy money. It pains me deeply to see young girls who want to become influencers and boys who want to become youtubers only for easy money.
Until today, women have been claiming their place in a male-dominated business environment. Now, with the explosion of artificial intelligence, do you consider that they enter an additional rival system that enhances inequality or is it a tremendous opportunity for their repositioning in society and business?
It’s generally acknowledged that AI can smooth out inequalities, not only at a gender level, but also in every other form of inequality and imbalance in market access. Generally, every new economic sector for me is a tremendous opportunity, as we all start from the same point.
What was the most subversive maneuver you had to make to deal with misogyny in the professional environment?
What are you making me remember… I’ve been in business for 22 years in a sector that at the entrepreneurship level (and executives) is fully male-dominated! I’ll prefer to remember something that was generally an amusing maneuver. When I started my company I was almost 28 years old. I would go to negotiate partnerships. Essentially, I would close them. When they asked to meet my “boss” – since in their logic such a young woman couldn’t lead a consulting company – I would humor them. I let them believe that my partner who was a gentleman over 50 years old and had a small percentage then in the company was the “boss.”
Do you believe that women of the new generation more aggressively define their social desires and professional goals?
Yes. Clearly! But what we mustn’t lose is balance. We don’t need to become aggressive with a defensive logic. Respect is earned, not demanded. Boundary-setting and maturity that we can do everything isn’t necessary. Nor do we need to prove ourselves because of our gender. The new girls have conquered this better than previous generations. After all, we would have failed as a society if we hadn’t evolved to this level.
What are the three golden rules you give to every woman who wants to actively enter business?
To know her subject well, to have studied it, to have researched it, to have worked on it. To have done good personal planning, because business requires endless hours and sacrifices. It should be a conscious choice, not what we call a necessity solution or a false enrichment illusion solution. We often see women who, because they are unemployed, decide to start a business (what is called necessity entrepreneurship) or think that business means prosperity. In the beginning it’s a question of whether you have viability. Prosperity comes after many sacrifices and struggle.
