What can our companies do to promote supplier diversity & women-led entrepreneurship?
Leverage core procurement methods to create guaranteed market access for women led enterprises. This could be accomplished via structured purchase agreements, supplier diversity targets, anchor-vendor models, and retail/distribution partnerships that provide predictable revenue streams to women-led MSMEs.
Provide technical and product development support tied to commercial outcomes. Offer hands-on assistance in quality standards, design, packaging, compliance, digital tools, and production techniques to help women-led firms meet industry specifications and scale sustainably.
Facilitate access to working capital, structured finance, equity participation, or profit-sharing mechanisms that strengthen business assets, improve creditworthiness, and support growth beyond initial contracts.
Select Examples:
Hindustan Unilever Limited
Sector: FMCG / Consumer Goods
Challenge Identified: Limited income-generation opportunities and market access for rural women entrepreneurs.
Intervention: Hindustan Unilever created a market-facing distribution model that recruits, trains and supplies rural women entrepreneurs (“Shakti Ammas”) to act as last-mile distributors for HUL products, providing them with product stock, bookkeeping training, digital ordering and ongoing coaching by HUL field staff. The model embeds women directly into HUL’s commercial value chain rather than treating them as beneficiaries of an NGO programme, giving women recurring revenue opportunities (small trading margins) and formal market access. Shakti Ammas report regular margins on product sales and HUL reports improved rural market penetration as a business outcome — illustrating a mutually reinforcing commercial and empowerment model.
Organisational Levers Used:
- Redesigning Unilever’s distribution model to support rural women entrepreneurs to create purchasable micro-franchises
- Skill development through business and financial training, digital skills, product stock and bookkeeping training, and digital ordering tools
- Dedicated sales promotion via the Shikhar e-retail app
- Dedicated rural sales promoter function
- Embedding ED&I across operations and value chain
Impact: 80% Participants saw a significant increase in household income within the first year of program commencement. Project Shakti has scaled to approximately 1.9 lakh Shakti “Ammas” across 18 Indian states.
More recently, HUL and Genpact launched Be.Seen, an accelerator program to scale minority- and underrepresented-owned businesses in India by integrating them into large consumer goods supply chains. The six-month pilot provided training, mentorship, masterclasses, and investor access to enterprises owned by women, persons with disabilities, SC/ST members, and transgender communities. The initiative aimed to advance supplier diversity, strengthen sustainable supply chains, support ESG goals, and help HUL progress toward its commitment of spending ₹2,000 crores annually with diverse businesses by 2025.
Source: Unilever. (2025). “How AI and digital tools are empowering women micro-entrepreneurs”. Hindustan Unilever Limited. (2023).
Also see: Summary on social and economic impact of Project Shakti.
Hindustan Unilever Limited. (2023, May 22). HUL and Genpact launch Be.Seen to scale minority-owned businesses in India.
More recently, HUL and Genpact launched Be.Seen, an accelerator program to scale minority- and underrepresented-owned businesses in India by integrating them into large consumer goods supply chains. The six-month pilot provided training, mentorship, masterclasses, and investor access to enterprises owned by women, persons with disabilities, SC/ST members, and transgender communities. The initiative aimed to advance supplier diversity, strengthen sustainable supply chains, support ESG goals, and help HUL progress toward its commitment of spending ₹2,000 crores annually with diverse businesses by 2025.
Source: Unilever. (2025). “How AI and digital tools are empowering women micro-entrepreneurs”. Hindustan Unilever Limited. (2023).
Also see: Summary on social and economic impact of Project Shakti.
Hindustan Unilever Limited. (2023, May 22). HUL and Genpact launch Be.Seen to scale minority-owned businesses in India.
Nestlé India
Sector: Food & Beverage / Dairy Supply Chain
Challenge Identified: Recognizing the crucial role played by women in dairy farming as the primary caretaker of cattle and a critical contributor to the quality and yield of milk.
Intervention: The Village Women Dairy Development Programme has been developed in the local language specifically designed for women dairy farmers and is imparted by an all-women training team from Nestlé. The aim is to empower village women engaged in dairy farming to improve the quality and productivity of milk.
Organisational Levers Used:
- Training in dairy practices, including feeding and breeding practices
- Animal care and treatment
- Sustainable agricultural practices
- Personal health, hygiene, water conservation and economic independence
- All-women training team
Impact: As of December 2018, over 70,400 village women have benefitted from the Village Women Dairy Development Programme.
Source: Nestle. Empowering Women
Source: Nestle. Empowering Women
The Coca-Cola Company
Sector: Consumer Goods / Beverages
Challenge Identified: Women entrepreneurs face barriers in business skills, access to capital, and mentoring networks.
Intervention: The Coca-Cola Company’s 5by20 initiative illustrates how a multinational corporation can integrate women’s economic empowerment into its core value chain strategy under a “Shared Value” model linking business growth with social impact. Recognising that women entrepreneurs face barriers in business skills, access to capital, and mentoring networks, Coca-Cola committed to economically empower 5 million women across its global value chain by 2020.
Organisational Levers Used:
- Manual/Micro Distribution Center (MDC) model in East Africa—where over 30% of distributors and retailers were women—the company scaled structured training, access to finance, supplier linkages, and peer-network support across retail, distribution, and agricultural producer segments.
- Supplier Training & Empowerment Program (STEP) provided women-owned enterprises with procurement readiness, financial literacy, and management training through digital learning platforms.
Impact:
- Flagship initiatives such as Project Nurture in Kenya and Uganda strengthened inclusive passion fruit and mango value chains, enabling nearly 16,000 women farmers and increasing participating women’s incomes by an average of 140% over four years.
- These coordinated corporate actions helped the programme surpass its original target of 5 million women, empowering over 6 million women entrepreneurs (in retail and agriculture producer segments of the value chain) in more than 100 countries, and supported 1.3 million women in a single year through training, finance access, and linkages to market opportunities.
L’Oréal Group
Sector: Beauty / Cosmetics / Consumer Goods
Challenge Identified: Limited access to predictable commercial opportunities and stable income for women-centred and marginalized suppliers.
Intervention: L’Oréal uses direct corporate procurement to create predictable commercial opportunities for women-centred suppliers. L’Oréal’s Inclusive Sourcing program uses the company’s procurement to create work and income for vulnerable groups, with an emphasis on women partners.
Organisational Levers Used:
- Opening tender processes to suppliers that employ marginalized workers
- Co-creating supply relationships for raw-material sourcing (e.g., shea, argan)
- Using purchasing volumes to stabilise incomes and transfer commercial skills
- Programme driven by L’Oréal’s purchasing teams and sourcing budgets rather than being solely philanthropic
- Integration of participating suppliers into beauty-industry supply chains
- Through its BOLD corporate venture fund, L’Oréal invests in disruptive startups across the beauty value chain, including brands, tech and biotech.
Impact as of 2024:
Also see: What is the Inclusive Sourcing Program
- 1,245 Projects across 69 Countries impacted
- 880+ Suppliers’ sites involved
- 39,840 Women gained access to work through women’s empowerment projects
- To date, around 40% of companies invested in by BOLD are female founded or co-founded
Also see: What is the Inclusive Sourcing Program
Fabindia
Sector: Retail / Handloom & Handicrafts
Challenge Identified: Limited market access, dependence on middlemen, and low value capture for artisan producer groups, including women-led small-scale enterprises.
Intervention: Fabindia’s long-standing retail model sources handcrafted goods from artisan producer groups, including women-led small-scale enterprises.
Through its subsidiary, Artisans Micro Finance Private Limited (AMFPL), the company established Community-Owned Companies (COCs) in which artisans hold equity, earn dividends, benefit from rising share values, and gain access to formal finance—reducing dependence on middlemen and increasing their share of product value.
Through its subsidiary, Artisans Micro Finance Private Limited (AMFPL), the company established Community-Owned Companies (COCs) in which artisans hold equity, earn dividends, benefit from rising share values, and gain access to formal finance—reducing dependence on middlemen and increasing their share of product value.
Organisational Levers Used:
- Establishment of Community-Owned Companies (COCs)
- Equity ownership for artisans
- Dividend distribution
- Access to formal finance
- Internal profit-sharing
- Store-level P&L accountability
- Performance-linked incentives
Impact: This inclusive ownership model has strengthened supply chains, generated profits (with most COCs declaring dividends), and fostered a strong sense of accountability, as 70% of staff became shareholders.
With women comprising 76% of executives and holding leadership roles across stores, the company integrates gender empowerment into its governance and growth strategy, showcasing how inclusive capitalism contributes to its value creation model.
Source: Talwar, R. (2013). A case study: Beyond profits — Fabindia: A new system of inclusive capitalism. Review of Professional Management, 11(1), 62
With women comprising 76% of executives and holding leadership roles across stores, the company integrates gender empowerment into its governance and growth strategy, showcasing how inclusive capitalism contributes to its value creation model.
Source: Talwar, R. (2013). A case study: Beyond profits — Fabindia: A new system of inclusive capitalism. Review of Professional Management, 11(1), 62
Goldman Sachs -10,000 Women
Sector: Financial Services / Entrepreneurship Development
Challenge Identified: Limited access to business and management education and access to capital for women entrepreneurs globally.
Intervention: Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women is a campaign to foster economic growth by providing women entrepreneurs around the world with a business and management education and access to capital. The initiative, which launched in 2008, has exceeded its initial 10,000 goal and reached women from across 56 countries through a network of 100 academic, nonprofit, and bank partners. In 2014 the program partnered with the World Bank IFC to create the first-ever loan facility with a target of enabling 100,000 women business owners to access capital around the world.
Organisational Levers Used:
- Business and management education for women entrepreneurs
- Access to capital through partnerships with financial institutions
- Partnership with IFC to create the Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility
- Global network of 100 academic, nonprofit, and bank partners
- Mobilization of capital for women entrepreneurs
Impact: By Year 2 after the launch of the loan facility, 25,000 women entrepreneurs in 16 emerging markets had been reached. As of 2026, $3B+ has been mobilized through the Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility. 320 thousand entrepreneurs have been supported across 150 countries around the world.
Source: Goldman Sachs. (n.d.). 10,000 Women.
Source: Goldman Sachs. (n.d.). 10,000 Women.
