Removing Barriers for Women Entrepreneurs Ft. Leila Serhan

This conversation is a little different, not just because I’m not in my usual studio, but because I’m sitting in the Visa office in Karachi with Leila Serhan, the Group Country Manager and Senior Vice President for the North Africa, Levant, and Pakistan region. We sat down to talk about She’s Next, a global Visa initiative that’s landing in Pakistan for the first time, designed to support women-led small businesses with funding, mentorship, and training. But honestly, we went somewhere much deeper. We talked about the quiet biases, the doors that stay shut, and why your small business is never just a small business. Leila and I come from different corners of this region, her from Lebanon, me from Pakistan, yet the themes were painfully familiar. This episode is about what it really takes to build something as a woman, and why we owe it to ourselves and the next generation to keep pushing.

It always starts with access

Leila shared something that stopped me in my tracks. “More than 2/3 of the women we survey say that they have to go to their own personal savings,” she told me. Now, every entrepreneur starts by bootstrapping, sure. But the problem is, for so many women, that’s where it ends. They never get the chance to access formal finance. And in Pakistan, the gap is stark. “It is much harder for women to open a bank account, to get access to credit from this bank, if she wants to do it on her own,” Leila explained. You read that and you think, but isn’t a bank account a basic thing? Yet so many women in our communities are told they need a father or husband to sign off, to be present, to endorse. If the goal is financial independence, how do you get there when the very first step asks for permission? The survey Leila’s team ran showed that over half the women said they wanted to be entrepreneurs for exactly that reason, to reach financial independence. And then the system says, not so fast.

The hobby comment

We laughed, but it stung. Leila described the kind of gender stereotyping that surfaces in everyday comments. “Oh, you have a hobby? That’s cute. Okay, fine, maybe you can do it. Use a little bit of your saving, don’t spend a lot of money on it because obviously probably you’re not going to make it or you’re not going to make money out of it.” I have heard versions of this my whole life. A woman’s business is often dismissed as a side project, a timepass, until it suddenly becomes sustenance. And that perception seeps into how seriously you’re taken. Leila noted that 86% of women surveyed in Pakistan said they face gender stereotyping. That is not a small number. It means almost every woman trying to build something has been told, quietly or loudly, that she doesn’t belong in the marketplace. And when you carry that doubt, it takes immense energy just to keep showing up.

More than the check

She’s Next isn’t just a grant competition. There is a financial prize, yes, around $10,000 for winners, but Leila was quick to say, “I don’t think the funding is the most important part. I think the important part is the training and mentorship that comes after this.” I felt that. You can have a brilliant idea and a bit of capital, but if no one shows you how to scale, how to market, how to set up digital payments, you will stay stuck. And digital payments, she pointed out, is a huge hurdle. “It’s actually a very big challenge for a small business to figure out digital payments. It’s such an intimidating procedure.” I nodded because I have been there. Even for someone with resources and exposure, setting up those systems felt like decoding a foreign language. For a woman operating from home with limited internet access, it can feel impossible. The year-long mentorship that comes with She’s Next helps with practical things: developing business plans, raising more funds, looking at revenue, marketing. That guidance is often what turns a struggling side hustle into a sustainable business.

The network effect

One of the most powerful ideas Leila talked about was the She’s Next club, a global network of women entrepreneurs who have been through the program. “This network effect specifically for women is extremely, extremely powerful. I’ve been helped so many times in my life, in my career by this network effect.” She mentioned a previous winner in Morocco, a young woman who aggregates handicrafts and sells them online, and how Visa helped connect her with global retailers and brought training to more women in remote villages. That kind of organic, woman-to-woman upliftment works. It’s not top-down charity. It’s a group of women who understand the same struggles and share the same language of hustle. And in Pakistan, where we have such a fragmented small business landscape, a club like that could be a lifeline. Knowing you’re not alone, having someone to call when you hit a wall, that matters enormously.

The fathers who said ‘be your own person’

We ended up in a conversation about how Leila became so passionate about empowerment, and she traced it back to her father. “My father used to always tell me you have to think about being your own person. You have to be financially independent.” I’ve heard this pattern over and over on my podcast. Whenever I ask a successful woman what gave her the push, so many point to a father who told her she must have her own money, her own identity. Leila’s father was a doctor but also a serial entrepreneur, so she grew up watching him build, sell, sometimes fail. That normalized risk. It told her that business was a playground, not a forbidden territory. And then she had a male boss early in her career who bet on her, moving her from pure finance into the business side. That mentor changed her path. These moments, a father’s words, a boss’s trust, shape a woman’s belief in what she can do. We need more men in our corners, not as gatekeepers but as enablers.

Our economies need us

Leila said, “You cannot build an economy based on half of the population.” It’s almost too obvious to say, but we live as if it’s not true. Women in Pakistan, like in Lebanon and Egypt and Morocco, face not just policy gaps but deeply ingrained cultural blocks. I told her the story I’d heard from someone who went to a government counter for a business task and the man at the desk asked, in all seriousness, “How do I know that you have your husband’s permission?” Not because the regulation required it, but because his personal culture did. When these moments happen, you either fight or you fold. And many women fold because the cost is too high. Leila was firm that the work She’s Next does is just a tiny part of what needs to change. The larger fight is in shifting regulations, in making bank accounts accessible without a male signature, in training the people at the counters to see a woman as a full human being capable of contract. And we as women also need to see ourselves that way. Financial independence isn’t just about GDP. It’s about escaping situations of domestic violence, about having a voice in your own home, about modeling for your daughters that they can be something beyond a dependent.

Small step, big ripple

I left this conversation feeling heavy and hopeful at once. Heavy because the barriers are real and relentless. Hopeful because programs like She’s Next are a crack in the wall, and because women like Leila, who lead regions across 17 markets, are normalizing our presence at the decision-making table. She said, “We owe it to our kids” to be productive, to contribute. And she’s right. My son is watching, your daughters are watching. Every time you fight to open that account, to pitch that idea, to ask for mentorship, you are laying down a path for someone younger. This isn’t a message to go apply for something right now. It’s a message to take yourself seriously. Your small business is not a hobby. Your financial independence is not a nice-to-have. It is the foundation on which everything else stands. Let’s keep pushing.