Women-led Entrepreneurship, Disruption, and Innovation in East Asia

Authors

Syaru Shirley Lin

Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation

Biography

Syaru Shirley Lin is the founder and chair of the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation (CAPRI), Taiwan’s first independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank. She also conducts research and teaches at the University of Virginia and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Prof. Lin was the youngest woman partner as well as one of the first Asian partners of Goldman Sachs & Co., where she spearheaded the firm’s investments in technology startups and was a founding board member of Alibaba Group and SMIC. She also specialized in the privatization of state-owned enterprises in mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Prof. Lin’s present board service includes Langham Hospitality Investments, Goldman Sachs Asia Bank, TE Connectivity, MediaTek, and Focused Ultrasound Foundation. She graduated from Harvard College and earned her master’s and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Hong Kong.

Caroline Fried

Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation

Biography

Caroline Fried is director of research and a founding member of CAPRI, where she leads the organization’s interdisciplinary research agenda. She publishes on Taiwan’s electoral politics, Asia-Pacific health systems, cross-Strait economic relations, educational exchange, and US foreign policy toward Asia. Caroline was previously a professional academic editor. As a Fulbright fellow in Taiwan, she earned a master’s degree in Asia-Pacific studies at National Chengchi University. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University.

CAPRI’s founding: A women-led entrepreneurial undertaking in Asia

In 2022, CAPRI was founded with a mission to enhance global resilience and promote innovative policymaking through comparative research that draws from the Asia Pacific. This mission and the challenges CAPRI’s team encountered in establishing a new organization motivated CAPRI to research entrepreneurship, encompassing not only new and innovative business development but also the cultural and policy ecosystems in which people solve challenges. This also led CAPRI to cofound the Reimagining Entrepreneurship and Innovation conference with the University of Virginia and Copenhagen Business School.

CAPRI’s establishment and growth have been an entrepreneurial venture, creating a new type of think tank in the Asia-Pacific region. At the height of the COVID-19 crisis, Prof. Syaru Shirley Lin gathered a team to research the successes and lessons in public health and economic policy emerging from the pandemic. The team’s initial research revealed a demand for Asia-Pacific perspectives on the world’s most pressing challenges. Moreover, the team identified a gap in interdisciplinary and comparative research that connects experts, policymakers, industry, and civil society across borders in this region of the world. Lin, Fried, and the founding team analyzed the competitive landscape of policy research organizations in Asia, galvanized support among innovators in the private sector, and established CAPRI in 2022 as Taiwan’s first international independent think tank.

Female leadership has been central to CAPRI’s growth. Lin’s experience in women’s empowerment started in the private sector, where she cultivated women leaders at Goldman Sachs, mentored numerous women business leaders from boardrooms, and invested in women founders throughout Asia. For decades, she mentored students in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan and engaged in forums and networks to foster women’s entrepreneurship.^[i] This background informed CAPRI’s guiding values of integrity, inclusivity, and independence, as well as its goal of embedding gender inclusion and equity into its work. From navigating Taiwan’s complex regulatory environment to engaging diverse experts, industry leaders, and policymakers, CAPRI believes in the importance of women’s leadership for the future of an innovative and resilient Asia Pacific.

Women-led entrepreneurship, therefore, became a pillar of the trilateral Reimagining Entrepreneurship conference and a topic of CAPRI’s research. Especially in East Asia, the systemic challenges facing women entrepreneurs intersect with several areas of policy that are key to building more resilient societies. CAPRI has identified several policy gaps and potential approaches to make entrepreneurial ecosystems friendlier to women in East Asia.

Persisting challenges for women entrepreneurs in high-income East Asia

The entrepreneurial ecosystem in East Asia is difficult to navigate, especially for women founders. While few formal barriers limit women’s access to markets, education, finance, and political life, strong sociocultural norms make access to capital a challenge in this region. As governments strive to encourage women-led entrepreneurial activity, policies will need to shift from mentorship and dedicated funds for female founders to policies that can enable innovative disruption of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and open more opportunities for women, especially in the aging, high-income economies of East Asia.

Several women-founded startups have achieved unicorn status in the region, among the most famous being Southeast Asian giant Grab and Australia’s third tech unicorn Airwallex, as well as e-commerce companies Market Kurly in South Korea and Nykaa in India.^[ii] However, considerable cultural and systemic barriers remain for many of the region’s female entrepreneurs with ambitions for growth.

Indeed, private-sector leadership in the region is heavily male dominated, and for women entrepreneurs and business leaders, East Asian markets are more difficult than the more fragmented and emerging markets in Southeast Asia. Listed companies in East Asia are less likely to have a female CEO or chair than in Southeast Asian countries, particularly Vietnam and Indonesia. In addition, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines outperform East Asia in the proportion of board seats held by women.^[iii] The proportion of high-growth businesses led by women also tends to be higher in Southeast Asian markets.^[iv]

On the back of industrial policy and export-oriented manufacturing focused on efficiency, economies such as Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea have developed rapidly over the last half century while maintaining economic equality, enabling better access to educational and economic opportunities for women. Women now enter universities and the workforce with nearly equal opportunities; yet, the environment has not been conducive to retaining women in the workforce or promoting them into decision-making positions, let alone starting or managing businesses over time.^[v]

Cultural factors, such as patriarchal social traditions that result in few women in business leadership and poor access to male-centric funding networks, combine with policy environments to pose more challenges for women entrepreneurs in rapidly aging East Asia. Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan are among the fastest-aging societies in the world, with birth rates well below replacement, and nearly 20% of their populations now over 65 years old. Social welfare policy, health policy, and labor regulations were not designed for this demographic shift, creating environments in which women must balance entrepreneurial ambitions with strong cultural expectations to care for both children and aging relatives. In Taiwan, for example, long-term elder care is not covered by National Health Insurance. Therefore, the burden of elder care falls mainly on female relatives.

Without policy support to hire help or access subsidized long-term care, women entrepreneurs are unable to pursue high-growth opportunities with the single-minded determination that growing a business often requires. Moreover, as governments in these societies aim to boost both innovation and fertility rates, insufficient support for women who aim to build a family and a business could hamper progress toward both goals.

Women’s entrepreneurship in China

China is a unique East Asian market in which rapid economic growth has benefited women entrepreneurs, but political headwinds are now posing large challenges. China’s entrepreneurial ecosystem developed rapidly as the economy opened after 1978, providing an open field that jump-started domestic entrepreneurship and innovation. As the political and economic climate for startups matured in the West, the dream of self-made success became achievable for many young Chinese, including women. Coupled with intensive government investment in energy infrastructure, manufacturing supply chains, and industrial expertise, ambitious entrepreneurs have fueled China’s rise as a globally competitive technology leader.^[vi]

As China’s economy opened and business infrastructure developed, self-made women have shown that entrepreneurial skills and spirit can be learned regardless of gender. Women’s startup activity remains high in China. In 2023, women represented the majority of high-growth startups in China.^[vii] In 2025, 12 of the world’s 50 richest self-made women were Chinese.^[viii] Female venture capitalists have also been central to the rapid development of China’s technology sector. By 2016, approximately 17% of investing partners in China were female, and 80% of venture firms had at least one woman.^[ix]

However, China’s maturing entrepreneurial ecosystem is now increasingly constrained by social and political factors that disadvantage women. The technology venture capital space has developed into an increasingly male social cluster of political and financial leaders that is difficult to disrupt.^[x] China is also facing global geoeconomic headwinds: economic growth is slowing after four decades of rapid expansion, and US export and trade policy is squeezing China’s access to the most advanced technologies. Consequently, the Chinese government is extending its regulatory reach into the private sector to spur growth and innovation. Both men and women business owners face growing policy risks at home and abroad, with few legal protections if their ventures fail.^[xi] As state-owned enterprises overtake the economy and political backing becomes crucial for businesses to scale up, women entrepreneurs will need to navigate these male-dominated political power structures.^[xii]

Current approaches to and gaps in policy

The experiences of women entrepreneurs in East Asia show that a friendly policy environment is essential for success. Current policy tools to help women gain access to sustained financing, namely grants, loans, and training or mentorship programs, may need to be reassessed.

Data remain scarce on the impact and outcomes of such programs; nevertheless, their outputs indicate the wider challenges that women entrepreneurs face. South Korea’s Ministry of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Startups houses nine impact funds, of which the Women Venture Fund is the smallest at 100 billion won (US$76.5 million). In Taiwan, the Women Entrepreneurship Program offers small, low-interest loans of up to NT$1 million (US$33,300), but similar programs to support general entrepreneurship that is not female specific have considerably more funding. In Australia, the Boosting Female Founders Initiative issued AU$63.8 million (US$42.7 million) in grants to women-powered businesses across two funding rounds since 2024, but the program will end due to federal budget cuts.^[xiii]

Gender quotas have proven effective, especially in public-sector representation. For instance, women make up 41% of Taiwan’s legislators.^[xiv] Taiwan’s quota policy, in place since before the island’s democratization in the late 1980s, has gradually contributed to a culture and talent pipeline of Taiwanese women entering and winning elections.^[xv] However, such quotas have been less successful in building female leadership pipelines in the private sector, especially in finance. Gender quotas for board membership are being introduced for Taiwanese and South Korean public companies, but they may not incentivize companies to train or promote talented women for leadership.^[xvi] In many markets, firm leadership recruits from a small pool of established women or awards board seats to female family members.

Where can policy make a difference?

Public policy can help transfer the social values of inclusion and equity into markets, build a pipeline of women entrepreneurial talent, and encourage inclusive innovation. Rather than focusing on only supporting individual founders, policymakers can help effect shifts in cultures and reshape entrepreneurial ecosystems.

First, while gender-inclusive government policy is difficult to enforce in the private sector, governments can promote inclusion by using market-oriented state mechanisms, such as through the governance of state-owned enterprises. Singapore, for example, boasts one of the world’s highest proportions of companies with female CEOs, many of whom run state-owned enterprises.^[xvii] Sovereign wealth funds can institute and enforce social values through their investments because they are accountable to the citizens, who are the stakeholders.^[xviii] By leading inclusion efforts in sectors over which the government directly controls, policymakers can translate citizens’ values into meaningful inclusion.

Second, education policy should not only continue to encourage women to enter STEM and business fields, where they remain underrepresented, but also go further to retain them. Policymakers can consider adopting curricula that promote entrepreneurial skills from an early age and institute policies to help women stay in their chosen field or venture, given that they are more likely than men to leave the workforce for various professional, personal, or family reasons.

Third, gaps remain in measuring women’s entrepreneurial activity in the Asia Pacific, including the true impact of current policies on supporting women-founded ventures. Beyond merely calculating the amount invested, monitoring mechanisms should evaluate whether loans, grants, or mentorship help women founders achieve business growth or encourage women-led innovation. This monitoring will be crucial to ensure that government resources are deployed with impact.

Finally, policy approaches and research to support female entrepreneurship should consider how areas such as education, taxation, labor law, physical and digital infrastructure, industrial policy, health, and social welfare affect the innovation ecosystem.^[xix] Just as the advent of the internet enabled women to thrive in e-commerce, innovations that disrupt established systems will be key to transforming ossified markets and opening opportunities in this family-oriented and traditional—but also innovative and dynamic—region of the world.

[i] See “Inclusive Futures: Partnering for Sustainable Innovation,” Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation, November 18, 2024, https://caprifoundation.org/charting-pathways-for-womens-empowerment-and-inclusivity/; Syaru Shirley Lin, “科技行业女性赋权 [Empowering Women in Tech],” Keynote Address delivered March 24, 2021, https://www.shirleylin.net/all-talks-and-forums/x5b3f9rb7hwhntp-z9lp7-njmwf-2ka4m-sagtg-88ne2-kgmb2-2f7ty-js7st-m8x6m-pf8wt-mt2pd-zchsm-f8jep-62yay-sk666; Syaru Shirley Lin, “Women’s Economic Empowerment Summit,” April 16, 2019, https://www.shirleylin.net/all-talks-and-forums/reepneyks3fdphg-hne6t-2wy98-tb9my-z5546-eham4-x97c9-6r6ny-r3g6w-bb9cj-rlc5h-x9kfk-andc7.

[ii] For profiles of these women entrepreneurs, see Pamela Ambler, “Asia’s Power Businesswomen 2019: Cofounder Tan Hooi Ling Steers Grab Into New Markets,” Forbes, September 23, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamelaambler/2019/09/23/asias-power-businesswomen-2019-co-founder-tan-hooi-ling-steers-grab-into-new-markets/; Shivaune Field, “Lucy Liu and Airwallex: The Making of a $10 Billion Powerhouse,” Forbes Australia, June 16, 2025, https://www.forbes.com.au/covers/magazine/airwallex-lucy-liu-on-building-a-10-billion-powerhouse/; Melissa Stewart, “Meet Sophie Kim, one of South Korea’s top female entrepreneurs who created a premium grocery delivery app,” CAN Luxury, September 23, 2022, https://cnaluxury.channelnewsasia.com/people/sophie-kim-market-kurly-grocery-delivery-south-korea-207236; and Forbes Middle East, “Billionaire Falguni Nayar’s Net Worth To Triple In Upcoming Nykaa IPO At $7 Billion Valuation,” Forbes Middle East, October 24, 2021, https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/billionaires/world-billionaires/nykaa-founder-falguni-nayars-net-worth-to-triple-in-upcoming-ipo-at-%247-billion-valuation.

[iii] International Finance Corporation, Gender Equality in Corporate Leadership: Asia 2023 (International Finance Corporation, 2023), 3, https://sseinitiative.org/sites/sseinitiative/files/publications-files/2023-sse-ifc-gender-equality-asia.pdf.

[iv] JPMorgan Private Bank, Top 100 Women-Powered, High-Growth Businesses in Asia Pacific (March 2023), 3, https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/apac/en/insights/wealth-planning/asia-pacific-top-100-women-powered-high-growth-businesses-report.

[v] World Bank Group, “School Enrollment, Tertiary (% Gross),” Gender Data Portal, accessed August 12, 2025, https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/indicator/se-ter-enrr?view=trend&geos=WLD_JPN_KOR; Ministry of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan), “Gross Enrollment Ratio of Tertiary Education—By Genders,” July 28, 2025, https://english.moe.gov.tw/cp-87-14508-95005-1.html. By Genders.” July 28, 2025. https://english.moe.gov.tw/cp-87-14508-95005-1.html.

[vi] Dan Wang and Arthur Kroeber, “The Real China Model: Beijing’s Enduring Formula for Wealth and Power,” Foreign Affairs, August 19, 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/real-china-model-wang-kroeber.

[vii] Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, GEM 2023/24 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report: Reshaping Economies and Communities (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2024), 10, https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/202324-womens-entrepreneurship-report-reshaping-economies-and-communities-2..

[viii] Grace Chung, “The 50 Richest Self-Made Women On Earth,” Forbes, June 19, 2025, https://www.forbes.com/sites/gracechung/2025/06/19/the-50-richest-self-made-diane-hendricks-melanie-perkins-oprah-winfrey-chinawomen-on-earth/.

[ix] “How Women Won a Leading Role in China’s Venture Capital Industry,” Mint, September 20, 2016, https://www.livemint.com/Companies/wB6pCr2ZfLFF3AVEzPnTGI/How-women-won-a-leading-role-in-Chinas-venture-capital-indu.html..

[x] Sebastian Mallaby, The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future (New York: Penguin Press, 2022), 242.

[xi] Lizzi Lee, “China’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Under Immense Strain,” The Financial Times, August 17, 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/0fa57ed6-7cac-4227-a287-6ca11ede0e43.

[xii] Lizzi Lee and Huiyan Li, “China Has Picked Its New Model Entrepreneurs,” Foreign Policy, July 30, 2025, https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/30/china-private-sector-entrepreneurs-xi-jinping-tech/.

[xiii] APEC Policy Support Unit, Empowering Tomorrow: APEC Women Entrepreneurs in Startups (APEC, 2025), 48, https://www.apec.org/publications/2025/01/empowering-tomorrow–apec-women-entrepreneurs-in-startups.

[xiv] Legislative Yuan, Republic of China (Taiwan), “立法院各項業務性別統計與圖像及實質分析 [Gender Statistics, Graphs, and Substantive Analysis of Various Legislative Yuan Operations],” accessed August 11, 2025, https://www.ly.gov.tw/Pages/Detail.aspx?nodeid=308&pid=247099.

[xv] Rose Adams, “Keeping the Door Open: How Taiwan’s Gender Quotas Brought More Women Into Office – and Why We Need More,” The News Lens, March 4, 2021, https://international.thenewslens.com/article/148023.

[xvi] Kao Shih-ching, “Female board directors a must for listing, FSC says,” Taipei Times, March 30, 2023, https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2023/03/30/2003796958; Ji Pyoung Kim and Jeremiah N. Phillips, “Implementation of Female Board Directorship for Large Listed Companies,” January 6, 2022, https://www.kimchang.com/en/insights/detail.kc?sch_section=4&idx=24437.

[xvii] Anna Maria Romero, “13% Singapore Companies Have Women CEOs, One of the World’s Highest Numbers,” The Independent Singapore, March 1, 2024, https://theindependent.sg/13-singapore-companies-have-women-ceos-one-of-the-worlds-highest-numbers/.

[xviii] For example, in August 2025, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund also excluded Israeli companies contributing to the occupation of the West Bank or the war in Gaza from investments. See Gwladys Fouche and Louise Rasmussen, “Norway wealth fund excludes six Israeli companies linked to West Bank, Gaza,” Reuters, August 19, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/norway-wealth-fund-excludes-six-israeli-companies-linked-west-bank-gaza-2025-08-18/.

[xix] Lene Foss et al., “Women’s Entrepreneurship Policy Research: A 30-Year Review of the Evidence,” Small Business Economics 53, no. 2 (2019): 409-429, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-9993-8.