A woman does not have to stick to the masculine codes to create his own company

a Professor at the ESSEC business school, Viviane de Beaufort, 59 years old, is also the founder of Generation Startupeuse, a club that accompanies the bearing of a start-up project.

Professor and doctor in law , director of the european Centre for law and economics, where you've initiated work on the gender well before the topic was fashionable, also technical adviser, gender equality at ESSEC, you have launched in 2017, the club Generation Startuppeuse, present-day women entrepreneurs of the salon EMS, 1 October, in Paris. What is your goal ?

Viviane de Beaufort : Generation startuppeuse is a club in the true sense of the term : we choose our members and we select only projects with positive impact brought by women, or mixed teams. These projects are often more risky and less profitable in the short term, which does not facilitate their funding. This is why we offer a support which connects the carrier project with our experts, but also of reporting tools. All of our carry out projects that also pass an interview with one of our coaches to ensure that each one of them has the mental strength to hold the marathon of a company creation. Today, more than 200 experts, including 20% of men, accompany volunteer fifty different projects.

How is born the idea of this club ?

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The idea came to me in noting the difficulties encountered by my own daughter when she wanted to launch her business, Voy'Act. It has a good diploma (Dauphine), a good network, and a brain that works, she speaks three languages, has a professional experience of consultant, and yet she had a lot of galleys to sell his project. His experience is emblematic. I believe in the intergenerational and collective, that you don't practice enough in France. With this club we move beyond these barriers, with women more experienced and help young women to launch. And our experts men are often fathers, who have experienced discrimination through the experience of their own daughter.

The new generation of graduates a-t-a other report to entrepreneurship than the previous ?

Yes, it's obvious. As a professor at the ESSEC business school, I have seen these young people on the benches of the school before they arrive in the world of work. They were already worried about how much the system and once graduates are not willing to integrate any large company. They also often have an associative experience, and do not hesitate to share their expertise, including when they are competing, without competition; they are "copétiteurs", ready to leave their country, alas, or to set up their structure. We need to help them.

do women have really a approach to entrepreneurship differs from that of men ?

Yes, I said and I assume it ! I could quote you 70 anglo-saxon studies that show that women are different from men in decision-making, team management, recruitment, and the creation of a company. They do not have the same approach to power : they prefer the power of doing things to have power over the people, and this leads them to focus more on the collective. They are programmed biologically to be a mother, and whether or not they have children are more sensitive to the concept of continuity and transmission. Where increased sensitivity on issues of social responsibility and on the long-term management. We are not less ambitious, but more conservative : we note that three years after their launch, the companies created by women are more successful than those initiated by men... It is up to the system to accept our ways of doing things, and not the opposite - a woman does not have to stick to the masculine codes to create his own company.

Precisely, is it necessary to develop "role models" to encourage young girls to engage in business creation ?

everybody talks about it but I do not believe this approach to be effective with the new generation. I believed it, for a long time. But the young women of today do not have a vertical operation, they are not looking for a model to achieve that would be above them, as they have abandoned the concept of the career which is built over the years in the same company. They are more inspired by causes, or by women who appear to them to be accessible, such as a girlfriend or a mentor, regardless of gender.

Why women face more difficulties than men to raise funds, as was recently demonstrated in a study of BCG ?

The financial are more demanding with the women, it is the usher of the mirror : because they are a minority in male spaces, there is a problem of trust. To change the culture of investment funds, which only account for 20% of women, it must be done from the inside out : large schools have a role to play to prepare the boys to not have gender biases. At ESSEC, we have trained 160 presidents and presidents of our student associations so that they become aware of the need not to reproduce stereotypes in their way of communicating. Finally, we offer our students workshops on careers and salaries, so that they can better negotiate and get what they souto do, that they are acting in a position or funds to launch their business.

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