Ranked by the Sunday Times as the top university in the UK and by the Financial Times as a leading entrepreneurial university in Europe, LSE produces more founders than any other UK University. The LSE Generate Women Founders Programme was the first incubation programme designed for female founders by a UK university and is now a cornerstone of the Department’s offering; educating, connecting and inspiring a global network of over 1300 LSE women founders across 19 countries, reaching over 2000 unique LSE attendees since 2020. The Women Founders Programme supports early-stage founders by applying a social science lens to women’s entrepreneurship and partnering with like-minded foundations, corporations, and academics to advance gender equality and empower women through entrepreneurship. The Programme comprises entrepreneurial education such as workshops, panel discussions and funding through Startup Competitions and accelerator programme grants, industry connections through mentoring, business clinics and 1:1 sessions with seasoned women founders. Underpinning all of this is building community; locally and globally the programme makes space for women founder circles where groups of peer founders can come together, share ideas and help each other grow & succeed. LSE Generate’s support for women founders goes beyond programming; we elevate entrepreneurs by implementing their products (such as Simba Tech and Orbiit) into our programmes, as well as contracting female founders as Creative Directors to lead various programmes such as the Women Founders Programme itself and the Food & Beverage programmes both of which are led by LSE affiliated female founders.
Finalist
Female Entrepreneurship Empowerment Award Award
LSE Generate, Women Founders Programme
Finalist Female Entrepreneurship Empowerment Award Award
London School of Economics and Political Science - United Kingdom
"Equipping women entrepreneurs with the skills, knowledge and community to thrive."
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Summary
Key People
LJ Silverman MBE
Head of LSE Generate
LSE Generate,
LSE
Laura Ross
Senior International Strategy Manager
LSE Generate,
LSE
Dr Paroma Bhattacharya
Head of Social Innovation
LSE Generate,
LSE
Joanna Hamer
Senior Entrepreneurship Programme Manager
LSE Generate,
LSE
Acknowledgements
Jessica Vollman Foundation, Dame Julia Black, Forvis Mazars, British Council South Africa, 54 Collective VC in Kenya (Formerly known as Founders Factory Africa), ISPF (UK Government), EDHE South Africa, Nairobits (Kenya), Silmak Genesis Care (Kenya), Soka Samaritans (Kenya), Project Elimu (Kenya), Kibera Town Centre (Kenya)
Images
Group dinner: Women Founders Retreat, UK
Catherine, Sophie & Anna Mae: Sustainable Business Models
Women Founders, Lisbon
Female Founders Nairobi
The best fireside chat location
Pitching for female founders in Nairobi
Happy retreat goes
Nathalie, Paroma and Amy
LSE alumni founders from around the world
IMPACT STORY
Impacting lifes
Ayesha Khan* first connected with LSE Generate through the flagship Generate Accelerator Programme (GAP) in 2023. There, she refined her business model and built a roadmap for scaling her fashion sustainability venture with impact.
Since completing GAP, Ayesha attended regular LSE Generate events, received mentorship through the network, and used the free co-working space as a base for continued growth.
In 2025, she applied to the Women Founders Retreat and was awarded a special ‘Foundership’ grant through the Generate Women Supporting Women initiative, where a fellow alum provided funding that covered all costs and enabled her to attend free of charge. Describing her time as transformative, Ayesha reflects:
“The four full days in Thailand resulted in a complete turnaround in my mental state and my approach to business. Being around so many women who have done what I want to achieve in different ways, and also learning from their setbacks and strategies to move forward, has inspired me. Although I’ve always had faith that I would thrive in business, now I feel I have strategy and a renewed focus.”
Since returning, Ayesha continues to access startup support and co-working from Generate. She has applied the strategies she learned to launch a new fundraising plan and integrate mental health initiatives into her practices.
She joined an accountability circle with other retreat goers and now mentors early-stage founders and hosts finance workshops, paying forward the encouragement she received.
*The name has been altered for privacy.
LEARNINGS
Lessons learned
Build the community from the ground up by providing regularity and a safe space. At Generate we’ve held our online Female Founder Mastermind on the last Thursday of every month at 4pm GMT for almost five years. Members of the community now know that if they need support, want to share a success or have a question, they have a place that they can come to without judgment. This regularity has enabled LSE Generate to learn about the community - what their needs are, how we can support and where in the world the community is based.
Provide tailored support. As an enterprise practitioner, don’t assume you know what your community wants or needs - ask them! At LSE Generate, we have noticed that there are variations of community needs around the world such as how to create a business that balances profit and purpose in the UAE when there is no legal entity for a social enterprise. However, what we have found that what unites female founders all over the world is the need for a supportive peer community, one that they can test ideas with as well as share challenges, connect with ecosystem players that can take their venture to the next level.
Data collection is your friend. At LSE Generate we collect data on our community at the beginning, middle and end of a programme across the same metrics - sense of community, confidence and knowledge increase. This method has enabled the team to clearly illustrate how a programme, such as our retreats, have impacted the community year on year. As well as using the data to analyse the quality of our programming, it has enabled us to build trust with sponsors such as The Jessica Vollman Foundation, a relationship that is now in its fourth year and has increased its financial backing of the programme year on year.
FUTURE PLANS
What's coming?
The future plans for the Women Founders Programme at LSE Generate are threefold; to deepen our understanding of community needs in South Asian, to grow our relationship with a key donor and to use our findings to develop an Inclusive Entrepreneurship Programme.
Given the strong presence of the LSE Generate network in South Asia, we are launching a dedicated programme to better understand this community’s needs and locations which is kicking off with an online Female Founders Mastermind: South Asia Takeover on 31st July. Insights will shape a tailored offering for the group including online and in-person events, mentoring, and a fully sponsored Women Founders Retreat in Sri Lanka to ensure financial accessibility.
A key sponsor and supporter for the Women Founders Programme in the UK is the Jessica Vollman Foundation (JVF) ; a relationship that we have nurtured and grown for the past three years. For the 2025/26 JVF programming we are increasing financial support by 5% from the previous year and will extend to fully cover a Women Founders Retreat for women entering entrepreneurship from a corporate career, coaching, mentoring and growth masterclasses.
We are taking our learnings from the Women Founders Programme to develop an ‘Inclusive Entrepreneurship Programme’ that spans the intersectionality of neurodiversity, race equity, LGTBQIA+, accessibility and disability of entrepreneurs. Since launching the pilot series in January 2025, we have engaged with 100 founders which we aim to increase to 600 over the course of 2026.
