How Debbie Wosskow is rewriting women’s success in business

Debbie Wosskow, OBE, is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and female inspirational speaker whose influence spans business, policy, and social change.

As Co-Chair of the UK’s Invest in Women Taskforce, she has helped drive a £250 million movement to back female-led ventures and close the gender investment gap.

A trailblazer in the world of entrepreneurship, Debbie co-founded Love Home Swap, which scaled to over 100,000 homes worldwide before its $53 million acquisition, and launched AllBright, a global network designed to empower women in business and leadership.

Recognised for her work championing economic inclusion, she continues to inspire the next generation of women founders and investors.

In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, Debbie shares her insights on breaking systemic barriers, redefining leadership, and building a more equitable business landscape.

Q: Despite growing awareness around gender inequality, why do women entrepreneurs still face such stark barriers in securing investment – and what structural changes are needed to close the gap?

Debbie Wosskow: “So, to set the scene, in 2024, less than 2% of venture capital invested in the UK went to back a female CEO, whilst all-male teams raised 81% of all of the £9 billion of venture capital that was invested. So, we don’t get that. And part of the reason for that is that there are not enough female investors.

“Only 11% of representation on investment committees is in female hands, and 14% of angel investors in the UK are women. Yet, a female investor is twice as likely to back a woman as a male investor.

“So, none of this is anti-men. We need men. My career successes have really been driven by the fact that I’m good at asking men for money – and that matters, because the pen holders are still men.

“However, in my role reporting into the Chancellor as the Co-Chair of the Investing in Women Taskforce, I set the objective of creating the biggest funding pot in the world from female investors, with a mandate around women-led and mixed teams. 

“And I think you need to create carrot as well as stick. The bane of any entrepreneur, or indeed venture capital investor’s life, is raising capital. I know because I’ve spent years raising hundreds of millions of pounds of capital.

“If you create an incentive for all-male teams to have women in them, and for all-male VCs to hire women, then I think you change the world. My job is to make the UK the best place in the world to be a female-powered business.”

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Q: Research consistently links diversity with higher performance – but what specific actions can leaders take to embed inclusion and equality at every level of business?

Debbie Wosskow: “Well, diverse teams deliver better results. Women-led businesses, by the way, deliver 35% better returns than male-led businesses. And diverse investors deliver 10% better returns than funds that are simply all-male.

“I think we all acknowledge diversity of thought – whether that’s gender, race, or age – is how we really do drive change, and how we have voices represented around the table. We don’t just invest or hire in our image.

“So, to men listening or asking what they can do, as many men do – they can hire, support, and mentor people who don’t look like them. Some of my best and most prolific supporters have been some of the country’s most high-profile male investors and chairmen, who have enabled me to have the life that I’ve had as a founder and as an investment advisor.

“So, for men, I think: look outside of your day-to-day network and hire people who are not in your image.”

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Q: You’ve been a leading voice on women’s health in the workplace. Why must businesses prioritise issues such as menopause and hormonal health – and what wider economic benefits could this bring?

Debbie Wosskow: “So, I am the Executive Chair of a business called The Better Menopause, which focuses on creating science-driven solutions for women in perimenopause and menopause. 

“I founded that business, as I founded all of my businesses, because of a personal story – getting super ill when I was 48, spending quite a long time in hospital, not being able to get better post a dose of pneumonia and pleurisy, and having to do quite a lot of work to get to the answer, which was that I was in perimenopause.

“My symptoms were worse because I didn’t have any gut bacteria after a long time on antibiotics. I flag that because, if that can happen to me when I have resources and a network, it can happen to any woman.

“25% per cent of women in midlife want to leave the workforce because of their menopause symptoms, and 10% actually do.

“My focus is on making women economically independent. There is a great wealth transfer we’re staring down the barrel of – from men to women – in terms of inherited wealth, divorce, and the way society is developing.

“We need to ensure that women have the tools they need to remain economically productive for all of their working lives. Midlife women are pretty talented – they’ve been around the workplace for 20-25 years.

“I think conversations about hormonal health, women in menopause, and women in midlife – and harnessing them – is a really important way of driving economic growth. It just makes great business sense.”

This exclusive interview with Debbie Wosskow OBE was conducted by Jack Hayes of The Motivaitonal Speakers Agency.

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