Bernice Fernandes
Photo courtesy of Bernice Fernandes

Women entrepreneurs across sub-Saharan Africa account for a significant share of business ownership, yet few are able to scale into mid-sized or large enterprises. While the challenge is often framed as a skills gap, evidence increasingly points to a different issue: the absence of leadership and financial infrastructure that connects women founders to capital, corporate networks, and decision-making power.

This structural gap has persisted despite decades of donor-funded training programs. According to multiple development studies, women-led businesses continue to receive a disproportionately small share of investment capital and remain underrepresented in executive leadership across the region.

Bernice Fernandes, a Tanzanian management consultant and entrepreneur, is attempting to address this imbalance by building what she describes as ecosystem-level infrastructure rather than isolated interventions.

From Training Programs to Economic Infrastructure

Fernandes is the founder of Accelerate Women, a leadership and entrepreneurship platform designed to integrate women founders into financial, corporate, and policy ecosystems. Her approach departs from conventional entrepreneurship programs that focus primarily on short-term skills development.

'Training alone does not change outcomes when access remains restricted. The real constraint is exclusion from capital markets, governance systems, and influential networks.'

— Bernice Fernandes

Fernandes holds three business degrees from U.S. institutions, including an MBA in Entrepreneurship, and began her career at Wells Fargo Bank and PwC. After returning to Tanzania in 2017, she spent several years consulting across East Africa and the United States, where she observed consistent barriers facing women-led enterprises: limited access to finance, weak governance structures, and minimal exposure to investors and corporate partners.

These observations informed the Accelerate Women model.

The Scale Problem Facing Women-Led Businesses

Women own an estimated 58% of businesses in Africa, yet they remain significantly underrepresented in senior leadership and investment pipelines. In East Africa, executive roles continue to be dominated by men. In Kenya, for example, surveys indicate that approximately two-thirds of CEO and managing director positions are held by men, reinforcing network-based barriers to capital and partnerships.

As a result, women entrepreneurs with viable business models often operate in isolation, relying on personal savings or informal financing while remaining disconnected from institutional capital.

Accelerate Women was designed to address this systemic failure by creating direct pathways between women founders and financial institutions, investors, and policymakers.

Accelerate Women's Public-Private Model

Operating under Accelerate Business Group, Accelerate Women combines executive convenings, entrepreneurship boot camps, leadership training, and structured mentorship into a membership-based platform that currently serves more than 5,000 women across East Africa.

A distinguishing feature of the platform is its emphasis on transactional access rather than symbolic engagement. Events are structured to facilitate concrete outcomes, including:

• On-site business bank account openings

• Investment-readiness support

• Loan and financing product access

• Exposure to capital markets and asset classes

One such initiative included a finance forum held at the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange, where participants received practical instruction on stocks, bonds, real estate investment, and portfolio diversification.

Fernandes has also positioned the platform to appeal to institutional partners by designing programs with measurable commercial and development returns, aligning donor funding with private-sector incentives.

Institutional Backing and Expansion

Accelerate Women has attracted support from a range of international and regional institutions. Partners have included the European Union, UN Women, TradeMark Africa, the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania, and the Canadian High Commission, which modified its funding framework to support the initiative prior to its formal NGO registration.

This momentum led to the establishment of Accelerate Foundation in 2025, a nonprofit entity created to channel donor funding and subsidise participation for women entrepreneurs who would otherwise be excluded due to cost.

By 2025, Accelerate Women had expanded operations to Tanzania, Kenya, and the United States.

Technology, AI, and the Next Phase of Growth

Fernandes is now seeking funding and technology partnerships to develop a digital platform that would deliver education in areas such as artificial intelligence, investment strategy, and governance while enabling global mentorship and peer networks.

The objective is to remove geographic barriers and scale women's leadership infrastructure through blended public-private financing, creating a model that can be replicated across emerging markets.

'Technology and AI are not optional for leadership anymore. If women are excluded from these systems, the economic gap will widen.'

— Bernice Fernandes

A Scalable Model for Inclusive Growth

As governments, investors, and development institutions reassess strategies for inclusive economic growth, Accelerate Women offers a case study in shifting from fragmented interventions to systems-level solutions.

Fernandes' work highlights a broader lesson for emerging markets: unlocking the economic potential of women-led businesses requires not just training, but intentional access to capital, networks, and leadership infrastructure.

For the women participating in Accelerate Women, the platform represents more than professional development; it provides entry into economic systems that have historically been closed to them.