OPEN Global Women Initiative is hosting a virtual session titled The Money Question: Navigating Funding as a Woman Entrepreneur on July 11, 2026, from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM Eastern Time, bringing together women entrepreneurs, business owners, and ecosystem practitioners for an interactive conversation about capital access for women-led businesses. The session features Naila Qazi, a Prosci ADKAR certified professional and International Coaching Federation coach, Tariq Khan, and Aamir Chalisa, MBA, MDRT-COT, LUTCF, as speakers, combining coaching, diversity, and financial services expertise within a single panel. Registration is open at lnkd.in/guVgZKfG.
The session is centered on one of the most persistently discussed and least clearly resolved questions in the entrepreneurship space: whether access to capital is genuinely harder for women-led businesses, and if so, what the evidence shows about why and how founders can respond to that reality in practical terms. Rather than defaulting to either a narrative of systemic disadvantage or a dismissal of structural challenges, the session is framed around an honest examination of realities, myths, and opportunities, giving participants a grounded basis for understanding the funding environment they are operating in and what they can do to position themselves more effectively within it.
Aamir Chalisa’s inclusion as a speaker adds a financial services and financial planning dimension to the panel that is directly relevant to women founders navigating the intersection of personal financial readiness and business funding needs. His background spanning MBA-level business education, MDRT and Court of the Table recognition within the financial services industry, and LUTCF qualification in life underwriting brings a practitioner’s perspective on capital strategy that complements the coaching and diversity expertise that Naila Qazi and Tariq Khan bring to the conversation. Together, the three speakers cover the funding question from multiple angles simultaneously, giving participants a more complete picture of the landscape than any single perspective can provide.
The session’s agenda moves through the core dimensions of the funding conversation that women entrepreneurs most need to engage with, covering the evidence behind the funding gap debate, the common barriers women encounter when raising capital and practical strategies for overcoming them, the funding options available at different stages of business growth, approaches to building investment readiness and financial confidence, and how to position a business for sustainable growth and long-term investor interest. The interactive format, which includes breakout discussions alongside expert presentations and networking opportunities, creates space for participants to engage with peers navigating similar challenges in a smaller group setting where more candid and useful conversation tends to emerge than in a lecture-only format. Women entrepreneurs and professionals interested in attending can register at lnkd.in/guVgZKfG ahead of the July 11 session.
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