Three Tales: Women Making Waves
Internationally, Hong Kong is regarded as one of the easiest places to establish a business. However, women owned businesses start and tend to stay small, according to research by The Women’s Foundation. Women make up only 19% of high-growth entrepreneurs, mainly due to the fact that training programmes and networking initiatives for business owners often included more men than women.
Representation of women of colour even in corporate America falls off relative to white men and women and men of colour in the corporate ladder, leaving them severely underrepresented at the top, according to a McKinsey & Company report.
While there are no statistics on female ethnic minority entrepreneurs in Hong Kong, given that ethnic minorities make up a mere 8% of the city’s population, the amount of women of colour-owned businesses could be small.
Among that 8% are three women, from many different backgrounds and ages, who are proving their place in the city everyday by paving their way and breaking stereotypes through their businesses and ventures.
One-woman show
Ever since Maitreyi Karanth was a little girl in India, she wanted to entertain. She participated in school plays and gave speeches inspired by Indira Gandhi, the first and, to date, only female prime minister of India, about one day becoming just like her.
The 50-year-old dreamt in awe of being on stage one day.
About twenty years ago, that same Indian woman relocated to Hong Kong with her husband for his job. She ran a mathematics tutorial business in the city with huge popularity. But when she turned 40, that passion and dream she had as a little girl grew fiercer.
She realised at the age of 40, that she had outlived her father who passed away when she was only nine. A wake-up call, Karanth knew what she had to do to make every moment worth living in the name of her dad. So over night, she shut her centre and took up acting classes, pursuing the passion that the little girl in her longed for.
Karanth at a stand-up comedy show. Source: Maitreyi Karanth
She eventually went on to star in My Indian Boyfriend, the Cantonese-Hindi romantic film, where she played the male lead’s mother. But acting roles for women of colour haven’t been very high in demand in Hong Kong.
Weeks ago, a local actress Franchesca Wong played the role of a Filipino domestic helper in brownface for a TVB series.
TVB defended Wong in a statement, according to The New York Times, “You can’t find a Filipino to paint white, so you can only paint an artist black first, so that she can turn pale again. If we’re making movies about aliens, and we can’t find an alien to the play the part, are we discriminating against aliens?”
“For a woman my colour, my age, it was very difficult to get any roles, because every role that was advertised usually would clearly say Caucasian,” said Karanth.
But Karanth never let her age, ethnicity or gender get in the way of her dreams. She stumbled across stand-up comedy where she used all these factors to her advantage on stage, transforming South Asian and gender stereotypes through her sense of humour.
“Someone sent me this pamphlet of an open mic, and I thought — you know what I love writing, I love the stage,” she said. “Performance, it comes naturally to me and in most parties one or two drinks in and I'm out there joking around,”
That one show led to her opening for Zakir Khan — one of India’s biggest stand-up comedians — for 5 years during his Hong Kong shows.
Last year she sold out the first one-woman show at Asia’s first full-time comedy club located here in Hong Kong, TakeOut Comedy Club.
Karanth is one of three featured female comedians on Comedy HK’s website. The list has a total of 15 comedians, which equates to only about 20% of female stand-up comedians.
“It was quite male oriented,” she said about the standup comedy scene in Hong Kong. "It's only in the last year that more women are banding together and doing their own shows.”
Green Start
Approximately 1,400 tonnes of disposable plastic tableware, including takeaway boxes, cutleries and cups, were disposed of every single week in 2019, according to the Legislative Council. This amount amasses to the size of almost 90 double-decker buses.
That's when 22-year-old Aditi Deodhar came up with the idea for her startup, Planeteers. It produces 100% vegan, natural and edible cutlery made of whole wheat flour and natural flavours, where the ingredients come together in a dough form and are put into a mould and baked in the oven.
Initially, Planeteers was for one of her undergraduate courses at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, but she left the idea of the green startup untouched for over a year.
Then in 2020 when Covid hit, it fueled a rush for takeaway meals packaged in plastic containers either via food delivery services or pickup for hygiene purposes or over dining restrictions.
Deodhar saw the increase in the menace of plastic waste and decided to rebirth her green project with two other cofounders, Swapnil Mishra and Srijan Saxena, this time aiming to change the plastic waste landscape in Hong Kong.
The team at Planeteers producing their cutlery. Source: Planeteers
Planeteers' edible spoons and straws that are handmade from natural ingredients. Source: Planeteers
The startup raised over HK$325,000 last year from various startup competitions in and out of HKUST and investments from Sino Group.
While running Planeteers, Deodhar is a senior consultant at Deloitte, after an internship at the company, and a part-time MSc student in Environmental Science and Management at HKUST. She grew up in India and came to Hong Kong for her undergraduate degree which she finished in three years.
Non-locals make up only about 28% of Hong Kong’s startup founders, according to StartmeupHK.
A report by The Education University of Hong Kong and The Women’s Foundation found that female students in Hong Kong were less likely to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects in tertiary education or a career in STEM compared to male students. Worldwide, women make up just over a third of STEM students in higher education, according to UNESCO.
Collaboration wasn’t easy for the minority-owned startup. Not speaking Cantonese has limited Deodhar’s opportunities in finding business partners and deals for Planeteers. Even though she speaks three languages fluently — English, Hindi and Marathi — a lack in the local language, she said, makes her feel she’s lagging.
A Hong Kong Unison report surveyed 1,500 jobs, where only one stated that spoken Cantonese was not a requirement. The majority of job ads required Chinese language abilities from applicants.
This year, Planeteers was named winner at the Wofoo Social Enterprises Climate Action Recognition Scheme 2022 in the Scale-Up stage, which came with HK$180,000 funding.
Deodhar still has big plans for Planeteers in Hong Kong, especially with its increasing funding. The minority-owned startup is aiming for a soft launch of its edible straw line and a whole set of cutleries towards the end of the year.
People’s Person
Tidimalo Shabalala, a South African native and founder of public relations company Tidi Consulting, came to Hong Kong four years ago with her two kids and husband who was relocating for a job. She never travelled internationally before settling in Hong Kong, which was a huge culture shock for her.
In South Africa, the 35-year-old worked as a PR consultant for big brands such as Samsung and LG. But as her husband’s career took off in Hong Kong, she hit the pause button on hers to get adjusted to her new life in the city and take care of her family.
Labour force participation in Hong Kong stood at 49.6% for women in 2020 and 66.2% for men, according to the Women’s Commission. The labour force participation rates of married women had increased in the past decade, but were still significantly lower compared to those of men.
“When I finally felt I had my feet on the ground, I started looking for jobs,” she said after being in Hong Kong for about a year.
Shabalala describes herself as a "people's person", which is what got her into PR and branding. Source: Tidimalo Shabalala
After countless job interviews over coffees and lunches with nothing on the horizon, Shabalala decided to open up Tidi Consulting and pave her own way. Her agency focuses on brand enhancement, where she tailor makes communication campaigns and solutions to help startups and influencers.
With over a decade of experience in South Africa, she initially aimed to target African owned businesses in Hong Kong for PR strategies.
Shabalala wanted to help people of colour, like her, as she realised it may be harder for these businesses to find PR representatives but she knew confining herself to race wouldn’t open up as many opportunities if she didn’t.
“But I didn't want to box myself,” she said. “I didn't want to put myself as the African who’s standing up for Africans only. I wanted to open myself up to anybody and everybody.”
She has faced her fair share of everyday discrimination in Hong Kong, but Shabalala tries to change narratives through her business and channels positive energy into whatever she does.
“I’m not saying it [discrimination] is right…I’ve had my entire life and it’s nothing new,” she said. “It’s a constant battle but you just get through it,”