Juliette Hogan already runs a successful fashion business employing 40 staff but she is hoping a new female entrepreneurs programme will help her to expand her business internationally.

Montague said the foundation was focused on four areas – women, youth wellbeing, environment and oral health.

“I no longer think I have unlimited energy, after my physical exhaustion and adrenal burnout in 2018. I have to choose what I do, and I want to be magnificent at that which I choose to do.

“Women, especially women of colour, continue to face deep-seated gender inequality and are massively underrepresented when it comes to venture capital for start-ups. I’m a firm believer that through business, we can create a fairer world.”

“If we let an inch of the gains we have made over the last couple of decades slide, in a blink of an eye the inch will be a mile.”

All of the 25 young female leaders honoured in last year's Y25 Awards were entrepreneurs, she points out.

"There wasn't a single woman there who was working for a pay cheque and had a boss. And that is the future – if women aren't supported to stand powerfully in that future we're not going to be able to create a better world than the one we're currently living in."

Joanna Wane talks to Global Women's Agnes Naera and Theresa Gattung about #BreakTheBias, a worldwide campaign launched this week on International Women's Day.

Global Women, an organisation championing diversity in leadership, has calculated a 9.1 percent pay deficit - meaning women will be working for free until the end of the year from Monday.

Today in Aotearoa, the gender pay gap stands at 9.1 per cent (calculated using median hourly earnings from main wage and salary)*. Based on the fact that there is now 9.1 per cent of the year remaining, this means that from today, the average woman is effectively "working for free" until 2022.

A funding network only supporting ventures led by women-identifying and non-binary entrepreneurs with almost a 100 percent success rate aims to disrupt traditional capital raising for good

New Zealand sits near the bottom of the rankings of similarly developed countries for percentage of female corporate directors. We have been outperformed in our efforts to increase the numbers of women in private boardrooms by many countries including Australia, Germany, Norway and France.

‘I can watch Te Karere and understand what people are

saying for the first time, and to me that’s like a miracle.’