Train women entrepreneurs to enter export markets
QNB Bank A.Ş.
SKD TürkiyeSummary
A six-month capacity-building programme trained 710 entrepreneurs in e-export; 32% of non-exporters began exporting and 41% of active exporters grew turnover.
Context
Submitted through the COP31 Sustainable Transformation Awards · SKD Türkiye (WBCSD Global Network Partner)
QNB Bank A.Ş. is a bank operating in Türkiye with more than 1,000 employees, serving retail, commercial and corporate customers including exporters.
Women entrepreneurs face structural barriers in the export ecosystem. The gaps identified are in knowledge of how cross-border trade operates, access to financing, access to business networks, and the practical route into international markets. These barriers limit the participation of women-owned businesses in export activity and reinforce gender inequality in trade.
The company also identified a psychological barrier alongside the technical ones: confidence and decision-making in a commercial setting where women entrepreneurs are under-represented.
The segment is commercially relevant to the company. Businesses that begin exporting require foreign trade services, financing and digital trade infrastructure, all of which the company already provides. Women-owned suppliers were also under-represented in the company's own procurement base.
Location of the initiative: Türkiye: delivered online nationwide, with in-person workshops
Solution
The company ran an export academy for women entrepreneurs for the first time in 2024, in collaboration with İhracatçı Kadınlar Derneği—İKADE—the Association of Women Exporters. The programme ran from September 2024 to February 2025 and focused on generating sustainable income through e-commerce and e-export.
Teaching was organised for people already running a business. Participants were placed in one of three class levels according to their digital capability, with content tailored to each level, delivered by specialist trainers on a schedule built around working commitments.
A second layer of support sat around the core curriculum: 8 online and 8 in-person workshops covering the psychological barriers to trading commercially, entrepreneurship coaching, and legal support and rights-awareness training, together with one-to-one mentoring for 50 women entrepreneurs against a defined commercial growth criterion.
Training was connected to the company's operating capabilities rather than delivered in isolation. Participants were linked to its digital trade ecosystem, its foreign trade solutions and its financing options, so that capability built in class had a route into practice, and were encouraged to form sectoral working groups and peer support networks.
Figure 1: The academy pathway from application to first export: nationwide open call, selection with a digital-capability assessment, a six-month programme of eight online classes and eight in-person workshops, one-to-one mentoring for 50 entrepreneurs, onboarding to digital trade and financing services, and entry into cross-border trade.
Figure 2: Participant outcomes among the 710 entrepreneurs trained: 32 per cent of those who had never exported began exporting, 41 per cent of existing exporters raised turnover by 18 per cent on average, 27 per cent entered at least one new market, and 68 per cent of the 50 mentored entrepreneurs met the 10 per cent turnover-growth criterion.
Impact
Sustainability Impact
Climate
This initiative targets neither Scope 1 nor Scope 2 emissions from the bank's own operations. Impact over the September 2024 to February 2025 delivery period was measured against participants' pre-programme commercial position and 2024 opening data using export and business development indicators, and no greenhouse gas figure was calculated.
Two enabling effects sit in the design, neither of them quantified. The teaching was delivered mainly online — full-day classes three days a week, with 8 workshops held online alongside 8 held in person — which avoids the travel that a nationwide in-person programme for 710 participants would have required. Working in the opposite direction, the commercial outcome the programme is built to produce is more cross-border trade: 32% of participants who had never exported began exporting and 27% entered at least one new country or regional market, and the freight generated by that trade is an emissions increase that has not been assessed.
Social
The programme reached 710 entrepreneurs against an initial target of 600, which the company reports as 118% of the target. Women made up 88.45% of participants.
Commercial outcomes were measured by comparing participants' position on entry with export and business development indicators after the programme, using participant surveys, mentoring assessments and end-of-programme performance tracking. The base period was participants' pre-programme commercial position and 2024 opening data.
According to programme data, 32% of participants who had never exported began exporting. Among those already exporting, 41% increased export turnover, and those recording growth grew by an average of 18%. In total, 27% of participants entered at least one new country or regional market.
Of the 50 women entrepreneurs who received one-to-one mentoring, 68% recorded measurable commercial development against the minimum 10% turnover growth criterion.
The company reports that the psychological support and barrier workshops improved participants' commercial confidence and decision-making. Legal support and rights-awareness training equipped participants to respond to violations of their rights at work.
Beyond individual capacity, participants formed sectoral working groups and solidarity networks. New commercial relationships were established between women entrepreneurs, particularly in textiles, and some participants' products reached national retail channels. The programme therefore supported the growth of trade between women-owned businesses and of women-focused supply chains.
Business Impact
Benefits
The programme develops the customer base for services the company already provides. Participants who begin exporting require foreign trade services, cross-border payment and financing, and the company's digital trade ecosystem was embedded in the curriculum as the practical route to market. With 32% of non-exporters starting to export, 41% of existing exporters increasing turnover and 27% entering a new market, that demand is generated directly by the programme.
Procurement is a second channel. Participants were assessed for inclusion in the company's supplier ecosystem, which diversifies the supplier base, supports supply security and makes women-owned businesses more visible in corporate value chains.
The collaboration model lowered delivery risk and cost. The partner association identified needs, shaped content and assembled the participant network, work the company would otherwise have carried out itself, so recruitment did not depend on the company's own marketing.
Because measurement tracks commercial results rather than attendance, outcomes can be reported in the integrated annual report and fall within the independent third-party assurance the company applies to its reporting (1). Cross-functional delivery across sustainability, digital trade, business units, communications and procurement also embedded social impact into customer-facing activity rather than isolating it within one department.
Costs
Teaching intensity is the largest cost driver. The programme ran full-day online classes three days a week from September 2024 to February 2025, together with Saturday sessions, delivered by specialist trainers to 710 participants across three capability levels, which requires three parallel sets of tailored content rather than a single curriculum.
The workshop and coaching layer is the second driver: 8 online and 8 in-person workshops, psychology-focused sessions, entrepreneurship coaching, legal and rights-awareness training, and 50 one-to-one mentoring relationships, each tracked against a 10% turnover growth criterion. In-person delivery adds venue and logistics costs.
Internal staff time is the third. Sustainability management coordinated the programme, while the digital trade unit, relevant business units, communications and procurement teams contributed to delivery and to the assessment of participants as potential suppliers. Measurement carries its own cost, through participant surveys, mentoring assessments and end-of-programme performance tracking.
Cost depends on cohort size and on the mix of online and in-person delivery; on the availability of trainers and mentors with practical export experience, which sets the price of the teaching layer; and on the partner association's reach, since a weaker participant pipeline raises the recruitment cost per place. The company finances delivery, while the partner association contributes needs analysis and the participant network in kind.
Costs are partially offset by delivering the majority of teaching online, by using a modular three-level structure that can be reused for later cohorts and other groups, by drawing needs analysis and the participant network from the partner association, and by connecting participants to financing and trade services the company already operates rather than developing new products.
Impact Beyond Sustainability And Business
Co-benefits
Participants formed sectoral working groups and solidarity networks that continued after the programme ended, generating new collaborations and trade relationships between women-owned businesses, particularly in textiles. Some participants' products reached national retail channels. Legal and rights-awareness training gave participants the means to respond to rights violations, supporting fairer working conditions in their sectors.
Implementation
Typical Business Profile
The model is most relevant to banks and financial institutions with foreign trade, small business and digital commerce offerings, and to any company whose customer or supplier base under-represents a group it intends to develop.
The functions involved are sustainability, digital trade, commercial business units, communications and procurement.
The design suits emerging markets where the barriers to export are informational and financial rather than regulatory, and the three-level modular structure allows adaptation to other sectors, entrepreneur groups and geographies.
Approach
Define the barriers: Identify the specific constraints the target group faces in knowledge, financing, networks and market access, and design the curriculum against those barriers rather than around a generic training syllabus.
Select a delivery partner: Work with a specialist association able to define needs, shape content and provide an existing participant network, so that recruitment does not depend on the company's own marketing.
Stream participants by capability: Assess applicants' digital capability on entry and place them in separate class levels with content tailored to each, so that beginners and established exporters are not taught the same material.
Schedule around business commitments: Run full-day online classes on fixed weekdays for reach and cost control, together with weekend sessions for participants in employment.
Address non-technical barriers: Add workshops on commercial confidence, decision-making and legal rights awareness alongside the technical export curriculum.
Set measurable mentoring criteria: Provide one-to-one mentoring to a selected group and define an explicit commercial success criterion, such as a minimum percentage of turnover growth, so that mentoring outcomes can be measured rather than described.
Connect training to operating services: Link participants to the company's existing digital trade platform, foreign trade services and financing options, so that there is an operational route from the classroom to a first shipment.
Measure commercial change: Compare each participant's pre-programme commercial position with post-programme export indicators using entry surveys, mentoring assessments and end-of-programme performance tracking, and encourage participants to form sectoral working groups that sustain activity after delivery ends.
Stakeholders Involved
Project leads: Project leadership was held by the sustainability management function, which coordinated the programme, set the measurement approach and convened the internal contributors. Patronage at chief executive level gave the programme standing with the commercial business units whose services participants were routed into, so delivery was not confined to the sustainability function.
Company functions: Sustainability management coordinated; the digital trade unit supplied the platform and trade content participants were connected to; commercial business units provided the foreign trade and financing routes; communications supported recruitment and visibility; and procurement assessed participants as potential suppliers. The functions worked to one programme calendar rather than contributing separately, which is how classroom content was connected to the company's services during the cohort rather than after it.
Main providers: Specialist trainers, mentors and sector professionals developed the content and delivered the classes, workshops and one-to-one mentoring. They worked to the three capability levels set at entry and, for mentoring, to an explicit turnover growth criterion, so their contribution could be assessed on participants' commercial outcomes rather than on delivery hours.
Other: The women exporters' association was the principal strategic partner and was involved at every stage: it identified the barriers the curriculum was designed against, shaped the content and built the participant network. Participants themselves supplied feedback that was used to revise training and mentoring content during the programme rather than only at its close.
Key Parameters To Consider
The programme uses established training and mentoring methods, so it can be started without technology development; the dependency is on trainer availability and partner reach. The first cohort ran from September 2024 to February 2025, a six-month cycle.
Key prerequisites include a partner organisation with access to the target group; a capability assessment at entry; three levels of modular content; trainers and mentors with export experience; and an existing digital trade and financing offering to connect participants to. Impact measurement requires baseline commercial data captured on entry.
The three-level modular structure and the collaboration model are the two features that allow the programme to be repeated at different scales and adapted to other sectors and geographies.
Implementation And Operations Tips
The distinguishing design choice was treating psychological barriers as a delivery question rather than a secondary issue. Workshops on invisible barriers and entrepreneurship coaching were run alongside the technical curriculum, and the company reports improvement in participants' confidence and decision-making as a result.
The second lesson is to measure commercial change rather than attendance. Setting a minimum 10% turnover increase as the success criterion for mentoring made it possible to report that 68% of mentored entrepreneurs achieved measurable commercial development, instead of reporting satisfaction scores.
Wider adoption is supported by the combination rather than by the training alone: knowledge, financing, market access and networks were addressed together, participants were routed into the company's existing trade and financing services, and they were considered for its supplier ecosystem. Peer networks formed during the programme sustained collaboration after it ended, which reduces the cost of maintaining impact.