Rachel Eng is making room at the table for women entrepreneurs

In 2019, Rachel Eng was sitting in an ASEAN Business Advisory Council meeting at the Impact Exhibition Centre in Bangkok when she had an uncomfortable realisation.

Around the table, almost every ASEAN member state had nominated a women’s business chamber to represent its entrepreneurs in the ASEAN Women Entrepreneurs Network (AWEN). Some countries even had several women’s organisations competing for the role.

But when it came to Singapore, there was none.

Rachel – a corporate lawyer who was named Her World’s Woman of the Year 2014 for breaking the glass ceiling as the first woman to make managing partner of a “Big Four” law firm in Singapore – was one of three members representing Singapore in the council. At the meeting, representatives were expected to discuss the challenges businesses in ASEAN face. But instead, she found herself confronting a question closer to home: Why didn’t Singapore have a national network representing its women entrepreneurs?

That question would eventually lead her to start the Singapore Women Entrepreneurs Network (SG-WEN) in September 2021. Five years on, what began with just over 50 members has grown into a network of more than 850.

“It’s not been an easy journey,” Rachel tells us in the SG-WEN office, seated in the Singapore Business Federation Center. She describes the journey as one that leaves her feeling “both grateful and slightly vindicated” – grateful to everyone who believed in the cause, and vindicated that the vision has since proven its worth to those who initially didn’t see its necessity.

But the story of SG-WEN is also, in many ways, the story of the 58-year-old herself. Behind the network is a woman who spent decades balancing motherhood and breaking barriers in Singapore’s legal industry.

Building what didn’t exist

At the age of 50, Rachel left Wongpartnership after two decades there to launch her own law firm Eng and Co. – a bold move not many would take at her age.

“I could have retired comfortably in the firm, but as I headed towards 50, I wanted to continue to learn new things, expand my horizon, and try something different,” she shares.

Yet, building SG-WEN proved to be a steeper climb. The idea was met with scepticism from potential partners and investors from the start: Why did Singapore need a network exclusively for women entrepreneurs, when plenty of mixed business chambers already existed?

Many didn’t think the idea would gain traction, let alone grow into a movement. So before officially launching the organisation, Rachel and her executive committee decided to find out for themselves. They conducted focus group discussions with women entrepreneurs across Singapore to understand whether such a platform was truly needed.

The answer was overwhelmingly yes.

Over the years, she has heard countless stories of the subtle yet persistent hurdles women continue to face. For instance, investors and partners would question whether they’d be able to commit to business when they’re married, or when they have children.

“And the thing is, the men don’t get asked these kinds of questions,” she points out. Rachel experienced the same bias herself.

“I’ve had clients who say, ‘You work so hard, who’s looking after your children?’ And then I’m thinking, ‘What should I say?’” The question, she says, becomes a lose-lose situation.

“If I say I have no time, the client isn’t going to give me work. But if I say ‘No, don’t worry, I don’t really care about my kids’, the client would think that I’m such a terrible mum.”

It was these invisible barriers that convinced Rachel the network was worth fighting for. Together with her team, she successfully lobbied for SG-WEN to be housed under the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) and for the Government to appoint it as Singapore’s representative to AWEN, allowing members to build regional networks, while ensuring Singapore that has a voice in conversations surrounding women-led businesses.

With its place secured, the next question then became: What should SG-WEN stand for?
“We are not a social club, and we are also not a training centre,” Rachel often tells members.

Turning that vision into reality required plenty of grit. In its early days, SG-WEN ran almost entirely on volunteer effort. Each executive committee member recruited 10 women entrepreneurs, forming its first community of 50 members.

Operating on a shoestring budget, the organisation also relied heavily on support from SBF until sponsors like HSBC, Standard Chartered, PwC and Shopee came on board as membership grew.

Today, SG-WEN has grown to host programmes like Rise, and Gather and Grow, which help entrepreneurs network, receive mentorship, and build their capabilities.

Among SG-WEN’s milestones is the launch of the SG-WEN Award in 2024, a flagship initiative that celebrates outstanding women entrepreneurs. The award also serves as a springboard for winners to represent Singapore on regional platforms, including the AWEN Awards, elevating their businesses and stories across ASEAN.

For Rachel, however, the greatest success isn’t measured by attendance numbers or sponsorships.

“Women entrepreneurs are quite alone in the journey,” she observes. Between running businesses and caring for families, many shoulder responsibilities that few around them truly understand.

SG-WEN, she hopes, offers them something they’ve been missing: people who simply get it.

“When it comes to activities, they (members) really don’t want to leave. They are just so excited that they can talk to other women entrepreneurs in the same kind of situation,” she shares.

To encourage those relationships, every event also often includes roundtable conversations, where every woman can walk out with four to five new friends.

The women she was missing

Extensive is an understatement for Rachel’s portfolio. Even in the early days of her career, she was juggling high-stakes legal work with board appointments – all in an industry notorious for long hours and relentless demands.

When she became a mother, suddenly, every late-night meeting, work trip and emergency call was shadowed by the guilt of not being home with her children, and there were few women around her who could relate. As she rose through the ranks, Rachel was often one of – if not the only – woman in the room.

“If SG-WEN existed at that time, I think I probably would not have felt like wanting to quit so many times,” she shares, candidly admitting that she came close to resigning after seeing how a colleague at Wongpartnership left to focus on family, which may have contributed to her child later becoming a PSLE top scorer.

Back then, Rachel wondered if she should make the same choice. “I was driving my kids and I asked them ‘What do you think if mum quits and stays at home?’ They said, ‘No, mummy, your gift is in law. So you just stay there. We are happy being at grandmother’s.”

Even her late senior partner refused to entertain the idea whenever she suggested stepping back into an administrative role. “He always said, ‘Rach, we’re ambitious for you. So you cannot quit.’”

Behind the scenes, her parents and parents-in-law readily stepped in whenever work demanded late nights or overseas trips, while her husband encouraged her to seize every promotion and opportunity without hesitation.

“I wanted to quit, but nobody allowed me to quit,” she jokes.

But as a young mother back then, Rachel often worried about what her absence might mean for her children’s upbringing – whether they were doing well at school, eating properly, or coping without her at home. Without women in similar positions ahead of her, Rachel found herself wondering: Could she truly have both a fulfilling career and a happy family, or was she chasing an impossible ideal?

“When you talk to the men, they don’t really understand. So then, who do you talk to? Who do you share this challenge with?

“You can’t share it with your client because then they will not give you work. You can’t share with your bosses because then they won’t promote you. It’s hard to talk to anyone about the struggles that we face.” And that is exactly the gap Rachel hopes SG-WEN fills today.

The next chapter

To mark its fifth anniversary, SG-WEN will be hosting its inaugural roundtable, bringing together women’s chambers and associations from Singapore and across the region – a milestone Rachel sees as another step towards her original vision.

Her hope for SG-WEN’s next chapter is to mirror the very moment that inspired its creation – not simply as a Singapore network, but as a gateway for women entrepreneurs across ASEAN beyond conferences.

“My wish is that if someone wants to sell something in Vietnam or Indonesia, but doesn’t know where to start, we can simply contact someone in AWEN who can introduce a fellow businesswoman,” she says. “I think that would be my version of success for SG-WEN.”
To her, that’s what the organisation has always been about: friendships that grow into trust, and trust that grows into partnerships and business opportunities.

As Singapore prepares to chair the ASEAN Business Advisory Council in 2027, Rachel hopes SG-WEN can play an even greater role in positioning Singapore women entrepreneurs as contributors to ASEAN’s economic future.

“If the men can do business with their friends, why can’t the women do the same?” she asks.

PHOTOGRAPHY Isabelle Seah

ART DIRECTION Ray Ticsay

HAIR & MAKEUP Zhou Aiyi