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Hello, I'm Leanna Byrne and welcome to meet the founders from Business Daily on the BBC World Service.

This is where we speak to innovators around the world about the ideas, risks and realities of starting a business. Today, I'm meeting

someone who spent most of her life getting women who never had access to finance alone.

Now, remember, nobody now at that point in times in early 90s, nobody's thinking a woman can

borrow a loan in this country and repay. Women were not supposed to be

creditworthy. She's the founder of Kenya Women Finance Bank and Kenya Women Holding,

institutions that help millions of women across Kenya borrow, save and build businesses of their

own. And she helps others because at one point in her life, she needed help too.

My having a baby as a teenager and no place in my family. My father was very bitter about it. My mother

never said a word. That's Dr. Jennifer Ruira, our founder this week.

Now, one big part of the story is understanding how microfinance works.

Access to capital for women is still a big challenge in much of Africa.

And that's where microfinance plays a role in giving small loans

and financial services to people who can't access traditional banks and helping them start to grow

their business. Jennifer Riwira is a central figure in this field. In 1991, she relaunched the

Kenyan Women Finance Trust, which had originally started in 1981, but collapsed without full-time leadership.

The trust gave rural women loans so they could set up businesses at a time when many women were considered too risky to lend to.

Jennifer was reviving an idea, many didn't believe in. But her own path

to that point wasn't straightforward. Growing up in a village in central Kenya, she became a mother

in her late teens. She says a series of experiences pushed her to leave home and pursue higher

education, first in Tanzania and later in the UK.

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