When Impact Scales: the other Side of the Unicorn

By: Marlene Garayzar, CGO and co-founder of Stori When entrepreneurship is born from purpose, it has the power to transform deep economic structures. In the Mexican context where 19 million people have never had a financial product**, **entrepreneurship becomes an opportunity to generate solutions that open access, promote inclusion, and build paths towards real financial health. Entrepreneurship with a human vision can identify gaps, rethink questions, and design new forms of economic participation. It is a way to reconfigure the game, democratize opportunities, and activate the potential of those who are historically excluded. Mexico is going through a key moment where entrepreneurship has become an urgent response to the structural gaps that persist in sectors such as finance, education, health, or mobility, for example. Faced with an environment of inequality, informality, and lack of access, entrepreneurship represents a way to build from the local, from real needs, and with a much greater potential for impact. It is possible to build from purpose without sacrificing either scale or profitability. But to achieve this, it is not enough to occupy a place at the decision-making table. It is necessary to design spaces to promote a business model with a tangible impact on millions of people. If we want more solutions that respond to the enormous challenges of the country, we need more people creating and not competing to win a space. Moving from discourse to action implies recognizing that **no entrepreneurship grows in isolation, **it requires an ecosystem to make it possible. We need funds that bet on those who are just starting out, public policies that facilitate formality, eliminate unnecessary barriers, and accelerate the creation of companies with impact, and foster spaces where entrepreneurs can collaborate, learn, make mistakes, and iterate again. Currently, it is necessary to have more companies that are led with empathy, purpose, and collective responsibility. Today more than ever it is key to have founders with a directive vision who question what already exists and do not seek to replicate it, but rather create different products in a better way, those who dare to sit at the tables where the future is decided, with the responsibility that this entails. If I have learned anything, it is that entrepreneurship is not the end, it is the vehicle to rewrite the rules of the game. In our case, it showed us that purpose is not a pretty word, but what keeps you firm when everything is shaking. Lead differently, undertake with a cause, grow with meaning, and demonstrate that another way of doing business in Mexico is possible. Entrepreneurship is the vehicle to rewrite the rules of the game. And this country needs new players. Marlene Garayzar is co-founder of Stori, the first unicorn company to be founded by a woman in Mexico. She is a graduate of International Relations from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) and holds a Master’s degree in Administration from the Instituto Tecnológico de México (ITAM). She is President of the Mexican Association of Popular Financial Societies; Vice President of the International Chamber of Commerce Mexico and part of the Honorary Promotional Council Hecho en México.