Zinthiya Ganeshpanchan: Winner of the 2025 Great Companies International Women Entrepreneur Award

Name: Zinthiya Ganeshpanchan

Business Name: Zinthiya Trust

Location: Leicester, United Kingdom ( UK)

Category: NGO

Website: https://www.zinthiyatrust.org/

Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/zganeshpanchan/

Company Detail:

Zinthiya Trust supports women and families to be free for violence and poverty. To achieve its objective it provides a range of support services to its beneficiaries which include one to one support to women fleeing all forms of abuse as well as providing money and debt advise to individuals who are facing poverty including fuel poverty.

In addition, the charity also provides practical help such as emergency accommodation to women fleeing abuse, utility popups for those in fuel poverty, school uniforms for children of families facing poverty and emergency food and hygiene products to those in crisis. On average year it supports around 2,000 unique beneficiaries. As a charity focused on long term change it also heavily invests in education and awareness raising on the issues it is working among the community including among young people.

Unique Selling Proposition or Competitive Advantage:

It is one of the only organisations in its region providing a holistic support package to its beneficiaries who are often those with multiple and complex needs. It is also among the very few organisations nationally who are providing support to women fleeing abuse and have no recourse to public funding. Furthermore, around 85% of its current employees have also been previous service users demonstrating its commitment to long term change.

Additionally despite being a not for profit organisation it is also very entrepreneurial and innovative in the way it works to support its community. This has been demonstrated in the way it works to diversify its income to become sustainable and continue to grow. It is believed that these characteristics make it unique.

Challenges Faced During the Journey:

The charity was set up by Zinthiya in 2009 with as little as £100 as she wanted to provide opportunity for those who were impacted by abuse and poverty. However, since setting up the charity she faced a number of challenges such as the global financial crisis in 2009, the Pandemic as well as the current cost of living crisis which has been a challenge as the demand for the work has increased while in the same time securing resources to deliver the work has been more and more challenging. Despite these challenges Zinthiya has led the organisation to become one of the leading charities in the region.

On a personal capacity she has also had to face numerous challenges such as fleeing a war torn country and having to start a new life from scratch, facing specific challenges associated with being a woman of colour as well as being a carer to her daughter and extended family.

However, through her passion, vision, determination, agility and leadership she has been able to overcome all obstacles she faced and grow the charity to what it is today. As a result the charity has also won many awards for the impact it has created in the community.

Most impressively Zinthiya has not only grown the Zinthiya Trust but has also in 2018 established another Social enterprise that provides low cost food and sanitary products to those on low income demonstrating her entrepreneurial spirit, can do attitude as well as her courage to face challenges to make a real difference in the community she works.

Advice for Women Entrepreneurs:

Being an entrepreneur is tough but equally satisfying. However, if one wants to be successful one must be prepared to put in the hard work and always be prepared to give before one gains.