Where youth innovation meets women’s entrepreneurship for lasting impact.

Who We Are

GrowHer is a student-led business consulting initiative that partners with small, women-led startups across South Korea to help them scale sustainably in the digital age. Our team of high school consultants brings expertise in marketing, digital operations, and strategic growth. We off hands-on, personalized support, including branding, automation tools, and workflow optimization, to transform traditional business models into modern, tech-enabled enterprises. Our mission is to make professional consulting and digital transformation accessible, youth-powered, and impact driven.

Meet Founder Carey Kim

During her AP Seminar research on the gender wage gap, Carey Kim uncovered a recurring pattern: while corporate reforms and policy debates drew attention, women entrepreneurs, especially those running small, creative businesses, were often left without adequate support. Many lacked access to digital tools, streamlined operations, and the networks needed to compete in a fast-changing economy.

Motivated to act, Carey turned first to local female entrepreneurs in her own community, many of whom were balancing both business and personal responsibilities with little external support. Their struggles revealed to her that empowerment required more than awareness; it requires accessible systems and practical solutions. In response, she founded GrowHer, a Community Automation Lab to help women-led businesses streamline operations, strengthen their digital presence, and pursue sustainable growth.

By bridging research and practice, Carey designed GrowHer not only to address structural inequalities but also to amplify the resilience, creativity, and voices of women entrepreneurs often overlooked in larger conversations about gender equity.

Empowering Women Entrepreneurs Through Digital Transformation

Women-Owned Small Businesses Are Growing

Women-led startups are on the rise in Korea, now making up 37.9% of all enterprises and employing 2.3 times more female employees on average than male-owned businesses. This growth is especially strong in creative sectors such as art, design, education, and fashion, where women entrepreneurs are reshaping Korea’s business landscape with innovation and fresh perspectives. Yet, despite this momentum, many women-owned businesses struggle to sustain long-term growth due to limited access to resources, digital tools, and structured business strategies. GrowHer was created to bridge this gap by helping women-led business turn early-stage ideas into scalable, sustainable success stories.

The Digital Gap

Even as the number of women-owned businesses grows, many still rely on manual processes and lack strong digital presence, making it harder to stay competitive in today’s fast-changing market. According to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, female entrepreneurs cite financial support (31.7%), tax relief (29.8%), and market access (14.8%) as their top business needs. At the same time, 36-39% struggle with work-life balance, and 26.6% report feeling excluded from male-dominated business networks. These challenges are compounded by high costs for consulting, limited access to training, and time constraints as owners juggle multiple roles. As a results, even talented entrepreneurs with great products often struggle to gain traction. GrowHer helps close this digital and operational gap by making growth tools, strategies, and workflows simple, affordable, and actionable.

What GrowHer Does

GrowHer provides free, student-powered consulting designed to help women-led small businesses modernize, grow, and thrive. We partner closely with business owners to:

  • identify operational marketing challenges through personalized discovery sessions’

  • Develop tailored digital solutions, from optimized social media strategies to automated workflows

  • Offer hands-on training so owners can confidently manage new tools and systems

  • Build stronger online visibility and brand reputation to attract and retain customers

By combining practical tools, strategic insights, and personalized support, GrowHer empowers women-led businesses to gain traction, expand their reach, and scale sustainably in an increasingly digital economy.

Our Vision

Our vision is to redefine access to business strategy by creating a world where women entrepreneurs have the tools, knowledge, and confidence to automate, digitalize, and grow their businesses sustainably. We aim to break down the barriers of cost, complexity, and inaccessibility by offering simple, practical solutions tailored to small, women-led startups. At the same time, we are fostering a new generation of youth-led, community-based innovation—where students bring fresh perspectives, digital fluency, and empathy to the table. By bridging women’s entrepreneurial drive with youth-powered solutions, we are building a future where business growth is more inclusive, equitable, and impactful.

Our Mission

GrowHer’s mission is to make digital transformation accessible for small, women-led businesses by offering free, youth-powered consulting. We empower local entrepreneurs to streamline their operations, enhance their online presence, and adopt practical, low-cost tools, all while building confidence in the digital space. Our work is grounded in creativity, empathy, and the belief that real change starts with community-level innovation.

Why Youth-Led Consulting Works

Youth-led consulting offers something traditional firms often cannot: fresh ideas, digital fluency, and cultural insight shaped by a generation raised in the digital age. As students, we naturally understand branding trends, social media strategies, and the latest low-cost tools that resonate with modern consumers. Our approach is not just about applying technical skills, but about bringing creativity, adaptability, and empathy to every business we work with.

Unlike conventional consulting models, which can be costly and out of reach for many small businesses, our student-driven framework is designed to be accessible and community-focused. By pairing youthful perspective with hands-on support, we provide practical solutions that meet entrepreneurs where they are—helping women-led startups transform and grow sustainably without financial strain.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a typical consulting process take?

It really depends on your business’s unique needs. For some clients, the transformation can be quick, such as setting up automated social media scheduling or creating easy-to-use design templates, which can be completed in just a week. For others, specially those looking to automate customer engagement, or restructure digital marketing strategies, the process may take several weeks to a few months. Our approach is flexible: we move at your pace, ensuring that every step is clear, sustainable, and tailored to your goals.

Is GrowHer an NGO, a company, or a school project?

GrowHer is a student-led initiative that operates with the professionalism of a consulting team and the heart of a community project. While it isn’t a formal NGO or company yet, we function like a startup consultancy, offering structured services, building partnerships, and measuring impact.

What makes GrowHer different from other consulting services?

Many consulting firms focus on large-scale businesses and charge high fees for generic strategies. GrowHer flips that model. We are youth-powered, affordable, and community-focused. Our team combines fresh perspectives with practical training in business and digital tools, allowing us to design solutions that are both creative and effective. Instead of overwhelming clients with jargon or on-size-fits-all plans, we provide hands-on support that local entrepreneurs can apply immediately to see results. Most importantly, we stay connected with our clients, ensuring they feel confident using the systems we build together.

Do I need to have technical experience to work with GrowHer?

Not at all. GrowHer is built on the belief that digital tools should be simple, not intimidating. Many of the women we’ve worked with had little or no prior experience with automation or digital marketing before partnering with us. Our job is to break down complex processes into clear, step-by-step guidance and provide continued support until you feel comfortable. Whether you’re learning how to schedule your first Instagram post or automating an entire client workflow, we’ll meet you where you are and walk with you through the process.