Owning Your Success At Work Shouldn't Be Mistaken for Being Aggressive (TEDx)

Women Entrepreneurs Are a Powerful Driver of Job Creation and Economic Growth

Women entrepreneurs are a powerful yet underused driver of job creation and economic growth. Removing barriers to their success could significantly expand employment, especially for women.

To unlock this potential, growth-oriented women-led small and medium enterprises (WSMEs) – the “missing middle” – must receive stronger support. These firms face major financing gaps, being too large for micro loans but often viewed as too small or risky for banks and investors.

Read more about what the World Bank has set as a target for reaching more women and women-led businesses by 2030.

Publicly Traded Companies Run by Women Entrepreneurs

Women are making powerful strides in all industries and sectors – from sports and entertainment, to international judiciary systems – despite living and working in a world rife with “alarming” bias against them. 

However, in the realm of publicly traded companies, women leaders remain scant. Just over 40 companies on the S&P 500 had women CEOs – a paltry 8%.

The growth is slow.

While there are thousands of publicly traded companies worldwide, The Story Exchange only found 44 thus far that had women involved from the very beginning.

Giving Back to Help Other Women Entrepreneurs

Through a collaboration, Melissa Clark, Founder of the She Shift, and Tiffany Harris, owner and founder of Whip My Butta Organics, came together to launch an initiative to support other female-owned businesses.

With every purchase, 10% will be donated to Live Limitless Refuge Center, a Luxury Women's Shelter in Troy, NY, and you can choose to purchase a kit that will be donated to the women served at the shelter. Every purchased donation kit will be delivered monthly to the shelter.

The money will go towards purchasing more feminine products and other necessary items for women who come through the doors.

Women Entrepreneurs Who Make Cold-Weather Product Brands

Jaye Genung of Gobi Heat, founded her company to address the lack of stylish, functional heated apparel, providing jackets, vests, and gear for cold-weather conditions.

Julie Vavrichek of WELLinsulated, created a line of chic, insulated bags designed to protect skincare, electronics, and medication from freezing temperatures. 

Jaye and Julie have created niche products specifically for cold-weather challenges, addressing both comfort and protection of goods.

Sounds like the perfect time to explore these products while the bitter cold blankets USA!

Female Entrepreneurs: What Book Changed Your Life?

Lindsay Tigar asked a group of female entrepreneurs to share the book that changed their perspective: professionally, personally or both. These aren’t just titles they admired. They’re books that cracked something open, offered clarity, or gave permission to think differently.

Here, female entrepreneurs share their must-reads for you and for me.  Oh, and my favorite?  Anything by Jim Collins, the late Clayton Christensen or Peter Drucker.

This Woman Entrepreneur Turned Grass Into Bonnets

Image created by ChatGPT prompt: Sophia Woodhouse's 1819 straw hat

Going back in time, Sophia Woodhouse was born in Wethersfield in 1799. She and her family lived on Main Street in town, and she would go to the meadows to pick grass. But what she did with the grass was groundbreaking.

“She went and picked the grass and discovered a method of turning it into beautiful bonnets,” said Gillie Johnson, Wethersfield Historical Society. “And in 1819 she entered the Hartford Agricultural Society’s Cattle Show and Fair and displayed a bonnet that dazzled people and what was popular at the time were Leghorn bonnets from Italy, and people said her bonnet was just as good if not better than those bonnets.”

Sophia Woodhouse turned her bonnet making into a business, creating a cottage industry. She is known today as one of the first female entrepreneurs of the greater Hartford, Connecticut area, even earning a patent for her design in 1821.

Two first ladies, Dolley Madison and Louisa Adams, wore her design. President John Quincy Adams called the bonnets “an extraordinary specimen of American manufacturing.”