WOMEN’S CULTURE
“American companies without female executives missed out on $567 billion in revenue in 2014.” anced federal contracting field is preventing women-owned enterprises from achieving their full potential.
rate, and create valuable business partnerships.” The report describes this confidence in your ability to achieve as the most important benefit of being a member of a community, a culture. The study also delineates pragmatic benefits to communities, such as learning more efficiently and creating connections that will help your business in the future.
Some of these obstacles have slowly faded, creating a stronger momentum in the women’s movement. In 2010, Section 342 of the Dodd-Frank Act created the Office(s) of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) tasked with implementing diversity within regulated entities. More recently, the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) program gained the power of sole source authority, permitting contracting officers to directly award contracts to women-owned small businesses. The unprecedented equity crowd-funding movement has also given women a new source of capital, and according to the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC), more than 1,000 women-owned businesses are created daily. Women in executive positions have also made an impact. Women in Business: the Value of Diversity, a recent study from global advisory firm Grant Thornton reports that American companies without female executives missed out on $567 billion in revenue in 2014. As the NWBC articulates in their Reasons to Invest in Women Entrepreneurs fact sheet, investing in women-owned businesses goes beyond social responsibility; it has an immense effect on the U.S. economy.
Cultures have the ability to play important roles in the lives of their inhabitants. Whether it be through amenities, events or people, a person’s surroundings can be crucial to their growth and quality of life. It is time to strengthen women’s culture and allow the female voice to be heard as one. When addressing the topic of community, the EY and Babson College report explains, “What’s the advantage of finding community? The first benefit is the removal of self-imposed limits on what you can accomplish,” and, “We’ve also seen how this community enables participants to shorten learning curves, gain insight into tough business problems, collabo-
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Desirée Patno, CEO of NAWRB, states, “Unlike their minority counterparts, women do not have geographical roots. As a result, women lack strong cultural support from one another.” The absence of a strong women’s culture has rendered very slow sustainable growth for women on several fronts. Because women are spread thin, they must work hard to identify as a cohesive group and address their collective issues. In several cultures, women are not afforded the same opportunities as their male counterparts and once they break through the emblematic glass ceiling, they generally lack conviction and self-confidence to help other women. Geri Stengel provides further support for surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals with Forget the Glass Ceiling: Build Your Business Without One, in which she profiles 10 successful female entrepreneurs and deflates the idea that women cannot start or lead “high-potential companies.” Stengel outlines, “Knowing other entrepreneurs plays an important role in directly enhancing aspirations of women to start their own businesses, and supporting their growth by providing access to ideas, opportunities, and resources.” In relation to the businesswomen she profiles, Stengel describes, “Research finds that family dynamics impact entrepreneurial aspirations. We see it in the women profiled. Sixty percent came from homes in which one or both parents were longtime or serial small business owners.”
“What’s the advantage of finding community? The first benefit is the removal of self-imposed limits on what you can accomplish.” Stengel explains that being around other entrepreneurs not only motivates people to launch their own businesses, it also