It’s a given, or I believe it is, that women — particularly high-achievers — are judged by a different standard. Witness Katie Couric and Hillary Clinton. Barbra Streisand said it best, I think: “Men become involved in producing, directing and writing and everyone calls them talented. But a woman who does the same is called power-hungry — or a bitch.”

Yes, there it is, the “B” word. We’ve all heard it, some of us have said it, and at some point it may even have been directed at of us. But, that’s not the only “B” word used to label females making the rounds today. That other “B” word, apparently is just as insidious, but it’s aimed at younger females—much, much younger.

Read the rest of this entry »

The world’s largest advertising holding company has a new strategy aimed at the world’s largest consumer group — women. As Stuart Elliot writes in the New York Times, Omnicom Group Inc., has created an all-female-run strategic consultancy called G23, “G as in Group, 23 as in the pair of chromosomes that carries the sex differences between women and men.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Laura Lutter Cole was ready to start living what she’d been witnessing for years. She had a business partner, a plan, and a network of support to open a new men’s business casual clothing store on Brady Street in Milwaukee.

It was about a year in the making, but it was finally time to quit her job at Ernst & Young and live her dream. Her last day at the firm was Sept. 10, 2001, one day before the terrorist attacks on the United States.

“I thought, ‘what did I get myself into?’ Lutter Cole said. “What was really unnerving was when the economy just tanked. It was really hard.”

But her store, Aala Reed, 1320 E. Brady St., opened on schedule two months later, according to the Milwaukee Business Journal.
Read the rest of this entry »

The leaders of the Senate committee that oversees the Small Business Administration urged the agency to broaden its pending women’s procurement program or else delay issuing final regulations for it until next year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Austin Mader-Clark’s new fueling station and convenience store in San Mateo is in the red, yet she makes time to confer with her competition weekly. That collaboration is critical to the success of the fledgling industry, she said.

Three women-owned biodiesel stations — Mader-Clark’s Autopia Biofuels LLC, BioFuel Oasis Cooperative Inc. in Berkeley and Dogpatch Biofuels Cooperative Inc. in San Francisco — are establishing a consortium that could help them improve pricing, government regulation and public opinion, according to the Silicon Valley-San Jose Business Journal.

Read the rest of this entry »

As busy women, sometimes cooking meals is not on the top of our list of things to do and we hit the fast-food restaurants. And many of us feel guilty about that. I can’t give you more time, but I can tell you to stop feeling bad about it—you’re not alone.

A new report from Research International USA, “Fast Food Nation 2008” says that so many Americans regularly eat fast food that these restaurants are still thriving even in today’s recessionary times. The average American spends $500 a year on fast food. Read the rest of this entry »

When Terry Hornsby came up with the idea for a promotional advertising firm in 1995, she was determined to start the venture on her own. But when she went to a bank to ask for an SBA-guaranteed loan of $10,000, the bank initially told her she would need a co-signer.

But Hornsby wasn’t interested in having a co-signer, so she asked how much they were expecting her to pay back on a monthly basis, and the answer was $218.

“I told them that if I can’t make $218 a month, then I shouldn’t start a business,” Hornsby recalls. “If they could not trust me, then I would pick up my business plan and take it to another bank that would be willing to work with me.”

The strategy worked, and over the years, Hornsby has turned Houston-based TLC Adcentives LLC from a fledgling home-based business into a profitable, full-service, promotional advertising company that notched $581,000 in revenue in 2007, according to the Houston Business Journal.

Read the rest of this entry »

These are stressful times we’re living in. As business owners we’re struggling to do more with less, which leads to even more strain on our employees. And that pressure is costing us.

Read the rest of this entry »

Phyllis Dillinger, a chief financial officer with 23 years of experience, is used to being one of the only women in the room. That’s especially true for a female who works in biotechnology.

“Many times I’ve been one woman with 30 men” in a meeting, she says. Dillinger, CFO for life sciences company KPL Inc., is not alone anymore. She has found good sisterly company in biotechnology as a board member of Women in Bio, founded in October 2001 to bring together female entrepreneurs and executives in the life sciences. The 300-person group is expanding into other cities, including Boston and San Diego, according to the Washington Business Journal.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pioneer social worker of Fulton, Mo., now in her mid-80s, titled her spring commencement speech to graduates of the College of Human and Environmental Sciences at the University of Missouri “Catching the Baton.” She included a poem that she wrote for her staff when she retired:

Read the rest of this entry »