Women Entrepreneurs Know How to Lead

Collaboration, team-building, leading by example and inclusiveness are becoming increasingly important as companies break down silos and remove layers of management.

There's still a huge gap that most organizations still face when it comes to putting women in senior leadership roles. Women head up fewer than 3% of the Fortune 1,000 companies. This has caused a lot of women to leave corporate America to start their own businesses.

Read more here at:

Women Leaders: The Hard Truth About Soft Skills

Snippet from the article:

"The outstanding women," Fontaine notes, "used a better blend of what we think of as traditional masculine styles—being directive, authoritative, and leading by example and as well as feminine ones. They also knew when to be more nurturing, inclusive, and collaborative."

More, More, More

"How you like it, how you like it!" More.com is currently featuring information that might be helpful to you and your existing or soon-to-be business during these tough economic times.

Whether you have a business, want to start a business, need help updating your job hunting skills, or want recommendations for job hunting websites, you will find all of this and More(.com) here.

Check out this creative sample piece here:

“I Launched My Business from the Ladies Room."

Shhhhhh ... I'm not sure if I caught this correctly but when I visited site I saw one year for $0! And, the "More, more, more" reference above comes from Andrea True Connection.

Eva Longoria Parker: Hardly Just An Actress

What do you think of when you see the name Eva Logoria Parker (pictured)? I immediately think of Gabrielle Solis on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, one of the craziest and sauciest characters in a show full of them.

But did you know?

Using Housewives as her foundation, Longoria Parker, 34, has leveraged her notoriety and growing wealth in areas well outside the acting realm, becoming a legitimate businesswoman and philanthropist and positioning herself to become the equivalent of the CEO of a multi-industry conglomerate. She’s started a production company, UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, to develop projects. She co-owns Beso, a 150-seat Hollywood restaurant that includes some of her own recipes on the menu (try the tortilla soup), and just opened a second lo-cation in Las Vegas along with a nightclub called Eve.

She is also part of The GreenVille Project, a real estate development initiative dedicated to building environ-mentally neutral retail spaces. She’s working on a fragrance. She’s a spokesperson for L’Oreal, Pepsi and Heineken Light. She has also founded Eva’s Heroes, a charity that provides an after-school program for children with developmental disabilities and support for their families. Longoria Parker is also national spokes-person for PADRES Contra El Cáncer, a charity dedicated to improving the lives of Latino children with cancer.

Enough said about her entrepreneurial drive. Read more here.

Women Business Owners Have the Edge

Women business owners are proving they are mighty force and one you don't mess with.

Not only are women-owned firms contributing $3 million annually to the U.S. economy and accounting for 16% of all jobs, but new research shows women entrepreneurs will create 5 to 5.5 million new jobs across the U.S. by 2018 – more than half of the total new small-business jobs expected to be created during that time, and about one-third of the total new jobs anticipated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Read the entire study here:
Women Rock As Small Business Owners

One more quick snippet:

Experts say hopeful male entrepreneurs should take notes on what has been giving women business leaders an edge.

To Win, Unleash Your Inner Entrepreneur

Should you restart your career as whatever it is that you have been doing for umpteen years (same thing but at a different place) or pursue your childhood dream of starting your own business?

Well this piece can most certainly help guide you. A quick snippet:

The economy looks bleak with unemployment climbing to 7.6 percent last month from 7.2 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Meanwhile, foreclosures mount while benefits, savings and pensions deteriorate.

As job security from corporate America fades, Jackson and others see the economic downturn as an unexpected chance to transform hobbies or youthful fantasies, once-dubbed impractical, into grown-up careers.

"I've spent most of my professional life making money for other people's companies," says Laura Waldusky, who opened her own jewelry shop this month in Houston, Texas, after being unable to find a job in 2008. "Why not invest my talents in, well, myself?" iReport.com: Surviving a tough economy.

Bad economy? Do what you love.

Starting a Business Is Not Always a Walk in the Dog Park

Amy Nichols (pictured with her doggie pals), a former telecommunications sales executive, is the founder of Dogtopia, a national chain of upscale day-care centers for dogs. Her blog can be found here.

Ms. Nichols always knew that she wanted to care for animals. But, after college, she thought she should get a "real job."

Following in her father's footsteps, she chose telecommunications. In the late 1990s, she built a career working for a number of the big players: Bell Atlantic (which later became Verizon), Cable & Wireless USA and XO Communications. She moved up the ladder, starting in sales support where her job was to find outside contractors to install the purchased phone systems.

But she says after a while, the thrill of the chase left her "feeling empty," and she was ready for something else. She decided her next act would take her back to her first love—something involving pets, something that she could develop herself, and something that would allow her to bring Griffin, her Boston terrier, to work.

Learn how Nichols's telecommunications background contributed to her success as a business owner here. Fascinating story.

Photo credit: Kevin Wolf, WSJ

Women Entrepreneurs Thrive In Our New Economy

Despite the tough economic times, these black women continue to thrive with their businesses.

• Jacqueline Ogutverenm Grace Realty
• Martha Price, Little People Day Care
• Laferia "Freda" Brown, Freda's
• Jennifer McLeod, Platinum Motors

Read more here.

Separately but related to women of color from diverse career paths, Black Enterprise has announced the 2010 Women of Power Legacy Award winners.

They are as follows:

B. Smith, Founder & Chief Creative Officer, B. Smith Enterprises; Hon. Shirley Jackson, Ph.D., President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Audrey Smaltz (pictured): CEO and Founder, The Ground Crew Worldwide; Aulana L. Peters, Retired Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP; and former Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman, who now serves as Chair and CEO of New Ventures LLC.

Congratulations to all!

Learn more here.

Photo: Audrey, Smaltz, CEO and Founder, The Ground Crew Worldwide

O Sisters: Female CEOs, Top Execs and Entrepreneurs, Where Art Thou?

The numbers of female CEOs, high-level executives, and entrepreneurs in the U.S. today are surprisingly low. Why?

We will let Vivek Wadhwa (an entrepreneur, senior research associate at Harvard Law School, and executive in residence at Duke University) discuss his research (in an article for BusinessWeek) that shows that women entrepreneurs are very similar to their male counterparts in background and purpose ...

... which is why he thinks the lack of female entrepreneurship, especially in the tech industry, is a "societal failure" on our part.

Read all about it here.

A Guide Toward Bold Innovation

My latest contribution over at the American Express OPEN Forum.

Check it out and if you like it, say so via a Tweet + hit the Thumbs Up button (at the bottom)! Many thanks.

The Art of
BOLD
iNnOVatIoN

LOLASAB: Laugh Off Layoff and Start a Business

Not too many people care why you start a business. What matters most is that you do it and are excited about it! But in this case, a layoff and an innate passion were the tipping points for Kathy Standage (pictured) of Colorado who launched Exclusive Vail Rentals.

Read about her background, start up plan and hopes for the future with her business -- here.

What about you? Are you going to LOLASAB in 2010?

Photo credit: Chris Schneider for USA Today