Nell Merlino
Cracking the Glass Ceiling and
Raising the Roof
Innovations Case Narrative:
Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence
My entire career has been about women and girls: inspiring them, making them
more visible, and enhancing their economic opportunities. En 1992, I created Take
our Daughters to Work Day (TDWD); en 1999, I launched Count Me in for
Women’s Economic Independence (CMI), to reach women and girls with messages
and programs that promote economic empowerment. CMI is the leading national
not-for-profit provider of resources, business education, and community support
for women entrepreneurs seeking to grow micro-businesses into million-dollar
enterprises.
To me, these efforts are a natural progression in the women’s movement. Una vez
we won human and legal rights for ourselves, financial independence was the log-
ical next step. This is because girls learn everything from watching women, incluir-
ing watching them be active, successful players in the economy. These decades of
momentous change in women’s economic lives have been exhilarating. Quite sim-
capa, women and girls are now critical players in the global economy; as a 2009
report from Boston Consulting notes, el $20 trillion of consumer spending cur- rently controlled by females could reach $28 trillion over the next five years.1 The
economy relies on women’s ability to make and spend money.
And that is why women must do everything in our power to show girls by
example how to make, save, give, and invest money. The issue is no longer crack-
ing the proverbial glass ceiling; we’ve done that mightily. Now we must raise the
roof altogether and expand the pie to make room for all the innovation and cre-
ativity that women and girls can bring to the global marketplace. The four women
I profile here are examples of how we do that, and their stories embody several cru-
cial themes: growing one’s self-esteem after being abused, drawing on military
experience to succeed in business, and the importance to women of role models,
mutual support, inspiration, publicity, and financial guidance.
Nell Merlino is Founder and President of Count Me In for Women’s Economic
Independence, the leading national not-for-profit provider of resources for women to
grow their micro businesses into million-dollar enterprises.
© 2013 Nell Merlino
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Case Study 1: C. j. Scarlet
C.J. recently received a $20, 000 scholarship to attend Singularity University, co- founded by Peter H. Diamandis, the Intel entrepreneur and chairman of the X PRIZE Foundation. Singularity’s mission is to figure out how to use technology to make positive change. That is exactly what Scarlet is doing with her tech com- compañía, 10 for Humanity, which aims to reduce acts of violence worldwide by 10 por ciento en 10 años. She will do that. Scarlet, 52, a former photojournalist with the U.S. Marines, spent five years in the military and was sexually assaulted by her recruiter. For nearly 20 años, she has been a volunteer and professional advocate for victims of violence, and she has earned an interdisciplinary master’s degree in human violence. In January 2013, she happened upon Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler. As she read the book, she began to wonder how to use technology to prevent violence. Then she remem- bered that she had actually done that in 1997, as the Director of Victims’ Issues at the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office. She initiated and co-chaired the implementation of SAVAN, the nation’s first statewide automated victim notifi- cation system, which notifies crime victims before their perpetrators are released from custody. SAVAN was selected as the national model by the U.S. Department of Justice, won several awards, and is still in use today. Still, to her frustration, “I was always addressing violence after it occurred, when what I really want to do is to keep it from happening at all.” She realized that to make that change happen, “someone has to start the process.” She decid- ed that she should be that person. Scarlet knows what it’s like to dust herself off and roll up her sleeves. En 2002, doctors told her that her lupus and scleroderma had caused pulmonary hyper- tension and would soon kill her. Devastated, she sought counsel from a Tibetan lama. He told her to stop feeling sorry for herself and start thinking about other people’s happiness. So she did. She started small, giving up a coveted parking spot, decir, or hand- ing a stranger her cane. “I became more grateful for what I had and focused less on my own suffering,” she says. “I learned that the keys to a happy life are grati- tude and generosity.” Eighteen months later, her condition went into remission. The lama then ordered her to write books and give lectures about what she had learned that had transformed her life. And that is exactly what she is doing with 10 for Humanity. In the fall, she and her team will kick off a global crowd-sourcing campaign, inviting people to submit ideas to prevent violent crime. “Then we’ll take the most marketable and turn them into products and get them on the market,” she says. “I’m talking more than stun guns and pepper spray.” 90 innovaciones / Youth and Economic Opportunities Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/8/1-2/89/705043/inov_a_00167.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 Cracking the Glass Ceiling and Raising the Roof MOM BRINGS HOME THE BACON My first foray into the world of women’s financial independence came in 1992, when the Ms. Foundation for Women asked me to help create a program to boost girls’ self-esteem. I had been working in politics, doing marketing and public rela- tions for presidential campaigns and social issues. A year earlier, around the 10th year of the AIDS epidemic, I’d done a program, “Ten Days Ten Deeds,” that had generated global media attention. The foundation had seen “Ten Days Ten Deeds” and wondered: how can we draw attention to girls in a new way that will bolster their self-esteem? I met with representatives of the foundation, and they give me a carton of research to read. It was so depressing! There we were, 25 years into the women’s movement, and girls were still feeling deflated and suicidal. I very much wanted girls to be seen in places other than where you’d expect them: at school, at home, at the mall. En el momento, people didn’t associate girls with the workplace, but I knew that kids like to see where their parents go every day. My father was a lawyer and leader in the state legislature in New Jersey, and I loved going to work with him. I witnessed him helping people and changing things through hard work and force of personality. My mother was a painter and worked at home. Both of my parents were happiest when they were working. I envisioned the New York subway filled with girls at rush hour, so adults would see the future workforce right next to them. I went back to the foundation with a five-page proposal called “Take Your Daughter to Work.” They liked it, but were afraid that girls would mostly go into offices and see women in clerical roles—where many were. I said, “If that’s true, they need to see that so they can make different decisions about their future in the workforce.” Early in my relationship with the Ms. Base, Gloria Steinem, who was also the editor of Ms. revista, a leader and a role model for so many women, stopped by the office. She looked down at the proposal, took out her pen, and changed the word “Your” to “Our,” so it became “Take OUR Daughters to Work.” That was it. Then she said, “I’m going to lunch with the publisher of Parade mag- azine, and if he asks me what’s new, I’ll tell him this.” Within a month, he had run a quarter-page article about it. We received 10,000 letters from that one piece. Since that time, TDWD been reproduced in 13 countries and is now a yearly event. En 2003 boys, were added into the mix (Take our Daughters and Sons to Work Day), so children of both sexes now get to see their parents in action. The media often get slammed for their negative portrayals of women, but they fully embraced TDWD. Role models are a critical component of change; the cul- ture needed to be flooded with images of girls trying out a range of jobs. That was one of the best ways to change how girls and women were perceived—and, proba- bly more important, how women and girls perceived themselves. Twenty years after its inception, I encounter young women who tell me that their career aspirations were shaped by going to the office with their mothers and fathers, seeing firsthand the opportunities and challenges that lay before them. innovaciones / volumen 8, number 1/2 91 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/8/1-2/89/705043/inov_a_00167.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 Case Study 2: Kristina Guerrero Nell Merlino A funny thing happened while Kristina Guerrero was packing for a camping trip with her husband, Brandon Sylvester, a food scientist. A passionate outdoors – woman and former Air Force pilot, she often found herself lugging around huge bags of food for her dog, Dunkan. There had to be an easier way, she thought. Why not create a meal/energy bar for dogs? The couple did some research and found nothing else like it on the market. Soon after, in July 2011, TurboPUP, a line of complete meal bars for active dogs, sprung to life. The endeavor is completely self-funded; Guerrero and Sylvester do all the cooking and packaging themselves. “We drive from place to place to get people to buy bars,” she says. “I have a 2002 Honda Civic with 200,000 miles; the bumper is being held up by a shoestring.” None of this is surprising; Guerrero was never one to sit still. She joined the military at 17—her parents had to sign her permission slip—and got a full ride to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Then she went to pilot training. “I loved the military,” says Guerrero. “The people in the military are the greatest people I ever had the chance to work with. It’s your family, your broth- ers and sisters, and everybody has your back. There’s dysfunction, sure, but you work through it.” In 2006, while in the Reserves, she began volunteering as an adaptive ski instructor for people with disabilities—and three years later she started a mas- ter’s degree in occupational therapy. But being in both a student and a pilot was too difficult, and she left the Air Force in May 2010. She graduated in 2012 with the idea of starting a nonprofit; one of her goals for TurboPUP is to make enough money to fund her philanthropic efforts. The bars are now available at local retailers and she has two national distrib- utors. Still working as an occupational therapist, Guerrero freely admits that it’s not always easy. “There are some days that are really hard and you kind of need someone to bounce ideas off of,” she says. But that hasn’t deterred her from her mission: to become a multimillion-dol- lar organization that can contribute its profits back into society. “Whenever I have an idea, I act on it.” One such young woman is Kristina Guerrero. Once a U.S. Air Force pilot, Guerrero, now 32, first heard of TDWD at age 13, when she went to work with her mother, a dentist. (“My father, a pilot, wasn’t allowed to let me fly in the cockpit,” she says with a laugh.) TDWD “was huge," ella dijo. “I definitely have a very tangi- ble memory of the excitement of that event. We had so much fun.” I met Kristina at an event for Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (V-WISE), an entrepreneurial program for female vets based at 92 innovaciones / Youth and Economic Opportunities Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/8/1-2/89/705043/inov_a_00167.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 Cracking the Glass Ceiling and Raising the Roof Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management. She had read my book, Stepping out of Line. She came up to me and said, “You’ve been influencing my life since I was 13.” I can’t tell you how humbled I was to have had such a positive impact on this woman, who spent eight years flying C-130 transport planes—including air med- ical evacuations under fire—during combat deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Horn of Africa. And it made me realize once again how important opportuni- ties and positive images of women working are, how one generation truly inspires the next. A 2012 study from the Girl Scouts, Having It All: Girls and Financial Literacy2, corroborates my point about positive role models. The report’s authors interviewed 2,083 girls ages 8 a 17 and their parents. Of these girls, 90 percent said it was important to learn to manage money—but only 12 percent said they felt confident about making financial decisions. They said they learned about money and finances primarily from their moms (85 por ciento), dads (61 por ciento), and teachers or guidance counselors (20 por ciento). Financially confident parents (86 por ciento) were more likely to teach their daughters about money management and financial literacy. A 2010 Girl Scout report, Go Ask a Girl,3 found that parents had the biggest impact on their daughter’s future decisions. Finalmente, in a 2001 survey by Girls Inc., 50 percent of girls in grades 9–11 said that their mothers or stepmoth- ers taught them the most about managing money—nearly double the 27 percent who said their fathers or stepfathers taught them the most.4 All this evidence shows us why it’s so important that women secure financial independence, and lead their daughters onto the right financial path. Twenty years ago, having a mom who went to an office every day was some- thing of an anomaly, but today working mothers are the norm. A May 2013 report from the Pew Research Center found that in 40 percent of households with chil- dren under age 18, the mothers are the sole or primary source of family income. That’s up from a mere 11 por ciento en 1960.5 The Pew study also tells us that women now comprise 47 percent of the U.S. labor force, and the employment rate of married women with children has jumped from 37 percent in 1968 a 65 percent in 2011. Nearly 40 percent of the work- force—that’s 5.1 million people—is married mothers who make more money than their husbands (63 percent of that total are single moms). Of all households with children under 18, the percentage of married mothers who out-earn their hus- bands has gone up from 4 por ciento en 1960 a 15 por ciento en 2011.6 According to the Pew study, the median total family income of married mothers who earn more than their husbands was nearly $80,000 en 2011, well above the national median of
$57,100 for all families with children. Women have certainly cracked the glass ceiling in most, if not all, sectors. American Express OPEN estimated that, as of 2012, there were more than 8.1 mil- lion female-owned businesses in the United States generating almost $1.3 trillion
in revenue and employing nearly 7.7 million people.7 Women-owned businesses
are present in every sector imaginable, including construction and transportation.
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Nell Merlino
Women not only hold top spots in companies (Marissa Mayer at Yahoo, Sheryl
Sandberg at Facebook, Rosalind Brewer, at Sam’s Club); they are also top elected
officials (former secretary of state and senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senador
Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Governor Susan Martinez of New Mexico). En el
first quarter of 2013, American women got the right to serve in direct combat—
which many female military personnel say has been a reality for years in ad hoc
female engagement, or “lioness,” teams. But now, at last, military women can go for
the top leadership jobs like heading the Joint Chiefs of Staff and can qualify for
hundreds of other positions with better pay and veterans benefits.
Women also rule in the sports world. Title IX, which passed in June 1972, pro-
tected girls from gender-based discrimination in athletics. Fast-forward 30 years to
el 2012 Olympics in which more female athletes participated than in any other
Games in history: cerca de 5,000 from more than 200 naciones. The United States won
46 of those gold medals; 29 of them were earned by women.
Granted, we haven’t yet had a woman in the Oval Office, but I have no doubt
that will happen in my lifetime.
To paraphrase an old advertisement, women have come a long way—but we
still have a lot more to do. The Pew study I mentioned earlier reported that the
median income for families led by a single mom was only $23,000, well below the national median of $57,100 for all families with children.
Most of these are undereducated women of color. To truly get to the next level,
we must include more women in the economy at all levels where they will be mak-
ing a living wage, building sustainable businesses, running major corporations and
countries, inventing the next big thing, and investing their money in companies,
products, and candidates that help other women.
COUNTING WOMEN IN
After the enormous success of TDWD, what could we do as an encore? I kept
noticing the big issue: women’s economic independence. That’s how Count Me In
was born in 1999. We started out as the first online micro lender in the world and
hecho 1,000 loans to women across America. Recientemente, one of the founders of Kiva
told me our early online loan application inspired them.
But we faced a challenge. Despite accounting for 29 percent of all business
owners, women-owned businesses only employed 6 percent of the country’s work-
force and contribute just under 4 percent of business revenues.8 That challenge led
to a new program: Make Mine a Million $ Negocio, which aims to inspire a mil- lion women entrepreneurs to reach $1 million in annual revenue. Through multi-
platform programs, CMI helps women realize their full economic potential. Nosotros
hold live and online competitive events and “pitch parties” across the country, y
provide women with online resources, coaching, marketing, technology assistance,
and a suite of business-building products. Hasta la fecha, 32 percent of the women who
have participated in Make Mine a Million (M3) have reached $1 million in rev- enues. 94 innovaciones / Youth and Economic Opportunities Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/8/1-2/89/705043/inov_a_00167.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 Cracking the Glass Ceiling and Raising the Roof But CMI is more than just another economic development program; I think of it as fueling a mindset and a movement that promises to change the U.S. market- lugar. The National Women’s Business Council reports that women-owned firms have an annual economic impact of $3 trillion.9 That is, women are creating and/or
maintaining more than 23 million jobs—16 percent of all U.S. jobs. But only 3 por-
cent of all female-owned firms have revenues of $1 million or more, Opuesto a 6 percent of male-owned firms.10 Why is this? One reason is that women tend to run businesses in industries like retail, which typically get less financial support than businesses in other industries. This makes it hard for women to hire more employees. But women’s own insecu- rities present barriers, también. Many women, Por ejemplo, don’t see themselves in the CEO role. Others aren’t comfortable being the primary breadwinner in the fami- ly—or even making a lot of money. If women are to have an impact on the current economic recovery, their busi- nesses will have to grow significantly. Since CMI began, corporate America has been recognizing the importance of women’s economic empowerment and bring- ing women into the supply chain. CMI has been sponsored by many global com- panies that are dedicated to women entrepreneurs succeeding, among them American Express OPEN, AIG, Sam’s Club, FedEx, and Dell. Coca Cola recently launched its 5by20 program, which will help empower 5 million female entrepre- neurs economically by 2020. Two years ago, Walmart, also a generous supporter of CMI, invited me to help create its Global Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative, which has three aims: increase sourcing from women-owned businesses, empower women through job training and education, and invest $100 million in philanthropic grants to
women’s empowerment programs by the end of 2016. It is also dedicated to pur-
chasing $20 billion worth of goods and services from women-owned companies by the end of 2016. No other company has made such a large commitment to that goal. Walmart has gathered a remarkable group of successful women-owned com- panies to guide its efforts. Among them are Ariela Balk, founder and CEO of AAI, a lingerie and swimwear company whose brands include Smart & Sexy; Lynn Tilton, CEO of Patriarch Partners, un $8 billion holding company that has saved
encima 250,000 American jobs; Mary Propes, founder and CEO of MVP Group
Internacional, one of the world’s largest candle makers; and Martha Montoya, OMS
founded Los Kitos Produce, a company of growers, packers, shippers, and mar-
keters of fresh produce.
I’m very proud of my work in this historic effort. Women and Walmart are
raising the roof to include women at every level of the supply chain.
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Nell Merlino
Case Study 3: Angela Cody-Rouget
En 2006, Angela Cody-Rouget launched Major Mom, a company that helps peo-
ple organize their lives. The idea grew out of her personal experience: she spent
18 years in the Air Force, rising to major, and at one point leading more than 300
gente.
She never planned to leave the military, but after she had her first child in
2003, the juggling became increasingly stressful. It wasn’t easy to leave: “That
was my family," ella dijo, and her “loyalties were with them.” But when she had
children she began feeling that the Air Force “wasn’t my future. I didn’t want my
children to be raised by nannies and babysitters.” Then the economy tanked,
along with her husband’s real estate business; they went “six months without
income.” That situation forced her “back to the drawing board.”
As a new mom of a toddler and a baby, she tried to keep an organized and
tidy home. She wasn’t the only woman struggling with that challenge. Ella
became certified as a family manager and a professional organizer, and worked
as a solo professional organizer.
Three years later, she brought in a partner and began hiring employees. En
Octubre 2009, she opened the Major Mom Training Academy, which has now
entrenado 31 apprentices in nine classes. Hoy, the company has 17 employees in
Colorado, and a handful in Phoenix, Spokane, and the Austin area. Eventualmente
she hopes to take the company nationwide.
“I grew the business the old fashioned way: bootstraps, make money, put it
back into the company,” she says. “It’s debt free and has no loans. And we just
went out and marketed, marketed, marketed.”
She is also adamant about being a good role model for her nine-year-old
daughter, Lilyana, and eight-year-old son, Nathan. “I take them to work and
teach them how hard I work and make sure they understand that money does-
n’t grow on trees,” she says. “It’s something you earn, and it’s a pleasure to earn if
you pick the right career field.”
WOMEN VETERANS JOIN THE MOVEMENT
One group that has especially interested me is female veterans who run their own
negocios. They are an underserved group: historically, female vets have had high-
er rates of unemployment than male veterans and non-veteran men and women.
At last year’s Clinton Global Initiative America, Capital One Financial
Corporation committed more than $800,000 over three years to launch a new busi- ness training program in partnership with Count Me In. Called the Women Veteran Entrepreneur Corps (WVEC), it is a national business growth initiative for women business owners who are veterans or the spouses or domestic partners of veterans. The initiative includes live conferences and competitions, as well as a business accelerator program for qualified women whose businesses gross $50,000
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Cracking the Glass Ceiling and Raising the Roof
a $750,000 a year. The goal is to help them grow their businesses by at least 30 por-
cent within 18 a 36 meses. This will increase revenue and create new jobs in
their communities—and also boost their own morale.
En 2012, CMI and Capital One conducted a survey, “Count Me In and Capital
One Survey of Women Veteran Business Owners,” of 800 women veteran business
owners; 62 percent said that their military experience made them more comfort-
able taking calculated risks in their businesses, y 55 percent said their leadership
experience in the military inspired them to start their own company.11
None of this surprises me. At a WVEC event in early 2012, we had invited 24
women to submit financial information and business plans—and every single one
did so. This is one of the clearest contrasts between military veterans and civilians:
Women with military experience have enormous focus and discipline. They are
detail-oriented. They are efficient. They will fight to make things work. They know
how to think quickly. Their lives, literally, have depended on their making smart
decisions under enormous pressure.
They want to be their own bosses, but they also know how to be part of a team.
As Kristina Guerrero put it, “Being in the military teaches responsibility, so you
own your job. It teaches you how to be part of a team. Whenever you do some-
thing, you think, ‘How is this going to affect everyone else?’ Also, the military is
action-oriented. You don’t just sit in a room and think all day.” For many people,
taking action is the hardest part of starting a business. Pero, as Guerrero puts it, “in
the service, we’re taught to think about the goal, and how to make it happen.”
Además, “In the military, you’re taught from the get-go to speak up … If you
have something to say, you’d better say it, because people’s lives are at stake. There’s
no time to think, ‘Well, I’m a female.’ It was everyone’s duty to speak up, or the safe-
ty of the team was at stake.”
Angela Cody-Rouget exemplifies these qualities, along with the organization-
al skills one learns in the military. “I’ve always been very organized and had lead-
ership qualities, but the military taught me so much more," ella dijo. “It taught me
about systems and how you can use checklists and operation manuals to be incred-
ibly effective as a team leader.”
Guerrero and Cody-Rouget are both part of WVEC, along with other female
vets who run small businesses. These include Adrienne Coward, who makes and
sells sweet potato pies, and a cyber security and technology firm led by women
who had top-secret security clearances. Many of these same women endured sex-
ual abuse in the military and have grappled with PTSD.
But running their own businesses—and empowering themselves to become
financially solvent—has helped ease their transition back to civilian life. In the
CMI/ Capital One survey, 46 percent of the women acknowledged that it helped.
Al mismo tiempo, 46 percent said they don’t have a business plan in place for the
next one to two years, which could hurt their growth and profitability.12
We expect WVEC will change all that. And Adrienne Coward is another
example of how running a business helps a vet with healing, as well as the joy of
honoring a role model.
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Case Study 4: Adrianne Anderson Coward
Adrianne Anderson Coward of Converse, Texas, spent ten years in the United
States Army and was honorably discharged in 1992. She went directly to nursing
school to fulfill her lifetime dream of becoming an R.N. She got her degree in
1997, and has been working at a military base since 1999.
She loved her work and found it gratifying, but always wanted to open her
own business. And she knew just what she would do: sell her grandmother’s
sweet potato pie in a jar. She even had the name: Mama Dee’s Dessert, after her
grandmother, and her 110-year-old sweet potato pie recipe.
“She raised me until I was about seven,” Coward says of her grandma, OMS
passed away about 15 years ago. “My mother was 17 when she had me. Mi
grandma had six kids of her own. She would say, ‘You are female and you are
negro, and you have to go to college.’ She did not put black first. My grandmoth-
er worked two full-time jobs all her life, until she couldn’t work anymore.”
It was Grandma Dee who taught Coward to cook, and when Coward lost her
job, she decided it was time to open her company. The idea is simple: you open
the jar and then “just add eggs and milk and bake it,” she says. “You get that nice
aroma in the house without all the fuss of peeling and mashing potatoes.”
Like so many female vets, Coward, who was sexually abused in the military,
wants to continue to give back. She plans to donate profits from her company to
help women suffering from military sexual trauma and breast cancer.
During her nursing career, she was nominated Nurse of the Year at Brooke
Army Medical Center in San Antonio, and assisted in collecting data for the first
trauma registry, which helps physicians improve combat care for service mem-
bers deployed in war zones. She also helped develop a video teleconferencing
system to connect recovering service members with health-care providers cur-
rently deployed in Afghanistan.
Coward has shown that same fearlessness and innovation in her business
career. Not long ago she linked up with Heritage Specialty Foods, a Dallas com-
pany that sells pumpkin pies in a jar. “I just called up the CEO,” she says. “Why
no?” The two companies are now working together; Coward also sells her con-
fections at farmers’ markets. Her goal is to make the product a staple in homes
around the country. “When people think about Mama Dee’s, they think about
sweet potato pie,” she says.
A CALL TO ACTION
When we launched M3 at the National Press Club in 2006, Hilary Rodham Clinton
was in the same room, supporting and lauding our efforts to help women business
owners. In June of this year, she mentioned Capital One and WVEC during a rous-
ing speech at the Clinton Global Initiative America. In her speech, which was
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Cracking the Glass Ceiling and Raising the Roof
largely about improving the future of women across the globe, she called for
women to continue to fuel the economy.
How do we do that? The same way we’ve been doing it: by extending a hand to
the woman who sits next to us, above us, below us, all along the supply chain from
farm to table to board room to state house. By welcoming women from all sectors
of business as employees, soldiers, and future leaders. The point is not just helping
women fight for their own companies; it is showing girls a future where we are all
part of the same team, moving women and their families forward.
The situation cries out for women and girls to buy from women-owned com-
empresas. To hire women. To promote them. To nominate them to board seats. To be
mentors and role models.
En efecto, in my many years of working with women business owners on their
leadership skills, I have seen the value in involving successful women CEOs as
experts willing to share their expertise. Por supuesto, women also can learn from men
and be led by them. But for many women and girls, seeing someone who looks like
them in a position of power and success makes all the difference. In those role
modelos, women and girls see that they can be themselves, make more money, y
build a thriving organization if they choose.
That is how we raise the roof.
1. Boston Consulting Group, “Women Want More (in Financial Services)," 2009.
http://www.bcg.com/documents/file31680.pdf
2. The Girl Scout Research Institute, “Having it All: Girls and Financial Literacy,” April, 2013.
http://www.girlscouts.org/research/pdf/GSRI_having_it_all_report.pdf
3. “Go Ask a Girl: A Decade of Findings from the Girl Scout Research Institute,” GSRI Quarterly,
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