Salute to Women's Business Leadership

The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE) and Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) hosted a tea in AT&T's meeting suite at Brit's Pub in Minneapolis. The tea was to "celebrate our leaders who support U.S. competitiveness, innovation and entrepreneurship." WIPP also presented its Economic Blueprint: The Women Business Owners Platform for Growth.

Karen Kerrigan, President & CEO of the SBE Council, and Barbara Kasoff, President and CEO of WIPP, both spoke. Opening remarks were given by Carly Fiorina, the RNC 2008 Victory Chairman and former CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

She said that women balance family budgets, grow businesses at twice the rate of men, and make the health care, education and consumer choices. Then consider the fact that small business creates two-thirds of all jobs and it is clear that women will decide this election.

She committed to get the Economic Blueprint directly to Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee for President.

She also got cheers about Sarah Palin's nomination for Vice President. She sited Palin's executive experience as head of a family, mayor and governor. In a private conversation I had with Fiorina before the program began, we talked about the media treatment of powerful women.

Fiorina was fired from Hewlett-Packard the same week that the major indictments came down for Enron and World Com. Yet her firing received 10 times the media coverage. I heard her state this in a keynote speech at a Women's Leadership Exchange event and addressed that with her again. She said she was curious to see how the media would treat Palin. I said, "They took off after Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain." She agreed that we needed to stand up for all women and said, "Sometimes principles are more important than partisanship."

Marilyn Carlson Nelson, the former Chairman and CEO of Carlson, Inc., was the keynote speaker. She has a new book out on "The Power of Leadership." She sited a study that showed that Middle School girls say they do not want to go into business because business is not aligned with their values. This obviously needs to change.

By the time Ann Sullivan who does government relations for WIPP spoke on the Blueprint, at least one-third of the audience had left. Good lesson that policy should come first on an agenda.

In a recent conversation with a woman who leads a non-profit health care association, she said she worked hours on a story with a Glamour magazine reporter. The key to her for this story was a call to action on pending legislation--for readers to contact their legislators to support the bill. She was extremely dismayed when Glamour left out mention of the legislation and the call to action.

Evidently the Glamour editors did not think their readers were interested in legislation. This type of perception can be reinforced by the fact that so much of the audience left before the Blueprint was presented at the SBE and WIPP event.

These are more examples of how we have to continue to work to get the word out on the vital importance of women and small business owners to LET THEIR VOICES BE HEARD.

And by the way, my friend who would not do the Lifetime segment at the State Fair, did it at the Lifetime party. She understood that she has to add her voice!  Each small step and victory counts!