Breaking Through

Part VWays to Help Entrepreneurs to Succeed

ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS INCREASINGLY RECOGNIZED AS A real opportunity for women in the new economy and a driver of economic growth: between 2002 and 2007, the number of women-owned businesses grew by 20 percent, whereas the growth in men-owned firms was 5.5 percent. Furthermore, the economic impact of women-owned businesses is just under $3 trillion annually in the United States, and creates 16 percent of all U.S. jobs. So the new economy clearly offers women great opportunities for entrepreneurship, but many women entrepreneurs say they feel isolated and lack networks, and that this slows down their business growth.

In Part V, we discuss three ways to help women entrepreneurs to success: mentoring and sponsoring, networking, and specifically designed training programs.

Mentoring and sponsoring have a positive impact on entrepreneurship, and nonprofits, such as the Women Business Mentoring Initiative (WBMI) in Europe, are beginning to make a difference. Emilie Creuzieux, entrepreneur and CEO of Monbento says that mentoring helps her to clarify the key challenges her company faces and to find her own solutions. Her mentor, Jean-Jacques Berard, co-founder of Executive Interim Management, believes that learning comes through talking with others, and this is where mentoring is important. For him, a company is about the 3Ps: product, people, and process, and he tells us how he helped Emilie to analyze her company using this simple formula. ...