>> CAROLINE BRUCKNER: I am a professor, a tax professor at the Kogod school of business.
In addition I'm the managing director of the tax policy center and the driver behind this
event tonight. And I would like to thank all of you for joining us tonight for this very
special discussion on women business owners and their challenges and opportunities. In
particular I would like to recognize the AU center of innovation for offering to cosponsor
this event and to let us use their beautiful new space.
I also want to say thank you to the Kogod women in business club, the Kogod accounting
club, the AU undergraduate women in business club, and the Kogod diversity and inclusion
task force for their sponsorship of this event and their marketing help.
So many of you people are here tonight because of their efforts.
I would also like to extend a warm welcome to the institute on women's policy research,
who recently became affiliated with AU through a research arrangement with AU's gender and
economics department. Welcome to AU we're really excited to have you here.
Now I want to explain why we're all here tonight. The genesis behind organizing this event and
bringing you all together occurred in August of 2016, when my team and I set out to develop
tax research on women business owners. After spending a year looking at all of the
available research on the tax challenges that women business owners face, I had two key
realizations. First, effectively, very few people had ever considered or researched how
the tax code impacted women business owners. And what good research I could find on tax
and women business owners, generally, had been done by faculty at AU. I was thrilled
to realize that on our very own campus we have some of the most accomplished academics
and faculty working on research critical to women business owners.
In fact, with us tonight ‑‑ although she's in her office is Terry, who joined Kogod's
faculty in 2016, and she serves as the project director for the global entrepreneurship and
development institute's female entrepreneurship index.
Also we have Janet Stotsky, who is an economist and an adjunct professor at AU's gender and
economics program, who spent much of her career at the IMF and is the leading national expert
on gender and federal budget issues. She is ‑‑ she's right here on our campus. She was invaluable
in critiquing my research and helping move forward with putting out my ground breaking
report. Billion‑Dollar Blindspot: How the U.S. tax code affects women business owners
in 2017. When I realized how many amazing resources
and experts we have on our faculty and with our alumni and affiliated with AU, I realized
that we needed to bring them all together and celebrate them and to recognize them and
to pick their brains. And there was no question that we were going to do this on any day other
than today, which is international women business day ‑‑ international women's day. But
because I am a business professor, I want to give you a very persuasive business case
as to why we're here today and why we should all be talking more about the many contributions
and challenges women business owners have. But first I ask you to indulge me a little
bit. I want to give you a history lesson. It's actually women's history month. Just
bear with me for a minute. In 1972, the U.S. census conducted the first ever count of how
many women business owners there are in this country.
That data was released in 1976. Often when census does a count, it takes a few years
for them to process the data. They subsequently release it. But in 1976 jimmy Carter was president.
His commerce secretary which has jurisdiction over the census bureau was a woman named Dr. Juanita
crass. She was a labor economist who was particularly interested in women business owners and she
was appalled when she realized of the more than 12 million businesses operating in the
United States, a little of only 400,000 of them were owned by the women business owners.
This shockingly low statistic, urged ‑‑ prompted her to urge President Carter to create
an intra‑agency task force for every federal agency to study their enacting laws and programs
to determine whether or not the agencies themselves, or their programs, were discriminating against
women business owners. This was perhaps the very first time the Federal Government had
ever considered specifically women business owners as an economic force or even the challenges
that they faced. Fast‑forward to today. There are now more
than 11 million women business owners, and there are now more than 11 million women business
owners operating in the United States. There are almost 38% of all U.S. businesses.
These businesses employ more than 9 million people and contribute more than 1.6 trillion
dollars to the gross domestic product. And more women than men are starting their businesses.
The latest census data shows that women start businesses at rates five times faster than
the national average. Women of color, in fact, are leading this charge.
And approximately ‑‑ and they total approximately 44% of all women‑owned firms.
But the news is not all good. Less than 2% of all women‑owned firms have
revenues in excess of a million dollars or more, compared to male owned firms, of which
more than 6% have receipts of more than a million dollars.
And while women own 38% of all firms and 20% employer firms they still only contribute
about 4% total to the GDP; and that share of GDP has not changed much in more than 20
years. That means that there are more women business
owners that they are not growing and scaling to the degree that we would like to see them
grow and scale. In fact, a recent government study found for every dollar earned by women
owned firm and male owned firm earns more than double. And women still have challenges
accessing funds to grow and scale their businesses. A study that one of our panelists here tonight
conducted found that for every $1 ‑‑ $23 of conventional small business loans,
only $1 goes to a women‑owned firm. So tonight we're going to talk about the good
and the bad. We want to know about the challenges and the opportunities women business owners
face, and who better to ask than the very experts, alumni and faculty that we have here
at AU. And so here's how the night is going to go.
We're going to start the program, having a conversation with the women business owner,
former women business owner, because she sold her business last year.
And following that we're going to be joined up here by our distinguished panelists. And
I have a lot of questions for them. I'm sure you do too. Let me go first. And we'll go
through my round of questioning, and then we'll open up the floor to audience questions.
With that, I want to introduce our first panelist, Nancy, who at age 15 started RISE raised income
at Everest a nonprofit organization that provides aid to the sugar community within the Himalayan
region, Rise, started a microcredit network within the isolated regions of Nepal to help
alleviate shortage from poverty allowing families to start their own businesses and create a
steady stream of income for their years within two years rise grew its network from 2 to
52 families and sold her company in 2017 to Chema microfounds [phonetic], and now serves
on their board of advisors. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this.
>> Thank you for having me. [APPLAUSE]
>> All right. So I think that the first question I want to know the answer to and that everyone
else hear is wondering is what is it like to climb mount Everest?
>> It's difficult. I think that's the first thing, but I'm glad I had that experience,
it was something, you know, very young, that I did ‑‑ that I did but it has shaped
a lot of who I am today, you know. I was exposed to things that I wasn't aware of before and
I really feel the person that I've become today has been from all the exposure that
I've gotten from just one expedition. >> A lot of that experience influenced your
decision to start your own business. >> Well, the main catalyst, in starting my
business, was exceptional man called Dorje, he was Sherpa and mountain guide he basically
helped me through my hardest times, and, you know, he was there for my worst.
And he was known as the legend because he climbed Everest nine times and on his tenth
assent he was killed in an avalanche and, you know, that I took very personally, because
I felt responsibility because, you know, he was there for my death, not my death my worst
and, you know, I wasn't there for his. And that's basically, you know, I felt like
I needed to do something. And I realized that family, you know, ‑‑
I wanted to make sure his family was... Was taken care of after him being gone, and
I realized that everywhere around ‑‑ like, there were so many other families that
were ‑‑ had a similar story to that of Dorje that it was just lack of capital. Like,
access to capital. And they had ‑‑ this potential to start
their own businesses but, you know, obviously, they didn't have ‑‑ the means basically,
yeah. >> So the prior idea behind your business
was providing access to capital, to these very remote villages and families in these
remote areas of Nepal how would you start going about it.
>> Started off trying to get funding and I think that was the hardest part nobody trusted
a 15‑year‑old with their money and I think ‑‑ I didn't have any experience and I didn't
have anything ‑‑ any person to, like, you know, refer to, like, listen, I can do
this. And, you know, ‑‑ but I think ‑‑
I was able to find the right people in my life, and that ‑‑ you know, trusted in
me, trusted in what I wanted to achieve and I think that's what ‑‑ that's what they
got me to ‑‑ got me to him ‑‑ >> So in terms of the network that you relied
on, did you go to your family or friends to get funding for your first business?
>> You know, normally, women are ‑‑ research shows that women tend to go towards their
family or friends to fund their business. But because I feel like for the business trying
to find someone who is willing to bring in investments, you need to understand the Sherpas
firsthand and I think that's where they ‑‑ they ‑‑ that's when I went over to the
expedition. So when I went on the expedition the climbers that I was with, I asked them,
and I asked them for help, because I thought that they would best understand the situation
the Sherpas were in. >> So that very personal experience created
a professional network that you could find funding for your business?
>> Yeah. >> So what was the hardest part about starting
your business? Was it the funding. >> I think more than the funding it was trying
to have the families agree to my plan. Because it was ‑‑ so a little back up
to what my company did. And it ‑‑ used a microcredit network.
And what a microcredit network is ‑‑ it's the small loans that you give to people
that don't have collateral to offer, or don't have a steady employment, or just, you know,
don't have the ready access to the creditors. And that's where step in and says, listen,
I can give you 1500 for these and you're expected to pay it back, no interest, after six months.
And, you know, that's when the families are, like, why would I get 1500 from you, and have
to be expected to pay it back when I can just receive 1500 as a grant from a different nonprofit?
And I think trying to explain to them, the process and the long‑term benefit that,
you know, microcredit network would give especially, you know, I have a 15‑year‑old girl that
doesn't know what's happening, in their eyes. And I think, you know, that's where ‑‑
that's where, like, that was my hardest challenge, was to be taken seriously.
>> Okay. So how do you go from starting this business, and climbing mount Everest to AU.
How does that happen? >> Well, I came to AU thinking I wanted to
do politics, and, you know, become a politician, try to understand the situation. You know,
learn try to help more people. You know, not just in ‑‑ Nepal but may be the country,
and I think when I ‑‑ you know, very early on in the year, I realized that I have
a business, and I needed a business woman to run it and not a politician and I think
that's where I realized I needed to start thinking in a more business perspective and
a business lens. And, you know, coming in to business I had
professor Evans and she ‑‑ you know, taught me how to ‑‑ I think, the accounting
subject as a whole, like, it's ‑‑ it's not just debits and credits but it's a process.
I think that's what more willing to learn from trying to get that ‑‑ to understand
that process, microcredit is, you know, finding where is the money? Are they paying us back
and things like that? And being on top of things.
And I think if you're able to think in that critical manner, and that's ‑‑ you know,
that's something that accounting kind of helped me do. And I think that's ‑‑ I'm glad
that, like, AU has given me that skill; that if I was tomorrow to start a business that
I think I would be confident enough in myself to do it again.
>> To do it again? >> Yeah.
>> [LAUGHTER] >> What are you going to do next.
>> Well ‑‑ >> Because you're graduating.
>> Yes, I am. I have an internship lined with Deloitte so ‑‑ that is a potential, you
know, perspective, like, line that I might go into. But, you know, looking into, like,
five‑year plan, I ‑‑ I don't think that I would take back rise from the microfunds
only because what they have achieved after acquires rise is phenomenal. The network that
they've received, you know, right now, they're ‑‑ you know, my operations only have ‑‑
which is a small city and now it's all over Nepal, and multiple five cities, I think.
And they're helping around 300 people, and I think that in its own ‑‑ says a lot.
And I think if I was to do something five years on probably start another company, when
another idea sparks up or something comes along the way but, yeah. I'm open to whatever
the universe shoots at me. [LAUGHTER]
>> So much for getting ‑‑ [SIMULTANEOUS SPEAKERS]
>> And with that, what I want to do is invite our other panelists to come up here and join
us for a broad discussion. So, these are friends of mine, and I'm very
grateful they agreed to do this because he's are really accomplished awesome people.
We have sitting on my far left is Becky McNaught. She is the democratic staff counsel at the
U.S. Senate committee on small business and entrepreneurship. She manages a policy portfolio
that ‑‑ that includes federal procurement entrepreneurial development, technology and
cybersecurity. She was the lead author of the 2017 staff
report tackling the gender gap what would entrepreneur need to thrive that analyzed
intersecting financial cultural and structural obstacles facing women entrepreneurs in the
United States. She previously served as counsel to U.S. Senator Barbara boxer and in addition
she's a former longtime aide to Maria shriver the former First Lady California she is also
an AU alum having graduated from the Washington college of law apprehensive over to my far
right asking Susan Matthews Apgood president and CEO of news generation which is a public
relations firm she's been in the business for more than 20 years she opened the doors
of her media firm news generation in 1997. She's an active member of public relations
associations. And she is also involved with women Washington
women in public relations and in 2014 was 1 of three finalists for WWPR women of the
year award. She's also here in this campus, she is an adjunct professor been here all
day and was actually advising a bunch of the students who were in the incubator program
doing that with the advisory board. Thank you so much for doing a double header I really
appreciate. To my left is Jane Campbell. Jane Campbell has spent decades in public service
in a variety of roles at the local, state, and federal level. Before serving in her current
position as the director of the DC office of the national development council Jane was
the first woman mayor of Cleveland president of the national conference state legislatures
and governing magazine 2000 public official of the year while she was county commissioner
for Ohio's largest county more personally and importantly she was my boss from 2012
to 2014, when she was the staff director the Senate committee on small business and entrepreneurship.
Prior to that she served as chief of staff from 2009 to 2013 for Senator Mary Landrieu
and she had great wisdom to hire me. >> I was going to say.
>> In 2013. So thank you all for agreeing to do this. I'm superexcited and I've given
a lot of thought to the questions that I have for you and I'm superexcited to kick off our
discussion. So...
I guess starting ‑‑ let's start with you, Jane. In your experience as an expert
on women business owners, by the way, I forgot to mention, she is the immediate past president
of women impacting public policy, which is the largest member‑based association of
women business owners in the country. They were my research partner and conducting our
ground breaking research last year billion dollar blind spot. Survey together on women
business owners and this is how we were able to collect the only data. Only data. The IRS
doesn't collect this data. Treasury doesn't collect this data on how of the tax code impacts
women business owners and so Jane graciously partnered with me on this project. It was
incredibly successful. I testified about it. Talked all over Capitol Hill about it in the
national press and it's just been really well‑received. But with that in mind, I did want to ask you
in your experience... As an expert on women business owners, what
are some of the advantages that you think that women business owners have?
A. Well, thank you, Caroline, and it's so much fun to be back with you.
[LAUGHTER] see, you can see why I hired her right?
And it is wonderful to be on the campus. And to seeing you in your element with your new
studies. So here's ‑‑ now Caroline gives us all assignments right? This is what you're
supposed to study, right? [LAUGHTER]
A. So much for that so you just have to be careful. Be good to people because they're
going to turn on the other side. [LAUGHTER] so you wanted to know what were
the advantages for women business owners and I think ‑‑ I ‑‑ you asked for us
to come up with three. So I did.
I could ‑‑ like a group one is that women are incredibly hard workers.
They're used to being hard workers used to managing multiple ‑‑ multiple things
at once. You know, many women have family obligations.
You know, children, parents ‑‑ whatever. And so in a business, and especially, in a
start‑up business, you've got lots of things going on.
And a business owner is the janitor, and the bookkeeper, and the order clerk, and the public
relations person, and the spokesperson, and ‑‑ and, and ‑‑ and we're doing that ‑‑
lots of things at once. We're good at it. The second thing is that women have emotional
intelligence. Not every woman. These are, obviously, generalizations.
There are some that are outliers, but in general, we have been trained more to listen to what
people are feeling. As well as what they're saying.
And when we are trying to build a business, you need to be able to get people to invest.
And they invest not just with their head but with their heart. Whether that's recruiting
the right staff, bringing the right investors ‑‑ I'm sure as you were trying to ‑‑ talk
to the people who went on the trek, you know, you're, like, this is what happens. You captured
their hearts. You knew how to capture their heart that's
something that women know how to do. And then to build a business, you know, how to make
the folks who are working feel that invested the third thing is that I think women are
incredibly good at attention to detail. That is another thing that businesses, especially
small businesses need, because when you're the business owner you're in charge of everything.
Right? And the kind of things that can trip you up
is you don't have all your paperwork; you haven't paid all your taxes; you don't get
the right order to the right person at the right time.
And that is a lot of very, very, you know, keep the details, you know, people who maybe
want girl scout cookies and lo and behold they kept those records. I think those three
things are real advantages for women going into business.
>> Caroline: You just did it you just did a study for this. What do you think?
>> So there are many things, first of all, as we all can see. I will focus on three things.
The first being that I ‑‑ women are problem‑solvers, and part of the report that Caroline mentioned
I interviewed 14 different female founders, both national in scope and, you know, ‑‑
and in every businesses what consistently came up is a lot of these businesses were
started because women in fact, saw a problem and they wanted to figure out how to fix it.
And one business, in example I interviewed Caroline. ‑‑ who started a product that
has been on shark tank been very successful and it's basically, you know, something that
goes on your back and ‑‑ to help with back pain and she started because she herself
was in so much pain suffering she couldn't sit for long Pearson. She went out designed
models for manufacturers and figured out how to get it done it's been very successful.
She's the first female to get to a million dollars so that's huge.
The second, you know ‑‑ the second, I think, female‑led ‑‑ you know, what
advantage we have is that we're really purpose‑driven. So, like, the women that I talk to ‑‑
or feel very passionately about their business making a difference in their community, making
a difference with families. And that's important. People recognize that
authenticity. And I think today, we're seeing more people really thinking about how to spend
their money where they're putting their money and having that go towards the business and
the business owner feels sincerely passionate about what they're doing and I think that's
valuable and important. And I also think that it's important to recognize ‑‑
and this would be my third thing ‑‑ is that as a female business owner, you're typically
selling to women. Women are the.... handle the vast majority of the household purchasing
power. And then the next ten years, women are going
to control two‑thirds of all that financial purchasing.
And so what you need to think about is that that ‑‑ that's huge right? As a female,
you are the person who is going to shape the business, and you're typically going to be
selling to women. And just one example that I would think really points to that, is I
don't know how many of you are familiar with glossier, the make‑up brand. Anyone?
Okay. Suppose their founder, Emily Weiss has been very forthcoming with the fact that this
business is designed around women. And make‑up we naturally think that's female‑focused
business but she's done it in the way that she's communicated with her buyers. She's
done it in the way that she has marketed. She's done that in ‑‑ in new ways ground‑breaking
ways and she's been hugely successful and she just ‑‑ she's almost to $100 funding.
>> That's awesome. >> It's incredible. And lifting up those stories
is good for all women‑owned businesses so I just think it's something we need to be
aware of as females the power that we have, because we are really the purposing power
of this country. >> Susan: Mine are sort of the same but with
a little twist on them I think the first thing is, women tend to be very organized.
We tend to ‑‑ I mean, I remember being a little kid, and selling newspapers around
my neighborhood for 5 cents and just getting a team together, like, this person was a writer
this person took pictures. So I was always an organizer from a very young
age and I think that is definitely a characteristic of successful women in business.
We're also ‑‑ we tend to be cautious and I put this down as an advantage and also
as a disadvantage. But I think that we tend to really look hard
before we leap. And I think that might be a reason why a lot of women, especially in
the '70s and 80s weren't going into business for themselves because it was a big step.
But now I think it's completely normal, which is amazing.
And I also think we're very understated. You know, we work hard. We're sort of a quiet
presence for just ‑‑ sort of work through things without much fanfare and just know
what the takes to get the job done. And lastly, I think women tend to be ‑‑
in their businesses in particular, very mission‑driven. So the focus of my business, like, of course,
I care to make money, of course, I care if ‑‑ what our balance sheet looks like, but my
most important thing is that I have a great team; that I like where I work; that I love
the work that we're doing. And so with that comes profit, but it's profit
is definitely not my first and foremost thought. >> Okay so it's interesting that you raise
that because all three of you spoke to the team e theme of being purpose driven which
was the whole intent of your business which was a nonprofit. And did you find that the
purpose gave you credibility when you went to try to go get funding?
>> I think it did, because if you find something that they can relate to, then they are willing ‑‑
they're willing to give in and, you know, contribute to your cause. I guess.
>> Because you wore them down. [LAUGHTER]
>> Yeah, that was it, too. But yeah.
>> That's interesting. That's an interesting theme that I wasn't expecting that everyone
kind of mentioned themes of being purpose driven.
And one thing that I would like to point out along those lines is, Siri has done extensive
research on women and social entrepreneurship that's one of her key areas. There she is
in the back. That's one of her key areas that she focuses on is purpose‑driven mission
driven businesses and how women, in particular, have been a driving force in that ‑‑
in that particular segment of business ownership. And she just put out a report last year, that
was funded by the national women's business council and if you reach out to me I'm more
than happy to send you a link to it. It's really good stuff.
In addition to now turning from the good side, advantages what do we see ‑‑ or what
do we personally experience that are disadvantageous. >> So I'll start with being risk averse.
So I ‑‑ you know, when I take on business, I make sure that I know how to get from A
to Z. And I want to make sure I can perfectly picture
how everything's going to go so I can do a great job for my client.
And I.... don't know that ‑‑ that's a characteristic of everybody.
I think there are some entrepreneurs who can just ‑‑ know how to get the first two
steps done and they figure it out later down the line.
But I ‑‑ I think that's why my business has grown slowly over the years.
I wouldn't just go out hire 20 people. That's just not my style. I like ‑‑ I'm a control
freak so I like to have things sort of close to the vest because I want my product and
my service to be so top‑notch. So I think while that's a good thing, in some ways it's
also a bad thing. So that's my first thing. Also, when I started my business, I was fresh
out of getting my MBA in finance, I was 27. And I was amazed at the comments that I would
get from people. Now, this is 1997, not a lot of people were ‑‑ as encouraging
as I thought they would be. And, actually, probably females were the worst
offenders. You know, I remember calling around trying
to get meetings with people, and just not having the ‑‑ that let's go get them
together, you know, we're all in this together kind of feeling which I feel like we have
now with women. And female entrepreneurs. So I think that that was a little bit of a
challenge, so it shook my confidence not internally but from the outside, where I ‑‑ I was
hearing things that I thought oh, gosh, I ‑‑ you know, can I really do this? Like, I knew
I could but there were factors from the outside that were telling me I couldn't.
And so I wish I could have pushed them away a little bit more easily and we'll talk about
mentors in a little bit but I definitely have a lot to say on that as well because I think
that's, obviously, superimportant in this ‑‑ in this day and age.
And then lastly, I would say, just really being taken seriously was hard especially
when you're young, just out of school. I think people thought it was kind of, like,
a hobby for me to go into, you know, launching this PR firm and then I get a job doing this
and here I am 20 years later and still going strong; so I showed them.
[LAUGHTER] >> But I ‑‑ I think it's one of those
things where people are, like, oh, you're just starting out kind of that.
And so I think with every month that went by my confidence just kept rolling. And now
I'm trying to instill that in my students. Because I think that is so important, especially
female students. >> Okay so you've talked a little bit about
some of the disadvantages that you had, but what are the things that you talked to me
most was your age. >> I think you know going back to what you
said about being taken seriously. That was one of the biggest things for me,
because I think if I was a young boy, and, you know, 15‑year‑old, I think I would
have gotten slightly ‑‑ like, I would have been better off but I would think I would
still have to climb the same hurdles that I did being a young girl. And, you know, speaking
of ‑‑ like, I know you guys were talking about an advantage. And I realize that one
of the advantages of being a woman is that we are willing to pause.
And I think that's important, because when I was 15 I didn't know when to pause. I ‑‑
I thought I was the right ‑‑ I was always right. And I think over time, I realized the
ability to listen to other people, and the ability to hear the other perspective and
then giving your input, I think, is important. But yeah...
>> You and I talked for hours. The disadvantages. >> Yes.
>> And I only asked you to talk about three let's just talk about some of the three big
ones. >> Okay.
I think one of the biggest ones is money. Women have less money. Our networks of people
are people who have less money. There is less ‑‑ you know, easy access
to money. The moneyed class, if you will, is not used
to and set up for, investing in women. You look at the venture capital studies that
have been done, where the exact same business proposal presented by a male, and presented
by a female, the males get funded three times at the rate that the women do.
Same, exact proposal. It's just the messenger. So money is a big
issue. And it's a big problem for women.
The second thing that I think is a real problem for women is time.
Because women also ‑‑ women are not given freedom to just go do your business, because
your wife's going to take care of raising the family.
And so you have other obligations. And even if you're not married, if you're in a family,
the daughters are expected to take care of their parents.
And, you know, ‑‑ so it kind of goes up and down and sideways and ‑‑ you know,
your brother gets sick and they call your sister. I mean, there is ‑‑ there are
demands on ‑‑ on women's time that are non‑work‑related; that outweigh, the demands
on men's time okay. So you've got a bigger challenge around your time.
And the third thing is that women's networks are not as well‑networked with business
owners. And ‑‑ and so when you're trying to find
people who ‑‑ to be partners, if you're ‑‑ if you're looking for ‑‑ you're trying
to fix up your office, and you may not know a friend who's in construction, who can give
you a reasonable price to fix up your office; or someone who owns an office supply business,
who can maybe give you a good deal on your first ‑‑ first round of office supplies.
And you think about the networks that it takes to make a business successful, you've got
to buy insurance from somebody; you've ‑‑ but unless ‑‑ you don't know who that
is and you don't know if they're reliable. And so our ‑‑ the networks of ‑‑
of support for the business, is not that strong for women. Now, I think some of that is really
changing, as you said, Susan, that now ‑‑ and, you know, Becky, as you said, where women
buy from other women. But that is.... really still underdeveloped.
And I watched during the work I did with women impacting public policy at the WIPP conferences
and at the WIPP events; those women in business are looking at each other what are you doing?
How can we do something together? And out of that comes business partnerships.
And so we're creating those networks. But they're not there. Just naturally.
>> Okay. Well, I would say ‑‑ because what ‑‑ what the report focused on were
role models and mentors, women just don't have the same role models and mentors that
men have. The pay gap, which is very real, which is
something that, I think, you know, I think my friends ‑‑ and I sort of brush off,
because it sounds kind of old and it sounds kind of stale and boring but, you know, 2016
women made 80 cents on the dollar for men. That's very real and this is college‑educated
women we're talking about as well. And that gap as you get older your career kicks off
that gap only widens and that's a confusion for a business owner that means you be less
savings it takes longer for you to pay off student debt that means you have less equity
so it's going to be harder for you to get a loan. And I think that's really important.
And the third being the access to capital; and so ‑‑ and you talked a lot about
that. The fact that women are just not getting their
fair share of the money. But what I will say to kind of tie it all together ‑‑ I think
we all sort of talked about this was the prevalence of gender bias that's happening at every stage
of business development, whether it's taking an idea and launching it or whether it's taking
your business and trying to grow it. And that's very, very deeply‑rooted in society.
We have ‑‑ we have gender roles that we see in television and movies from a very
young age, where, you know, the gender roles take form they have really long lasting impacts.
As you said when women go to the pitch room and because of deeply ingrained biases they're
asked different questions than men and those questions result in less money.
That's very real. And that's ‑‑ those are ‑‑ that's going to take a long time.
There's huge hurdles. >> On that note.
[LAUGHTER] >> Yeah but it's true and I think that one
of the things that my research found was that the access to capital issue is something that
maybe we could start tackling on an incremental level through tax policy right? Because the
less money you pay in taxes the more money you have to invest in your business.
And all my tax students are in the audience saying yeah I get it professor I get it. That's
one thing that I found unfortunately what I also found at the same time, is that so
much of our tax policy is geared towards industries and businesses, in which women are underrepresented.
So if you have a tax break, that goes to the construction industry, or to manufacturing
industry and women‑owned firms are only 9% of the businesses in that industry ‑‑
they're not taking that tax incentive to the same degree that, you know, their male counterparts
are and that is a very real ‑‑ it's a very real application when we design tax policy
and, of course, I bring it back to tax ‑‑ but when we design tax policy around incentivising
certain industries. I don't think that at a government level, we have acknowledged the
inherent gender biases because we target certain industries over others out of the historical
preference for those industries right? But having launched into that... you guys
are experts. What do you see as, you know, government policy
that can actually help women business owners or hurt them or ‑‑ along those lines,
in terms of, you know, addressing some of the biases and disadvantages that we've acknowledged
tonight. >> Want me to start?
>> Yeah. >> Well, I mean, obviously, for ‑‑ from
my perspective, one of the most important things is United States government is an enormous
customer. And we ought to be spending our money with
women's businesses. We have a goal of 5% of our small business contracts are supposed
to be with women. That goal was established in the year 2000;
and was ‑‑ has been met once since then in 2016 and not again and we went backwards
in 2017. And so it just... you know, is absurd to me
that 5% is the goal and we can't make 5% when we're now 38 business in the businesses. So
we have to keep at that, because when someone is successful in serving the United States
government, that past performance can be used with private sector, other ‑‑ other governmental
entities; all kind of things. You establish the business.
So that's one thing. The second thing in terms of the whole access
to capital issue, is actually requiring that we collect the data about where the loans
are going. And there's huge controversy.
You ‑‑ who would know right? But there's a controversy about whether we should ask
banks to tell us for small business lending, are they ‑‑ you know, how are they investing?
Men, women, people of color and there's a push back from the banks. They don't want
to do that. Like, what?
I mean, literally, somebody said to me when I was working on the committee, "Well, we
can't do that because, you know, when we talk to the customers we don't know."
And I said, "Okay. Now, look, I understand that, you know, there are some folks that
you may not know. But you probably have a pretty good idea."
I think that, you know, for most of the people in this room, we would be able to identify
a program and it would work. And it's not that they don't know. It's that
they don't want to be held accountable. And that's ‑‑ you know, we ‑‑ we
manage to keep records in house, and.... and why is that any different?
If we require fair housing policies, we should require fair lending policies.
The only way to know whether it's ‑‑ it's fair, is to ‑‑ is to report the
data. And so that's something that government can
do to require the data. >> I had this exact same finding, with my
tax report, because we don't collect tax data on women‑owned firms.
There is no accountability for the billions of dollars in tax breaks that we give out.
As part of tax reform we just enacted up to 20% for small businesses that there will be
no way to know what percentage of that 455 billion dollars, goes to women‑owned firms.
And the data that we found and the surveys that we conducted found that, you know, at
least in one instance, where there was something like 248 billion dollars for a particular
tax provision, less than ‑‑ less than 40% of that went to women‑owned firms.
So we're spending money ‑‑ if you don't collect the data you can't track how we're
spending money and there's no accountability. What you also had something to say on this.
>> No, I mean, she took both things that I was going to say. Federal contracting, and
also, this ‑‑ this data gap, which ‑‑ you know, you ‑‑ you.... really can't
write good policy if you don't ‑‑ if you can't get a full picture of what the problem
is. And when you have these gaps in data, like, what Caroline is talking about, you
know, the fact that we don't know how many small business bank loans are going to women.
The data we're using right now is ‑‑ I ‑‑ I believe it's from 2003.
And that's, you know, prerecession so we don't know what's happening out there and in order
to make changes, we just need to have an accurate picture of what's going on.
So that definitely rises ‑‑ near the top of my list.
And I will just say, also, this is probably broader ‑‑ definitely goes into the private
sector as bell but it's having more women in the decision‑making side of the table.
So it's the ‑‑ right now, 8% of women are investing partners in DC firms and that's
nothing. That translates into government, you know, who's making the decision? Who is
getting the contracts. Who is making the decisions of who is getting S B.A. loans that's as important.
We need to have women in those positions I think that's something broadly speaking having
more women in leadership positions in those decision making positions is ‑‑ is something
that we need to be promoting. >> Just get to work. On it. So you just mentioned
earlier when we were chatting that you just got a certification to be a government contractor
to follow up on Jane's point earlier, about government contracts.
So we just got a ‑‑ women‑owned business designation small women owned business designation.
>> Yes. >> And ‑‑ and so it's helped us, actually ‑‑
sort of prompted by a client we do a lot of work with.
And they have a joint venture with another company that is women‑owned. And so now
we're sort of attached to them with a lot of public relations work that we do.
So if ‑‑ it's great in that it's just helped us get in the door.
And that's all we want. Because we know once we get in the door we can show what a good
job that we do. And one thing that's ‑‑ you know, I don't
know a lot about the tax policies, but just from my own personal experience of owning
a public relations firm ‑‑ so 80% of the PR business is made up of women.
And about 98% of firms are owned by males. So we are getting to the SVP level which is
great strides from 20 years ago when I started my career but we're not ‑‑ we're not
getting past that. So one of the reasons why we did the women
owned business designations is because I just have three or four companies in my space and
they are all male‑owned companies. So it's something that self certify we put
it in our signatures sort of promoting it on social media with our clients. It definitely
has helped it's only a couple of months in but definitely has helped us.
>> That's interesting and I know from talking to you, apparently, who would ‑‑ who
would have thought that Nepalese regulations are somewhat of a head stretcher that was
a big challenge right? >> Yes, definitely trying ‑‑ so I actually
lived in Thailand all my life so rise was based in Thailand instead of India. And, you
know, the biggest problem that I had within the Nepalese government and working with them
was just inability to listen, I guess an inability to just be perceiving of, you know, like,
being sensitive of, like, what sort of issue am I talking about.
But, at the same time, just taking, you know, ‑‑ it was just ‑‑ and ‑‑ everything
was all over the place and for me to just figure everything out.
>> Right because you were telling me you had to go through Nepalese regulations to try
to even get on the ground to start ‑‑ >> Yes. Sorry. Yes.
They had ‑‑ the Nepalese government, you know, they earn around ‑‑ $11,000
per climber just as a permit for you to climb one of the mountains in the regions and with
the four they give the Sherpas is probably $200$300 and that's a big ‑‑ and when ‑‑
you know, when I would ask them, like, where is the rest of the money going? You know,
no one wants to ‑‑ get ownership of that. And I think ‑‑ I think I frustrated them
enough that if I was to ever meet them in any social setting, or, you know, ‑‑
I think they would just walk away. [LAUGHTER]
>> But the point that you make, is ‑‑ is well‑taken, even though in the United
States, it might be somewhat more conducive, maybe, maybe not I don't know but the idea
of trying to cut through the bureaucracy, the regulatory framework ‑‑ that's something
that I heard when I was on the committee. Did you hear that from women business owners
as government regulatory efforts being problematic or no?
>> Yeah, I hear ‑‑ I mean, I think that it's always a problem right? When layers of
bureaucracy you have to cut through I actually don't specifically work on regulations directly.
A lot of my colleague does a lot of those things. But what I ‑‑ this is maybe slightly
off but I will say there's a lot of layers of government that don't quite intersect where
they should. And I think that's a challenge for women.
I mean, we are multitaskers. We're doing a million things we're caregiving for parents
child rearing and while trying to, you know, work a full‑time job. There's a lot going
on. So being able to ‑‑ I think that ‑‑
the Federal Government could do a lot more in terms of making resources more accessible,
making them more easier to find online. Having a lot of this streamlined so people have ‑‑
have one place to get all the information rather than four different agencies.
>> Right. >> I mean, that's a challenge right? People
don't know where to go for this information, and why don't we just make it easier. Put
it all in one place and that's something ‑‑ it seems very elementary, but I hear that
a lot. And I think that that's something that women, in particular, you know, it would make
a big difference. >> Okay. So that's a good segue into my next
question because wouldn't it be so great if you could just go to someone and they could
tell you how to do it? Right? So and we've talked about this a little bit
already about networks. How important are networks for women business owners you alluded
to the fact they're not as strong as they could be at least for men, but I find that
for me, and my age, and younger, they're incredibly robust, like, for example, I was able to pull
off this event tonight just by asking people individually in my network. It was no problem
whatsoever. And I find that has happened only as I've
grown into my career. I'm, like, midcareer and I have colleagues that are my age, rising
with me together. And I imagine that for you, it was a very
different experience. Weren't you only one of two women legislatures in the national
conference of legislatures at the time? >> I ‑‑ the interesting ‑‑ when
I was ‑‑ I guess ‑‑ when I was in the national conference of state legislatures,
there were nine of the 99 members ‑‑ that was a high percentage. 10% was high and
this was in the '80s. But the demographics were very different.
Most women who went into the Legislature went in after they raised their children.
So they were, like, 50 and over, when they started.
And there were a very few who were... under 35.
And I was 31, when I was elected. I was the youngest woman ever elected. They were completely
not sure what to do with it. [LAUGHTER]
>> And, you know, two years later, I got pregnant, on purpose, by my husband, everything ‑‑
[LAUGHTER] >> It was all good. Right? You know, no ‑‑
nothing was untoward. Well, I had a nervous breakdown about that.
They didn't know what to do about that? I said what are we going to do? This is not
really like your‑all's problem. [LAUGHTER]
>> I mean, it's not even a problem. It's, like, I'm excited.
Committee on ways and means said ‑‑ I told him I'm canceling committee I said you
know that's not necessary I will not be having a baby in the committee room during ‑‑
your hearing it's just not going to happen. He said, I know but it makes me so nervous.
I just feel it would be better if I cancelled the committee. I said have at it. Whatever
is your thing. And so when I was... involved ‑‑ first time I went to national conference of
state legislators, meeting 5,000 people at this conference. 100 elected women.
And three of us ‑‑ two of us were under 35.
And that was ‑‑ this was 1985. I know. Your parents hadn't met but ‑‑
[LAUGHTER] >> And at that point was the first time a
woman put her name forward to be in leadership in that organization.
And the chairman of the nominating committee announced that a woman would be in the organization
over his dead body. This is 1985 can which is not all that long ago for those of us who
are adults here. And so it ‑‑ there's been a lot of change
but when you talk about networks and mentors. A lot of women business owners, their mentors
and their networks are not women business owners, because there aren't that many that
are successful that have been around. I mean, the fact you've been around for 20 years,
Susan, you know, that's a real tribute to your work.
And I'm sure that now, you're a great mentor. But 20 years ago, when you turned around and
said who can I look to? There weren't people that looked like you and one of the things
said women business owners who are successful who are, like, my age, they found men who
were interested and willing to be ‑‑ willing to be their mentors.
And that's important for being a successful women business owner is that your mentors
may not all be women. That's okay. That's a good thing. You want everybody to be invested
in your success. And so being able to sort of have cross ‑‑
you know, cross situations ‑‑ makes sense. >> Okay. Hey, Becky. How's your network? Is
it ‑‑ closer to Jane or mine? >> Becky: I think probably more, Caroline.
You know, I ‑‑ yeah, I feel very fortunate. I feel like, I have been blessed with both
strong networks and strong mentors; and I sort of look at them in almost two different
buckets. I see networks as a way to open doors to connect
you to folks who may be able to sit down with you and advise you, I think in the business
space those typically ‑‑ you know, invest in your idea.
And also, just connecting you to other people in your industry. That's really important.
So my network, I feel is really based on a lot of the mentors that I've been lucky enough
to ‑‑ to have in my life; though ‑‑ through my work experiences on a personal
note ‑‑ I think every decision that I've made in my career, whether it's going to law
school; whether it's ‑‑ you know, going to law school in D.C. Going to the Hill ‑‑
those were all decisions that I consulted with a very tight group of female mentors
who I have been fortunate to have worked with really through my work with shriver that's
been my personal life where that has come into play.
I think ‑‑ I would say it's probably easier for us, because of really technology.
I think. I think that's it's easier for us to send a quick e‑mail. We send a quick
text and you're back on that person's radar and you're connected with that person. That
just wasn't possible, you know, when ‑‑ when you were ‑‑ I mean, that just wasn't ‑‑
and just being present in somebody's life like that, reminding them what you're doing,
sending a little quick note, sometimes that's really what it takes to kind of maintain relationships.
So we become ‑‑ >> I think it's interesting that you mentioned
your experience with Maria shriver, because I didn't have strong mentors until you hired
me. And Mary Landrieu took me under her wing because every job that I had I could only
look to male partners in the firms a I was with and the moment I was hired by a woman
particularly two women it was wonderful because it was ‑‑ I finally had mentors that,
you know, I could rely on and invest with me. And it made me work even harder but it
was, you know, having ‑‑ only that experience of working for a woman that I found I was
able to establish that ‑‑ that kind of mentoring relationship.
With respect to networking, though: I found that it was my ‑‑ it was my graduate
school experience, where I got my strongest network from.
What about you do you think that Kogod ‑‑ what do you think have you established a strong
network here at Kogod. >> I definitely think that, you know, Kogod
is very ‑‑ I think it's ‑‑ it's very out there. You know, students ‑‑
like, my friends are always telling me you should go to this event. Professors are also
very supportive and, you know, professors isn't able to go to an event they're so graciously
willing to, you know, oh, Nancy, you know, if this will be a good fit for you why don't
you RSVP? I think that skill, but also being just ‑‑ being the first one to go up
to this panelist and say hey, my name is Nancy. I like what you said. Let's hang out.
You know, like, something like that. Like, I think that's the skill that I learned
from Kogod most, was that just trying to make friends basically and try to talk to interesting
people and get out there and just learn more, I guess.
And I think I'm glad that ‑‑ that's a skill that I have with me, and I think I carry
it with me. >> I didn't know about networking when I went
to school. Did you know that you had a network when you went to school? Is that something ‑‑
>> I think that's a very American thing too. >> Really?
>> Nancy: I think, you know, ‑‑ within the Asian cultures it's slightly more reserved.
And, you know, you only network with the people that you really know.
And I think the ability to just go up to a person, you have no connection whatsoever,
and ‑‑ just a conversation, and what they represent, you know, that's a skill,
I guess and I'm gad I got that skill and that I've learned so much from meeting all these
incredible people and everyone here, too, but, yeah.
>> What about you Susan did you have a network from Kogod or did you have to build your network
or ‑‑ >> Susan: I really built my network I'm sort
of in the in between where social media was not around when I graduated; but I definitely
was a networker. But I was not somebody that found mentors.
I used to think that if you had to reach out to somebody and ask for help, it was a sign
of weakness. And that is so not the case. It's a sign of
strength. And I thought, when I started my business
if people think that there's, like, a crack and I don't know everything, they're never
going to hire me. And so my first client ‑‑ the reason
I started my company was Microsoft was a client of mine ‑‑ an agency I used to work for.
They came to me when I graduated and said, "You should go on your own." It was just a
female that I worked with in the broadcast department she was amazing about my age.
And so I was, like, yeah, I probably could do this right? So I started writing up a business
plan, and my mom, who is a great mentor, was, like, send us the business plan. Let's check
it out. My dad was a lifetime government worker, you know ‑‑ both retired now.
But my mom was very entrepreneurial. So she said send me your business plan. So I had
gone through this sort of, you know, how to do a business plan program, like, a good MBA
student. And it was just a bottom‑line number that
I needed to get going for three months and it was $15,435 after I sent the plan I just
got a check in the mail from my parents with a note in the memo line that said go for it.
Which was really cool. So having access to funds, I was very fortunate. And I am appreciative
of that. I paid it back very quickly because I don't like to owe people money even my parents.
But so fast‑forward ‑‑ I'm getting clients, connecting with women.
And my first male client ‑‑ we're sitting in the room and he says, "What makes you think
you can make it go in this business?" And I was really taken aback and I was, like,
because nobody told me I couldn't do it I think that was sort of a turning point for
me to say that out loud. Just having that encouragement and my mom is still my biggest
cheerleader. She's a great mentor. And I think if you have that and you watch
that as you grow up ‑‑ and I ‑‑ I have three boys. So I'm trying to instill
in them that it's important watch women lead and learn from them.
And so I think, you know, having a mentor is so important, and it doesn't have to be
somebody that's older than you. It can be somebody who you want to reach out to, because
they know a lot about social media. It can be, you know, certainly men. There's ‑‑
so many different ways to get mentors. And I realize now, along the way, I did have
mentors. But that's ‑‑ I used to think it had
to be service official relationship and now I'm a mentor to a lot of women ‑‑ and
a lot of students, and I get so much out of it, too, and I think ‑‑ I used to think
I can't ask somebody because it's asking too much of them to take time from their day.
They're so busy. They've got so much going on. But I will tell you there's very, very
few meetings I've ever walked away from where I've met with a student or prospective person
that I would work with or any conversation in a networking environment, where I thought
wow. That was a waste of time. So it's always worth it.
So ask. I think that's the hardest part. Just asking people.
>> That's really interesting! That's a really good rule of thumb because as I'm thinking
about it I mentor a lot of students and I always learn something from them that I didn't
know. So that's a good rule of thumb for you guys.
One question that came to mind while you're speaking was, do you think it matters what
industry women are in? Is it easier to find mentors in certain industries versus others
or what do you think? >> That's a good ‑‑ yeah, a good question.
I mean, I'm in PR communications, which I mentioned is very female‑focused.
So it's easy to find the people. I also think with tools like LinkedIn it's really easy
to get introduced to people. So I get e‑mails ‑‑ or messages on LinkedIn all the time. Hey,
I see you know this person at this organization. Can you introduce me?
So I think it does make it a lot easier. And sort of across all different organizations
and all different industries. But I think in PR communication and communications
which is what I be it's very female focused it's easy to find people who are ready to
chat. >> So more broadly do you think going into
industries which women dominate is better for women business owners and, I mean, that
on its face you would say, of course, that would be there case but let's dig into that
a little bit more. >> It's interesting, because I think in PR
firms if you look at the top of every Edelman, Ogleby ‑‑ all the big firms, they have
male CEOs; so I think there are a lot of women that ‑‑ that get to a certain ceiling
and then they just stop. And I don't know if it's like the caregiver role we were talking
about or the parent role or that women are not expected to be able to do those sort of
things. I never really looked at my gender when I
was starting the business as this is a an advantage or a disadvantage and I still don't.
But I think that it's important to realize where you have good opportunities for all
of us right? So if you see a great opportunity, so I'm on ‑‑ a board of the Public Relations
Society of America. It's a great networking stool.
It's probably about half female and half male. And I find that the males in the organization
tend to refer more business to me, than the females do.
And ‑‑ that's an interesting dynamic as well.
So I think women do like to work with other women but I think we have to be a little bit
more open to that; and just, you know, really engage women especially when they're starting
out. I think that's so important. >> Okay. What do you guys think, from the
differences in industry between public versus private sector? What do you think is better
for someone who wants to be a woman business owner or wants to be an entrepreneur? Do you
think there's specific industries? Do you think it's better to go government or private?
What do you think? >> Well, I guess ‑‑ what I would say
generally, I think that being a woman‑owned business in a traditionally male dominated
field is going to be more challenging. With the women founders that I interviewed,
woman named Cheryl stein and her company does supply management and logistics so traditionally
male‑dominated. And she ‑‑ I mean, all of her companies
hugely successful and does millions of dollars in government contracts with DOD. One of the
things she said was that a minority woman owned business despite the fact she had a
mechanical engineering degree despite the fact she had a successful career at GE before
she started this business, it was hard for her and those were hurdles she had to overcome.
I think that's one example that I think probably a lot of other women in these types of traditionally
male‑oriented whether it's construction whether it's, you know, again defense cybersecurity ‑‑
that's, I think, an additional hurdle for a woman.
>> What do you think, Jane? >> Jane: I think there are opportunities,
both in ‑‑ both in the private sector, and in the public sector.
And they're both opportunities in sort of fields where women have been traditionally
involved and in breakthrough fields. They're different.
They're different kinds of ‑‑ it takes a different personality that, to a certain
extent I think a women business owner is going to be successful when she follows her heart
and she does what she knows what she's doing. It's back to the sort of mission thing.
She's doing something that she really cares about.
We have ‑‑ within the women impacting public policy family ‑‑ we have a number
of women veterans who have started businesses. Now, this crew, they take no prisoners, right?
I mean, you know, they were battalion commanders and so they're used to commanding the room,
commanding a whole group of men ‑‑ this ‑‑ this woman had me in hysterics today. I was
at an earlier event and she was talking about, yeah, right okay. I was the battalion commander
and now we're trying to do my business. And somebody says, "Well, I don't know if
you can do this, because you're a woman" I looked at him I said excuse me?
You know, on the battlefield nobody asked that question because it wasn't an option.
And so she could take on ‑‑ and she's in supply chain management ‑‑ because
that was ‑‑ it was what she learned in the Army. She was in the Army.
And so it really is a question about where are you going to be successful? You're going
to be successful when you're doing something you really are good at, and you really know
what you're doing. And you don't start being good at it.
You start with your heart. You start with something ‑‑ you know,
you have to pick a business that you really are going to care ‑‑ like, really, really
care about, because otherwise it will drive you right around the bend.
And my thought is that, don't try to start a business because you're going to make a
lot of money. Because, I mean, obviously, the goal is to
support yourself and, you know, for many people who start businesses, it's to build it up
to a certain point and ultimately, be able to sell it and, you know, make money on the
sale. But once people put their heart and soul into
their business, then they don't want to sell it, because they ‑‑ it's, like, their ‑‑
it's their baby. It's what they do. So... I don't think it's a question of whether
it's the public sector, or the private sector. Whether it's, you know, construction or ‑‑
I mean, this woman made us laugh hysterically. I don't know if you ever met her. She has
pink construction hats. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SIMULTANEOUS SPEAKERS] >> Jane: I forget the name of her company
but something, like, you know, the ‑‑ the destruction diva.
And she does ‑‑ like, ‑‑ cleanup. She started in ‑‑ she was ‑‑ she
started in cleanup after Katrina. And so she decided that to distinguish herself, she was
going to have all pink dumptrucks. All pink construction hats; and I'll tell you what
I just remember. Demolition ‑‑ demolition diva and here we are talking about her. It's
been years since I've seen this woman. And she was ‑‑ been very successful.
And it was ‑‑ a completely male‑dominated field. And so instead of trying to blend in,
she decided she was just going to stick out. >> That's awesome.
So I have one question that I wanted to start off with you and it's my last question and
then we'll open up to the floor because I'm dominating the conversation but I wanted to
ask you in technology was in Nepal where you started your firm, you know, it's fairly remote
but people still had cell phones. What do you think ‑‑ did you think technology
was that successful to your business? Did the Sherpas need it did they care?
>> So technology was a big thing. You know, trying to ‑‑ trying to connect I guess
just to improve the communication channels, I think, was the biggest struggle, because
they were from isolated regions and you had to trek your way out there.
And so the way that we worked on that was we worked with a telecommunications company,
in south Asia. And they were so graciously willing to, you know, ‑‑ increase the
towers and expand their network within the roots of Everest.
And, you know, they donated ‑‑ so we had cell phones that we gave to our families.
And that's how they made their payments. And that was, you know, technology used at
its best, because these people were earning money ‑‑ you know, these families were
earning money, and making payments, getting their payments just from a cell phone that
they didn't know how to use before. And now suddenly, it's ‑‑ their like
main, like, device of getting their income. And feeding their children; so that was ‑‑
I guess ‑‑ for sure, hands down, technology, and the advancements that are going on right
now, it is completely revolutionized not even just, like, nonprofit but I'm sure with, like ‑‑
>> I was going to ask. >> It definitely ‑‑
>> I think for me, technology has helped out the most in not being a business owner, but
being a mom. I think Amazon wants to move to Montgomery
county because I'm their No. 1 customer. I will walk to work and I will order toilet
paper, and oh, my kids need a new catcher's mitt. I literally can do everything from my
phone. So never feel like I'm missing out. And I
don't have that guilt that I think a lot of women who had kids before me, felt like, uh,
I should be at my kid's soccer game or I should be at that board meeting or I should be on
that conference call. I don't think I've ever once felt like I was
in the wrong place because of technology. So I am able to go to spelling bees and turn
my phone off but then I might take a conference call over the weekend.
So, you know, the work/life blend, to me, it's never been an issue.
And I think it's because of the advent of just the ‑‑ the mobile phone, the, you
know, the blackberry back in the day. >> Awesome. Okay now I'm ready to open it
up yeah you have a question. FROM THE FLOOR:
Q. Small business association, don't have ‑‑ don't they have data on breaking down
demographics? >> My understanding is the small business
administration has data on who owns what I'm curious how they can relinquish that and make
public if the banks are actually making that public.
A. So there's a specific arm of the ‑‑ and thank you. You can ‑‑ but there's
a specific arm of the small business administration that's a nonpartisan information‑gathering
data‑related tasked with developing and tracking data on small businesses.
And it's called the office of advocacy, which is housed within the S B.A. and they do a
certain ‑‑ certain amount of data lending. They also produce independent reports and
the report that I referred to earlier that talked about how for every one dollar women
owned firm earns a male owned firm earns $2.30, more than double. That's in one of their issue
briefs that are posted on their Web site. The specific banking data that Jane is referring
to, in order for S B.A. or office of advocacy to publish that data the banks have to collect
it and remit it to the fed or whatever and they're not required to do that so they don't.
So the office of advocacy can only publish data that banks are required ‑‑ required
to collect. Q. Don't they publish stuff about women versus
men? A. They absolutely do and they have issue
briefs on specific to women business owners on their Web site, feel free to e‑mail
me. And I'm ‑‑ I will happily send you links to all of but if the banks aren't required
to collect the data on discrimination ‑‑ discrimination is the ‑‑
>> On lending ‑‑ on the demographics of the lending that's the issue. They don't
collect the data. And so if the banks don't collect the data.
>> There's probably collection but it's not being made public.
>> Jane: I don't even know if they're collecting it. I mean, honestly and truly when they say
we don't collect it, on the forms that they ‑‑ you know, review for when you sign up for
a loan, there's not a box. >> The argument is that it's burdensome.
>> Jane: So it would be a burdensome regulation to add that particular box.
And I think there's a balance with regulations about, sometimes, in order to have transparency,
you have to have regulations. I mean, that's just... I'm not very sympathetic
to the facts that that's burdensome. I just don't think it is.
And so, there are others who ‑‑ who feel differently than I do.
>> Hi, I'm a senior completed degree in accounting first and foremost I thank you so much for
taking the opportunity to speak with us, as a woman owned business it was wonderful to
hear you business truly inspiring. I want to start the question by prefacing some of
the statistics we're talking about. Some qualities ‑‑ such great entrepreneurs I can see that every
day. We see a girl, like, you mentioned Girl Scouts. Selling her cookies but I kind of
wanted to ask a question on how do we get to those statistics you had ‑‑ you have
women who are potentially starting businesses but yet only represent like you said 4% of
the global GDP. So how feel about the notion that women in
business aren't allowed to make business mistakes or around allowed to learn about those mistakes
and that being in some way hindering them from moving forward? That notion that if I
make a mistake people won't be as forgiving I'm not allowed to learn from them as opposed
to their male counterparts. A. You think ‑‑ you're asking if that's
a reason why women business owners don't grow in scale right? What do you think Becky?
>> Becky: I think that ‑‑ I think that may be tied up in the fact that women get
less money to grow their firms, because there is less of ‑‑ you know, women typically ‑‑
and ‑‑ they start with half the money that their male counterparts do. And that
is serious repercussions on the trajectory if you have less money and women are predominantly
getting their money through their personal savings as we talked about credit cards friends
and family. You have less money to work with ‑‑ I think you can take less risk right? And
so that's sort of tied up in what you're saying where, you know, you are starting smaller
and it's ‑‑ it's, you know, ‑‑ your oftentimes just, you know, a person of one
in the business and then it's maybe one other person.
When you have more money to start with, that allows you to grow quicker and I think that's
all sort of tied up in the ‑‑ in the risk‑taking. And feeling capable of, you
know, maybe going out a little bit farther than you had.
>> I also recall just off the top of my head there is some study on Silicon Valley about
how women entrepreneurs aren't ‑‑ aren't given the same leeway to fail as men are.
And I know there's been at least one Silicon Valley study that's come across my desk that
I'm happy to send you a link to just follow up with me after the event.
Anyone else? Questions? FROM THE FLOOR: Hi, there. I'm a second
year at S B.A. You all are amazing. My question is, as a ‑‑ as a woman, and a person
of color, sometimes it's hard to find a space in the workplace. How can business become
more diverse and inclusive to embrace everyone different identities or how can a business
change their culture to include everybody in.
>> That's a really big question and a really broad question and I don't want to answer
this do you want to start? Because I know what mine is.
>> Jane: Well, I'll start. No matter what the business is, if you want to be an inclusive
business, you have to be intentional about it.
It's not going to happen organically, naturally because people work from their networks. So
you have a job opening and you just say, "Well, let's find somebody," everybody goes amongst
their own peers. And so if you say ‑‑ I'll give you two
examples. Not business, but same concept. So when I
was mayor of Cleveland. Cleveland is a 58% African‑American city; and so I said I'm
going to have a cabinet that looks like Cleveland. And I was very intentional about the only ‑‑
I only interviewed pools of candidates that had the appropriate diversity.
Then I looked in my law department. This was the craziest thing ‑‑ in the law department,
in the city of Cleveland. Now, mind you, prior to my taking the office there had been an
African‑American mayor for three terms. In the law department, in the city prosecutor's
office, there was not one black lawyer. Not one.
So I told ‑‑ I told the law director, that I would not entertain anything except
African‑American candidates. And that was ‑‑ that was the only way
we were going to be able to do it. In the law department generally, we had, like,
20% ‑‑ I mean, it was, like, what is this? There's lots of African‑American lawyers.
And we changed it up. And, you know, by the time I was done, we had an African‑American
law director, who is now doing great things and she's all over the place.
But it was intentional. When I took over as chief of staff for Mary
Landrieu, we took a look and said ‑‑ I said the staff needs to look like Louisiana.
And in Louisiana got about 30% African‑American. More skewed, in, you know, people who really
support her is even more than that. And so as we built the staff, we intentionally
reached out, but, you know, when you try to find people, especially on Capitol Hill, there
is a ‑‑ there's an emerging network of African‑American staff, but it is really
challenging. Because we also wanted people who had Louisiana
ties and so we were working on a particular spot. To work with our appropriations practice.
And, at that time, Harry Reid was the president of the Senate. And he had ‑‑ a diversity
and inclusion office. And they kept a database. And I went to the ‑‑
I went to Maria, who was running it and I said, "I need some ‑‑ somebody who has
got this profile, is African‑American has a tie to Louisiana, has experience in appropriations."
And she was able to identify this incredible young woman who had gone to law school in
Louisiana, and worked for Charley Wrangle. We would never have found her. Never in a
million years, if you just ‑‑ you know, threw it out there.
And she came ‑‑ you know ‑‑ >> Awesome she then got an appointment to
the Obama administration and is now a women business owner.
>> Jane: Exactly. So, I mean, it's ‑‑ but we found her because we were intentional
about looking. And so that is ‑‑ when you're trying to look at if you're going to
work, you know, you need to ask the company, what is your ‑‑ what is your inclusion
process? Do you have a strategy?
If there's not a strategy, then we're an equal opportunity employer ‑‑ is a bunch of
garbage.
>> I was to tack on to that just women more females focused women‑specific.
Two companies that have been very purposeful, because I think that is key right? You have
to have somebody who wants to take this on and wants to do this.
Go daddy their new CEO came in, wanted to make a huge ‑‑ wanted to change their
image and they put a lot of money and a lot of resources into revamping their hiring and
promotion policies and they look at the questions that they were asking ‑‑ and they saw
that a lot of times there was gender bias in the questions they were asking and that ‑‑
you know, translated to the answers they were getting.
But they had to take it upon themselves and leadership to actually do that.
And I think, also, salesforce is another good example of a company leader who is putting
millions of dollars to close the pay gap and they've already put in 3 million and they're
going to reevaluate and put in another 3. And ‑‑ that's Mark making that decision
because it's important to him that's important to the culture of the company that he wants
to build. So just to totally reiterate that it needs
to be purposeful. There has to be an intent from leadership. Anyhow you guys want to add.
>> Yeah I think ‑‑ it's also just the way that our generations are coming up, where ‑‑
to ‑‑ to the people who are in school right now, whether you're in high school,
college, grad school ‑‑ I think it's ‑‑ it's just a ‑‑ ingrained in your DNA,
whereas with other people it's not. So I think just continuing to look for it and demanding
it, in workplaces will help turn from ‑‑ you know, the company inside to the top. Or
from the ‑‑ I guess from the bottom to the top.
Because, I think, that our culture, as a ‑‑ as a country is changing; and that's definitely
taken a little bit longer to get into the business world.
But it's definitely happening. >> Okay I think we have time for about one
more question. Anyone else? Go ahead Emily.
Q. Emily: Hi, I'm Emily, and I'm currently a junior at American university. I am an accounting
major and a theater minor. So I was curious. A reason for why women are
earning less than men is because they're asked ‑‑ and students ‑‑ and that's keeping them
from getting higher pay? Higher pay? What are some of ‑‑ of the type of questions
that are different and... are they perhaps related to the ideal that women are ‑‑
are caregivers by any chance? A. So the study that I was referring to was
the Harvard study. It was looking at real examples where they were looking at investor
start‑ups and what they found is that female‑led start‑ups were asked questions about how
to mitigate risk. You know, what are you going to do if this challenge happens? How are you
going to prevent ‑‑ you know, what is your loss prevention strategy; where men were
asked about what's your growth strategy. You know, promotion‑focused questions.
And so those ‑‑ those by answering those questions those kind of set off different
trajectories right? If you're negative leaning that's going to, you know, give you some cause
for concern. You're maybe not going to look as favorably
upon a company unless ‑‑ instead of talking about what's your growth? How ‑‑ how
much money are we going to make? You know, what does this look like?
And those questions, each ‑‑ each prevention oriented question, it was almost $4 million
less that a start‑up received. And that's huge. That's huge. And so that's
the study that I was referring to, because I think that says a lot about ‑‑ there's
a lot tied up in that. There's the capital. There's the bias.
And, you know, ‑‑ but ‑‑ those intersections, I think, are ‑‑ are shown.
>> All right. >> Jane: I think the other part about your
question about care‑giving is that some of those questions, are illegal to ask.
And employers know that. Like, they can't say to you, "My goodness. You're an attractive
young woman, and you're coming to work here. Do you plan to get pregnant?"
No. This is not legal. But for a business, you can say, how are you
going to mitigate risk? And you ask that to the women, and to the guys you say how are
you going to grow? What's behind that? I mean, part of ‑‑
behind that is the assumption that the guys are going to be available all the time to
work on their business, and that women might have to worry about other things.
And so it ‑‑ it's really sort of interesting how people ‑‑ find a way to brick their
gender bias in, in legal ways. >> All right ‑‑
[LAUGHTER] >> And can I end on a note.
>> So there was a woman who was just named CEO of public relations here in D.C., she
gave a very moving speech to Washington women in public relations at our Annual Meeting.
And she came up with these four agreements that she makes with herself each day. And
so I just wanted to share with you, because I think they're amazing.
One ‑‑ the first one is be impeccable you are work. Everything you do, do it well
to the best of your ability. Some of these seem obvious, but I think that's what makes
them so good. And then, also, don't take things personally.
I think that can be a downfall for women in particular where we might take things she
looked at me that way or he looked at me or he said this way. Shake it off they might
be having a bad day. She went into this whole long explanation why she was mad at somebody
in her head, for months and months, and he had just found out that his mom had cancer
that day and he made an offhanded comment to her and it stuck with her for months until
she confronted him. And make assumptions about nothing, which, I think, is great. You know,
we always ‑‑ you walk into a room you size it up you think people are going to act
a certain way. Just erase all that. And this is my favorite. Kill it every day.
Every day bring it and kill it right? And that's the way I look at my work. I go to
work every day. And I want to leave in the evening, leaving the work better than it was
when I came in that morning so I think if we all choose to do that, male, female, it
doesn't matter ‑‑ we're all going to make things great.
So ‑‑ >> Awesome. Thank you so much for coming.
[APPLAUSE]
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