WPO Conference 2018: Disruption and the Future of Business

The Women Presidents’ Organization 21st Annual Conference will be held from Wednesday, May 2nd – Friday, May 4th 2018 at The Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles.

The conference encourages WPO members to share business strategies and experience with other successful women from all over the world, as well as learn from interactive seminars and speakers.

Additionally, it will provide potential members who qualify a unique opportunity to experience the impact the WPO has on women business owners professionally and personally.

Lear more here.  And to those who plan to attend, I will see you there!

Female Founders Are Taking Wine Mainstream

Winemaker Sonja Magdevski founded Casa Dumetz, one of the leading boutique labels in natural wine, and that's despite the fact that the industry has long been considered a “boys club.”

Now, though, that’s changing. Magdevski, along with dozens of other female founders, is working to redefine who and what constitutes a winemaker, specifically through the emerging market dedicated to organic ingredients and sustainable practices.

Women are not just closing the gender gap, but adding their own take on a market that has been mostly dominated by male tastes and sensibilities.

Read the entire article here, which claims there has been an uptick in female leadership in the wine industry.

Build a Network

Six winners of the 2018 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship, five are women, share their lessons learned along the path to success.

One is:

The lesson she [Jennifer Pahlka, head of Code for America] has learned, she says, is "when you start out, it can be lonely. You need a network. A network is beautiful. You need support [think of the Women Presidents' Organization], you need emotional support during the tough times." It can be colleagues, other entrepreneurs, friends and family: "Nobody does this alone."

Other lessons range from leading with love to learning something new.  Read them all here.

VCs Evaluate Entrepreneurs Differently When It Comes to Gender

In a two-part study, authors Malin Malmstrom, Aija Voitkane, Jeaneth Johansson and Joakim Wincent observed that venture capitalists adopt markedly different stereotypical notions of female and male entrepreneurs during their decision-making processes.

These stereotypical notions, which cast men as having traits better suited to starting successful companies, don’t hold up when compared with venture performance data from annual reports. In other words, there is no statistical evidence that a host of myths about female entrepreneurs is true.

Learn more here.

Zero Limits

Lisa Schiffman, Global Leader and Founder, EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™, identifies six steps the most successful women entrepreneurs undertake to break through to scale.  Her insights come from a decade of working with female entrepreneurs.  Every growth-minded entrepreneur can benefit from heeding this advice.

One point she makes is to consider outside funding.

Historically, women have lacked access to outside cash to fuel their companies’ growth. This is one reason they are more likely than men to bootstrap. In fact, according to the 2017 Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) Business Outlook Survey, 68% of female CEOs and owners of multimillion-dollar companies used their personal savings to launch their businesses.

Learn more here.