Latest news with #womeninbusiness
Forbes
8 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Why It's Never Been A Better Time To Be A Female Entrepreneur. Plus: Keep Your Focus During Uncertain Times
This is this week's ForbesWomen newsletter, which every Thursday brings news about the world's top female entrepreneurs, leaders and investors straight to your inbox. Click here to get on the newsletter list! I t's never been a better time to be a female entrepreneur: According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, there are now some 658 million female founders and company owners worldwide, and as my colleague Grace Chung reports here, nearly two-thirds are early stage entrepreneurs, compared to less than half of their male counterparts. 'Women's entrepreneurship is the number one policy solution to things like health deficits and education deficits,' Amanda Elam, who authored GEM's latest Women's Entrepreneurship Report, told Forbes . 'The types of businesses women tend to lead create places that are great to live in. And it turns out companies like to build their operations in places like that. So in international development, there's been this awakening.' And so, to continue to shine a light on this growing cohort of self-starters, Forbes has published its first-ever standalone global ranking of the world's 50 richest self-made women. The women on this list are worth a collective $276 billion, or $5.5 billion on average—so not quite what we'd define as 'early stage' entrepreneurs, but the successes their businesses have found across sectors ranging from collagen to coal serve as blueprints for those who wish to follow in their wake. Check out the full list here! Cheers! Maggie McGrath Exclusive Forbes Profile: Teens And Tweens Are Obsessed With This Skincare Brand For Babies—Now It Brings In $100 Million A Year Kimberley Ho EVEREDEN Forbes 30 Under 30 alum Kimberley Ho walked away from her Wall Street career to launch Evereden for Generation Alpha. Today, her business brings in $100 million, and while the company sells in Sephora across eight countries outside the United States, including Canada, Australia and the Philippines, most of its revenue comes from direct-to-consumer sales online. 'Billions of investment dollars have gone to women's beauty, cosmetics and skincare, but none of that innovation and investment really went into family skincare,' Ho says. 'That mismatch just didn't make sense for me.' ICYMI: News Of The Week Speaking of lucrative business opportunities… Gail Federici sold her first company, John Frieda Hair Care, in 2002. She's more than doubled her fortune building a second brand, Color Wow, which is now eyeing a $1 billion sale. Forbes recently released its annual list of Top Creators—a ranking of America's most lucrative influencers who earned a collective $853 million last year. Among the women on this list are Alex Cooper, Charli D'Amelio and Lexi Rivera, who advises aspiring content creators to not get discouraged 'if something doesn't perform as you had hoped. It's only a matter of time until consistency pays off.' Some 54 million people tuned in to WNBA games last season, which is why 30 Under 30 alumnae Amanda Calabrese and Greta Meyer jumped at the chance to make their company, Sequel, the first official tampon sponsor for the Indiana Fever. 'From day one we wanted to work with female athletes because we've always believed that they were going to be the future of influencer marketing,' Calabrese told Forbes . According to the World Economic Forum's newly released 'Global Gender Gap Report 2025,' North America ranks highest globally in gender parity, having closed 75.8% of its overall gender gap and ranking first in the category of economic participation and opportunity. And yet: The world writ large remains a century away from achieving true gender parity. The Checklist 1. Consider reuniting with an ex… employer. According to payroll processor ADP, more workers are 'boomeranging' back to an old workplace than ever before. The benefits to doing this include a faster ability to jump into mission-critical work, because you already have a baseline point of reference. 2. Protect your yes. Learning to say no is one of the most powerful tools in business—and when you say yes to everything, you dilute your energy, your focus, and even your impact. 3. Stay focused even when everything feels uncertain. Burnout, lack of purpose, and constant interruptions can destroy our focus. Here are five brain hacks to use that can bring more clarity to your days. The Quiz Stunning images and videos from a new state-of-the-art telescope in Chile were released this week, they're the first visuals from the observatory named for an accomplished astronomer whose research confirmed the existence of dark matter. Who is the observatory named after? A. Caroline Herschel B. Vera C. Rubin C. Maria Mitchell D. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Check your answer. Liked what you read? Click here to get on the newsletter list!
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Serena Williams has backed 14 unicorns so far. Now she's adding a new role to prove hygiene and health can be big business
Ace move. Serena Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion and four-time Olympic gold medalist, is doubling down on her next chapter of backing the kinds of founders often overlooked by traditional venture capital: women, people of color, and entrepreneurs solving critical challenges in underserved markets. Last week, the tennis legend and investor was named the first-ever entrepreneur-in-residence at Reckitt, the British consumer health giant behind brands like Lysol, Durex, and Enfamil. In this new role, Williams will help mentor and scale startups focused on hygiene, maternal care, and health equity—sectors that remain chronically underfunded despite rising demand. Women-led startups receive less than 3% of global venture funding despite research showing they consistently outperform male-led companies. 'Bold, innovative ideas can solve some of the world's most pressing healthcare challenges if given the right support to thrive,' Williams told me at Cannes Lions. 'This includes mentorship, funding, and strong belief.' Her appointment coincides with the launch of Reckitt Catalyst, a £10 million initiative aimed at supporting up to 200 underrepresented founders by 2030. The goal is to improve access to health and hygiene for five million people through scalable, locally led solutions across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For Williams, the partnership is both tactical and deeply aligned. 'We realized we had the same thesis, [which is] that when you invest in women, when you invest in overlooked markets, the returns are there,' she said. 'It's not charity. It's smart business.' Since stepping away from tennis, Williams has built one of the most successful venture investment track records among athlete-turned-investors. She launched Serena Ventures in 2014 with a focus on diverse founders, raising a $111 million inaugural fund. At the time, she entered a venture ecosystem where only 5% of VCs were Black, and an even smaller share were Black women. Before formally launching the fund, Williams said she had already backed about six unicorns. Today, she says her portfolio includes more than 14 billion-dollar companies and several decacorns. 'I wanted to prove to myself that I could find the companies and that I had the connections to invest,' she said. 'Now we're scaling.' Serena Ventures has primarily invested in early-stage healthcare, fintech, and consumer technology companies. Through her new partnership with Reckitt, Williams is now doubling down on sectors that tend to be overlooked by Silicon Valley. 'Hygiene is routinely overlooked in venture,' she said. 'It's not flashy. But it's foundational, especially for women, mothers, and children. These are essential markets that drive real impact and real returns.' Her role will combine mentorship with access to a network. Williams will advise Catalyst entrepreneurs while helping them expand their reach and credibility through strategic introductions. 'At the end of the day, venture is about relationships,' she said. 'A 30-minute conversation can unlock new partnerships or investment opportunities. I want to offer that access to founders who aren't part of the usual power circles.' She has already started connecting Catalyst founders with companies in her existing portfolio. 'When you give women an opportunity, we often work twice as hard because we've been underestimated from the start,' she said, adding, 'This isn't about taking anything away from male founders. It's about expanding the pie.' Ruth The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune's daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today's edition was curated by Sara Braun. Subscribe here. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CTV News
3 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
SPICE program at Halifax university offers support to women in food business
A group of female entrepreneurs are the third cohort to complete the SPICE program at Mount Saint Vincent University. The Specialized Program in Cooking Entrepreneurship (SPICE) program at Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU) offers under-represented Nova Scotian women the opportunity to turn their cooking dreams into a reality. The SPICE program, which runs for eight weeks with a limit of 12 women per cohort, is a free program at MSVU through the Centre for Women in Business. 'It is a transformational program,' said Natalie Frederick-Wilson, SPICE program lead. '[It] helps women who are food business entrepreneurs to build, launch, scale and grow a food business to success.' Through the program, under-represented women learn about regulations surrounding food safety, how to register their businesses, find opportunities to sell in retail and grocery stores and how to make their business profitable. 'The SPICE program exposes you to so many resources in business to teach you how to brand your item, how to get your logo, how to price your goods, how to set up your contracts for your business, so you will be successful,' said Celia Deer, owner of Jamaica Spice Kitchen Catering. Successful applicants for the program are provided support for starting their business, registering their business, insurance, licenses, childcare, safety training, taxi fare and commercial kitchen rental support. 'SPICE is not only benefiting the women who are in the program, it also benefits their community,' Frederick-Wilson said. 'When they learn how to run a food business correctly, it allows them to run a more profitable business, this helps them be able to hire people beyond themselves.' SPICE is supported by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture. SPICE For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
BBC News
4 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Shetland woman celebrates 40 years as sub postmistress
When Kathleen Anderson was a young mum in the 1980s she converted her front porch into a post office. It meant she could earn a little extra money as a sub-postmistress while juggling caring for her four young daughters. Her role was a vital one in the remote Reawick area of Shetland, where local people depended on her for paying their pensions or their family allowance. Now a grandmother of 10 and "the wrong side of 70", Kathleen is celebrating 40 years as Reawick's sub-postmistress. She first opened her post office in June 1985 after former postmaster Peter Fraser died suddenly. She told BBC Scotland News: "I thought it would be a little extra money, because I was home here looking after children at the time."In those days most of the women around here weren't going out to work, because you couldn't, you had to drive too far and there were no childminders."Today, Kathleen continues to serve her remote community through the same hatch her brother-in-law built 40 years get her attention, customers walk through her front door and ring a bell next to her serving window. In this remote part of the Westside of Shetland, there are no pubs or shops and the nearest post office to Kathleen's is about 10 miles said: "It's very handy for folk in the community, sometimes I might get a customer that would pop in for a cup of tea".Her duties have changed significantly since she first opened four decades said: "It's not as busy now - at one time all the local pensioners came here for their pensions and anyone with a family came here for their family allowance."But that's no longer the case as everybody gets their money put into the bank." Kathleen has had to adapt to the introduction of the controversial Horizon IT system and the change in consumer said: "I suppose now there's more returns, folk ordering online and returning parcels, there's more of that now, that never was the case before."Over the years, the post office allowed Kathleen to maintain a career while "most of the young mothers in the area would have been doing knitting of some sort for a bit of extra income".Family has always been at the heart of Reawick post office. Kathleen brought up her children and later cared for her grandchildren part time while running the business. She said: "They used to love it. My youngest grandson would love sitting up here [by the hatch].""When the customers came in he would try to put their cards in the machine for them."Despite her many years of service, Kathleen has no intention of slowing down: "Well I'm over 70 and no I haven't had any thoughts of retiring yet."I thought when I was 70 it might be a good time to retire, but that didn't happen, then I thought 40 years of the post office – that would be a good time to retire, but, here I am and it's not happened yet.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
The Anti-DEI Crusade Hasn't Stopped Women Leaders
Progress for female executives has always been so slow and plodding that every milestone, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant, gets celebrated. But recently, sounding the alarm for women in corporate America has supplanted cheering the wins. And no wonder — a growing list of data points signal that the right's attack on DEI is chipping away at women's progress toward the boardroom and corner office:
