Businesswomen have been in the news more than usual it seems.
Perhaps I have a heightened sense as Springfield Business Journal prepared this issue with the Focus on Women in Business. Even so, two women were photographed on our cover the previous issue, and a third businesswoman was on page 3.
Not that such coverage is unusual, but the fact is only 29 percent of businesses nationwide are owned by women, according to census data. In Missouri, it’s slightly fewer: 26 percent are woman-owned, and your very own SBJ Publishing is among them.
In SBJ Editorial Researcher Kim Schumer’s data mining for the recent Women-owned Businesses list, she discovered two companies on last year’s list had gone out of business.
The page 3 story in the March 24 issue reported on the
closure of Midwest Metro, which was 52 percent owned by Anne Nelson, along with her husband, Charles. The firm specialized in real estate management of foreclosure properties, and it rose and fell with the foreclosure tides, finally deciding to turn out its own lights at year’s end.
Brown Egg owner Arianne Jones recently had to hang up the apron – on Valentine’s Day, no less. It’s too bad she couldn’t keep the cafe running a bit longer as hundreds of new student apartments are coming on line along Kimbrough Avenue in the Bear Village and Beacon Suites developments. As a side note, it was my go-to place for what I considered Springfield’s best-kept coffee secret: the Tanzanian Peaberry by local roaster Heroes Coffee. But Brown Egg’s pricing was a common criticism for its target market of college students, and the company frequently appeared in the tax liens public record prior to its closure. The company said on Facebook it would continue handling catering business.
This week’s
Business Spotlight takes a close look at another female-led small business. Christine and Joe Daues’ Granolove LLC is in its fourth full year, and it’s a critical point in the life of this artisan granola startup. The Daueses consider it a make-or-break juncture.
The female owners of Midwest Metro and Brown Egg will land right-side up and write a new chapter. I’m confident of that. And others will follow in their entrepreneurial footsteps. There are roughly 100 woman-owned companies in our researcher’s database of the Springfield area, and about 30 firms majority-owned by women responded to our survey.
Statistically, nearly as many women are starting businesses as are men. The future looks promising.
Meanwhile, the Missouri Office of Administration is reaching out to women and minority-owned business owners. Through a series of interviews around the state, the OA intends to learn the effectiveness of the Minority Business Enterprise and Woman Business Enterprise programs from those who have attempted to do business with the state. Interviews by Colette Holt & Associates are scheduled 10 a.m. April 3 in Springfield at The Library Center. According to the Office of Equal Opportunity’s online directory of certified vendors, 40 businesses based in Springfield participate in the M/WBE programs, meaning they are either 51 percent owned by a racial minority or a female. The certification, which is free but requires an on-site visit for approval, provides greater opportunities to bid on state contracts, according to OEO.Mo.gov.
Statewide, Missouri is home to some 144,000 women-owned firms, but growth in volume has been mediocre, according to the American Express Open State of Women-Owned Businesses Report. Covering the last 17 years, women-owned businesses increased 38.8 percent, ranking it 35th in the country. The report estimates sales by women-owned firms this year will exceed $22.7 million in a category representing $1 trillion nationwide, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners.
On the national level, there’s good news for a few women in power positions, which in itself is a high rarity. According to a study this year by Catalyst Research, women held less than 5 percent of CEO positions in both Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies, and only 11 percent of Fortune 500 companies reported employing female chief financial officers. But a handful of women are blazing trails in fields traditionally led by males. An article posted to Investopedia.com singles out the career trajectory of Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve’s first chairwoman; Marissa Mayer, known for development work at Yahoo! Inc. and Google – and is one of the rare Fortune 500 female CEOs; Sheryl Sandberg of “Lean In” fame (
see this column) and Facebook’s chief operating officer; Christine Lagarde, the first female director of the International Monetary Fund; and Abigail Johnson, president of Fidelity Financial Services, which was founded by her grandfather.
As the Women in Business Focus section in the March 31 issue illustrates, and SBJ Publishing’s chairwoman Dianne Elizabeth Osis recently reminded our staff, it takes grit to do what these women are doing.
Grit. That’s the word for this section. That’s the word for this month. It might just be the word for this year.
Springfield Business Journal Editor Eric Olson can be reached at eolson@sbj.net.
