By Michael Finkelstein
With a woman presidential candidate, a rising number of women running Fortune 500 companies and an ever-growing number of women networking conferences, it seems celebrating successful women is ubiquitous, these days. Yet, we know this not to be true. In March, we celebrate “Women’s History Month” and we recognize the struggles and challenges women have historically faced in our country. Moreover, we celebrate the bright future ahead for women, especially those in business. It has not always been easy, but thanks to the courage of a few trailblazers, women today are succeeding in every industry.
One can look back now and point to World War II as the turning point where women’s contributions to our economy were encouraged. Women took the place of men in factories and supported the economy in production and manufacturing. The idea of a traditional job for women changed before our eyes. This had a significant effect on how women were seen in the workplace. This phenomenon did not end in 1945. Rather, it laid the groundwork for the economic boom of the 1950s.
Women who transitioned to the workforce and have since risen up the ranks in corporate America know the challenges better than anyone. Today, running a woman-owned business is about more than managing a workforce or running a profit and loss statement. Women face a multitude of unique issues that their male counterparts do not, most notably with regards to perceptions of traditional societal roles and access to capital. Despite these obstacles, however, women-owned firms have reported higher levels of financial performance compared to exclusively men-owned firms. Let us not forget that they do so without sacrificing the quality of their roles as mothers, wives and leaders of their households.
The progress made by these trailblazers provides this generation’s daughters with role models across a number of industries,ranging from politics to business. For example, one must not underestimate the important role that women like Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, are having on young women today. What better heroine can there be than an incredibly well educated and versatile leader that rose to heights in the corporate boardroom, despite the societal obstacles in her way?
With women leaders like Meg Whitman, the role of women in our society has been changing. Take the military, for example. For years, people have argued about whether or not women should occupy combat roles. For many, that argument seems mute when you think that women have been on the front lines of the battlefield for the past two decades. Women in the military are managing logistics and running trauma facilities in the middle of the world’s most dangerous war zones. Not only are these women playing important roles in these traditionally male-dominated sectors, but some are also leading the charge. In fact, in 2008, the first four-star general in the Army, General Ann Elizabeth Dunwoody, led the U.S. Army Materiel Command, overseeing a budget of $60B, and becoming the first woman to command a battalion in the famed 82nd Airborne Division.
This societal shift is obvious within the small business sector, where the ranks of women running small businesses grow each day. According to the National Women’s Business Council, women own 36% of US businesses and are starting more than 1,100 new businesses every day. What is even more promising,is that these businesses are opening up in every industry.
An economic fact of life for women business owners is that they face unique struggles when it comes to access to capital. As more and more women are running small businesses, access to working capital would allow them to increase inventory or procure more equipment, and thus lead to more sales and an improvement of the bottom line. This has been a goal of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and its leader, Maria Contreras-Sweet, since being sworn in as the 24th Administrator in April 2014. In a speech in front of the NASDAQ on February 12th last month,she called on financial institutions to better support small businesses and re-engage in small business lending.
A report done by the Center for American Progress in 2014 highlighted that minority and women-owned businesses displayed particular trouble accessing capital. However, recently, the small business landscape has been changing, largely due to the emergence of a host of financing options for small business owners. The advent of online lending has been particularly impactful in this space. This shift towards technology solutions that better analyze the health of a business and create a more equitable playing field for women owned businesses to access the capital is transformative.
As we look ahead to the future, innovations like online lending will only make it brighter for women.As of now, they are changing the face of business, as CEOs and successful entrepreneurs are opening businesses in numbers not seen in the past. With continued focus on true progress towards equality, the new ‘traditional’ role occupied by women in society will be one associated with success in the workplace.
Michael Finkelstein is CEO and Founder of The Credit Junction, an online lending platform that helps owners of small and mid sized businesses grow their companies by providing fast, flexible and efficient access to as much as $5M in capital.