I’m delighted to see more and more women at the forefront of business, both in leadership roles at larger companies and increasingly as entrepreneurs growing their own businesses from the bottom up. In fact, if women-owned businesses were a country, they would be the fifth largest GDP in the world, representing over 23 million jobs and proving total economic impact of $3 trillion – now that’s some serious influence.
At Dell, we’re committed to helping women entrepreneurs by offering up our IT expertise and support and creating and nurturing a community of like-minded businesswomen to exchange ideas, mentor each other and even do business with one another. This week, as one aspect of our larger Women Powering Business initiative, we’re kicking off a new series of videos featuring some of the most exciting female-founded and led companies in the world talking about how technology plays into their business success.
Hosted by sustainability guru and former CNBC host, Ingrid Vanderveldt, the videos are part of The Conversationalists (a new series kicked of last week with "The Facebook Effect" author and former Fortune editor David Kirkpatrick) and will be available on Dell’s The Power To Do More site. The featured women include heavy hitters such as Carley Roney, Co-founder and Editor in Chief of The Knot Inc., Wendy Lea, CEO of Get Satisfaction, Cindy Gallop, Founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld, and Sabine Irrwang, Co-founder and CEO of GoFresh, who opened up for the cameras on their paths to overcoming challenges and reaching success as well as providing entrepreneurial advice for the rest of us.
We’ll be rolling out three new videos every Monday for the next five weeks, so be sure to check back frequently to really get a sense of the women behind such successful businesses. Dell also provides the unique opportunity to connect with these women and other innovative female entrepreneurs on a more intimate level through the Women Powering Business Network. The LinkedIn community offers female business leaders from around the globe a place to share best practices, build business opportunities and most importantly, recognize female influence in business and technology.