WBDC’s “Women Rising 2024” celebrates women entrepreneurs

Some 875 “beautiful women entrepreneurs and men of taste,” as Connecticut’s Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz put it, gathered Friday, Oct. 25, at the newly renovated Hyatt Regency Greenwich  to raise $650,000 for the Women’s Business Development Council (WBDC) – which has been spurring women entrepreneurs, and their communities, for 27 years.

“When women get access to capital, they don’t just improve their own lives but those of their families and communities,” said WBDC  CEO Fran Pastore. “Investing in women and girls benefits everyone,” she added, noting that philanthropist Melinda French Gates is committing $1 billion over two years to advance global gender equity in the workplace and health care.

At “Women Rising 2024,” WBDC’s annual Gala and Awards Celebration, the numbers were also impressive – 19,700-plus clients served, resulting in 14,800-plus businesses launched or scaled, 33,800-plus jobs created, $768 million in client-earned revenue and $63.7 million in client-accessed capital, all since 1997. And since becoming grant-makers in 2020, WBDC has awarded more than $11 million to women entrepreneurs.

Nor is the Stamford-based WBDC’s support limited to Fairfield County. Gov. Ned A. Lamont – among the Connecticut politicians in attendance, including Bysiewicz, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Jim Himes – said that when the recent flooding in the Naugatuck Valley, which straddles parts of Fairfield, New Haven and Litchfield counties, wiped out 250 businesses, he called on Pastore and WBDC for assistance. And soon $5 million in the form of $25,000 individual grants was distributed.

The WBDC and the honorees, however, made it clear that they were not about handouts. To a woman the six Women Rising Award winners – Sofia Byrnes of Cottontails Childcare & Learning Center in Stamford; ChrisAnn Miller of The Ital Juicery Co. in Hartford; Hope Lee of Lashes By Lee & Co. in New London; Rachel Precious of Precious Oysters in Westport; Giovanna Quispe of Rise & Shine Nursery and Pre-K Academy in Hartford; and Vincencia Adusei of VASE Construction in New Haven – were on their way with their business models when they turned to the WBDC for further entrepreneurial education.

That can-do spirit infused the remarks of Sara A. Sharp, counsel, Hurwitz Sagarin Slossberg & Knuff LLC in Milford, recipient of the Patricia Billie Miller Award for Outstanding Community Service, as well as those of the two winners of the Impact Awards. Jean Swift – chief financial officer of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation – recalled the newspaper route she started as a child in which she employed young relatives. She quoted the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, who said:  “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

She was followed to the stage by Stacey Kennedy, president, Americas Region, and CEO of Stamford-based Philip Morris International’s U.S. Business, who joked that she should discuss childhood business strategies with Swift. As an 8 year old growing up on a Mississippi farm, she secured a $100 bank loan to lease a plot of land to raise some of the plentiful watermelons grown in that state. Stacey’s Watermelons took in $1,500 its first summer.

Kennedy offered three points to consider – agency (“my dad told me you can do anything you want”); opportunity; and impact (“it’s not about effort; it’s about the outcome”).

The dynamic keynote speaker Carla Harris – senior client adviser with Morgan Stanley, author (“Lead to Win”) and gospel singer with four CDs and Carnegie Hall and Apollo Theater appearances to her credit — offered eight points, or “pearls” of her own, including authenticity; building trust by excellence in job performance; clarity; fostering leadership in others; diversity of perspectives and business strategies; innovation; including others in the decision-making process; and the courage “to call a thing a thing.”

And that also means, she added, the courage to be yourself. When Harris was starting out, she said, she hid singer Carla to emphasize investment banker Carla. What she found out was that many clients responded to singer Carla. Indeed, singer Carla reached clients that investment banker Carla alone wouldn’t have.

“No one,” she said, “can be you the way you can be you.”