WBDC breakfast draws 500-plus
The 25th anniversary of HR 5050, the federal legislation that remade women”™s business finance, was topic A for the state”™s treasurer, lieutenant governor and for a lineup of business and civic leaders at the Women”™s Business Development Council”™s 12th annual Business Breakfast.
Even a female race car driver came to praise the law and, notably, to join the host group in praising Nancy Coffey, CEO of KTT Enterprises.
Coffey received the council”™s Deb Ziegler Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence. Ziegler was a WBDC board member who died in 2005. Coffey”™s Hamden-based company manufactures foams that find uses as disparate as beds, space suits and makeup applicators.
If HR 5050 eliminated the need for male relative cosigners, among other advances, WBDC founder and CEO Fran Pastore told the standing-room-only crowd of 529 at the Stamford Marriott there is still work to do. Women represent $3 trillion nationally in economic impact, she said, yet women business loan rejections outpace approvals 4-to-1 and rejections for equity capital best approvals 22-to-1. Pastore is a member of the WBDC”™s national council, which also was created by HR 5050.
An all-star and high-power list of dignitaries included Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, who embraced the Brooklyn roots she shares with Pastore. To laughter that filled the room she acknowledged her sharp accent, referencing Fran Drescher”™s “The Nanny.” As Pastore had done, she praised HR 5050, telling the mostly female crowd, “What you are doing now is showing the next generation and the next generation that this is the normal thing. Use your voice. It is very, very powerful. Voice your opinion and say what you”™re against.”
State Treasurer Denise Nappier cited insufficient financing as a continued obstacle for women-owned businesses. “Thirty-eight percent of businesses are owned by women, yet women receive less than 4 percent of venture capital dollars,” she said. Such funding is critical ”” “particularly in the infancy stage” ”” because she said, “venture capital has traditionally gone where commercial lending dares not tread.”
The event featured a panel discussion moderated by Teresa C. Younger, a former two-term president of the board of directors of the Girl Scouts of Connecticut and currently executive director of the Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. The panel featured Sarah Fisher, race car driver and CEO of Sarah Fisher Harman Racing; Susan Duffy, executive director of the Center for Women”™s Entrepreneurial Leadership at Babson College; and Laurie Tucker, senior vice president of corporate marketing for FedEx Corp.
Diana Sousa, vice president for corporate communications for Cigna Corp., emceed.
The Marquee Sponsor was First Niagara. The Fairfield County Business Journal and its sister publication, WAG magazine, were gold and silver sponsors, respectively.