Women Entrepreneurship Day at UN excites crowd of 300

I was lucky to be at a fabulous event on Nov. 19, Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, held at the United Nations as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The Feliciano Center has a special mission to nurture and encourage women entrepreneurs–it’s one reason we recently held Women Entrepreneurship Week–so we always love being at events that celebrate women business owners.

The all-day Women’s Entrepreneurship Day conference–followed by a cocktail party–included a who’s who of national and international women entrepreneurs as speakers. The agenda also covered the gamut of entrepreneurship topics, including:

• how celebrity entrepreneurs can advance social good;
• importance of education for future entrepreneurs;
• the role of government in empowering women entrepreneurs;
• how entrepreneurs are innovating in health, beauty, fashion and the arts;
• sustainability, health and gender equality;
• women entrepreneurs developing technology for good;
• financing for women entrepreneurs.

Really, it is difficult to think of a relevant topic that was not covered.

There was a ton of Twitter activity at the conference–check it out with #WomenWOW. The conference was also noteworthy because every speaker had a Twitter account (and the event organizers were so kind to include Twitter handles underneath each speaker’s name in the event program).

There were so many great quotes from these speakers, it would be impossible to capture them all. But five stand out. First, Peggy Wallace, managing partner and portfolio manager at Golden Seeds, was on “The Importance of Strategically Investing in Women” panel, which included a discussion about how women have a harder time getting funding for tech ventures (and, OK, any venture). Wallace’s killer quote was: “Women aren’t starting Instagram, they are curing diseases.” That captured it so well–how women know what is really important, and they look for solutions to the thorny problems that are most urgent.

“This has been an infinitely lonely path,” was a powerful quote from Lynn Tilton, founder and CEO of Patriarch Partners, the largest woman-owned company in the U.S., as she discussed the dearth of women entrepreneurs, and positive ways to add more women to the entrepreneurship ranks.

The third quote got to the importance of women helping other women. “Each women out there that’s successful needs to bring up more women,” said Shannon Schuyler, president of PwC Charitable Foundation and U.S. Corporate Responsibility Leader at PwC, which was a sponsor of the conference. It’s all about reaching a hand back, while moving a step forward.

The fourth quote captures how every entrepreneur fails, at least once, on the way to success. “Overnight success is a myth,” said Tamara Mellon, former co-founder of Jimmy Choo and now creative director/founder of her self-named company. Success is hard work, it’s not an overnight gimme.

The final awesome quote came from Wendy Diamond, who organized the whole shebang. The gist of the story is that Diamond noticed there are all sorts of “days” like Bubble Bath Day (and to underscore how absurd some of them are, National Absurdity Day, which is Nov. 20), but there was no international Women’s Entrepreneurship Day. And instead of saying, “what a shame,” Diamond got to work and started creating one. Diamond has a fun, self-deprecating style and while she was telling the crowd about creating Women Entrepreneurship Day, she called herself a bit crazy and said she doesn’t take herself too seriously. “If I was serious, I would have had a business plan and never done this,” said Diamond. That quote encapsulated all that is great about entrepreneurs: that willingness to dive in and do it, instead of trying to figure it all out first on paper.

Diamond did it. And 144 countries decided they wanted to be part of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day. And 40 or so speakers committed to coming to the U.N. for the daylong conference, and 300 or so attendees showed up to hear them.

A serious impact started by one woman. That’s not crazy.