Among the conference's dozen workshops, the most popular sessions centered on Internet-related businesses and entrepreneurship. That's not surprising since the number of female-owned businesses has exploded from 700,000 in 1972 to eight million firms today, according to Business School Associate Dean Karen Nierenberg who also addressed the group. By the year 2000, it is expected that women will own 50 percent of U.S. businesses. While companies owned by women are still concentrated in service and retail, the fastest area of growth for women's firms has been in the more lucrative, traditionally male-dominated sectors, such as construction, transportation and communications, she said. While the number of female entrepreneurs has skyrocketed, women's access to capital remains a problem.
Women get less than two percent of the venture capital invested each year in American business.
However, access to bank loans has improved somewhat, reported Nierenberg. Women at the GSB conference were keenly aware of those challenges, but were also bent on carving out successful careers and businesses that would afford the flexibility to build successful family lives as well. We've integrated alumnae who are at different points in their lives. The conference offered a variety of workshops pertinent to women balancing both career and family, to those working part-time, and to women who have stepped out of the workforce temporarily to raise a family. The annual conference is held alternately on the East and West coasts.