Ernst & Young Gives a Hand Up to Women on the Rise

A new initiative at the ‘Big 4′ accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP, is helping women entrepreneurs grow businesses by providing them access to critical contacts and support.

In collaboration with Babson College’s Center for Women’s Leadership and its Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Ernst & Young started the Winning Women program which is tasked with championing the success of women in business through inclusiveness and diversity. Winning Women aims to create a network of women entrepreneurs and business leaders at all stages of growth. The program will also serve to provide early-stage women entrepreneurs access to critical resources, especially access to mentoring relationships with women executives in the highest levels of the world’s top corporations.

In this, its first year, the Winning Women program honors five outstanding entrepreneurs who have been invited to attend the Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum 2008. Identified by Forbes.com as one of the "Seven Get-Ahead Executive Retreats," the forum provides the aspiring entrepreneurs tools to accelerate their company’s growth by building and fostering critical informative relationships, enhancing leadership skills and expanding business know-how.

"Again and again, women cite a lack of experienced role models and access to business-building networks as barriers to entrepreneurial achievement," said Maria Pinelli, Americas Director, Strategic Growth Markets, Ernst & Young LLP.  "Through the Winning Women program, we aim to give outstanding female entrepreneurs a leg-up by providing access to highly successful entrepreneurial and corporate women, investor and informative networks and the hands-on knowledge needed to grow entrepreneurial enterprises successfully."

The Strategic Growth Forum, while providing a place to discuss growth strategies and current economic challenges, is primarily a super charged networking event, serving as a starting point for building long-term relationships.

This year’s Winning Women award recipients are:

• Alison Barnard, Founder and Owner, in-jean-ius and Twilight
• Jill Cartwright, Founder and President, Go GaGa
• Janet Chien, Co-Founder and Principal, Dyad Systems
• Linda Smith, Founder and President, Peloton Diagnostics Corporation
• Kathleen Utecht, Co-Founder and Co-President, Green Rock Entertainment, Inc.

Ernst & Young applauds these women. Let’s all applaud the accounting firm for reaching out to women entrepreneurs!

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