The Pioneering Women of the Champagne Industry, From Clicquot to Bollinger

From Town and Country: 

The "merry widows" of champagne houses like Veuve Clicquot, Champagne Pommery, and Champagne Bollinger helped make bubbly the most celebrated drink in the world.

The 17th century Benedictine monk Dom Perignon may get the credit for developing the methode champenoise, but when it comes to creating the iconic sparkling wines that fill our flutes, we owe the lion's share of our thanks to the ladies.

Beginning in the early 19th century it was the women running some of history's most recognizable champagne houses who pioneered the attributes we consider mainstays today. From the iconic bottle shape to the clarity of the vintage, from that crisp, brut flavor profile to the marketing of champagne as a wine of luxury, it was the so-called "merry widows" of champagne who turned bottles of bubbly into a world-famous celebratory sip.

Why widows, you ask? Unlike many women of the era, widows were allowed the independence necessary for running a business. While unmarried women were dependent on their fathers or brothers (they couldn't even get a bank account) and married women were forced to rely on their husbands's money and power, widows were allowed to own property and businesses in their own right, control their own finances, and move freely in society.

So ..... raise a glass to these "veuves" (the French word for widows), heroines of the cork and coupe.

read more here @ Town and Country

See also: Notable First Women in Wine History

New Zealand: Women Behind the Brands

From the New Zealand Herald:

The women behind two of New Zealand's entrepreneurial success stories will speak at a business forum next week about how to take homegrown brands to international markets.

Justine Troy, co-founder of vodka label 42 Below, and Erica Crawford, co-founder of wine label Kim Crawford, worked hard to create globally recognised labels with their husbands, who more often than not have received the credit.

Troy and Crawford will speak at the second annual New Zealand Global Women forum, which was established last year to encourage and support women in business and to promote entrepreneurs.

Top 50 Women-Led Companies

From the Wall Street Journal:

The list comes at a time when women-owned firms have grown in number but still lag behind male counterparts in terms of revenue. The number of female-owned companies grew 125% between 1982 and 2002, and women currently own 10.1 million firms or about 40% of all private companies in the U.S., according to the Center for Women's Business Research. Only 3% of all women-owned firms have revenues of $1 million or more, compared with 6% of men-owned firms, the center estimates.

Female entrepreneurs may not grow companies to as high a level as men because of an inability to access funding, especially venture capital; a lack of female role models; and, possibly, persistent stereotypes that they lack financial know-how or business expertise, the center and other groups have theorized.

The List @ Wall Street Journal

Emirates Women's Award

From Gulf News:

The Dubai Quality Group yesterday launched the seventh Emirates Businesswomen's Award under the new name of Emirates Women's Award during a press conference at the Raffles Hotel.

The award, launched in 2003, is held annually under the patronage of Shaikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Chairman and chief executive of Emirates Airline and Group and honorary patron of the Dubai Quality Group.

The award is meant to honour outstanding business and professional women in the UAE and to encourage women to achieve their full potential and maximise their contribution to the country's economic growth.

"I truly believe that the level of development and great achievements made by women in the UAE in different fields over the past years must be praised and appreciated," said Osama Al Rahma, Vice-Chairman of DQG, in his speech.

Award Criteria
Participation is open to both nationals and expatriate women in two main categories: business owners and professionals.

For business owners, the applicant should have established and run a private business in the UAE for not less than three years.

For professionals, the applicant must be working in a professional sector in the UAE for a minimum of three years.

Winners will be selected according to their leadership skills, future goals, financial performance, level of professionalism and innovation. The deadline for applications is April 15, 2010.

Women Unlimited

From the Telegraph:

Women Unlimited, the UK's fastest growing organisation focused on supporting women business owners, is calling out to the UK's female entrepreneurs to ‘be extraordinary'.

Julie Hall, founder and editor of Women Unlimited, believes that now is the time for women to step up and start leading the way in business. She comments: "As we come out of the recession, this is the perfect time for women to fill the gaps that have been created in the market and increase their contribution to the UK's economic recovery. Owning a business is the best way for women to break through the glass ceiling and take control of their earning potential.

Women Executives

From Emiliya Mychasuk @ Financial Times:

In examining the best and worst countries to be a female chief executive, what is most surprising is the continuing paucity of female chief executives in developed countries such as Germany and Italy. Stereotypes are especially reinforced in Italy, where many of the female chief executives are either at subsidiary companies, such as Patrizia Grieco at Telecom Italia subsidiary Olivetti, or running family-controlled companies, such as Marina Berlusconi as chief executive of Fininvest.

Peninah Thomson, founder of the FTSE 100 Cross-Company Mentoring programme, argues that childcare isn’t the only problem. In her research as an executive coach, she found that male executives were often “horrified that family-friendly policies were … only 25 per cent of the reason women left”. “They [senior women] look at the top and don’t see someone they want to emulate … They become weary of what they often describe as game-playing, as they discover a greater level of jockeying and competition.”

Financial Times: Top 50 Women in Business
Financial Times: Top 50 Women to Watch

Women of Wall Street

From Kayla Hutzler @ Women's eNews:

The Museum of American Finance is showcasing 10 famous Wall Street women, two living and the rest historic. The exhibit, which opened June 9, runs through January 26, 2010. It spotlights 10 female financiers.

The exhibit also offers audio and video commentary by contemporary Wall Street women on how they got started, any discrimination they faced and what they're doing now.

Fortune's Top "Women" Lists

Fortune Magazine has released its "lists" for 2009:

• 50 Most Powerful Businesswomen
• 25 Highest Paid Women
• 10 Most Powerful Women in Washington
• Women CEO's
• 10 Global Leaders

Fortune 500 - 15 Women CEOs

From Fortune:

From health care, to food, to retail, to technology, these 15 women show what it takes to lead some of the nation's biggest companies.

Brief vingettes of 15 notable women in the business world.


Also from Fortune:

This is a groundbreaking day in American business. With the decision of Anne Mulcahy to pass the chief executive role at Xerox to Ursula Burns, the Fortune 500 has its first ever woman-to-woman CEO hand-off. The transition, due July 1, will also make Burns, 50, the first African-American female CEO in the Fortune 500.

Penni Nafus

From NJBIZ:

This morning, Penni Nafus, director of the New Jersey Association of Women’s Business Center of Chatham, received the U.S. Small Business Administration’s National Women’s Business Center of Excellence Award. The honor was bestowed at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Conference Center, in Washington, D.C., along with other awards as part of National Small Business Week.

Worlds Youngest Female Billionaires

From WA Today:

The number of young billionaire women under the age of 40 jumped to seven from just two a year earlier, bringing the number of women under 50 with 10-figure fortunes to 20, up from 17. The average age of female billionaires has dropped from to 61.5 from 62.5 in just the past year.

Married or single, self-made or inherited, these women, ranging from 24 to 49 years old, have limitless earning potential and decades ahead to see their investments and business ventures flourish. They are emerging from some of the world's biggest economies, taking on corporate roles their grandmothers and even mothers never would have dreamed possible.

Women: Saviours of Banking

From BBC News:

Can women bankers and investment managers get us out of the economic mess that their male colleagues got us into? Will it take women to ensure the future health of the financial sector?

Halla Tomasdottir and Kristin Petursdottir are convinced the answer is yes.

They set up their investment firm Audur Capital in Iceland to prove it.

"Women tend to bring a lot to the table. They think more long-term, they think about the team, and not only themselves. They think more about people, and they see other business opportunities than men."

There is another, crucial difference, they find: "Women are willing to ask stupid questions. We want to understand. "

Women in Leadership Awards

From Wicked Local:

Sister Pat Andrews, Nicole Bahman, Marguerite Fagan, Deborah Larson-Venable and Barbara Osband all admitted they didn’t know why they were chosen to be honored at this year’s annual Allston Board of Trade dinner, but anyone who heard these five women speak Tuesday night knew why each deserved to be recognized: all were committed to their community.

What seemed to make the evening special, despite it being the best- attended ABOT dinner was that all the honorees, including Daley, had a passion for service in their communities and each looked at life in a unique way.

Women's Fund of Central New York

From Syracuse.com:

A group of women in education will help the Women's Fund of Central New York award its 2009 grants benefiting programs serving women and girls.

The grant winners will be announced during a reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Bellevue Country Club, 1901 Glenwood Ave., Syracuse.

Money raised will benefit two programs run by Unique Connections, a local nonprofit that helps Central New York cancer patients.

Arkansas Business' 25 Women Leaders

From Arkansas Business:
"By any standard, the CEO of Arkansas Business Publishing Group, Olivia Myers Farrell, should be on the following list, but she graciously removed herself to make room for one more notable woman business leader from the past 25 years."

Read the article and discover a list of twenty-five women who have made an impact in the business world over the last twenty-five years.

Handout for Russia's richest woman

From the Independent:
"She is Russia's richest woman, and one of its most despised. Now Yelena Baturina, who rose from life as a factory worker to become a construction magnate and wife of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, is seeking a state bailout – to the joy and consternation of many.

Some are happy to see her suffer. Since Ms Baturina built her firm, Inteko, into a construction and real estate powerhouse, Moscow's landscape has been transformed. Cranes and gaudy buildings line streets that used to house centuries-old buildings and relics of Soviet architecture.

But many are up in arms that Ms Baturina, who has fallen off the Forbes list of billionaires after two years as Russia's first and only female billionaire, could be saved by the state as average Russians continue to see their quality of life deteriorate."