Fourera Soumana, A Woman on the Move

With the temperature hovering around 100 degrees, Fourera Soumana travels to the market in western Niger with her donkey cart piled high with hand-woven mats. Although hundreds come from all over to sell their wares at this loud, noisy market, Soumana is one of the best known–a 50-year-old widow who runs her own business and is enjoying prosperity for the first time in her life. Soumana is an unusual woman with an amazing success story. To read the complete article, please click here.

Business Week names Ursula Burns CEO of Xerox as one of the top 20 most Inspirational Leaders of today.

Kellye Walker made General Counsel at American Water Works

American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE: AWK), appointed Kellye L. Walker Senior Vice President and General Counsel. Kellye had been Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Diageo North America, Inc. Read more in the Business Wire press release.

How Minority-Owned Businesses Can Catch a Break

By Amy S. Choi, Business Week

Minority- and women-owned businesses may not be using all the resources—such as professional associations and municipalities—that can help them. To read the complete article, please click here.

WBB Quote of the Week

Road to happiness
"We have overstretched our personal boundaries and forgotten that true happiness comes from living an authentic life fueled with a sense of purpose and balance."
—Kathleen Hall

What Companies Need to Develop Women Leaders

By Anna Marie Valerio, Business Week

Women are in the majority of those now earning college and graduate degrees. Here's what business can do to train them for leadership roles. Retaining talented women in corporations is more critical than ever. Successful organizations know that developing individuals who can truly lead in the global economy gives them a competitive advantage. My interviews with high achievers of both genders in Fortune 500 companies and universities have revealed much about leadership today. For the first time in history, the attraction, retention, and development of talented women has become an important issue for many American corporations. To read the complete article, please click here

WBB Snapshot

The New York Observer

Study: Women outnumber men on most social media sites

Step aside, gentlemen. When it comes to social media, it's a woman's world. According to data taken from Google's U.S. Ad Planner, a site that tracks popular Web sites' traffic, 84 percent (16 out of 19) of social media Web sites are frequented more by women than by men. The Web site Pingdom, which collected the data from Ad Planner, found that 59 percent of Twitter users and 57 percent of Facebook users are female. About 52 percent of LinkedIn users are female. The most female-dominated site is Bebo, which is 66 percent female, followed by MySpace and Classmates.com, each 64 percent female. Bookmarking sites like Slashdot, Digg and Reddit are more popular among men. “If we hadn’t included the three [bookmarking] sites, all of the sites would have had more females than males,” according to Pingdom.

Women’s History

1848: Seneca Falls Convention, first to discuss women's rights, July 19-20

In 1920, women received the right to vote in the United States with the passage of the 19th Amendment"

1993: Supreme Court rules that sexual harassment in the workplace is illegal

Self & Spirit

Just imagine: Imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception.

-Samuel Taylor Coleride

Yours, mine, or ours? Should couples commingle their bank accounts?

By Eileen AJ Connelly, Associated Press | October 20, 2009

If you need a legitimate reason to pay attention to the tribulations of Jon and Kate Gosselin, follow the money. A court ordered Jon Gosselin to return $180,000, out of $230,000 his estranged wife accused him of looting from their joint account.
This part of their bitter divorce fight reflects a big concern for couples from all walks of life: Is it better to mingle money or to keep finances separated? For some couples, joining finances is as much a symbol of their commitment as combining households. For others, keeping separate accounts is a way to avoid conflict and maintain a measure of independence. To read the complete article, please click here.

The Mismeasure of Woman

By JOANNE LIPMAN

FINALLY! I hear we’re all living in a women’s world now.
For the first time, women make up half the work force. The Shriver Report, out just last week, found that mothers are the major breadwinners in 40 percent of families. We have a female speaker of the House and a female secretary of state. Thirty-two women have served as governors. Thirty-eight have served as senators. Four out of eight Ivy League presidents are women.
Great news, right? Well, not exactly. In fact, it couldn’t be more spectacularly misleading. To read the complete article,please click here

How Women Leaders Find Success and Happiness

Research shows there are five practices that can lead to satisfaction on the job and at home, and they can be mastered by anyone. By Joanna Barsh

What makes women happy? Looking at scads of data, some pundits say: "nothing." On a personal journey since turning the fated 50 and helped by a talented team at McKinsey, I also pursued the answer. Five years later our research has helped us begin to understand the secret sauce: why most successful women are not only great at work, but also great in life. To read the complete article, please click here

Working to level the playing field for women-owned businesses (Sen. Olympia Snowe) By Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) - 10/23/09

As Ranking Member and former Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, one of my top priorities has always been to champion and promote the interests of our nation’s female entrepreneurs. In fact, women-owned small businesses are the fastest growing segment of our economy, and these firms – now more than ever – will play a critical role in strengthening our economy. As such, it is vital that the Federal government – one of the largest buyers of products and services in the world, purchasing over $500 billion annually – maximizes the participation of small businesses, including women-owned small businesses, in the Federal contracting process. To read the complete article, please click here

NBC Plans Special Week of Coverage on Women

Women now make up virtually half the U.S. work force. “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything” examines how our culture has responded to this, one of the greatest social transformations of our time. Read more

Self & Spirit

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
-Soren Kiekegaaed