[ April 2010 ]

A Message from Linda Denny
Photo courtesy of Women's Enterprise Publications and WE Magazine

Advocacy for women business owners is one of the roles I fulfill as the President and CEO of WBENC, and it is an honor to be engaged in opening doors of opportunity or representing your interests in many important conversations. Along with many of you, I was actively involved in the defeat of the unacceptable rules suggested in October 2008 for implementation of the Federal law passed 11 years ago titled: Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program.

Signed into law by President Clinton, the Act set a 5% contracting goal for the Federal Government to do business with women owned companies. Even though the Federal Government has come from less than 1% to about 3.5% currently, the difference between the current number and the 5% goal represents over $6 billion in contract opportunities for women.

While writing comments on the 2008 proposed rules I challenged the restriction of using only self-certification to determine status as a WOSB (woman owned small business). I was also actively involved in persuading the SBA not to establish their own full-fledged WBE certification program and proposed use of current national certifications available through third parties (such as WBENC). I am pleased that in March 2010, the Obama Administration and SBA Administrator Karen Mills released revised rules for the implementation of this law that, for the most part, the women's business community finds much more acceptable.

For example, the proposed guidelines will use a much broader scope of industries (83 NAICS codes rather than the previously proposed four) and does away with a requirement that federal agencies find discriminatory contracting practices against women-owned businesses before competition could be restricted. It also lays out the certification guidelines that propose for the very first time provisions for use of "approved third-party certifiers" in addition to the self-certification normally used by the Federal Government. The details for how the SBA will go about approving alternate third-party certifiers have not been released.

WBENC will actively pursue having our gold standard national certification of women's business enterprises approved for use as soon as this process is determined. The current proposal, if enacted without significant change, states that a woman business owner could submit her current certificate from an approved third party certifier and proof of citizenship (such as a passport or birth certificate) and when approved, could then compete for contracts under the guidelines. This would make your WBENC certification even more valuable!

We are still reviewing the content of the proposed rules and crafting a comment back to the SBA. Once this process is finished I will ask you to join me in sending comments to the SBA. It is important that there is a strong, articulate response during the comment period, which ends the first week of May. To see the details, click here.   Our partners at Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) have additional information on their website at www.WIPP.org.

You should submit your comments identified by placing 3245-AG06 as an identifier at the top. Although there are several methods to submit, the easiest is through the Federal eRulemaking Portal: www.regulations.gov . Follow the instructions for submitting comments.

Working together, WBENC will continue to be your "Opportunity Connection"!



Accenture's Viewpoint on WBENC's 2010 Summit & Salute
By LaMae Allen de Jongh, Managing Director, U.S. Human Capital & Diversity, Accenture.  Photo by Linda Johnson.

In March, I attended the 2010 WBENC Summit & Salute to Women's Business Enterprises. The Summit featured a stellar line-up of speakers and provided a unique forum, which brought together corporate and government representatives, and entrepreneurs to conduct meaningful discussions on key challenges and opportunities.

The event concluded with a celebration of leadership excellence at the Salute dinner, honoring the 2010 Women's Business Enterprise Stars who have made outstanding contributions to their local communities. Closing out the evening's festivities was the Live Auction, which included the Power Lunch Line-Up featuring executives from five Fortune 500 companies - Al Williams, Accenture's Chief Procurement Officer included. The Live Auction, a highlight of the night, helped raise funds to expand WBENC's programs and grow its business opportunity initiatives.

At Accenture, we believe that supporting diverse suppliers is an important part of being a high-performance business and an area where we can make a measurable difference in the communities where we work and live. To that end, we have been growing our involvement with WBENC since becoming a Corporate Member in 2005 and, as part of our commitment to inclusion and diversity extending beyond our own workforce into our external relationships, we were proud to serve again this year as a major sponsor of WBENC's Summit & Salute. We were also honored to be one of 21 other businesses WBENC recognized as America's Top Corporations for Women's Business Enterprises for our efforts to create level playing fields for women's business enterprises to compete for corporate contracts.

Since 1995, Accenture has built a network designed to nurture our suppliers and create opportunities for qualified enterprises to grow and engage in commerce with our organization. We value women-owned, minority-owned, small and other underutilized businesses because Accenture believes supplier diversity provides results – stronger relationships, improved quality and cost savings, which in turn create a significant competitive edge. By engaging diverse suppliers, we strengthen our supply chain, enhance our market penetration and support our commitment to our people, the communities where we live and work and, ultimately, to maximizing our ability to deliver high performance to our clients.

LaMae Allen de Jongh
Managing Director – U.S. Human Capital & Diversity
Accenture

* NOTE: Accenture was the Presenting Sponsor of the 2010 Summit & Salute

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RECOGNITION ROAD

America's Top Corporations for Women's Business Enterprises

Empowering women in the marketplace isn't just the right thing to do, it is good business. 
– Under Secretary Robert Hormats

(Click photo for enlarged view)

Standing, L to R: Pamela Williamson - Executive Director, Women's Business Enterprise Council-West; Susan Rittscher - CEO & President, Center for Women & Enterprise; Geri Swift - President, Women's Business Enterprise Council-PA-DE-sNJ; Liz Cullen - Executive Director, Women's Presidents' Educational Organization-DC; Rea Waldon - Executive Director, Ohio River Valley-Women's Business Council; Marsha Firestone - President & Founder, Women's Presidents' Educational Organization-NY; Susan Repka - Executive Director, Women's Business Enterprise Alliance; Pamela Prince-Eason, WBENC Board Chair and Vice President, Worldwide Procurement, Pfizer Inc; Debbie Hurst - President, Women's Business Council-Southwest; Diane McClelland, President, Astra Women's Business Alliance; Michelle Richards - President, Women's Business Enterprise Council-Great Lakes; Nancy Allen - President & CEO, Women's Business Development Center-Florida; Linda Denny - WBENC President & CEO; Blanca Robinson - President, Women's Business Enterprise Council South; Roz Lewis - Executive Director, Greater Women's Business Council. Not pictured: Carol Dougal & Hedy Ratner - Co-Presidents, Women's Business Development
Center-Chicago.

Seated, L to R: WBE Stars Laurie Travis - President, LT Evention; Kari Heistad - CEO, Culture Coach; Judith Zimmermann - President & CEO, Artcraft & Foremost; Jennifer Collins - President, The Event Planning Group; Katherine Mlakar - Chairman of the Board, The Millcraft Paper Company; Julie Levi - President, Progressive Promotions, Inc.; Sue Pistone - CEO/President, Sue Pistone & Associates; Kimberly Holstein - President/CEO and CIO, Kim & Scott's Gourmet Pretzels; Terri Quinton - President, Q2 Marketing Group; Denise Kanaar - CEO, D & D Logistics LLC; Sandy Hunter - President, Hunter Hawk; Claudette Stroble - President, Orlando Conference Management Group, Inc.; Michele Vignes - President/CEO, Universal Personnel, LLC; LaSonya Berry - CEO, McPherson, Berry & Associates, Inc.

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 PROGRAM PLACE

	Keynote Edie Weiner, Futurist and President, Weiner, Edrich and Brown, discusses the future trends that support efficiency and effectiveness, at WBENC's 2010 Summit & Salute.
	Keynote Katty Kay, BBC World Correspondent and author of Womenomics discusses how Pink Profits impact gross domestic products in the U.S. and around the world, at WBENC's 2010 Summit & Salute.

CERTIFICATION CORNER





Misuse of WBENCLink Database!

While the WBENCLink database is an excellent strategic marketing tool to identify the supplier diversity contact of a Corporate Member, to find WBEs for partnerships, to purchase products and services; unfortunately, many WBEs are using it for the purpose of email blasts. Please note contact information obtained from WBENCLink is not permitted for use in any e-mail blasts. Examples of misuse include sending an email blast for the purpose of advertising or promoting:

• A company, executive/employee from your company, or an event.
• A product or service that is on sale or offered at a discount to WBENC Certified WBEs or Corporate Members.
• A product or service offered by your company that would make a great gift for a boss or administrative assistant.

WBENCLink Training for Corporate Members of WBENC —
2 p.m. ET, April 14, 2010