The New Power Girls

According to research from U.S. Small Business Administration:

Women entrepreneurs are among the fastest growing groups of business owners. The number of women starting and owning businesses increased dramatically over the last few decades. Furthermore, the types of businesses women tend to own are changing. An explanation for why women have emerged as an important entrepreneurial group and why they have moved beyond traditional sectors can be found in examinations of changes in women's human capital-especially their educational attainment and occupational representation.

More than 1/3 of entrepreneurs are women, and the growth in the number of woman-owned firms is more than double the rate of all U.S. firms (23 percent vs. 9 percent). (Source: SCORE)

The SBA also reports that the greatest challenge for women-owned firms is access to capital, credit and equity. But a new generation of female entrepreneurs is helping to change that.

Patricia Handschiegel, founder of Stylediary.net (sold November 2007) and 9 Group, a digital consulting/production company launched in 2008, is providing an insider's look at "The New Power Girls" in an ongoing series at Huffington Post:

It's a scene that plays out in my world constantly as a woman entrepreneur, and among hundreds of women across the U.S. Call it a sort of "girls club," it's an underground network of women entrepreneurs and high level executives who work together, play together, and are doing whip smart, amazing things with their own companies in business. Lunches and get-togethers spark brainstorming sessions, a single call can open up doors at companies and top VC firms.

It's not like Sex and the City at all, unless Carrie took a cue from Mr. Big, quit her day job, launched a start-up, sold it, and then launched another again.

It's all part of a big boom that has been growing across the country: The new modern women's entrepreneur. Women who aren't just interested in taking a slice of the corporate pie, but owning the pie, the bakery and the manufacturing company that supplies it -- and are making it happen. Fueled in part by strong mothers from the Working Girl era of the 80s and power women role models like Oprah Winfrey, and Hilary Clinton, women today are more driven than ever.

Only this time around, we don't just want to work at a company. We want mogul status, and we're working for it.

To learn more about this trend and some of its key players, check out the rest of Patricia's series to-date. She does a great job of alternating her observations and insights with practical steps for female entrepreneurs to put the lessons into practice in their own lives:

• The New Power Girls: Inside the Hot New Trend Among American Girls and Women
• Business Women That Live, Do, and Think Bigger
• How to Think, Do, and Live Bigger in Business
• Putting a New Spin on the Old Boys Network
• How To Put A New Spin On The Old Boys Network in Business
• New Brand of Business Women Channel Rupert, Not Carrie
• How to Channel Rupert, Not Carrie in Business and Life
• Fierce, Fearless Female Trailblazers in Life and Business

And the following papers from the SBA provide additional insights into the new face of female entrepreneurship:

• Human Capital and Women's Business Ownership
• Are Male and Female Entrepreneurs Really That Different?
• A Demographic Review of Women's Business Ownership