‘Education and entrepreneurship can be part of the solution’ for women in business

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The Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship at Montclair State University celebrated its first annual Women’s Entrepreneurship Week with several free events on campus.Tuesday’s event featured Gloria Feldt — a renowned speaker, author, leadership expert and co-founder of Take the Lead, an organization devoted to increasing the number of women in leadership positions — and a panel of successful women entrepreneurs and alumni of Montclair State University.

Wednesday’s main event consisted of a daylong conference featuring high-profile speakers — including New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno — and interactive workshops to help women entrepreneurs grow or start their business, or for women seeking information on how to be more entrepreneurial within the companies they currently work for.

“We know that more young women than men are seeking higher education, and we also know from data that young women are more rigorous about pursuing their studies and that they have higher educational aspirations,” said Susan Cole, president of Montclair State University, in her address Wednesday morning.

“And yet, young women enter college with considerably less confidence in their social, intellectual and leadership abilities than do young men.

“Fifty years after the feminist era, women are still doubting themselves — but their education and entrepreneurship can be part of the solution.”

Panels for the event included:

• “Being a Women Entrepreneur in a Man’s World”;
• “Show Me the Money: Financing to Start/Grow Your Business”;
• “How to be Entrepreneurial while Leading a Large Organization”;
• “Lessons on Starting a Business”;
• A spirited discussion between NASDAQ OMX board member Ellyn McColgan and Illene H. Lang, senior adviser and former president and CEO of Catalyst;
• A keynote address on developing a “personal brand” by Mikki Taylor, editor-at-large at Essence Magazine and author of “Commander in Chic.”
• And a workshop on networking that was led by Sally Glick, principal and chief growth strategist at Sobel & Co.

A complete list of panelists and discussion topics can be found here.

The week will conclude Thursday night with a discussion and sneak peek of “Big Dream,” an Iron Way Films documentary that follows the stories of seven young women who are breaking barriers and overcoming personal challenges to follow their passions in STEM fields.

In addition to Montclair State University, Women’s Entrepreneurship Week has been celebrated elsewhere in the state with a networking event for the Women Entrepreneurs Hub of LaunchNJ at Fairleigh Dickinson University on Monday; a financial planning seminar for women at New Jersey Institute of Technology on Wednesday; and a panel to highlight the experiences of women entrepreneurs at Saint Peter’s University on Thursday.

The Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship at Montclair State University has supported and educated women entrepreneurs since opening in 2013. More than 50 percent of students in the Center’s courses and 80 percent of its advisory board members are women.

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