Small-Business Summit for Women Set for June

Access to capital, government procurement, health care and taxes will be just some of the issues on the table at the first National Women’s Small Business Summit, to be held in June in Kansas City, Mo.

Sponsored by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Forum Institute, and chaired by a bipartisan panel of U.S. senators that includes California’s Dianne Feinstein, the summit will focus on fostering continued growth in women-owned firms and removing obstacles that keep them from flourishing.

“Women business owners are heating up the economy dramatically, and we want to do whatever we can to keep that trend going, whether that means enacting more up-to-date laws and policies, getting rid of some of the deadwood already on the books or just getting out of the way,” said conference chairman Sen. Chistopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), head of the Senate Committee on Small Business.

Featured speakers will include New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, Small Business Administration chief Aida Alvarez and Geraldine Laybourne, chief executive and chairwoman of Oxygen Media.

More than 1,000 women business owners are expected to attend the two-day summit, slated for June 4-5 at the Kansas City Convention and Entertainment Center.

For more information, contact the Public Forum Institute at (202) 467-2774 or check out their Web site: https://www.publicforuminstitute.com/bond/index.htm.