Marsha Firestone founded the Women President’s Organization (WPO) to promote economic security for women by accelerating the growth of women owned businesses and women led businesses.
Marsha Firestone
Marsha was working for the American Woman’s Economic Development Corporation (AWED – a not for profit organization that assisted and trained women in starting and running their businesses) as the vice president of training over 12 years ago. She realized that although there were services for start-ups and young businesses, there were none for women who had already achieved a certain level of success. She was expecting to become the president of AWED, and planning to establish the division that would assist existing businesses. Since the position was not offered to her, she saw the opportunity to start WPO in 1997.
Marsha has an expertise in adult learning theory and in small group communications and she was able to combine her educational background with her experience assisting small businesses to create this small group learning experience for thriving women in business.
Each group meeting is based on the 4 Cs defined by Marsha as follows:
– Bring together small groups of peers to Collaborate
– In a Confidential environment
– With non Competitive businesses
– With women who have a Commitment to each other.
WPO members are women entrepreneurs whose businesses revenue at least $1Million a year and has approximately 1,300 members nationwide. “The meetings are not about networking or committee reports,” emphasizes Ms. Firestone, “they are educational and they generate real discussions about the members’ business issues.”
The chapters meet monthly, and they serve women whose businesses’ revenue reaches from a million to a billion, from diverse industries. The members also learn strategies to help them in growing their businesses exponentially, gain confidence and support one another.
Ann Sachs, president and CEO of Sachs Morgan Studio, and a WPO member, received the NAWBO-NYC Life Time Achievement Award in March 2008. We had a chance to interview her at the event, and she mentioned the support and wisdom she receives from her WPO group that has been meeting monthly for the last 10 years.
Marsha shares her inspirational vision for WPO and its members:
“WPO exists to promote economic security for women and the more economic security women have, the more some of the social problems that women face are reduced. I believe strongly in the importance of being economically secure as a woman, so that you can take responsibility for yourself, your staff and your family, and you can have the opportunity to give back.” Marsha Firestone
Marsha Firestone is also the founder of the Women President’s Educational Organization (WPEO), the regional affiliate of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). WPEO reviews the WBE (Women’s Business Enterprise) certification applications in the New York Metropolitan area and also the DC Metropolitan area. The 10th year anniversary of WPEO was celebrated in March 2008 and the event honored ten years of creating access for WBEs to private-sector contracts. Combined with its partner organization in the DC region, the WPEO has certified over 1,000 WBEs in total, accounting for 16% of all WBENC-certified WBEs nationwide.
For more information about Marsha Firestone, the Women President’s Organization and the Women President’s Educational Organization, and to become a member, please visit http://www.womenpresidentsorg.com and http://www.wpeo.us/.