December 2016 | Business View Magazine

12 13 DECEMBER 2016 Executive View Women’s Entrepreneurship Day founder Wendy Diamond and team rang the closing NASDAQ bell to celebrate the launch of #ChooseWOMEN, holiday shopping initiative to alleviate poverty. #ChooseWOMEN benefits women in business and the global quest to reduce poverty WED: Empowering Women through Entrepreneurship By Lorie Steiner I t’s official! Shopping is now a philanthropic activity… With the launch of an exciting new online fash- ion marketplace –ChooseWomen.org– consum- ers can shop from over 70 top retailers including, Bobbi Brown, Spanx, Lilly Pulitzer, Coach, ASOS, Cynthia Rowley, Lulus, The Limited and Folica, while helping reduce poverty around the world. Initiated by the Women’s Entrepreneurship Day movement (WED), a percentage of every sale generated through ChooseWomen.org will fund essential microloans for impoverished women around the world to start their own businesses. “Launching ChooseWomen.org along with #Choose- WOMENWednesday gives us another platform to continue our mission of investing in women’s futures by empowering them financially,” saidWendy Diamond, founder of WED.“In the spirit of Small Business Saturday and Giving Tuesday,we have dedicated the Wednesday after Thanksgiving as the day to support women in business.There are no extra charges and no hidden fees when shopping through ChooseWomen.org.You shop, she thrives! We are thrilled with the amazing retail partners that have joined us this first year to support women in business.” The foremost economic problem plaguing women worldwide is the fact that they are underfunded. Dia- mond believes that needs to change,“When women are presented the opportunity to excel and start their own businesses, they are responsible and entrepreneurial! Women fully pay back their loans 97% of the time and on time! When women are empowered in busi- ness, they arrive at a place of dignity and self-confi- dence, and will advocate actively to fight global injustice and human rights violations.” Retailers that join ChooseWomen.org donate a percentage of their revenues in support of organizations that provide microloans to impoverished women to help them become entrepreneurs. By recruiting even more companies to take part, ChooseWomen.org hopes to become the largest directory of women-owned and women-led businesses on a mission to alleviate poverty. “Utilizing our online global database, together we can harness massive purchasing power in the name of supporting more women in business.This platform is also an international social media campaign–using the hashtag #ChooseWOMEN we invite buyers to support women-owned businesses and causes worldwide.”