Women in Business Quotes

Tell young girls they can be anything, including entrepreneurs and self-made billionaires. Encourage your friends/daughters/female students/yourself to take a shot.

When I worked in financial services, as part of a female-led business, I found that pitching to very male-dominated boards created stress.

I remember, the first time it struck me is I was an econ major at Stanford as an undergrad, and it struck me how few women were econ majors back in the '70s. And then in business school how few women... And even then, I thought, 'Gosh, this is really unfortunate.'

Being a woman in control of a company - even a small private company, as ours was then - was so singular and surprising in those days that I necessarily stood out. In 1963, and for the first several years of my working life, my situation was certainly unique.

The power lunch is no longer just for men. We all deserve a seat at the table.

When I was made CEO of Reynolds the first time, someone asked me what it was like to be a female CEO. But I said, 'I don't know what its like to be a male CEO, so I can't really answer that question.'

When more women join the labor force and, particularly, become entrepreneurs, GDP rises dramatically in those countries - in both developed and developing economies.

Some people worry about our federal deficit, but I, I worry about our bravery deficit. Our economy, our society - we're just losing out because we're not raising our girls to be brave. The bravery deficit is why women are underrepresented in STEM, in C-suites, in boardrooms, in Congress, and pretty much everywhere you look.

One of my dreams is to become a female entrepreneur with other projects not just related to music.

Women have a lot of power in private life. There are many men who would say, 'Hey, women already rule my life.' But with women, more is more. The more there are, the more the world gets used to seeing them. We change the culture. We begin to expand options and lead and manage.

There are woefully few women CEOs in the world, but there can be lots of them in films.

Nobody wants to be in a room or their business to be funded because they're a woman. They don't want to be discriminated against because they're a woman.

On the day I started college in 1979, no woman had ever been on the United States Supreme Court or served as the Speaker of the House. None had been an astronaut or the solo anchor of a network evening news broadcast. Not one had been president of an Ivy League college or run a serious campaign for president.

The most significant barrier to female leadership is the actual lack of females in leadership. The best advice I can give to women is to go out and start something, ideally their own businesses. If you can't see a path for leadership within your own company, go blaze a trail of your own.

Mobile phone technology can help to bring financial services to the 80 percent of African women who do not have a bank account and bolster the growth of the world's poorest continent. It's not just about empowering women, it's about economic growth. Unless we can make access to finance easier for women in their businesses, we will be missing out on a significant portion of growth within our economies

In the not-for-profit world, I never felt that being female was an impediment. I was, however, given my break into commercial theatre by a female producer, Judy Craymer, and women - in particular, Donna Langley, president of production at Universal - were crucial in giving 'Mamma Mia' a home in Hollywood.

When women participate in the economy, everyone benefits.

Women hold up more than half the sky and represent much of the world's unrealized potential. They are the educators. They raise the children. They hold families together and increasingly drive economies. They are natural leaders. We need their full engagement... in government, business and civil society.

In matters of business, no woman stops at integrity.

As a CEO, I want to show women that there are no limits to what they can achieve, whether through entrepreneurship, government, science or any path they choose, and there is plenty of room for women at the top.

It isn't so much that there are so few women in finance in total but, rather, few women in senior leadership roles. It is a real problem that we all need to focus on every day, but it is not a burden. It is an opportunity.

Seek women mentors. If you're a businesswoman, look at the TEDx conferences. There's a lot of businesswomen that speak on there. I find them extremely inspiring.

We still have not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling.

We've got to get women to sit at the table.

I am the first female chief executive of Hong Kong.