Written on April 12, 2008 – 11:49 am
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
As the Web 2.0 conference in San Fransisco is approaching, I thought to take on a look how many ‘female Steve jobs’ will appear on stage. By counting the list of 200+ speakers, 20 are women, so that’s 10%. Among them is somebody whose according to my definition a female hero, Tara Hunt, CEO of Citizen Agency.
Interesting is that of those 20 women, at least 10 still need to submit their bio (10 days before the actual conference), while of the male speakers about 99% have their bio submitted. Come on women, write down your achievements, or if you are to shy, hire a personal branding agency.
Of the keynote speakers, I only counted 2 women. One of the underlying ideas of these series is to promote that more women put themselves, or are asked, on stage. Not only could these women act as role models for aspiring Internet entrepreneurs, another effect of making women visible in the Internet industry from the beginning, is that it may prevent devaluation of the industry at a later stage. Indeed, what has happened in some industries when women entered or became visible at a later stage is that the whole profession started to devaluate, in status as well as money wise. This happened, for example, when women entered the education workplace or became judges or doctors. But since the Internet industry is only 5000 days old…, an thus we are at the beginning of an era, it is in the interest for men and women not to let this happen in this industry.
So, as a tip to the organization of Web 2.0 expo San Fransisco, here are a few American female heroes from my database: Patricia Gallup , CEO of PCConnection. Jean Armour Polly, founder of netmom.com, and the first woman elected to the Internet Society board of Trustees, currently working on connecting rural libraries to the Internet. In this time of social networking by kids a valuable contributor to the discussion. And just to name a few other American female heroes: Nancy Cruickshank, CEO of Videojug, Michelle Pelluso, CEO of Travelocity, Dawn Lepore, CEO of drugstore.com, Rebecca Blood, author of a weblog handbook, Janet Hanson, founder of network 85broads.com, Lisa Sounia founder of Dopplr, Joyce Chung, early stage investor at Garage Ventures, Peggy Liu of Mustang Ventures and Joanna Rees, also an investor. Who else is ready for last minute booking?
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Written on April 5, 2008 – 5:56 pm
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
On Friday morning, every woman that participated in the conference got together at the Women on the next Web meetup, which I organized during the international meetup as a follow-up of the female Internet heroes series. About 40 women, being 5% of the participants, joined forces to network, get inspired and talk about their business.
Among them were some Dutch female heroes, such as Marja Ruigrok, founder and CEO of Ruigrok Netpanel, who submitted her latest press release about online surveys, as well as Louise Verschuren, founder of Wuzzon, winner of the Dragon’s Den contest, who mentioned the entering into the German market. Also was present Monique Dusseldorp of Picnic and internet trendwatcher Jacqueline Fackeldey, with whom I discussed the series about female heroes. Leonieke Verhoog of the VPRO highlighted the technical wonders of a white label social network based on ning.com, of whom Gina Bianchini is the founder and CEO.
Some founders of new start-ups were also present, such as Tessa Sterkenburg of the Thenextspeaker.com and Sharon Mombru, founder of the start-up Blue Insights, mentioned her search for a superb CTO for her venture. Sita Teli was there from the investors side. A huge success which will get a follow up, that’s for sure.
Written on March 22, 2008 – 3:02 pm
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
As the second of the series ‘Where are the female web heroes?’ I describe the situation in the UK, where as of 2003, a rise in female-owned net ventures have been seen. The government’s newly formed Women’s Enterprise Task Force seeks to encourage female enterprise across the nation to help close the gap in female entrepreneurship between the US and UK. Because, although the number of women-owned businesses has recently topped one million, the rate of female start-ups in the US is much higher. Also, with girls outperforming boys at school some predict that by 2020 the majority of UK millionaires will be female.
The UK female entrepreneur is in her early 30s, tech savvy, well connected and thrives on risk, according to a survey by Aurora, the UK’s largest business women’s network. This network is owned by Glenda Stone, who herself won the Blackberry Best Women in Technology. One of the women who fits this profile is Martha-Lane Fox, co-founder of Lastminute.com. As the time she stepped down at 31 years, the share price had recovered from the dotcom crash valuing Lastminute at £667m. In 2005 she sold the company to travelocity.com, of which Michelle Peluso is the CEO. In those days also Julie Pankhurst of Friends Reunited sold her company, to ITV.
For most Internet female entrepreneurs in the UK, entrepreneurship appears to be a mid-life choice. Between the ages of 35 and 50, women leave successful careers to start their businesses. They are driven by innovation, a strong commitment to entrepreneurial ideals and autonomy in their work lives. Examples thereof are Sian Sutherland, founder of Mama Mio, skincare for super mamas, and Marcelle Speller founder of holidayrentals.co.uk, which has in the meantime been sold to Homeaway.Inc. (more…)
Written on March 12, 2008 – 5:43 pm
Simone Brummelhuis, writing about women on the web
This is a guest post by Simone Brummelhuis. She’s co-owner of Iens and European Museum Guide. Currently, she works and lives in London.
Last week at London Open Coffee Meet-up, the issue of female speakers at the Next Web Conference and the lack thereof came up, as discussed earlier by Boris and Patrick. To finally tackle the issue, I promised to come up with a list of 100 international female tech and web heroes. Indeed, I had some practice at restaurant review site Iens, where I once put together a top 20 of female chefs.
Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook
Let’s first state that I have been able to track down a number of amazing web women. My focus was on web entrepreneurs, investors and CEO’s in the Internet world. But I also came across highly regarded female cross media consultants, power bloggers and other independent professionals, as well a talented mid level managers.
My first place for research was LinkedIn. Yet ‘internet’, ‘ceo’ and ‘entrepreneur’ resulted in many men, but few women. Maybe they can add as search option ‘female’. When I googled a bit on the same terms, many initiatives focusing on women leadership sprung forward. (more…)
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
