Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) Announces New List of 18 'America's Top Corporations for Women's Business Enterprises'

WASHINGTON, March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- In its role as the leading advocate for women's business enterprises (WBEs) as suppliers to the nation's corporations, the Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) today announced its annual listing of America's Top Corporations for Women's Business Enterprises.

The 2005 award recognizes 18 corporations, the largest list to date in the award's seven-year history. Presented at a special ceremony today in the Indian Treaty Room at the White House, America's Top Corporations for Women's Business Enterprises is the only award honoring corporations for their world- class supplier diversity programs offering equal access for WBEs in competing for, and winning, corporate contracts for goods and services. The corporations are:

  Altria Group, Inc.
  AT&T Inc. (formerly SBC Communications, Inc.)
  Bank of America
  BellSouth Corporation
  Cendant Car Rental Group
  CenterPoint Energy
  Chevron Corporation
  Eastman Kodak Company
  IBM Corporation
  Merrill Lynch
  Office Depot
  PepsiCo, Inc.
  Pfizer Inc
  Shell Oil Company
  The Coca-Cola Company
  TXU Corp.
  UPS
  Verizon

"These extraordinary companies are innovators who understand that diversity has to be a company-wide commitment that is ingrained in the corporate culture. They have gone beyond HR diversity and Marketing diversity and they perceive the business case for contracting with quality women's businesses," said Susan Phillips Bari, President and Founding Architect of WBENC.

WBENC is the only organization that brings together both women's business enterprises and corporations towards the mutual goal of improving marketing opportunities for talented women-owned businesses as vendors and suppliers to the nation's top corporations. WBENC provides resources and business-building matchmaking and networking opportunities for corporations and women's business enterprises.

The ceremony will be followed that evening by the 2006 Salute to Women's Business Enterprises: The Enterprising Economy with Mistress of Ceremonies Candy Crowley, CNN's award winning senior political correspondent based in Washington, D.C. Over 800 leaders from the government, corporate and entrepreneurial arenas will gather to honor the recipients at the National Building Museum, Washington, DC.

Underscoring the contribution of these women's business enterprises is data from a report based upon the Census Bureau's 2002 survey of 1.9 million business owners, showing that the number of women-owned businesses, many of them one-person enterprises, grew at twice the national rate for all private companies from 1997 to 2002.

The report showed that the number of women-owned businesses grew by 20 percent from 1997 to 2002, while the number for men grew 16 percent. It defines women-owned businesses as those in which women own at least a 51 percent interest and manage and control their companies.

WBENC will present its annual conference and business fair, Women in Business 2006: Sharing the Vision, Contacts to Contracts, on June 26-29, in Miami, Florida.

Founded in 1997, WBENC is the nation's leading third-party certifier of businesses owned and operated by women, and the leading advocate of women's business enterprises (WBEs) as suppliers to corporate America. More than 200 US corporations are active members of WBENC and representatives of 36 corporations sit on the WBENC Board of Directors, along with nine representatives of its partner organizations and nine WBEs. WBENC certification is accepted by more than 700 corporations, representing America's most prestigious brands, as well as government entities at the state, local and Federal levels.

For more information, contact info@wbenc.org or visit our website at http://www.wbenc.org/.