JPMorgan Chase and Luminary are on a mission to fuel female ambition and advance financial equality for women. Cheddar takes a look at how women business owners are banding together to support, educate, and thrive in their communities.

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Watch Out Bootstrapping: These Women Business Owners Are Stiletto Strapping

starting a business can be overwhelming, but having a community of support can help entrepreneurs thrive. Of course, in the long run we saw first hand a community of support and what resources are out there to help women? Business owners thrive right here in new york city. Just take a look. It was a gathering and sharing of ideas and innovation at the Chase branch in Harlem with all these entrepreneurs having one thing in common, they are all women on the move, hoping to get the tools they need to grow their business. That's where Chase comes in. They routinely hold networking sessions like this one teaching strategies, fueling ambition, advancing financial equality and making sure female entrepreneurs have a level playing field. What challenges do you think? So many of these women business owners face? Understanding capital, understanding capital and how to separate their personal funds from their business funds. And those are things that we really focus in on myself. I bring workshops to help you understand how to build your credit and how to build your personal savings and budgeting and how to help you separate that from your business kate lucio ceo of luminary left two decades and finance to focus full time on advancing and connecting women across all industries, ages and backgrounds. And that's when her partnership with Jpmorgan Chase began. When you look at business owners today For women in particular, more than 70% of women owned businesses self fund their business, right, bootstrap or our new term is stiletto strap because it's harder and capital is always an issue, but it's more cash flow, how to utilize and maximize your cash and then there's always the, how do I get people to buy from me? Um how do I ensure that I've got the right presence um how do I look at my competitors and so really putting resources out there, women on the move and luminary came together in so many ways to fuel female ambition, Don Kelly, the founder and ceo of the nourished spot was even hired as the caterer of this exciting event, but it's more than just good food that women take away from this partnership. You know, I heard this said the other day, I'm intellectually curious perpetually. And so I come to events at luminary and today's here in Harlem because you can never know too much about running a business. Um I'm an entrepreneur that jumped in after working over 30 years in corporate America and so there was a lot of things that I did not know about running a business. So being part of a community like luminary, which has many, many types of um entrepreneurs in all different lanes, provides me with access to ideas, concepts, strategies, and even a shoulder to lean on when it's stressful, a shoulder to lean on and a strong community is key to advancing women entrepreneurs when launching her business, jewelry designer. Gwen baloney admits her passion seemed impossible and intangible until she utilized jpmorgan chase, I really appreciate being a space with other women who are on the same path as I am and really connecting on that level. Running a business is not easy. So it's nice to know that you're not alone. A sentiment banker, Maria d'angelo here is often the biggest obstacle I've seen is the woman herself. Because I think we as women, we are extremely hard on ourselves even though we do everything for everyone else. I'll use the, you know, we never think about putting our own oxygen mask on first before the others. So I think that we end up being our own worst obstacle and what I've been seeing in this program is truly how it's making these women peel that back and just pause and say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, this isn't going to succeed unless I take care of myself and unless I make this work for me. So programs like this is clearly an incredible gift. Events like this shine a light on the success of women business owners and provide connections and tools to fuel female ambition. JPMorgan Chase is committed to supporting women owned and women run businesses at all stages of the business journey to learn more visit Jpmorgan Chase dot com slash W O T M Thanks to Chester's very own Hannah dough before that report at the Chase branch in Harlem