Why Wells Fargo Ranks NC as Second-Best State for Women-Owned Businesses
Photo by Melissa Key
By Symone Graham, Charlotte Business Journal
A new report by Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) ranked North Carolina as the second-best state for women-owned businesses. That signals the state has not only seen growth in its number of new firms but also a rise in revenue and employment.
“New formation I was expecting,” said Val Jones, Wells Fargo’s Charlotte-based women’s segment lead for small business. “But what we also saw was growth in revenue and growth in employer firms, too. That was completely surprising.”
The bank’s 2024 Impact of Women-owned Businesses report looked at how the pandemic drove women to start and expand their own firms. It revealed that the 14 million female-owned businesses, which makes up a growing 39.1% of all U.S. firms, are more resilient following Covid-19 than after the 2008 financial crisis. That’s especially true for women entrepreneurs of color.
The report dived into the impacts of gender, race, business size, industry and geography, with a goal of interpreting what’s behind the trends and what’s left to be done. Wells Fargo focused on data such as number of firms, employment figures and revenue between 2019 and 2023.
During those four years, U.S. women business owners added 1.7 million firms, $579.6 billion in revenue and 1.4 million jobs to the economy.
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