Columbus has important strengths in women’s entrepreneurship. There are over 85,000 women founders and business owners.  Black women are represented among the city’s women-owned businesses at a rate higher than their share of the population, and Columbus has $7.1 billion in available startup funding, second only to Chicago among the six cities we studied.

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Yet Columbus trails peer cities in helping women-owned businesses grow into employers. About 7% of women-owned businesses in Columbus have employees, compared with 9% to 10% in the peer cities we will benchmark and 16% of men-owned. Among women-owned employer firms, 2% have more than 100 employees, compared with 7% of men-owned employer firms. This scaling gap limits the economic contribution women-owned firms can make.

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The report estimates that if Columbus reached parity between women-owned and men-owned firms in average annual revenue and total employment, the city could see an additional $60 billion in annual business revenue and 43,603 additional jobs. These are estimates of potential impact, not guaranteed outcomes yet well worth pursuing.

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Closing the gap will take a stronger business growth ecosystem. The report recommends expanding networks and access to capital, certification and technical assistance, procurement opportunities, support for solo businesses ready to become employers, and growth support for small firms. It also calls for further research into peer cities to understand which policies, industries, and support structures help women-owned firms scale.

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The National Women’s Benchmarking Network is bringing people together to name the problem, elevate solutions, and learn from best practices, promising practices, and innovation. Our goals include advocating for funding to implement a set of solutions and to continue to provide research that measures what matters.