keep your tricks, keep your tricks and your lies to yourself. and keep your hands off our butts and our god damn bodies. [cheers and applause] >> we will have the congresswoman full speech and a panel on the women's movement this saturday at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. we turn now to capitol hill where the role of women in use economy was the focus of a senate small business and entrepreneurship committee. it runs about one hour. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> him [inaudible conversations] >> i know everybody's having a good time and networking and moving the enterprise forward but we really should get started. we have a vote, to vote starting at noon so we will be a bit of a short string here. that should in any way denigrate the importance of this hearing of the small business committee. what we're going to do today is explore ways to up women-owned businesses reach their full potential and grow the american economy. i certainly want to thank my colleagues senator shaheen for working together on this. is this a matter of great importance to all of us into all

america, in all america sometimes doesn't know. as you know, october is national women's small business month which serves as a great reminder the female entrepreneurs owe more than 11 million businesses in our country and employ more than 9 million workers. they contribute $1.6 trillion in sales to our national economy,, and are capable of even more as its fastest-growing sector. just a few weeks ago sba administrator linda mcmahon joined in my home state of idaho and we visited a number of small businesses. my wife and i and she traveled to a number of businesses, and had the opportunity to meet with some women-owned businesses. i often say entrepreneurs and small business owners want more than anything is to at time to devote to growing their businesses. women entrepreneurs as many you can attest to oftentimes are working to juggle even more priorities than their male

counterparts are obvious reasons. they are negatively impacted by the expense of time and resources that it takes to comply with our complicated and burdensome tax code along with a lot of the other arcane regulatory systems. it is for this reason tax reform can't and should be part of today's discussion. the national association of women's business owners asked this committee to present on tax reform at their annual conference just last week because that is the most important issue to the hundreds of business, women business owners who belong to that organization. additionally the president and board of directors of women impacting public policy were at this desk in this very room a few weeks ago for a bipartisan discussion centered on the need for tax reform with staff from both my office and my colleagues senator shaheen to participate. our hearing today will touch on

many issues affecting women entrepreneurs out of one to note this is a tax reform is a top issue of loop on all of our parts. thank you for being here today and i look forward to a robust discussion. i would ask of the panel members first of all thank you for agreeing to come to the hearing today, and presenting for us. i would ask you to try to stay with the five minutes and will ask that you submit anything you want in writing and we will certainly include in the record. with that, i would like to yield to senator shaheen. >> thank you very much, mr. cha. i'm delighted we are holding this hearing this morning because as you point out women owned firms can. we look at the future of employment in this country, they are growing high times faster than the national average. but women-owned businesses still

face headwinds pick on average they are less than male owned firms. employee only 8% of the nation's private workforce in the produce 4% of business revenues, sure that it remained the same for the past 20 years. the question really is why, why aren't the other statistics around women-owned businesses not changing? that's one of the things we will explore this morning. i look forward to hearing the testimony of our outstanding witnesses and i will submit my full statement for the record, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator. i'd like to introduce our three witnesses here today and i would first like to welcome ms. elizabeth gore who is an entrepreneur in residence. i've never heard that title before, i'm sure you will enlighten us on that, who drives -- supports dels goals about helping small and medium business scale, businesses scale

and profit. also please welcome tracy chadwell found a partner of 1843 capital, and early-stage venture capital. i would also like to recognize michelle richards who served as executive director of the great lakes women's business council will know the council does great work and she has been there since their inception in 1984. so thank all of you for coming, and ms. gore, we will start with you. [inaudible] >> thank thank you, chairman, ad senators for being here -- [inaudible] it's a real honor to testify about what a think to be the greatest bipartisan opportunity that this country has seen, and it's women entrepreneurs. just this week i've been in san francisco, sioux falls, south dakota, new york city and now

d.c., and i'm from northern california and i can tell you that women in all of those areas have the most potential to succeed but they are facing numerous barriers. while we are starting businesses twice as fast as our male counterparts as you said, very proud of that, we do have considerably higher failure rate. only 2% of us are making over $1 million with our businesses in this country. i think that is a 98% on for too many investment opportunity so we only to bring. i hope none of you have the number seven as your favorite number because some reason were stuck on seven. women soldiers only get 7% of venture capital in this country on 7% of venture capitalists are women. and something that's increasingly important, only 7% of stories in the business media are about women founders. we have to see it to be at and we have to change that. over the last two and half years

i've had the pleasure to serve in my home state of texas as an entrepreneur in residence at dell and also an entrepreneur myself and a cofounder of alice, which is a first ever machine learning in ai tool that helps in the women minority or veteran founder find these resources they need to scale. i will tell you that through both of those work i found the barriers really fit in four pillars, access to capital, networks, technology, and talent. those really are our barriers. so i will just out with access to capital. this is the number one issue facing women, in my opinion. whether i am in sioux falls and applying for an sba loan were sitting in silicon valley and going after my series a a fund, this is a major problem. i think we need as as a recommendation to incentivize our venture capital friends to increase that 7% number. it it is going down, in fact,

and i think the 2017 of us will show a drop in venture capital. i think my colleagues would talk a lot more about that. highest in unconscious bias does exist in venture capital. the need to movement is not just about hollywood. -- me too. i would also ask the sba to be a critical part while women are five times likely to get sba loans, it shows how important it is, they are actually come the amounts they get a 2.5 times lower lower than their male counterparts. something out we look into. another thing is certifications. i am really proud to see continuing diversity programs, women owned business certifications but there's one thing we need to change. the certification program with the u.s. sba is an excellent program. however, he peaked venture funding and those venture

capitalists are male, he would not consider owned anymore. so you cannot get the certification and the venture back i think this is something that we can simply change the station and as my top recommendation for this year. the second is let's continue to work with innovators and understand new sources of funding, supplier diversity, they'll spend $4 billion a year in women and minority owned businesses. what other innovative sources can we do? most women actually depend on banks for access to capital. we talk about venture that 90% of women are counting en banc loans, and just this year we came out to see only 30% of companies owned by women were able to get bank loans in the first part of 2016. the next is access to networks.

we don't golf as much as our gentleman counterparts do so what are those networks we need to find, whether those are digital, whether it accelerates our critical. i love the grants have been going to the extent aratus. they are very important. access to technology, every single company is not a technology company. women are less likely to access technology and we have to continue to move that forward. on behalf of my fellow amazing women entrepreneurs, this is a time of opportunity. it's a time that yes, we are challenged, but we're the best economic bet it would give you access to capital we need. we will bring $30 billion in gdp to this country in one year. thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. [inaudible] >> thank you, elizabeth. that was terrific. good morning, ladies and gentlemen, of the committee. thank you, chairman risch and ranking member shaheen for the

opportunity to testify today before your committee. it's a pleasure, and honor to introduce myself and to give my perspective on how to strengthen the entrepreneur ecosystem for women. by way of background i'm an attorney with my first exposure to private equity when it would for senator adlai stevenson and help them set up a fund to invest in china. i eventually became a partner of $1 billion gross gross capital fund baker capital that much more relevant, for the last five years i've been investing exclusively in women founders in the technology area. and founded a venture capital fund called 1843 capital. 1843 capital is the year the first computer program for my partners in 1843 are incredible women. allison is an operator, nikita successfully built and sold her own cybersecurity company called vigilant. vanessa is a ceo of the project, a women's entrepreneurship platform that operates in seven cities in north america delivering educational programming and premium

networking for women founders, funders and community partners. 1843 our strategic partners in n the effort to scale women businesses. the good news, the really good news is things are working. the accelerator program, mentorship and seed investors in the ecosystem are a lot of women-owned businesses to thrive. the panetta project alone sees over 2000 female founded companies per year through their expensive and able to channel $50 million to early-stage companies. as you said earlier nationwide, women-owned businesses are growing in number at five times the national average and statistically women outperformance will when operated venture copies achieve 12% are registered this is in no doubt due to public-private partnerships. organizations like the winds business development councils around the country have been a true catalyst. the sba has been a strong partner as well but guaranteeing

loans they are giving women the fuel they need to scale their businesses and they're their ds without taxpayer subsidies. as a venture capitalist i've had the opportunity to invest in world-class companies founded by women that are both successful and great, do great things for the world. a woman founded company which produces personal products for care that are free of toxic chemicals. this company as revenues that are much stronger than most of the unicorns out there and they employ 35,000 consultants. silver soberness is a company in colorado that uses technology to match people over 50 with relates to this helps them solve the problem of financial insecurity and loneliness. an algorithm based wealth management platform helps banks and registered investment advisors democratize wealth management so that everyone can save and invest regardless of the sites of their accounts. something truly unique is what

we call user experience. most people are intimidated by matt and finance and the thought of diversified portfolio. but margaret knew this and she felt an interface that was visual, intuitive and accessible drive on. a great of why women founders are so successful. she need cut the biggest impact the company had to have a foundation and design. as a into our next chapter in technology, dominated by artificial intelligence, the skills of coding or writing algorithms are going to become commodities. what is going to win is creativity, design and marketing. but by far the most serious barrier to the entrepreneur ecosystem for women is the lack of funding as elizabeth said. women are able to create businesses because the cost of starting a business has come down exponentially of the don't need outside investment to get started. however, the capital to scale is inaccessible. beauty counter is one of largest and fastest-growing companies,

have difficulty raising capital into the restored in going in revenues. women founders as a group received 2.19% 2.19% of venture capital dollars. a lot of reasons, lack of women venture partners which comprise 3% 3% and women founded venture capital firms are 28 out of 800 firms. what of the most impactful things you as sanders could you would it be to encourage or state pension funds to take a harder look at women managers and harder look at the diversified their underlying portfolios. it is impossible to legislate against unconscious bias. however it is possible to sport antiphon positive role models. thank you very much. [inaudible] >> i'm sorry. i'm really bad at the technology

audio part. i'm right on point. my name is michelle richards and executive director for great lakes women's business council. before i discuss the current echo system for women entrepreneurs i want to share our experience as an organization dedicated to supporting women business owners for the past 33 years. i i had a chance to start this organization, and as the sba micro lender since 1993 we 199e made over 6.5 million in loans of the average size is 20,000. these loans have created 1700 jobs. in early 1990, we became an sba women's business center picked this was important because it created a stable funding for us to build a platform for our training and counseling program. we've been able to serve more than 10,000 women business owners and entrepreneurs. for the past 20 years we've also

been a certifying partner for the women's business center price national council, we currently have 1125 certified business owners that generate 12.3 billion in revenue annually and employ 48,500 u.s. workers. amazing. i am proud of our efforts to revitalize detroit. to date our detroit loan program has provided 1.3 million in loans creating 72 jobs and retaining 100 more. for small businesses to succeed they need what i call the three c's, capacity, capital and customers or contracts. in my view women entrepreneurs lack access to all three. capital access is a chronic very for women's business owners. our team has heard countless stories of bias against women when they attempt to obtain business finance. i recently was told by an established woman business owner

that databank later came up to our business and asked if her husband would be joining them. when she indicated that she would not be attending because he is not part of the business, the lender immediately left, closed his portfolio. the antidotes are backed by statistics compiled by this committee and the sba. if women are able to obtain equal access to capital, they can't grow their business default potential. similarly women are highly underrepresented in federal contracting. although the federal government met its goal of awarding 5% of eligible federal contracts to women-owned businesses in 2015, it failed to reach the mark in 2016. the market share needs to grow because federal contracting has a tremendous impact on many women-owned businesses. for example, katie bigelow, just one of many examples we have, president of metal ops received

her first contract with the air force for $80,000 in 2015 after two years of trying. that contract created the past performance needed to win her most recent contract award for $9.1 million. finally, women are unable to access basic tools that we need, that we know work for them. they need training and coaching to grow their businesses and become job creators. and it is important to modernize and grow in nationwide network of counselors and mentors for women entrepreneurs. as an sba women's business center and micro business center, we have experienced to offer the committee these recommendations. first and foremost we need to modernize the women's business center program. the house of representatives included the women's business center legislation as part of the fiscal year '18 national

defense authorization act which would increase the 30-year-old cap on grant levels, 30 years. we strongly urge the senate to keep this provision in the ndaa. second, i encourage this committee to push sba on its implementation of women owned small business third-party certification rules. we have over 500 certified women in our center. finally, you should be a dedicated commitment to programs that are proven to provide capital to women business owners. should continue to support programs like the small business micro loan program and the community development financial institution fund. chairman risch, ranking member shaheen, a distinguished senators, thank you for this opportunity to present this testimony. >> thank you so much to all three of you. i noted all three of you made

reference to the capital situation and access to it, and those figures certainly are not pretty as far as they capital that is received by women entrepreneurs. anybody was even a passing knowledge of economics knows that access to capital and flow, free flow of capital is critical to the success of the family of a business entity of the nation, and that's what america stands out so much from others in our economies because of the free flow of capital. barriers in that regard really need to be knocked down. i note, ms. gore, your final -- find a flaw in the federal system where women owned certification is lost when they get funds from a male entrepreneur, mail venture capital fund. be interesting to see what would happen if they found out that the banks the women-owned businesses were getting money from was run by an all-male

board of directors, which is exactly the same situation. senator shaheen and i have already agreed will take a run at this. federal government doesn't always, and that's a result of your testimony by the way. the federal government doesn't always do things exactly the way they should, that's why we're here. we will take a run at that. with that, senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i hope all of the members of the committee will join us in that effort because it seems like that's a no-brainer that would make a big difference in access to capital. i want to go back to an issue that ms. richards referenced, and i think you did as well, msn about venture capital. right now the countries having what i think is a very important conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace. fortunately, a lot of people are

coming forward and saying this is not right. unfortunately, we've seen that in terms of access to venture capital as well. earlier this year several female entrepreneurs told the "new york times" about unwanted sexual advances made by influential venture capitalists. last week the founder of rent the runway discuss the harassment she experienced while raising $190 million from venture capitalists. so clearly this is something that exists in the venture capital industry as well, and i wonder, ms. chadwell, if you could talk about this a little bit. our experiences like hers, place, and how is he trying to address this issue? >> i think experiences like this are commonplace in every interest. i think we've been seeing it in the entertainment and the venture capital industry

specifically as of late but i think systemic and i think a lot of issues like this will go away as we get close to parity where we have more women ceos and what we have more women venture managers. and not just the sexual harassment issue but with other issues that we are working on is like equal pay and also maturity and family issues. a lot of those may not have to be legislate if you women ceos. >> thank you. do either of you want to add anything to that? [inaudible] -- unconscious bias is so strong it there are a lot of formulas that are working overtime, and when your appointment is working and you're making money it really takes leadership from folks like you all to push those industries to think outside. when i was reading my last few years i heard over and over anything that is women focused is not a large enough market. it's a niche market. even though we're 51% of the

population and have 85% of consumer spending. so i think that bias is pretty rampant. >> thank you. i want to go back to the axis of capital as well. we have a chart here that shows -- access -- pointed out in terms of the situation with women-owned businesses and their access to capital. so you can see the blue columns are majority women-owned, and all of the firms are the orange columns here so we can see the difference in terms of venture capital funding, the total amount of conventional business loans, and in the prime contract awards which is exactly what all of you had to say, but when you see it on that chart, it really brings it home. just the disadvantages that women-owned businesses face. so ms. richards, , you told a

story reminded me a bit of my own experience about the entrepreneur who was turned away because her husband wasn't there. i remember when i first was applying for credit, my husband had to sign the bank forms in order to do that because we had not yet changed the loss. so how do we continue to address these issues? what steps, , what other steps n we take to prevent instances of bias by bank lenders against women business owners? >> disclosure is critical. so 1071 of the dodd-frank act requires data to be collected on women and minority owned businesses, and the loans made to the. until we can start want to finally the discrepancy, said he's using and a information where really going to be able to get to some of the roots of it. small business lending is in some ways different than all of the other bank lending because

it is not solely numbers driven. there are so many elements. lenders decide if they want this business and this loan in their portfolio. it's very different. we need to start creating some parameters and diplomat and 71 of dodd-frank act. thank you. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. .. small businesses reached out

and important with tax reform. like many of the small business owners that i've had the opportunity to interact with and speak with as i'm out doing my 99 county tour, she said the biggest two obstacles that she has for her small business are the high taxes and the regulations. so, really, two burdensome areas for her and today, her marginal tax rate and for other small business owners they can get as high as 45% on those small businesses and the average small business owner spends over $12,000 annually just in dealing with regulations. so, just for all of you, are current tax policies hindering entrepreneurship and what would lower tax rates have on small businesses in strengthening the entrepreneurial eco system for women? any of you, if you could address that.

>> yes. thanks for the question, senator. i'm just say there's no entrepreneur who would say no to lower taxes. i think that's men, women, no matter where we are. one thing i will flag, i don't think we've brought up today and i know there's a lot of discussion around child tax credits and so on, that something very specific when you put a gender on entrepreneurship is child care and i have a three-year-old and a six-year-old and i have to make very hard and strong decisions about, as an entrepreneur, that is my number one cost, and so i think anything we can do to release that burden for mothers, the majority of women entrepreneurs do have children and they're either doing children's care, elder care or caring for their community, it's just a disproportionate thing about women. so, that's one area i wanted to bring up in response, is we need to be thoughtful and creative about how to we let women be great moms, but also be killer entrepreneurs. >> i love that.

and that's something that we are having discussions about as well because it is truly important, especially if we want to get more women involved in small businesses and other activities as well. so, thank you. anyone else? >> i think in terms of regulation, the really tough thing that i see is in the e-commerce space, so when tech companies are setting up and trying to set up across the country, they have to register in each state separately, which is a big hindrance for both male and female companies. >> very good, thank you. >> of course, we want to relieve any pressure on our small businesses and since women cash is a consideration, it's a real consideration with the taxes, too. >> thank you. and today my colleagues, senator heidi hidecamp will have the proven act which seeks to strengthsen small businesses in the rule making process and improve the quality of

certifications and analysis of rules impact on small business. do you think providing greater accountability for agency certificate if ications would improve the rule making process and provide some regulatory relief for small businesses? any thoughts on that. >> i will say is, we are in a digital era and one of the things that we can do is digital transformation around how do we regulate, apply for everything from loans to certificate if icatiion and loc permitting. how do we use digital for all the processes to speed things of, entrepreneurs are more time poor than money poor, and also to lowering the regulation barriers, i love having one regulation instead of all 50 states. >> very important, use

technology. okay, well, with that i'll yield back my time. >> thank you so much. let me tell you, ms. gore that the issue you raise that we hadn't touched on, i can assure that that matter is under serious consideration. as you know, the last what, few weeks we've been focused on tax reform and i, like my colleagues, have been to lots and lots of meetings and i can't think of one where that issue wasn't seriously put on the table and discussed as to how that piece of the puzzle would fit in and it's going to be very complicated, but, it is seriously being discussed here, so, thank you so much. senat senator. >> thank you, ranking member shaheen and thank you to all of our witnesses today to testified about the range of ways in which we can and should be more strongly supportive of women prunes. it is striking, as graphicically represented by senator shaheen in the chart of the disconnect between the very

strong performance of women entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses and yet, the significant structural challenges in accessing capital, in building out networks of mentors and advocates and in particular, in accessing federal contracting, as a senator now for seven years and a local elected for a decade before that, in the local business community, i've been struck at how capable and strong women entrepreneurs are in my home state. fulcrum pharmacy, for example, christie founded this, a specialty pharmacy, score mentoring played a key part in her taking the leap and being successful as a pharmacist. mountain consulting is in our state capital in dover, very successful minorities and women-owned business, kim adams is the founder, first hud zone small businesses in delaware and benefitted from sba loan

products. twist juice, one of my favorites. one in downtown rehoe both beach and they tell me that score consulting helped to develop a business plan and market research. i'm the ranking member of the appropriations funds committee which funds the sba. i'm interested in the funds for business centers and mentoring through score and sba offices and other programs. so, let me just touch on those if i could. i work to increase sba and wbc funding and i think there's an important network across the country that helps address access to capital and mentoring and business planning. so i'd be interested in hearing from all of you about what your views are about wbc's, whether they're acceptable, relevant and whether they're important

in terms of in network and second, the networking that you spoke to, the need for mentorship. score i think does a great job in delaware and i'm not sure if that's the case nationally. there's a program called we think partnership between the score and the sba office that provides year long mentoring for women entrepreneurs to tackle some challenges that may be specific to trying to balance family commitments and new markets and being a successful new entrepreneur. i'd be interested on those two core questions, michelle. >> yes, so two key pieces, one is that the mentoring is really critical. one of the things that many of the business centers do is use other women business owners because there's a real clear connect between them. and that's a unique element of why you have a woman's business center, too. secondarily the women's business centers with-- because we've had a 30-year

cap, it's not that it's the same money because 30 years ago it was different money. so a different amount so we're basically being squeezed to provide as many services in higher levels for the same dollars that were 30 years ago. and for the centers who are really excelling. this is an opportunity for us to push forth the same kind of programming to more women. it's an opportunity of growth for this country. >> i know that women's business development corporation in connecticut has been extremely successful in building community and mentorship and providing education for women. where again i see the real lack of end capital and i know the sba has been very successful in providing funding for women and for some small businesses that's appropriate and for some core businesses like consumer products that have capital and balance sheets they can leverage against, that's appropriate, but for the factor scoring companies and the ones

creating the most jobs in this country really the only viable form of financing is equity. i don't know if there's equity fansing as part of the sba i would highly recommend it because that's where the growth is. >> thank you,senator for the question because i'm an ardent believer in the sba. the first is where there are local sba offices, women seem to really have a connection understanding sba more. so in sioux falls where i was tuesday the sba was in the local accelerator and people understood it more and had better relationships so i think the local offices are quite powerful. the second is, if i could improve the sba, we've got to streamline the process of application. make it easier, make it faster, and make it just like any other silicon valley start-up. how to use digital to make it more efficient and that would probably save the sba money in the long-term, with

efficiencies. and the last, as i said, the beginning of my testimony, most sba loans are 2 1/2% lower for women than men and i'd love to dig into that and see why because it's a critical source of capital for women. and the last is the sba's reputation. i really think that the country could get a better understanding of the sba and its value. sometimes? new york and san francisco, the sba loan is seen as your company isn't going to thrive, i don't think that's the case. as we can educate the masses more on power of the sba and how to use it, i think it will become even more powerful. >> thank you, i realize i'm out of time, but i am particularly passionate, also, about trying to make sure that we're transparently reporting on what's happening, that we're hitting the contracting cap and exceeding it and that we continue to engage the financial institutions or

cdfi's, most of most affiliate, cdfi in delaware, they make great loans and engaged and well-known. so thank you for the testimony, look forward to following up with you. >> thank you. >> senator kennedy. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> good morning. >> i appreciate your testimony, all three of you. in terms of the gender bias and access to capital, you mentioned conscious and unconscious. i'd like to ask each of you had a percentage roughly do you think is conscious and what percentage is unconscious? >> the astros won last night i'll be more bullish. thank you for the question. i actually think the majority, this is personal opinion, is unconscious. i'm an optimist in this world

and i also have really spent time in the venture community and i think they're mostly good people. however, the formulas to make money have worked in an old system, and the systems have not caught up to the amount of women who are now pitching. so, i would say the majority is unconscious and there's ways of training arn that. there's a marked training that's incredible that catalyst does that i think if everyone sat through it we'd see change. thank you, senator. >> miss chappell? >> i think it's impossible to quantify. i know it exists. i think probably the biggest issue is networks and access. people are comfortable doing business with people we know. and some way we won't invest in someone we don't know. there was a study done by harvard and mit together that had both a man and woman present identical business plans, and the woman was 40% less likely to get funded. that's with an identical business plan, so it does

exist. >> thank you. >> i concur with your comments on there. i think that, again, we can't quantify, there isn't a way for us to quantify, which is conscious and unconscious. but what i think is critical is that if we have mechanisms to count the behaviors in the lending community, it gives us an opportunity to create some policies around goals and performance that helps to change behaviors. and that's what the best we can have, you know, hope to have happen. >> and can you explain what you mean by that? >> certainly. so if we had implemented 1071 dodd-frank act and collected and knew definitively where only 4% of the loans were given to women, here, here and here, we've said that this is not representative of the business community, of the population at large and theoretically should

be higher, as you have with federal government contracts that at least 5% go to women. and then programs are in place to ensure policies come about to ensure that you at least meet these numbers. so, what it does, it takes it away from the individual's personal conscious. >> i get it, yeah. i appreciate it. >> i want to follow up on senator shaheen's excellent questions. the three of you are obviously-- i mean, i've looked at your resume's, you're obviously experienced, successful, accomplished, a lot of success in life. have you ever witnessed sexual harassment in the workplace? >> i not only witnessed it i've been a victim several times and have made the decision to go forward in my work and to become a role model rather than

stop and take a side track, but in some cases i regret that because maybe if i'd perhaps spoken up at the time change could have happened more quickly. >> either of you care to add to that? >> i would say the same. i've seen it with other women and i've had experiences myself. >> i have seen it and not experienced it. >>, but being there, everyone experiences it. >> well, ms. chadwell mentioned that it limited to the entertainment industry. and we just saw today that apparently a well-known journalist, mr. mark halprin apparently is a pig as well. five allegations that he's admitted to. do you think that's related to the access to capital at all? >> i think that whenever you

mix power with women and men, you have issues. and the-- i think the most effective way to do this is to have, both women and men sitting at the table when making decisions about access to capital. >> all right. thank you very much for your testimony. i learned a lot. i appreciate it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator. >> thank you, mr. chairman. senator kennedy, i can tell you without any reservation that sexual harassment and more is not limited to just the entertainment industry. most women who have been doing anything in the workplace or otherwise or school, et cetera, have faced these kinds of issues. i have been particularly interested in stem for women

and this is a question for you, miss chadwell. i spoke at the alliances event on closing the patent gender gap where finding some institute for women's policy research, review of alarming low number of women holding patents. while the number of women with patents has grown at the current rate of progress iwpr, the research entity projects that the gender equality among patent holders would not occur until 75 years from now in the year 2092. most of us will probably not be around then. if your testimony you mentioned that entrepreneurs with a background in artificial intelligence, coding, algorithms and analysis will have a competitive advantage in coming years. how can we expand opportunities for women and minorities and i include minorities because they're also vastly underrepresented, in these and other science, technology and

stem field. the more specific you are as to what we can do, the better. first of all, i think there's some good news and bad news. the bad news, the numbers are going down. >> and they drop off from the stem arena in all levels, including, really early on, intermediate and beyond. >> absolutely. i think this is back to messaging, which we talked about earlier. i think it has-- another thing i did mention is that with coding and algorithms becoming more commodities, that we are going to be reaching into things that women are traditionally just have been in the past not as a total group, but some members are very effective at innovation and effective at design and sales and marketing. so, i think that those could be places where women will have advantages and also, too, in terms of patents. i'd like to say i don't back

patentable technology, but it rate over and over again. boit time you get a patent with software, it's already irrelevant. what we need to teach our children to do is be creative and innovate. >> what are very specific ways we can teach children to be creative and innovative? >> are there any models where there's been success in encouraging more women and minorities to go into these fields and to stay in these fields? you're nodding your head. would you like to respond. >> senator, one of the things that i'm very optimistic about is what are already very established girls organizations, i'm a 4-h kid. girl scouts are actually putting stem into their programs. i think it's hard these days and age to create a whole new organization so those who that are already out there including public education, having stem programs, very early.

third, fourth, fifth, sixth seventh grade and before that seventh grade drop happens is what i love. so, you see there's now a stem badge for the girl scouts, which i love and i think those are critically important. so let's get those into institutions that are already thriving and large and ensuring that's the vernacular. >> that's great. not everybody gets to be a girl scout. i certainly wasn't. i'm looking at arenas, where kids are there, ie, in our schools. what are we doing in our schools in terms of curriculum that supports minorities and women, girls, in these areas. >> thank you. we have to have, first of all, we have to have wi-fi in all of our schools, we have to have access, broadband access particularly in rural communities in smaller states. there's no good program that's out there if we don't have kids have access to what they need to see. second is the technology in those arenas. is there something that

children are touching, working on early on to learn to code, to learn to do these things. so, i think that's the baseline, frankly, before we then can start looking into the best curriculums. >> would the two of you agree that technology in our schools? because there are a lot of elementary schools across our country, public schools that do not have access to this kind of technology. would you agree that that is a really important foundational? >> technology is critical. mentors are also critical. we need to-- they need to see women and minorities in those fields. and as role models, so that they can desire to achieve those, those goals. >> i did introduce legislation that would encourage through grants, et cetera, of mentorships and other programmatic ways and institutionalized ways of focusing on women and minorities in the technology

area and i hope that they'll take a look at that. and the whole question of particularly, you know, women can be considered a minority. but within that category there are minority women who face even more challenges in terms of access to capital, and all of the other challenges that women generally face, and multiplied probably several times over for minority women, so, i am-- i would be appreciative of any information that you have that relate to support for minority. >> that's no question. and in fact, women's access to capital at the minority level is .02% of total venture capital dollars. so it's even more severe. >> yes, thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i wanted to, as we're talking about how do we get young women excited about stem subjects, robotics competitions and sort of that out of school competitions that focus on stem

is another really great way to do that and it reaches not only young women, but also, often minorities in a way that they may not be reached in school. but i want to follow-up on both the mentor piece and the comment that you made ms. chadwell that you made about the media not covering women success stories. and what can we do to elevate those success stories for women? and how do we get reporters, actually the media and the news media is another place where women are underrepresented. so, how do we get attention to those female success stories of women-owned businesses for any of you? >> well, i think one of the biggest success stories that we're seeing right now is the story on the ipo of the company stitch fix, which has a female founder. and ironically for the

technology company, this company actually has profits, which is wonderful. so, the more we can elevate women into these positions where they can be a role models and obviously, representing really terrific companies, i think the more attention we'll get from the media. >> do either of you have the other panelists have any ideas for-- >> i have a very specific idea and i think that, you know, the 12 major business publications range from fashion companies to fortune and forbes, they could make a commitment publicly and i encourage them on the record to do so that at least 40% of their stories have some type of women founder in them. and that's up-- >> that's a great idea. >> they're good stories and content and we as women have to raise our hand and boast about successes. there is a no longer the lack of great companies, which is really exciting, but i would encourage that level of commitment.

>> i would agree with that. and i would say that we have to remember that we are the consumers and so, part of it is that we need to send the message of what we want to consume from our media and stop using it as being the one token female who has done this because there's many, many great stories. >> well, thank you. that may be a place where the committee could weigh in. what do you think, senator risch, where we could send the suggestion on behalf of the hearing today to a number of those publications. >> yeah, i think that's something to talk about, thank you, appreciate it. >> thank you all very much. >> thank you, this is -- you know, we sit through lots and lots of hearings and lots and lots of panels, but i can tell you this was an impressive panel and we sincerely appreciate you taking the time that you've taken to come and talk with us. we're every one of us runs for public office because we want to make life better for our constituents and americans and

these are the kinds of things that actually help us move forward in that goal. and actually, we've come away with some really good pragmatic suggestions that we can move forward, notwithstanding what you hear about what congress doesn't do. we do occasionally do something. >> and we do it together. >> and we do it together. particularly on this committee. so, with that, first of all, madam-- formerly madam chairwoman, the chart that you had here, i think we ought to have that put in the record. would you agree? >> i agree that's a great idea. >> and secondly, i'm going to declare the record will be open for two weeks until 5 p.m. on thursday, november 9th for anyone to submit any relevant information for the hearing and again, thank you, with that, the committee is adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> it's friday morning and here on c-span two, as arab

journalli journalis journalists, and mohammed bin salman, according to british newspapers, king salman will step down next week and name his son as his heir. the 32-year-old prince recently arrested more than 40 senior ministers and more than 150 others on charges of alleged corruption. the discussion getting underway soon. live coverage here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen, i'm an executive director of arab center washington d.c. and i would like to welcome all of you to this special briefing, focusing on the shake-up in riyadh regional and international implications. over the past 12, 13 days, since, i guess, the fourth or the fifth of