Done With Corporate Life, Black Women Are Starting Businesses in Droves
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Black women today are starting their own businesses at a faster clip than any other demographic in America, according to a recent report—and a less hospitable corporate world has a lot to do with it. Many pandemic-era efforts to help Black women and other minority groups advance up the corporate ladder have fallen away as companies have retreated from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
So have their promotions up and down the corporate ladder. The rate of Black women elevated to senior vice president roles fell to 1% in 2025 from 4% the year before, while promotions for all women held steady at 4%, according to a study of 9,500 employees and 124 companies by McKinsey and LeanIn.org. Within the C-suite, Black women were promoted at a rate of 1% in 2025, compared with 8% in 2024.
Some have dropped out of the workforce altogether, and Black female unemployment has climbed to 7.1% from 5.5% a year ago. But many, like Giddens, have joined the entrepreneur class. The number of Black women-owned businesses rose about 13% last year, more than for any other racial group of men or women, according to a 2026 report by Wells Fargo and research and consulting firm Ventureneer.
Yet, the climate for budding entrepreneurs of color is also getting tougher. The share of venture-capital funding going to Black-owned businesses in 2025 was 0.3%, the lowest share in a decade, Crunchbase data show.
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Black women own 2.9 million businesses, about 18% of all women-owned companies in the U.S., according to the report. But they tend to get less outside financing and have weaker professional networks than other groups, making it harder to scale, says Geri Stengel, chief executive of Ventureneer. On average, they generated $41,000 in 2025 revenue, compared with $179,000 for all women-owned businesses, according to the report.
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https://www.wsj.com/business/entrepreneurship/black-women-new-small-businesses-08ba5637?st=EBPiGC&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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