Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ North America

The EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ program identifies ambitious women entrepreneurs and provides them with the advice, resources and access they need to unlock their full potential.

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Class 2021

North America Class of 2021

This class of high-growth, women-founded companies across the US and Canada spans a variety of industries – from consumer products to FinTech to health care.

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About EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women

Launched in 2008, the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women program targets women founders who have built profitable small companies with the potential to scale sustainably.

EY provides program participants evergreen access to our vast resources, rich networks and know-how, helping to strengthen their abilities to become market leaders. At the same time, the program creates a vibrant global community of successful women entrepreneurs and inspiring peer role models who, in 2021, numbered more than 800 across 49 countries.

Program participants typically achieve breakthrough annual growth and exponential expansion as employers by setting more ambitious growth goals, taking new approaches to business leadership, and adopting operational enhancements.

  • Benefits

    Those chosen to join the Entrepreneurial Winning Women community in North America will:

    • Join an elite network of ambitious entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies.
    • Become part of an exclusive global community of women founders who act as advisors and role models for one another.
    • Participate in a customized executive education program with year-round activities designed to accelerate sustainable business growth.
    • Receive an invitation to the Strategic Growth Forum® US. For over a decade, the Forum has convened pacesetting CEOs from across the country for three days of inspiring keynotes, thought-provoking panels, one-to-one meetings, and limitless, high-value networking.

  • Eligibility

    To take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity, applicants must be women business owners who are founding CEOs and majority owners* of any privately held company in the US or Canada. The company must be 10 years old or less and have reported at least US$2 million in sales during each of the past two fiscal years. Company revenues of typical applicants range from US$2m to approximately US$30m.

    Other eligibility requirements include:

    • If there are multiple women co-founders, they may apply as a group if they meet the ownership criteria
    • Selected participants are required to attend a two-day orientation session, September 21-22, 2022, as well as the Strategic Growth Forum® US, November 10-13, 2022, in Palm Springs, California. Virtual or in-person attendance to be determined.
    • Only for-profit businesses may apply
    • Franchisors are eligible, but franchisees are not
    • Former EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award winners are not eligible

    *For women who have sought outside investment, the founding woman entrepreneur may still apply if majority ownership stake is retained after deducting all outside investments.

  • Criteria and selection

    Entrepreneurial Winning Women will be expected to demonstrate the necessary qualities to take full advantage of this opportunity, including ambitious company growth goals, energy, creativity, entrepreneurial purpose and passion.

    Applicants must have the confidence, conviction, tenacity, plan and overall professional acumen to take a high-potential business and scale it into a market leader.

    Additionally, Entrepreneurial Winning Women should have the maturity and level of business sophistication needed to interact effectively with potential investors, high-level business advisors and top executives.

    Applications will be reviewed by a panel of independent judges representing successful entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders.

Entrepreneurial Winning Women alumna, Ellie Stang, shares about her experience as a Winning Woman, what it means to be a member of this community, and how it has impacted her company.

 

Supporting entrepreneurship

 

 

There have been so many changes. I am thinking bigger. We implemented a board of advisors. I have engaged in mentoring young women and minorities in starting their businesses because I promised myself I would give back. This experience has been life changing. I have developed friendships that are so important to me. EY Winning Women is the gift that keeps giving.
Lili Hall
KNOCK, Inc., North America, (US) Class of 2010

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