It was his wife Yvonne that inspired Jerome
E. Chairman, Chairman of the California State
Board of Equalization, to start the Connecting
Women to Power Conference.
Yvonne is the founder of a non-profit that
increases women’s access to educational
opportunities; but she saw a need in business
development, too.
“Our underlying goal is to teach them to
comply with existing state laws, regulations
and policy,” Chairman Horton said. “We were
trying to fill a void about some concerns we
were hearing at the Equalization Board, and
that my wife Yvonne was hearing. We thought
the way we could help is to try to get more
Californians to start business, create jobs
and generate revenue.”
“Yvonne and I were talking about challenges.
She said ‘Let’s see if we can put on a
conference that focuses on empowering
women, and men are invited, to grow personally
and professionally,” Chairman Horton told
DyNAMC. “At the time women were becoming
a dominant force in small businesses, but
their per capita income was not as high as the
men. Even though they were opening more
businesses, the success wasn’t there.”
Women face several challenges in starting
businesses, Chairman Horton said, including
access to capital, access to decision makers
and access to support and networking.
So the pair designed the Connecting
Women to Power Conference, an educational
and inspirational event to give women the
power, the resources, the strategies and
techniquesto succeed.
The other thing that’s a challenge women face
is access to the decision makers. When there
are fewer women decision makers, you don’t
“Access to capital is a major challenge,”
Chairman Horton told DyNAMC. “The skills and
the knowledge on how to access capital is a
challenge for small businesses in general, and
most of the capital venture investors are men.”
“Having them all connected was a very, very inspiring, powerful
force. Just to see that many people focusing on uplifting,
building power and positioning themselves for success was
extremely gratifying.” Chairman Horton