Woman-owned companies in Tennessee have rebounded more strongly from the Great Recession than their national peers, according to the latest report from American Express' Open initiative. Revenues at Tennessee's woman-owned companies have grown almost 10 percent from 2007 to an estimated $23.5 billion this year. National growth clocked in at about 7 percent.

An interesting sidenote: Tennessee's female entrepreneurs are doing what they do much more efficiently in terms of payroll. Their collective employee base actually has fallen by 15 percent since the late 1990s.

Tennessee tracks the national averages pretty closely when it comes to the number of woman-owned businesses and their sales, according to a new report by American Express Open. Since 1997, both of those numbers have risen by about half. Like the nation, those numbers also have grown since the start of the Great Recession.

Where the Volunteer State deviates from the country as a whole is in employment: Businesses here owned by women are using substantially fewer workers to generate their sales. Check out all of Tennessee's numbers here and download the full national report at this link.