Tennessee's woman-owned businesses' growth tops U.S. average

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 [2] 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.