Women business owners around the Pine Belt will soon have the opportunity to network, connect, find information and gather resources from other female entrepreneurs during the second annual Pine Belt Women Business Owner Summit, hosted by Emerge Events.
The theme of this year’s event – which will be held on August 15 and 16 at Pearl River Community College Lowery A. Woodall Advanced Technology Center at 906 Sullivan Drive in Hattiesburg – is “Better Together.”
“I am a business owner myself, and I do a lot of events (with being) an event planner,” said Jennifer Clark, owner of Emerge Events and co-founder of the Women Business Owners of the Pine Belt. “I’ve done a women’s expo for many years, and last year I had the idea to create a small conference-style event for women business owners, because especially post-(COVID-19) pandemic, it’s much harder to run a business than it ever has been.
“So I’m just passionate about women in business and anyone who’s trying to run a business, so I want to strengthen and pour into women business owners and bring together resources, information and each other. (That way), we can have some time to connect, learn and really grow. I feel like the more we can pour into business owners, the better their businesses can be, and the better our community can be.”
According to 2024 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20.4 percent of businesses fail in their first year after opening, 49.4 percent fail in their first 5 years, and 65.3 percent fail in their first 10 years. In order to combat those statistics, the Pine Belt Women Business Owner Summit will offer attendees the opportunity to:
- Be inspired by two days of speakers;
- Enjoy a meet and greet reception, including complimentary chair massages, headshots and food and beverages provided by women-owned businesses;
- Connect with fellow women business owners and find opportunities for collaboration;
- Find answers to questions about running a business;
- Enter to win prizes;
- Find new ideas and inspiration; and
- Get new clients and resources, among other measures.
“The Women Business Owners of the Pine Belt group is really good and it’s really impactful, but we only meet like an hour once or twice a month,” Clark said. “So we have this really good engagement for like an hour, and then we go about our day.
“So this summit is like a more expanded version of that, where we get together for two days and really pour into ourselves with knowledge, information and connecting with each other.”
Topics at the expo include, but are not limited to, panels such as “Building Your Strongest Business Forward,” “Harnessing the Power of Networking,” “A Crash Course in Marketing,” “Sale Tax and Your Small Business” and “3 Steps to Boost Productivity.” Speakers include Kristynna Clark of Keller Williams Realty, Beth Hennington of The Vanillan, Penny Ross of 5x2 Marketing and Kesha Smith of the Mississippi Department of Revenue, among others.
A one-day ticket for the summit is priced at $90, while a two-day ticket runs for $170. To purchase tickets and for more information about the event, including a full itinerary, visit www.emergeevents.com/wbos.
Although the event is targeted at women business owners, attendees do not necessarily need to own a business to participate in the expo.
“A lot of the content is for anybody, especially any woman who’s in business in general,” Clark said. “Whether you own a business or not, you can find something that’s really beneficial.
“I even have retired women business owners come, because even though they might not own their business anymore, a lot of them are still heavily involved in the community and just want to continue to grow and stay invested. I find that very valuable, because … their experience and being in the room with us is very helpful.”
Clark said given the success of last year’s inaugural event, she is looking forward to the upcoming expo, which is sponsored in part by Hancock Whitney Bank.
“I’m still hearing stories of collaboration and information and things that came out of last year, so I’m real excited about year two,” she said.
