Our Wildest Dreams: Women Entrepreneurs Making Money, Having Fun, Doing Good

Many of the three million businesses owned or headed by women actually owe their financial health to such apparent disadvantages as their lack of ready money and inability to leverage, asserts entrepreneur Godfrey in this persuasive feminist survey of a little-explored topic. The author identifies a winning combination of ``head, heart and hands'' common to the hundreds of women of varying ages and ethnic, social and educational backgrounds she interviewed, all of whom have fun heading firms. They range from the founder of an intercoastal trucking business to the African American head of a public relations agency catering to celebrities and Fortune 500 clients. The women focus not on the bottom line, but on long-term vision and balance, inspiring and fully utilizing their associates' special resources--not necessarily gender-related, the author stresses. The very nature of business is changing, Godfrey declares, as women take charge of an increasing number of companies: ``Integrating profit and meaning is the new imperative.'' Full of concrete advice, the book deserves a wide audience among women seeking to start their own businesses as well as men who wish to escape the stratified corporate environment. (Apr.)