Business Diversity Quarterly Report
A closer look at a significant segment of the economy

by Robert Powell
Virginia Business
February 2007

Gregory B. Fairchild, a Darden Business School professor, offers the example of the Bank of Italy when talking about companies owned by minorities and women. The bank was founded in 1904 to serve working-class Italians in San Francisco. Now it is Bank of America, the nation's biggest bank.

With luck, good leadership and opportunity, many of today's small, ethnic-related firms can become big businesses. But companies owned by women and minorities in the United States already have a major impact on the economy, no matter their size. Fairchild points out that the combined gross domestic product of minority-owned companies in the U.S. would rank 17th among the national economies of the world, ahead of Australia and South Africa. Women-owned businesses represent an even bigger economic force, 12th in the world, ahead of Canada, Mexico and Spain.

Virginia is one the nation's leaders in the growth of businesses owned by women and minorities. In a recent five-year span, for example, the Census Bureau found that the number of Hispanic companies in the commonwealth rose 38 percent while the number of Asian-American firms jumped 36 percent.

In recognition of the increasing importance of these companies, Virginia Business will offer a Business Diversity Quarterly Report, starting with this issue. The report will profile leading women- and minority-owned companies and explore issues critical to their growth. The section also will examine how mainstream businesses can better work with minorities and women, as suppliers and customers.

Who knows? Perhaps some small business in Virginia today will become the next Bank of America?