Building a successful, thriving business is not easy—especially for women entrepreneurs.

P&G and YWCA USA partnered on the Level Up! Summit, a two-day virtual event to encourage economic empowerment for women entrepreneurs by providing them with the resources and skills needed to strengthen their business strategy.

P&G North America President Monica Turner said opportunities like this Summit give women of color the information, resources and inspiration to take their businesses to the next level.

“It is also important that we strengthen the belief that we can create new possibilities for ourselves and for those around us,” Turner said. That’s why opportunities like this is so important because it does both.”

According to YWCA, nearly 4 million small businesses in the U.S. are owned by people of color – and, in particular, women of color are the principal catalyst of the growth of small businesses. Women of color are tarting businesses at 4.5x the rate of all businesses. While they represent only 39% of the US population, they account for 89% of new businesses.

The summit aims to support these women entrepreneurs through a series of panels, discussions and workshops, where participants had the opportunity to learn about social media marketing, the journey of growing a successful cosmetics company, the importance of prioritizing mental health and selfcare and finding access to funding. In addition to Monica Turner, other speakers at the event included KJ Miller, co-founder and CEO of Mented Cosmetics; Lorine Pendleton, lead investment partner at Portfolia; Kimberly Strong, Angel Investor; Imani Greene, principal consultant at Greene Group; Andrea Mingo, health & wellness coach at Calm; Christy Demetrakis, North America Sales Capability Director at P&G; and Jennifer Byrne, Director of Communications, P&G Ventures Studio.

We also held a pitch competition for theWomen’s Empowerment 360(WE360) participant. WE360 is a national YWCA program designed to put women and women of color entrepreneurs, who are fearless leaders and innovative shakers, on the path to starting a successful business. This competition was an opportunity for participants to share their business strategies with seasoned entrepreneurs and executives at P&G and YWCA, allowing them to receive useful tips and feedback. The winners of the competition were awarded a grant from P&G to help them advance their business strategies.

P&G has long been committed to fostering diversity among our business partners and across our supply chain, including our longstanding partnership with YWCA, as we’ve seen firsthand what is possible when large companies like P&G provide meaningful opportunities to diverse-owned suppliers.

To learn more about P&G's latest commitment to diverse-owned and women-led businesses, see here:https://us.pg.com/blogs/pg-commits-to-spend-5-billion-with-diverse-owned-businesses/