Chamber of Commerce Launched in Australia Exclusively for Business Women

The Australian Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry (AWCCI)  launched on International Women’s Day – making it the first national chamber to represent businesswomen in Australia’s history.

Statistics show that the balance of power is shifting; women are now a strong economic force. Women control the family and the business spending; they are the biggest consumers and have the buying power.

“Businesswomen in Australia account for more than 30% of business owners, yet they are not currently equally represented,” says AWCCI CEO, Yolanda Vega.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), which purports to be ‘the peak council of Australian business associations’ has no women on the board of ‘the largest and most representative business association.’ They ‘represent more than ‘300,000 employers’.

“There are no women holding the position of Chair nor of CEO on any of the seven national chambers in Australia, either,” says Vega. “This equates to a very unbalanced national business representation.

“The message from Veda Goldstein, Suffragist (1869-1949) remains the same, and I reiterate: ‘All the men … cannot represent one woman as adequately as one woman can represent all women’.”

According to the World Development Report, empowering women is an important development objective on the grounds of both fairness and efficiency. An important aspect of development is ‘growth’. The AWCCI will instigate research and advocate to ensure the best environment is available for businesses to grow and flourish.

“We work with the understanding that businesswomen need to be empowered. We recognise, as the Global Economic Monitor states that ‘economic growth positively correlates with gender equality.’

“Our goal, as an apolitical, not-for-profit organisation, is to promote commerce & trade,” says Vega. “Our aim is for businesswomen to be given the same opportunities to procure contracts and be represented equally. The AWCCI will unify the collective strength, lever the position of businesswomen as a highly influential economic force and strive toward a uniform business environment with parity.”

“We know that more than 700,000 women own a business, but little else is known about this powerful economic sector. The AWCCI will instigate the much-needed research to ensure businesswomen are correctly documented in order to advocate for the changes needed by women on behalf of women, today and in the future”.

The work of the AWCCI is guided by a group of highly talented and thought-provoking leaders. The Advisory Committee includes: Dr Wendy Attwater, Professor Marian Baird, Ita Buttrose AO OBE, Judi Hausmann, Deborah Hutton, Wendy McCarthy AO, Wendy Simpson and Dr Katherine Woodthorpe.

To organise an interview with any member of the AWCCI please contact: Yolanda Vega             0404 153 135      , or email:media@awcci.org.au