Business Notes

Women's tennis great Billie Jean King was elected recently to the Philip Morris Companies board of directors.

King began her long-term relationship with Philip Morris in 1970 with the formation of the Virginia Slims Tennis Tour, which was the birth of women's professional tennis. With the addition of King, the Philip Morris board increases from 15 to 16 directors.

"I am thrilled to welcome Billie Jean King to our board of directors," said Geoffrey C. Bible, chairman of the board and chief executive officer, Philip Morris Companies Inc. "She is a legendary athlete and exceptional leader who has excelled both on and off the tennis court. We look forward to the unique perspective that she will bring to Philip Morris."

Philip Morris manufactures and distributes several lines of consumer products, including cigarettes, packaged and processed foods, and beverages.

Half of working Americans would consider changing their career and nearly 25 percent are planning to make a career change in the next 12 months, according to a new national survey.

Americans rank the opportunity to make more money (29.5 percent) as their number one reason for changing careers, reports the Career Education Corporation, a leading provider of private, post-secondary education. Personal happiness is second (23.7 percent) in importance. Job satisfaction (6.5 percent) and better hours (3.6 percent ranked third and fourth, respectively.

Only three percent of working adults say they are satisfied with their current job.

"This survey underscores how dramatically attitudes in the workforce have changed in recent years," said John M. Larson, president and chief executive officer of Career Education Corporation. "Americans don't fear career change - they embrace it. They aren't sitting back and looking for the 'cradle to grave' jobs anymore. Instead, they're working to improve their lives significantly by developing the career skills they need to advance in the new economy."

For more on the survey, visit the Career Education Corporation.

In celebration of Women's Equality Day, the Independent Women's Forum (IWF) documented the real, extremely positive and continuing story of women's wage gains over the past century.

Between 1960 and 1994, women's wages grew ten times as fast as men's wages. Among people 27 to 33 who have never had a child, women's earnings approach 98 percent of men's earnings. Today, over 8.5 million women-owned businesses in the United States employ 23.8 million people and generate $3.1 trillion in revenue. Women are entering the political arena, competing for-and winning-elective office.

Although it is true that women faced discrimination in the past, that is only a small part of the story. The rest is a success story, and one that deserves to be told.

For more information, visit the Independent Women's Forum.

Women entrepreneurs coming from Japan, the U.S. and Canada will make significant economic splashes on the Internet in the next five years, according to projections from an independent research firm.

In addition, according to Computer Economics of Carlsbad, CA, women in the international market are also likely to receive venture funding in the future because of the rising costs associated with building Web properties in the U.S.

"We are in the midst of another Internet revolution," said Computer Economics Vice President of Research Michael Erbschloe. "We must realize that in the near future the Internet will not be ruled from the U.S., it will not be predominately English, and it will certainly not be dominated by men."

To calculate international rankings of favorable conditions for female entrepreneurial emergence, Computer Economics determined each country's projected growth in Internet usage, education level among women, and education incentives related to the Internet. We also measured each country's entrepreneurial conditions, potential growth of Internet users by language, and overall human development factors.

For more information, visit Computer Economics.

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