10 Best Female Entrepreneurs

By: Jackie Barlow

Break Studios Contributing Writer

Choosing the 10 best female entrepreneurs is not an easy task since there are so many that have accomplished phenomenal success. Find out below interesting facts about some of the women who head or have headed extremely successful companies despite the fact that as of 2008 women-owned businesses earned only 27% of the revenues of male-owned businesses. Also, female businesses also are generally smaller then their male counterparts.

Rose Totino was the founder of Totino's Pizza. One of its most popular items is pizza rolls, which are like bite-size dumplings with pizza fillings. Rose used her car as collateral and, with a $1,500 loan, opened a take-out pizza shop. In 1962 she began a frozen pizza business. which she sold to PIllsbury for $22 million in 1975. At Pillsbury she became its first female vice president.
Caterina Fake was the co-founder of FLICKR, which is a place for bloggers to share their photographs. Flickr was sold to Yahoo in 2005 for almost $30 million.
Emily Olson is the co-founder of Foodzie, an online marketplace for small food growers and producers. She is in charge of marketing and community tasting sample promotions as well as keeping content on their blog, Facebook, Twitter, and more.
Jill Blashack is the founder and CEO of Tastefully Simple. After selling food at craft shows, she created a company that offers a variety of easy-to-prepare foods through approximately 20,000 independent consultants who put on home taste-testing parties throughout the USA. Tastefully Simple is a member of the Direct Selling Association and has $119 million in revenues!!
Martha Lane Fox has launched a home and online version of Lucky Voice, her karaoke bars. Started in four locations in London, now you can invite your friends to a home party, browse the play lists, and let everyone sing. Or online, with their song list, you can print and create an individual play list for singing at home.
Tory Johnson, founder and CEO of Women For Hire, was fired from her job and in 1999 began Women For Hire in her apartment. Her whole goal is to host career expos to put together women employees and employers. She is also a regular contributor on "Good Morning America" and has written five books.
Darina Allen is the owner of Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland. They advocate organic farming and cookery. The Allen cooking dynasty was founded by her mother-in-law and is being continued by Darina's daughter-in-law.
Diana Williams is the founder of Fernwood Women's Health Clubs in Australia. In 20 years the business has grown into more than 75 health clubs servicing over 80,000 members, with a revenue of $88.2 million.
Carolyn Creswell at age 18 bought for only $1,000 a business that was shutting down. Established in 1992, Carmen's Fine Foods in Australia makes muesli products that are in major Australian supermarkets and which is exported to more than 20 countries. With only 14 employees, the revenue is $24 million.
Victoria Beckham didn't want to depend on her income from Spice Girls or her husband David's income as a high-paid athlete (they are jointly worth approximately $205 million), so used her creative abilities to create her own very successful dress, denim, and eyewear high-fashion and expensive collections.