A Note About the Winners

These women come from all different corners of the channel community, from vendors to distributors to resellers and system integrators, but the 2007 VARBusiness 50 Most Powerful Women of the Channel all have one thing in common: they are all leading innovators who are driving the channel to grow.

Some, like Amy Rao, CEO and founder of Integrated Archive Systems, a $100 million solution provider, have built their businesses from the ground up. Others, such as Linda Gooden, an executive vice president for the $11 billion government integrator Lockheed Martin, are among the leaders driving growth of the country's largest solution providers. Still others, such as Symantec channel chief Julie Parrish, are growing the channel by developing new programs and strategies to help partners grow their businesses. Some of the women, such as Laurie Benson, CEO of $65 million VAR Inacom Information Systems, are even tapping their entrepreneurial drive to help grow the number of successful women in business—efforts which will not only grow the channel, but the IT industry, and the economy as a whole.

For the past two decades, majority women-owned firms have continued to grow at about two times the rate of all firms, according to the Center for Women's Business Research. Women-owned firms today, of which there are about 10.4 million, collectively employ nearly 13 million people and generate about $1.9 trillion in sales, says the center.

"This is quite impressive when you consider women often couldn't even qualify for their own credit lines until 1974 [when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed]," Benson says.

Yet, women still represent a disproportionate minority among top business executives, especially in the IT sector. Among the VARBusiness 500 top solution providers in the channel, for example, women hold the top executive position at only 3 percent of the top 250 businesses and 5 percent of the top 500 businesses.

Which is why it is all the more important to recognize the inspiring women business leaders who are growing in influence in the channel, the IT industry, and beyond.