With this publication, American Express OPEN provides stakeholders in the women’s enterprise development community with its third annual investigation into the state of women-owned businesses in the United States, building upon the growing interest and commentary generated by our previous reports, published in each of the past two years.

This up-to-date analysis not only reinforces trends we have been seeing in this and other research—that the number of women-owned firms continues to rise at rates exceeding the national average, yet they remain smaller than the average firm—we are pleased to expand upon our earlier efforts to gain a greater understanding of issues surrounding business growth. And new this year is a look at the remarkable growth in the number and economic clout of firms owned by women of color.