A woman's worth: competitive, compassionate and visionary, today's women business owners refuse to be ignored. Find out how they're making their mark.

THE TRADITIONAL IMAGE OF WOMEN-OWNED businesses as small, slow-growing and consumer directed is being annihilated. They start small but grow taster than the overall business expansion rate, selling not just to consumers, but, overwhelmingly to other businesses. And they sell services just as much as stuff.

Between 1997 and 2002--the most recent figures compiled by the Washington, DC-based Center for Women's Business Research (CWBR)--the number of privately-held businesses owned by women grew n percent, compared to an overall rate of 6 percent. Women-owned businesses saw their revenues grow by 32 percent in the same period, compared to an overall rate of 24 percent.

"Women are creating jobs. Their expression rate in hiring is faster than in the creation of new businesses," points out CWBR executive director Sharon Hadary. This breakneck growth means nearly half of all privately held U.S. businesses are at least 50 percent women-owned. One of every seven U.S. workers is employed at a woman owned business, and over half of those employees are women.

Finally, women business owners are being taken seriously when it comes to getting bank loans and investments from VC firms. The CWBR reported in 2003 that 40 percent of women-owned businesses with external equity investment received it from corporate investors or VC firms.

That women have continued to expand their companies through a recession and lackluster recovery underscores their drive and experience, says Connie Duckworth, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs & Co. and co-author of The Old Girls' Network: Insider Advice for Women Building Businesses in a Man's World. "Often the best time to start a business is at the bottom of the cycle," she says. "If you can [get] traction, you can ride that positive wave up as the cycle improves."

Of the women who have launched their companies in the past 10 years, 65 percent have managerial or professional experience, and 45 percent have earned at least a bachelor's degree, reports the CWBR. Duckworth says that combination of on-the-job and book learning has positioned women to push their companies harder and faster than women entrepreneurs have done in the past.

JOANNE CLEAVER is Entrepreneur's "Management Buzz" columnist.