Jackson Jambalaya

Gail Pittman sold out and cost many people jobs. Jill Conner Browne has pissed off most of her followers with her latest shenanigans. Linda Graham? Who cares.

so i guess maybe they should have asked you or pelosi or obama or reid for permission to do what they wanted with their enterprises first?

I see no Feds in this list, and I can attest that I work my ass off everyday for the public. Thanks KF, for forgetting the women in government that work their asses off everyday. I can guarantee that the taxpayers get more than their moneys worth in my office.

total of 1156 votes cast.

clearly a popularity contest not a "best businesswoman contest".

contest should be renamed Most Popular Woman with a Business

You people take yourselves way too seriously.

Public employees are not businesswomen. They are employees of the government. Nothing wrong with that, it's just this poll is for women who started and run businesses of their own.

@ 7:00 pm:

No, simply stating why they didn't get more votes.

2:20, you are not a business person. You may be the most competent employee the government has ever seen, easily more competent that our current president of his cabinet, but you are still just an employee. You work for an organization that has no accountability. If you WEREN'T good at your job, you might lose it, but the department where you work would keep right on trucking.

So how do we judge best businesswoman?

Let me look at the financials for every such business in town? Me pick them off of the top of my head? Create a panel and accept nominations and have the panel decide? Poll? Every method I could have used would've been protested by someone. The poll is the best way in my mind.

By the way government employee, you already had your poll over at the MBJ and it covered government employees. You've never met a payroll, had to seek capital, worry about invoices being paid so you could buy inventory or pay employees, scrimped on groceries so you could honor employees contracts and pay them more than you make, cried at night when you worried at first you were going to ever get over the hump, or had your name, credit, and home on the line and wondered if you were nuts for doing so.

I am a female government employee and I see no problem not having govt. women in this poll.

A woman in government might have a great business mind, and be great at her government job, but that doesn't make her a businesswoman. I've been in government AND in small business and they are simply different.

As far as ways to evaluate the Top Ten -- I'd love to know the following about each:
- Entreprenureal creativity -- how did the business come about? Where did the idea come from?
- Start-Up -- how was the business started?
- Growth -- what kind of growth has the business seen under the nominee's leadership?
- Financials -- how involved is the nominee in managing the financials of the business -- is she reviewing the books and signing the checks, or does she leave that to someone else?
- Reach -- does the business reach a wide customer base? How does the nominee accomplish this?
- Quality -- any information rating the quality of the service/product provided by the nominee.

It would be nice to hear some other information. I don't know if it's fair, but I honestly will evaluate higher a woman who is both a mother and an involved businesswoman, simply because she's got more things to juggle. Of course, if anyone is concered about that sort of thing, personal info can be left out.

Government employee or not, I nominate 1:26.

I don't know if it's fair, but I honestly will evaluate higher a woman who ... simply because she's got more things to juggle.

Sorry about reading that differently.

JD, those can complicate a businesswoman's life, too, believe me.

I think a very important part of the equation is how civic minded are they. Do they serve on various boards and are they active in the community? Sometime, these ladies have risen above their company duties and are able to 'get out' into the public and be a force for change in the community. I'm sure some businesswomen are great as CEO's; but have little time for politics, civic groups and fundraising, outside of writing a check or attending a Jackson VIP/NS Sun photo op type event.

That said, how much a person makes or how much their company is worth has very little to do with how good of a CEO/Business person they are. Think about it. One company may pay one employee more than the whole payroll of another. That doesn't make them a better manager/owner.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that pretty much all of these comments are coming from women.

Pamela Hancock is a fine Madison Mississippi Family Law Attorney!