What’s in a Name?
How WIN became The Alliance of Women Entrepreneurs (AWE)

WIN continues to grow and evolve.  Next year will be our 15th year anniversary - that is many years and many women coming together to serve WIN's mission of Connecting, Educating and Inspiring Women Entrepreneurs.  

For those of you who have been involved with WIN from its inception in 1996, you will remember it as a group of motivated women who wanted to bring more access to capital to women who were seeking to build businesses.  WIN was formed as the Women's Investment Network.  

As we evolved and grew, our focus developed around educating and connecting women, both entrepreneurs and the supporting ecosystem.  In our 10th anniversary year,   we rebranded ourselves as WIN (dropping the reference to investment network) and we adopted the tagline Women Inventing Next.  A new logo was introduced to highlight our connectedness. 

While we have tweaked our branding over the years, introducing the powerful tagline that we have today - Connecting, Educating and Inspiring Women Entrepreneurs – we have wrestled with our name.  Assuming that the acronym had meaning, many have asked "What does the name WIN stand for?”

Encouraged by the Board and Advisory Board, we began the process to find a new name, a name that reflected our core values - that we are a group like no other in Philadelphia.  We are current and aspiring leaders of and investors and supporters in high-growth companies.  We support each other and reach out to women who are starting businesses and careers, by offering programs that connect, educate and inspire women entrepreneurs.  It isn't until you attend an event that this resonates so intensely.  We are in this together to build new and exciting endeavors and we will change the face of women's entrepreneurship, not only in the Philadelphia area, but nationally.

We are The Alliance of Women Entrepreneurs.