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Barbara Kasoff is currently the
President and CEO, and Co-Founder, of Women Impacting Public
Policy, Inc., a non-profit, bi-partisan public policy advocacy
organization with over half a million members including 45
business organizations, educating and advocating on economic
issues for women in business. She is also Co-Founder of GrassRoots
Impact, Inc. a public policy strategies firm whose mission
is to connect Corporate America and Political Leaders to small
business owners, including women-owned businesses, minorities,
and women in business.
Other companies that she
has owned and managed are: Voice-Tel of Michigan, the fourth
largest voice messaging company in the United States, Voice-Tel
of Central Michigan, and Voice Response Corporation, a telemarketing
and database marketing company. Barbara also opened and developed
Voice-Tel of Australia, a company with 11 offices throughout
Australia and New Zealand for the Voice-Tel franchisor. With
her experience, Barbara has been able to incorporate her skills
in management, her strengths in communications, and her considerable
energies in powering her fledgling companies to secure a solid
foothold in the rapidly expanding world of communications.
Prior to becoming a business owner, Barbara previously served
as Vice President of Customer Service and Senior Vice President
of Research and Software Development for World Computer Corporation
in Michigan for ten years where her team designed and installed
new financial services software for credit unions. Altogether,
she has been a business owner and corporate executive for
20 years, and has successfully sold 3 of her 4 companies.
For many years, Barbara
has been an active supporter for small businesses, and women
and minorities in business in particular. She continues this
work both nationally and internationally. She has linked together
thousands of small business owners with her voice messaging
network, enabling them to communicate directly with one another
to improve their businesses, learn of programs, opportunities
and appointments in the communities, improve the climate of
entrepreneurship, and play a part in public policy making.
Her efforts to unite various organizations have enabled small
business owners to share information with each other, learn
from one another, and become better informed of economic and
political issues. Barbara speaks nationally and internationally
on issues concerning leadership and advocacy for business
women.
Barbara was named on October
15, 2007 to the National Women's Business Council. The Federal
appointment is for a 3 year term.
In addition, Barbara currently
serves on the following corporate and non-profit Boards:
- Co-Chair of the National
Global Trade and Technology Board of Directors, whose mission
is to help reverse the long standing trends in balance of
trade deficits by making the task of finding, selling and
delivering US products and services into global markets as
simple as doing business next door;
- Board of Directors of the
National Women Business Owners Council, the premier certification
agency for women business owners;
- National Board of Directors
of the Women's Leadership Forum for the Democratic National
Committee, Small Business Chair for Kerry for President
Barbara is also a media
resource for the White House Project. She has been recently
cited as CEO of one of the top 3 most powerful non-profits
in Washington, DC.
In addition, Barbara has
previously served as President of The National Association
of Business Owners in Detroit, Vice President of Public Policy
for the national NAWBO organization, SCORE and on various
community Boards, including: Detroit Edison Community Relations
Board, Forgotten Harvest, International Institute and Majority
Business Initiative. She has helped develop new and closer
relationships with the US Small Business
Administration, Small
Business Development Centers, Department
of Commerce and local,
national and international corporate leaders. She also advises
for the Committee for Working Families for Wal*Mart. Barbara
has served as a Delegate to the White House Conference on
Small Business, was an invited delegate to President Clinton's
Midwest Regional Economic Summit and was the recipient of
the State of Michigan Women in Business Advocate of the Year
in 1995.
Barbara and her family now
reside in San Francisco, CA.
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