The 70 largest women-owned businesses in OC generated a collective $4.2 billion in 2019 sales, up 2% from a year ago.
Next year’s figures are anyone’s guess.
The impact of COVID-19 won’t be reflected until next year’s Business Journal list of the largest women-owned firms here, so the view presented with this year’s ranking paints the tale of two completely different operating environments.
Many businesses have had to shift, change up their workforces and find new revenue streams the past few months amid the unprecedented global pandemic.
OC’s largest woman-owned firm Foothill Ranch-based SeneGence International, with an estimated $1 billion in revenue and 180 employees, began making changes quickly. Founder and CEO Joni Rogers-Kante and her husband, Ben, were in Hong Kong in January when they noted more masks being worn during meetings and what Rogers-Kante called “rumblings of a ‘problem.’”
Warehouses across the countries the company operates in were instructed to refill and stock up on food, water and healthcare items.
“We returned to the states and began to understand the implications of the ‘shut down’ and its impact on our national and global economy,” Rogers-Kante said. “Our overall goal was to keep all personnel and vender companies safe and employed and independent distributors supplied with products they could in turn sell and generate income for as long as possible.”
Focus Points
At a macro level, SeneGence focused on six areas that guided initiatives from the start of the pandemic: company culture, the company’s independent sales distributors, employees, operational procedures, product line selection and giving back to the community.
To that end, Rogers-Kante reported the company’s individual departments are all on track with their respective annual projects, product fulfillment has been in existing markets rather than expansion and donations of hand sanitizer produced by the company to first responders continue along with other assistance to community organizations.
“Surprising, but we should have known better, was how well our independent contractor field leaders corralled the sales force in each country and continued to work their businesses brilliantly mainly using tools provided for social media formats,” the CEO said.
“Our distributors have been very creative in not only supporting one another, but also supporting and entertaining their customers virtually. The far-reaching effects from their efforts have proven to be a success during this pandemic. Although in the beginning, using these tools was first a challenge, they have turned out to be a benefit and opportunity for the company and our distributors as they have all grown and pushed themselves to learn more about the advantages of supplementing their incomes through social media marketing.”
Top 10
SeneGence retained its top spot on this year’s list with the 10 largest firms remaining roughly the same from the prior year, although some shuffling did occur among the companies ranked fifth through 10th.
Orange-based IT services provider CB Technologies Inc. moved up one slot to the No. 5 space, on account of an 8.9% jump in 2019 sales to $154 million. Auto dealer Elmore Toyota of Westminster also bumped up one spot to No. 6, despite a 4.6% decline in sales to $115 million.
Others that moved up the list within the group of the 10 largest included No. 8 Irvine Department of Defense contractor Global, a 1st Flagship Company with a move up one space on a 1.4% increase in revenue to $77 million, Casco Contractors of Irvine went from No. 13 to No. 9 with $66 million in revenue and Cypress-based Pacific Pioneer Insurance Group made its way into the top 10 with revenue of $62 million.
By the Numbers
2019’s gains of 2% compare with 2018’s list of 98 companies, generating $4.8 billion in revenue. That equated to an 8.5% jump from the year prior. 2017’s list of 103 companies notched a 5.7% gain in revenue to $3.6 billion.
The group shrank as some companies fell off the list as their status of women-owned changed. The Business Journal requires businesses on the list to be at least 51% women owned, which is a metric used by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council.
Fourteen of the companies on this year’s list reported declines in their 2019 revenue, 43 notched gains, two were flat and a dozen reflect Business Journal estimates.
