Maya Breuer started her business eight years ago because she says she wanted to make a living doing something personally meaningful.
She had worked as assistant director of Rhode Island’s equal employment opportunity commission and then as an EEOC officer for several corporations. At the same time she also practiced and taught yoga. But after nearly a decade as a state and then corporate employee, Breuer realized she wanted to do more than just teach yoga on the side. She started Santosha Yoga in 2001 to certify people as yoga teachers.
“I had a vision that yoga was going to grow in terms of a business,” Breuer told Diverse. “I knew I didn’t just want to teach classes, this gave me an opportunity to use my skills as both a teacher and mentor. I was interested to take all I knew to another level. I think also I wanted to be able to reach more people of color and train them to teach yoga.”
Breuer represents a new and growing wave of business owners. Today 26 percent of all women business owners are women of color, up from 20 percent just a few years ago, according to a new study released last week by the Center for Women’s Business Research.
Despite little institutional support, women of color entrepreneurs are still finding ways to run successful businesses. Firms owned by women of color are growing three times faster than all U.S. firms, the study found.
Minority women’s rapid business growth is part of a trend that started in the 1990s, says Gwen Martin, director of research at the Center for Women’s Business Research.
