Inspiring minds

National City is honored to join Smart Business in presenting Cleveland’s sixth annual
panel discussion of the issues affecting women in business today. Participating in
forums, like Perspectives: Women Who Excel, that bring businesswomen together to
learn from and inspire each other is a hallmark of our corporatewide commitment to
support the growth of companies that are owned and managed by women.

We are proud of our track record. More than 300 National City Women’s Business
Advocates in Cleveland and across our nine-state footprint are actively engaged in helping women entrepreneurs and executives build businesses. Their advocacy is one reason
that National City was singled out in a recent study supported by the Ewing Marion
Kauffman Foundation as one of three banks with best practices for providing access to
credit to women-owned companies.

Growing women-owned companies is vitally important to the economic well-being of our
communities. For two decades, women have been building businesses at nearly twice the
rate of their male counterparts. Yet female entrepreneurs are about half as likely to hurdle
the $1 million annual revenue benchmark. It’s our privilege to play a supporting role in closing this gap.

Providing financial products and services that help women entrepreneurs and executives reduce costs, simplify operations, improve efficiency, and grow and protect the
wealth they are creating is an important building block.

Knowledge and inspiration are equally important resources. And you’ll find those in
abundance in this issue of Smart Business, which profiles the extraordinary women
entrepreneurs and executives participating in the Perspectives: Women Who Excel conference at the InterContinental Hotel on April 22.

On behalf of the leadership team at National City and all of our Women’s Business
Advocates, we encourage you to join us in applauding and supporting these women who
excel.

SHELLEY SEIFERT is executive vice president of National City Corp. and responsible for corporate services. PAUL CLARK is executive vice president of National City Corp. and president of Northern Ohio Banking. Both are members of the bank’s Women’s Business
Development executive steering committee. Learn more about the resources available to women in business at
www.NationalCity.com/Women.