IOWA

Principal Financial Group announced that Diane Nordin, former partner at Wellington Management Co. LLP, has been elected to Principal’s board of directors. Nordin, 58, spent over three decades in the investment management business. Des Moines Business Record 

The Quad-City Times featured Beth Grabin, director of financial reporting for QCR Holdings Inc., in last week’s “Each One Teach One” spotlight. The regular feature offers career advice from established Quad-City business and community leaders to those just starting out. Quad-City Times 

Linda Allen and Sally Hollis joined the Lincoln Savings Bank board of directors. Allen has served as the president of Hawkeye Community College since 2011 and holds a doctorate in medical anthropology from the University of Iowa. Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier 

A new Cedar Rapids business owned by Cherie Edilson has created a virtual farmers market for local vendors and their customers. Cedar Rapids Gazette 

Catherine Champion is the kind of woman who is comfortable in her own skin, and thereby makes the women who stop to shop in her boutique in downtown Iowa City feel comfortable as well. Cedar Rapids Gazette 

NATION/WORLD

Most crowdfunding platforms fund individual ideas, and most organizations use microfinance to support entrepreneurs in the developing world. One group of investors thinks both those techniques could help elevate another overlooked group: female founders. The group investing platform SheEO is connecting crowdfunding with microfinance to back five female-led startups a year. Mashable

Most CEOs of tech companies believe women board members would positively affect their company, but they don’t believe there are enough women candidates to fill the seats.BusinessWire.com 

Female talent at the BBC is calling on the media company to end the pay disparity between its male and female employees after a government-mandated release of salary data revealed a significant wage gap at the British public broadcaster. The Huffington Post 

The Nov. 6 installment of SJ Magazine’s 2017 Women’s Empowerment Series is now canceled following a backlash to the topic – Women in Business: A man’s point of view. Bizwomen.com 

Jacinda Ardern will be New Zealand’s next prime minister. Ardern, 37, will be the nation’s youngest leader in more than 150 years. The Washington Post 

Entrepreneurship is back. According to the Kauffman Foundation’s latest Index of Growth Entrepreneurship, the rate of startup growth nationally exceeds pre-recession levels for the first time since the economic downturn last decade. Bizwomen.com