ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The third annual Influential Women Entrepreneurs Expo worked to bring together women leaders igniting change on Sunday. 

“This is for the women entrepreneurs and women owned businesses, whether they’re just starting out or they’re leaders making seven figures,” said Kelly Breuer, owner of Rochester Woman Online Magazine and the Influential Woman.  

It's something Breuer can understand, being a woman entrepreneur herself.   

“I knew from a young age that I was going to be a woman entrepreneur,” Breuer said. “I had always envisioned that, my grandmother always pushed me to follow my dreams of doing that.” 

Sunday she was joined by over 60 women-owned businesses from across New York state who felt that same passion. 

“It could be literally anything you can imagine in the entrepreneurial world that are all coming to join each other for community connections and women going together to build their businesses or learn from other people,” said Breuer.

The event gave them the space to ask questions, make connections and grow.  

“We all need that space, especially women I feel like, where we can just come, be real with each other and kind of empower each other, life each other up,” she said.  

The expo focused on empowering women entrepreneurs through example.  

“Saying ‘OK, hey, I had this challenge or I had this problem,” she said. “What do I need to do or what suggestions does somebody else have that may have gone through something like that,” Breuer said.  

It hopes to leave women with confidence and resources.  

“I hope they leave full,” Breuer said. “Just absolutely full of everything that they need, the knowledge, the encouragement.“  

Encouragement, Breuer says, to keep following their dreams, just like she had.  

“Encouraging women to grow, get up there and go and just do it,” Breuer said.