The objectives of this study were to draw the management profile of business owners and to analyse the strategic planning carried out by these enterprises. Initially it was developed a theoretical review on topics like entrepreneurship, gender and strategic planning in small companies. To collect empirical data it was settled a partnership with Paraná Private Schools Syndicate and it was offered a course in strategic planning for thirteen female managers of these schools. It was adopted focus group as a research method and during the course participants received instructions related to concepts and development of strategic planning that was used to subsidise the data analysis of the study. The results showed that the manager profiles were similar to previous studies and that was perceived a growing interest in school management and a significant difficulty in reflecting systematically about information regarding the environmental analysis.