WDr. Dana Beth Ardi is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, human capitalist, author, and contemporary art collector. Considered an expert in the field of talent management and organizational design, Ardi is the author of The Fall of the Alphas: The New Beta Way to Connect, Collaborate, Influence---and Lead. She is best known as a corporate anthropologist, which is a human capital practice she developed.
WArlene Dickinson is a Canadian businesswoman, investor, author, and television personality. She is the general partner of District Ventures Capital and CEO of Venture Communications. Dickinson joined the cast of the CBC business reality show Dragons' Den during its second season in 2007 and departed in the ninth season in 2015. She then returned to continue with the Dragons for the 12th season in 2017. She was selected to perform on the series after she won numerous awards, including Calgary Business Owner of the Year, PROFIT magazine's Top 100 Women Business Owners, the Pinnacle Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence, Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards and Canada's Most Powerful Women Top 100. The show describes her as a self-made multi-millionaire.
WErnestine Fu is an American venture capital investor and author. Fu is a venture partner at Alsop Louie Partners. She closed her first deal in her first two months at the firm, and then was featured on the cover of Forbes in August 2011. She has been an advisor to DBS Bank on initiatives.
WAnne Margaret Glover, CBE, HonFREng, is CEO and co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in European high-technology companies. Prior to founding Amadeus in 1997, she was with Apax Partners & Company Ventures, where she was a member of the investment team. She has been a business angel, investing in UK-based information technology start-ups. Glover worked for Virtuality Group plc, where she was COO of the virtual reality peripherals company.
WTheresia Gouw is an entrepreneur and venture capital investor in the technology sector. She worked at Bain & Company, Release Software and Accel Partners before co-founding Aspect Ventures, a female-led venture capital firm, in 2014. Gouw was named one of the 40 most influential minds in tech by Time Magazine. and has been recognized seven times on the Forbes Midas List as one of the "world's smartest tech investors". According to Forbes.com, Gouw is the richest female venture capitalist, with a net worth of approximately $500 million, primarily due to her involvement with Accel (company)'s early investment in Facebook.
WMellody Hobson is an American businesswoman who is President and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, and the chairwoman of Starbucks Corporation. She is the former chairwoman of DreamWorks Animation, having stepped down after negotiating the acquisition of DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc., by NBCUniversal in August, 2016. In 2017, she became the first African-American woman to head The Economic Club of Chicago. She was also named to chair the board of directors of Starbucks in 2021, making her one of the highest profile African American corporate directors.
WSharon L. Lechter is an American accountant, author, and businesswoman. She is the co-author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, and the founder and CEO of Pay Your Family First, a financial education organization.
WAileen Lee is a U.S. angel investor. A venture capital investor, she is the founder of Cowboy Ventures.
WJessica Livingston is an American author and a founding partner of the seed stage venture firm Y Combinator. She also organizes Startup School. Previously, she was the VP of marketing at Adams Harkness Financial Group. She has a B.A. in English from Bucknell University. She is a 1989 graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover.
WJulie Macklowe is an American beauty entrepreneur and businesswoman. She is founder and spokesperson of vbeauté, a luxury skincare line offering Swiss botanical skincare products for women. She is also an investor, former hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and socialite.
WMarissa Ann Mayer is an American businesswoman and investor. She is an information technology executive, and co-founder of Sunshine Contact. Mayer formerly served as the president and chief executive officer of Yahoo!, a position she held beginning in July 2012. It was announced in January 2017 that she would step down from the company's board upon the sale of Yahoo!'s operating business to Verizon Communications for $4.8 billion. She did not join the newly combined company, now called Verizon Media, and she announced her resignation on June 13, 2017. She is a graduate of Stanford University and was a long-time executive, usability leader, and key spokeswoman for Google.
WMary Meeker is an American venture capitalist and former Wall Street securities analyst. Her primary work is on Internet and new technologies. She is the founder and general partner at BOND, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. She previously served as partner at Kleiner Perkins. She has been called the "Queen of the Internet", and, in 2014, she was listed as the 77th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.
WHeidi Messer is an American Internet entrepreneur and investor who has founded several global businesses, most notably LinkShare and Collective[i]. Messer served as a board member, President, and chief operating officer of LinkShare, helping to create the sector of online marketing commonly referred to as affiliate marketing.
WJulie Marie Meyer MBE is an American businesswoman and the author of Welcome to Entrepreneur Country. She is the founder of Ariadne group, the founder of Lattun Limited and CEO of Viva Investment Partners. Meyer was co-founder of the networking club First Tuesday (1998–2000). In 2009, she appeared as a Dragon on the online version of BBC's Dragons' Den.
WKaren Gordon Mills is an American businessperson and former government official who served as the 23rd Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). She was nominated by President-elect Barack Obama on December 19, 2008, confirmed unanimously by the Senate on April 2, 2009, and sworn in on April 6, 2009. During her tenure, her office was elevated to the rank of Cabinet-level officer, expanding her power on policy decisions and granting her inclusion in the President's cabinet meetings. On February 11, 2013, she announced her resignation as Administrator and left the post on September 1, 2013.
WColleen Moore was an American film actress who began her career during the silent film era. Moore became one of the most fashionable stars of the era and helped popularize the bobbed haircut.
WHeather Anne Elyse Lilian Munroe-Blum is a Canadian academic and businesswoman. She is the former principal and vice-chancellor of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Royal Bank of Canada, and chairperson of the board of directors of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
WJacqueline Novogratz is an American entrepreneur and author. She is the founder and CEO of Acumen, a nonprofit global venture capital fund whose goal is to use entrepreneurial approaches to address global poverty.
WEllen Kangru Pao is an American investor and former CEO of social media company Reddit.
WPenny Sue Pritzker is an American billionaire businesswoman, and civic leader. President Barack Obama nominated Pritzker as United States Secretary of Commerce. After being confirmed by a Senate vote of 97–1, she became the 38th person to hold that position.
WKaren Ann Rubin is an entrepreneur. She joined HubSpot where she co-hosted HubSpot TV, and was entrepreneur-in-residence at Matrix Partners in 2013-2014. In 2014, she joined Quantopian as Vice President of Product Management. In 2015 she authored a study that shows that women-led companies perform better than average. She started her career in 2004 in investment banking.
WUna Ryan is a British-American biologist who has conducted research on vascular biology, publishing over 300 papers. After an extended research and academic career she began a career in the biotech industry. She was Director for Health Sciences of Monsanto Company; CEO, president and director of AVANT Immunotherapeutics; and is currently the Chairman of The Bay Area BioEconomy Initiative, among many other associations. She is an angel investor and focuses her funds on women-led companies. She has won numerous awards and recognition during her career including the National Institute of Health's 10-year merit award, Order of the British Empire and the Albert Einstein Award.
WEllen Browning Scripps was an American journalist and philanthropist who was the founding donor of several major institutions in Southern California. She and her half-brother E. W. Scripps created America's largest chain of newspapers, linking Midwestern industrial cities with booming towns in the West. By the 1920s, Ellen Browning Scripps was worth an estimated $30 million, most of which she gave away.
WMary Rozet Smith was a Chicago-born US philanthropist who was one of the trustees and benefactors of Hull House. She was the companion of activist Jane Addams for over thirty years. Smith provided the financing for the Hull House Music School and donated the school's organ as a memorial to her mother. She was active in several social betterment societies in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century.
WLynn G. Tilton is an American businesswoman and collateralized loan obligation (CLO) creator, owner and manager. She is the chief executive officer and sole principal of Patriarch Partners, LLC and its affiliated entities, a holding company managing 75 companies. She worked for Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch as an investment banker.
WCatharine van Tussenbroek was a Dutch physician and feminist. She was the second woman to qualify as a physician in the Netherlands and the first physician to confirm evidence of the ovarian type of ectopic pregnancy. A foundation that administers research grants was set up in her name to continue her legacy of empowering women.
WMargit Wennmachers is a venture capitalist at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and a co-founder of OutCast Communications, one of the tech world's top public relations firms according to The New York Times. She is one of a handful of women at high-profile venture capital firms and among the few venture capital marketing executives at the partner level.
WJoanne Wilson is an American businesswoman and angel investor. She is best known for backing female-founded companies.
WCaroline Winnett is the Executive Director of the Berkeley SkyDeck startup accelerator at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a serial entrepreneur, civic activist, angel investor, advisor and board member of several startups, and a frequent speaker on startups, accelerators, women in business and consumer neuroscience.