35 World-Changing Women in Business

Real talk: the first woman ever to grace the list of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies was the late Katherine Graham of The Washington Post Co. in 1972, and as recently as 1995, there were zero — yep, zero — female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. In 2017, the share of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies reached an all-time high of 6.4 percent, with 32 women heading major firms, but that share fell this year to 4.8 percent after several high-profile women left their posts.

The playing field is certainly not level yet, but that won’t stop us from celebrating the women on the front line of transforming business for the better. We introduced the first annual World-Changing Women’s Summit in February 2018, where 175 established and emerging female leaders convened at 1440 Multiversity in a magical setting nestled among the redwoods to nourish themselves, connect with each other, and strategize about how to elevate humanity.

As a virtual summit of sorts, we launched our inaugural list of badass women in business in our 2018 winter issue, and this year we’re back with another summit and list to continue putting a spotlight on the courageous female-identifying game-changers paving the way for positive global impact. This list is comprised of social entrepreneurs (whose business models solve cultural or environmental issues), corporate leaders (who drive the success of their conscious companies), “intrapreneurs” (who innovate and impart change from within a company’s structure), thought leaders (who are transforming global paradigms), and impact investors (who are directing capital to conscious business ventures). The 2019 lineup is not even close to an exhaustive list, but we feel confident it’ll leave you inspired. Ball’s in your court, Fortune 500.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS

1

RAHAMA WRIGHT

FOUNDER AND CEO, SHEA YELEEN

// WASHINGTON, DC

Rahama Wright’s health-and-beauty company is more than meets the eye. After observing her Ghanaian mother, who was not allowed to attend school because of her gender, navigate a new culture as an immigrant in America, Wright developed a passion for women’s rights globally. She studied international affairs in college and joined the Peace Corps soon after, where she lived in a small West African village. It was there that the idea for her shea-butter skincare company was born. Wright founded Shea Yeleen with two key issues to address: 1) the overuse of chemical and synthetic ingredients in beauty products and 2) the cycle of poverty created through supply chains that do not fairly compensate small-scale farmers and producers for their raw material.

In the shea butter sector, the majority of the 16 million African women who are active members of the supply chain each receive less than $2 a day from their labor, and yet they are part of multi-billion-dollar industries including hair/skincare and confectionery. Shea Yeleen partners with these women and invests in their businesses to produce topof-the-line organic, fair-trade skincare products, generating living wages for women in small villages in the Tamale region of Ghana.

2

ERIN PATINKIN

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, OVENLY

// BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

Erin Patinkin and Ovenly co-founder Agatha Kulaga were untrained bakers who met in a food-centered book club and decided to launch a bakery. They began by selling to existing cafes and gourmet grocers and now have five retail bakeshops (and more on the way) in Manhattan and Brooklyn and hundreds of wholesale clients. On top of peddling sweets, Patinkin calls for “radical responsibility” in business. Ovenly has reduced its landfill waste by 70 percent over the past two years and works with various job training programs to hire people who have historically been denied economic opportunities, including formerly incarcerated young people and political refugees. Through her writing and her podcast, “Start to Sale” on Vox Media, which she co-hosts with Natasha Case, founder and CEO of Coolhaus, Patinkin is also a thought leader in entrepreneurship, providing training materials and resources to owners of burgeoning businesses to help them build their companies.

LEADERSHIP INSIGHT:

“I love this advice from Jane Wurwand, founder of Dermalogica: ‘I know that you can be a strong and effective leader, and you can also be kind. Kind doesn’t mean weak. I think that oftentimes people feel you have to be unkind in order to appear strong; I think it’s the exact opposite. … I think it’s important to always lead with empathy.’”

3

EILEEN MURPHY BUCKLEY

FOUNDER AND CEO, THINKCERCA

// CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Eileen Murphy Buckley is working to close the gap between basic literacy and 21st-century literacy skills. She taught English for 15 years in Chicago public schools before working at the school district’s central office overseeing more than 100,000 students across 115 schools, where she realized that the challenge of preparing students for life after graduation was not being addressed by existing pedagogy.

Alongside a handful of veteran educators and academics, Murphy Buckley developed ThinkCERCA, a flexible literacy framework that boosts critical thinking. The program teaches students how to make claims, support their claims with evidence, explain their reasoning, address counterarguments, and use audience-appropriate language, skills that Murphy Buckley strongly believes are the most effective for both improving achievement on assessments and preparing students for post-secondary life.

ThinkCERCA is the only personalized literacy platform to include all four core subjects: language arts, social studies, science, and math. An independent evaluation of 26 education-technology products showed that the platform has helped students achieve an extra year’s worth of growth in one school year.

LEADERSHIP INSIGHT:

“Make decisions based on customer actuals.”

4

AYLA SCHLOSSER

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, RESONATE

// KIGALI, RWANDA

Ayla Schlosser knows that investing in women is smart economics, but cultivating new skills and providing access to education is not enough. At Resonate, the programs aren’t focused on teaching hard skills — they’re helping women and girls shift their mindsets and shrink the gender-related confidence gap. Since its inception in 2013, Resonate has trained more than 5,500 women and girls in its leadership-building framework and has partnered with more than 50 organizations in East Africa. As a result of these trainings, 45 percent of participants take on new leadership roles, 38 percent start businesses, and 24 percent get a new job or academic opportunity.

LEADERSHIP INSIGHT:

“One of the most important elements of leadership is knowing when to give up ownership. The most intractable problems in our world are best solved by those who are directly impacted by them. That is why next year I am stepping down as CEO and transitioning leadership of Resonate to Norette Turimuci, the organization’s East African director. I will support the organization as a member of the board of directors while continuing to create systemic change for this global problem.”

5

CAROLINE DUELL

FOUNDER AND CEO, ALL GOOD

// MORRO BAY, CALIFORNIA

Caroline Duell started her body-care company All Good to rebuild a connection between humans and their surroundings. Duell is more than committed to creating cruelty-free products that are organic, plant-based, and good to the environment. Her track record includes following the work of coral reef scientist Dr. Craig Downs to create a set of criteria that defines “reef-friendly” sun-protection products and developing a nationwide campaign that contributed to the historic legislation in Hawaii banning harmful sunscreen ingredients oxybenzone and octinoxate.

All Good donates one percent of all sales to organizations that are creating direct solutions to environmental issues like The Conservation Alliance, United Plant Savers, and the Surfrider Foundation in Hawaii. As a Certified B Corp, the company also invests in the wellbeing of its employees, offering among many things a monthly box of organic fruits and vegetables grown on its farm.

LEADERSHIP INSIGHT:

“Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. As soon as I settle into any type of monotonous groove, I’ve lost the leading edge and lost the curious drive for innovation. There is no way to be perfectly comfortable while breaking trail.”

See full list of World-Changing Women at http://bit.ly/womenslist2019