The CEO of the Girl Scouts Wants to Turn Today's Cookie Sellers Into Tomorrow's Powerful Female Entrepreneurs Sylvia Acevedo wants every girl to know how to access -- and create -- opportunity.

Sylvia Acevedo is used to being the only woman in the room. The engineer and rocket scientist spent the bulk of her career at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, along with stints at Dell and IBM, but she never doubted herself in those rarefied settings. That's something she credits to lessons learned at a very young age, taught by passionate leaders at the Girl Scouts. Now, as the CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA, she's working to increase and expand STEM activities among members, improve outreach to minority communities and build strategic partnerships that will help set up Girl Scouts to become the entrepreneurs of the future, long after they've sold their last box of Samoas.

Related: Smart Cookies: 5 Business Lessons Leaders Can Learn From Girl Scouts

You joined the Girl Scouts when you were 7, and the organization clearly left a lasting impression. What felt so special about it at the time?