These Women Leaders Are Changing Lives and Influencing Tomorrow's Industries—Right Now From sports stars and media moguls to activist founders and tech innovators, meet the women from our October/November issue who are making a difference in 2021.

As part of 2021's 100 Women of Impact list—led by our cover star, actress, entrepreneur and activist Eva Longoria—we're highlighting the following 42 women for challenging the status quo in their communities, industries—and even within their own powerful companies.

Check out more stories from this year's 100 Women of Impact list!

Naomi Osaka, Founder and CEO, Kinlò

It's been exciting — if sometimes uncomfortable — to finally speak up and do what my gut tells me," says Naomi Osaka. For anyone who has been paying attention to the world's highest-paid female athlete and No. 2 women's tennis player, that should come as little surprise. This was the year that Osaka, 23, found her voice and started using it with all the power of her grand-slamming serve. She opened the Olympics, starred in a Netflix documentary, and was named cohost of the Met Gala. In May, after wearing seven masks at the 2020 U.S. Open, each with the name of a Black victim of racial injustice, she announced that she would skip her media obligations during the French Open because it messed with her confidence. When she was fined $15,000, she withdrew, revealing that she has suffered long bouts of depression and social anxiety since being in the limelight. "If organizations think they can…continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes who are [their] centerpiece, then I just gotta laugh," she tweeted. Now Osaka is trying on a new cause, and a new role: CEO. This fall, with one of her sponsors GoDaddy, she's launching a line of sun protective products for melanated skin, which she conceived after learning about skin cancer statistics in people of color. In a nod to her bicultural heritage, the brand's name, Kinlò, is a combination of kin in Japanese and lò in Haitian Creole. Both words mean "gold." "I always wanted to carve my own path but was fearful," she says. "It's better to take a chance than to spend your life wondering "what if.' "

Denise Woodard, Founder, Partake Foods

About five years ago, Denise Woodard's 1-year-old daughter had an allergic reaction to a snack. "She turned blue in my living room and almost died," says Woodard. "That drove home to me how serious allergies are." Woodard was working at Coca-Cola at the time and was often the only woman and person of color at the table. She wanted to make more of an impact, so she left to start Partake Foods, an allergy-­friendly cookie company. Between 2019 and 2020, revenue grew 900 percent, and distribution exploded from 350 stores to more than 7,000. Last fall, the company started the Black Futures in Food & Beverage fellowship for upper-level students at HBCUs. And this January, Partake raised $4.8 million from investors like Rihanna and Jay-Z's fund Marcy Venture Partners, making it the first Black-woman-owned packaged food startup to raise more than $1 million.

Kate Levenstien, Founder and CEO, Cannonball Productions

In March 2020, when the event industry went dark, Cannonball Productions' demise seemed imminent. Kate Levenstien, who started the company in 2013, was at a loss for what to do. Cannonball was known for throwing festivals like the Bacon and Beer Classic, which attracted thousands of revelers, but they'd become impossible. Then Levenstien had a revelatory conversation with her husband. "He said, "I just can't wait for golf to be back. The structure of it is really safe for COVID.' I looked at him and said, "That's it!' " The company shifted from packed baseball stadiums to one-way golf-course-style routes that small groups of friends could follow together. This year, Cannonball is back, stronger than ever. "After spearheading a way for brands to activate in-person in the middle of a pandemic, we feel like we can really take on anything," Levenstien says.

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Shiza Shahid, Cofounder, Our Place

Shiza Shahid came to the U.S. from Pakistan for college. Her partner is also an immigrant — born in Iran and raised in California. "We found our places in America by cooking and sharing food," Shahid says. "People would come over and argue over whose cooking was better, and we realized there's something really incredible about how cooking brings people together."

That realization led Shahid to launch Our Place in 2019, six years after she cofounded the Malala Fund to support girls' education worldwide. Our Place is a "mission-driven kitchenware brand designed to reimagine products for the modern, multi-ethnic American kitchen," she says. Its pots and pans come in dreamy millennial pastels, and the brand's hero product is the Always Pan, which went viral on Instagram and was sold out for months at a time throughout the past year. The company has expanded into Canada and the U.K. and is about to launch the Perfect Pot ahead of the holiday season. Shahid says her team of 60 are mostly immigrants and first-generation Americans, and during the pandemic, Our Place partnered with Vote.org to encourage voter registration and created billboards that countered the narrative of immigrants being unwelcome. The company also partnered with Fuel the People to help nourish voters in minority communities, where polling-place lines can be hours long. "We were part of the groundswell of activists and change-makers and entrepreneurs who mobilized," Shahid says. "We feel that's always the right thing to do."

Bertha González Nieves, Cofounder and CEO, Casa Dragones

When Bertha González Nieves met Bob Pittman, the cofounder of MTV, at a party in Brooklyn, she shared her idea for a tequila brand. González Nieves had worked as an executive at Jose Cuervo International for 10 years and was the first woman to be named Maestra Tequilera by the Academia Mexicana de Catadores de Tequila. As it happened, Pittman wanted in on the tequila business, too. "I didn't know if it was bar talk or if it was real," González Nieves says. "But it was as real as it gets." In 2009 they cofounded Casa Dragones, a small-batch tequila label based in Mexico and New York. Its first expression was Casa Dragones Joven, a blend of Blue Agave silver and extra-aged tequila. During the pandemic, Casa Dragones distributed $65,000 to bartenders, and last year, the company launched its latest expression, only its third — an añejo tequila. "We believe in the power of focus," says González Nieves.

Raquel Urtasun, Founder and CEO, Waabi

I've been working in AI for 20 years, and the more I worked on self-­driving cars, the clearer it became that the tech industry has issues," says Raquel Urtasun. Earlier this year, Urtasun left her job at Uber and started Waabi, a self-­driving-technology company. She found it difficult to change the status quo from inside a big company with thousands of engineers. "The best way to do it is to build a company with the people you want to work with," she says. In just two months, Waabi raised $100 million and hired 40 employees. With Waabi, Urtasun is focused on commercialization and long-haul trucking to deliver goods on a large scale. She admits there have been broken promises in the field and is focused on building trust in Waabi among regulators and potential users. Ultimately, her long-term goals for Waabi are to save lives and make transportation more equitable.

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Felicity Yost and Carolyn Witte, Cofounders, Tia

Carolyn Witte (right) suffered for three years in her 20s before doctors diagnosed her polycystic ovary syndrome. She often shared frustrations with her friend Felicity Yost (left), whose mother and aunt endured their own medical struggles. "Women feel so alone when dealing with these things," Witte says. So in 2016, she and Yost founded Tia as a modern medical home for women's healthcare. For instance, annual well-woman exams aren't just Pap smears; they include counseling for anxiety. Tia is based in San Francisco with services in New York City, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. But membership grew by 300 percent during the pandemic as the company shifted to online services. Its funding increased to $132 million, and Tia pushed to diversify its providers. "We now train all our providers through the lens of racial justice," Witte says.

Zanade Mann, Founder and managing director, Black Women's Business Collective

Zanade Mann grew up on Staten Island, and when she was 22, she began mentoring girls in the New York City Housing Authority on entrepreneurship. She has done that kind of volunteer work ever since, and when the pandemic hit, she decided to launch Black Women's Business Collective, a membership community of more than 3,000 Black and Afro-Latina entrepreneurs that provides networking opportunities, business advice, and crowdsourced funding. At the time, corporations were pledging millions to support women of color, and Mann admits the groundswell is intimidating. "When I see companies giving millions in grants, my mind tells me I'm not doing enough, and I should let someone with a larger platform do it," she says. "But I have this passion for it because I've lived it."

Heidi Zak, Cofounder and CEO, ThirdLove

Heidi Zak went to Victoria's Secret in 2012 and bought yet another ill-­fitting bra. "I got home that night and was like, Why am I still shopping at a brand that doesn't relate to me as a modern woman?" The following year, Zak and her husband, David Spector, cofounded ThirdLove, a size-inclusive, San Francisco–based bra company. By 2015, ThirdLove had begun offering customers the option of wearing a bra for 30 days without paying up front. (It's not currently offering this program.) And in 2021, after the pandemic increased the demand for comfort, the brand went from offering one wireless bra to 20. It has also expanded to include underwear, sleepwear, loungewear, and activewear. ThirdLove has donated more than $40 million worth of product to women in need, and it recently launched its first mentorship and fundraising program for early-stage female founders of color.

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Thai Randolph, President and COO, Laugh Out Loud Network & Cofounder, Sugaberry

Thai Randolph is a big fan of vision boards, and years ago, she made one with Kevin Hart on it. "It's funny because I didn't know him back then and never thought I'd work in comedy," she says. Randolph started out in marketing for brands like Facebook and Sony before becoming COO of Kevin Hart's Laugh Out Loud Network (LOL!), which has a portfolio of 22 original series and more than 300 stand-up specials that reach 100 million viewers across streaming platforms. She is also a cofounder of Sugaberry, a lifestyle brand for moms of color. "Supporting and amplifying creators of color, advocating for audiences of color — that's been the through line of my career and what I am thinking about on any given day," she says. Oh, and that old vision board? "I had Entrepreneur magazine on there, too! So this is a full-circle moment."

Debra Perelman, President and CEO, Revlon

When Debra Perelman got her first job at Revlon in the late 1990s, the beauty industry was dominated by men. "That really shaped how I think about leadership today," says Perelman, who became CEO of the multibillion-dollar company in 2018. "Women make up about 50 percent of our executive team now, and I encourage all of our employees — regardless of gender or background — to participate fully and share their expertise and perspective." Revlon is nearly a century old, and since Perelman rejoined the company — having decamped to MacAndrews & Forbes for 14 years — growing Revlon's digital business has been one of her top priorities. By the end of 2020, e-commerce was 20 percent of Revlon's total net sales, up from low single digits just a few years before. Recently, Perelman says her greatest focus has been on diversity and sustainability initiatives.

Alex Morgan, Cofounder, Togethxr

I saw a statistic that about 40 percent of all professional athletes are women, but they only receive 4 percent of sports media coverage," says U.S. soccer star Alex Morgan. "That's a big blank space." So in March of this year, Morgan joined with fellow U.S. Olympians Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel, and Sue Bird to launch Togethxr, a media platform and commerce company centered on the stories of women athletes. Togethxr describes itself as a place where "culture, activism, lifestyle, and sports converge" by way of YouTube documentaries, written profiles, and Instagram posts. "It makes us jealous — in a good way! — that girls and women get to grow up now with a platform dedicated to women for and by women," Morgan says of herself and her cofounders. "We never had this growing up." Morgan did this interview during the Tokyo Olympics, where she won a bronze medal. When asked how she finds the time, she says, "My daughter keeps me going. I have an opportunity to show her that hard work does pay off, and your voice and actions can cause change."

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Max Tuchman, Cofounder and CEO, Caribu

Max Tuchman's grandparents met in a Holocaust survivors' camp before escaping to Cuba. "My family would always say, "The only thing you can take with you when you flee in the middle of the night is what's in your head,' " Tuchman says. "You take what's in your mind, your education." In 2017, Tuchman launched Caribu, an app that brings families together virtually for educational playdates. "There's an in-app library with thousands of books, coloring sheets, activities, and games," she says. "Grandparents tell us they'd never been able to engage on a video call for two hours before." In 2018 Tuchman became one of the first Latina founders to raise more than $1 million in VC funding, and in March 2020, Caribu's user base grew 10 times in just 24 hours. Apple named it a Best of 2020 app, and today Caribu has nearly a million users in more than 200 countries and territories. "Families told us they felt like we were an essential business," Tuchman says. "You needed Instacart to get your groceries, Zoom to do your work calls, and Caribu to keep your family together."

Jessica Lessin, Founder, The Information

For eight years, Jessica Lessin reported on the tech industry for The Wall Street Journal, and she saw a gap in coverage. "Publishers were chasing traffic and clicks and really diluting the quality of their journalism," she says. So in 2013, Lessin left to found The Information, a subscription-based tech publication. She recruited top journalists, and eight years later, The Information has more than a million registered readers and 45 employees. This year, it launched three newsletters — about cryptocurrency, virtual reality, and the creator economy — as well as The Electric, an electric vehicle and battery publication. As The Information scales up, Lessin strives to keep her vision and team focused. Many subscribers are tech workers, so the publication continues to scrutinize big tech firms, particularly on how they've benefited from the pandemic. "These companies are only getting stronger," says Lessin.

Olivia Landau, Founder and CEO, The Clear Cut

Olivia Landau's parents ran an antique jewelry business and told her diamonds were a dying industry. But Landau couldn't shake her love for the sparkly stones, and after college she attended the Gemological Institute of America. "I started working in wholesale and saw how antiquated the industry was," she says. "Some of their practices hadn't changed since my great-­grandfather's time." So in 2018, Landau started The Clear Cut, a New York–based jewelry company that prioritizes transparency and emphasizes e-commerce. That primed it for success during the pandemic, when sales doubled. Because younger consumers are more apt to shop online, The Clear Cut has fashioned itself as a leading industry voice on social media — like TikTok, where it has 51.3K followers. "We are focusing on technology we believe will be the future of the industry," Landau says.

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Kate Ryder, Founder, Maven Clinic

Kate Ryder had a miscarriage, then a C-section when giving birth to her first child. She found returning to work difficult. "All these things are very normal parts of family building," she says. "But there were no services or support for them." The way the healthcare system is fragmented, women often fall through the cracks in moments of need. So in 2014, Ryder launched Maven Clinic, an on-­demand virtual platform with a holistic approach to fertility and family care. It offers support and services from preconception and pregnancy all the way through postpartum and pediatrics. Maven Clinic has raised more than $200 million, though Ryder had a hard time getting funding from male investors at first. "They thought women's and family health was a niche business," she says. Today, Maven supports more than 10 million families and serves more than 175 countries.

Lisa Nishimura, VP of documentaries and independent films, Netflix

Long before she worked on projects like Making a Murderer and Tiger King for Netflix, Lisa Nishimura had a job distributing music and film around the world, and she spent a lot of time talking with owners of mom-and-pop shops. "I remember shopkeepers in Eastern Europe and Latin America who were coming into economic stability for the first time," she says. "Once they secured basic human needs, the very next thing they craved was joy and entertainment through music and film." The notion that entertainment can cross borders to offer escapism and transformation still drives Nishimura, Netflix's vice president of documentaries and independent films. "You might think, Who is this movie for?" she says. "But at any given time, a teenage boy in Ohio and a grandmother in Tokyo are probably watching and loving the same movie."

Analisa Goodin, Founder and CEO, Catch & Release

After Analisa Goodin got her MFA in art history and art theory, she stumbled into doing photo research for advertising agencies. Her work involved surfing the internet for "found content" — anything from YouTube videos posted by professional documentarians to random pictures on Facebook — and then negotiating licensing agreements. "I developed a pretty decent spidey sense about whether or not a piece of content could be licensed," Goodin says.

In 2015, Goodin decided to build a business around that spidey sense and founded Catch & Release. The company is a Pinterest-like curation platform that brands and creators can use to search the internet for images and videos to use for commercials. When they find something promising, Catch & Release assigns that content a "licensability rating," considering questions like: Does the person posting own this picture? Do they know everyone in the picture, to sign off on the use of their image? Are there children in the image? If the prospects are good and the client wants to move forward, Catch & Release clears intellectual properties and handles all legal and financial aspects of licensing.

The trend of companies seeking found content — as opposed to shooting new commercials or using stock imagery — shows no signs of slowing down. In 2020, Catch & Release surveyed 100 advertising professionals, and 87 percent said they expected to use more found content over the next year. Earlier this year, Catch & Release raised $14 million, and it has licensed content for commercials from Sephora, Facebook, Jeep, Samsung, Lysol, Walmart, Peloton, DoorDash, Budweiser, and more. "The internet can support any story you have," says Goodin. "If it's a high-production, glossy, cinematic story, the internet has that stuff. If you want something that looks like an Instagram post, to emphasize the layman's experience, that's there, too. What's important is authenticity, whether or not it's professionally shot."

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Sophia Wang, Cofounder, MycoWorks

When Sophia Wang cofounded MycoWorks in 2013 with Philip Ross, she knew they'd created something groundbreaking. MycoWorks processes the material Fine Mycelium, which can be used as a leather alternative. But both Wang's and Ross's backgrounds were in art and academia, and with no experience in business operations, they were not getting traction with investors."What saved us is recognizing that we needed help," Wang says. So they brought on an engineer with experience in the biotech space, and at the end of 2020, they raised $45 million. Now MycoWorks has more than 100 employees. The company launched its pilot plant this spring and partnered with Hermès to pre­sent the Victoria bag, the first object made with Fine Mycelium. Looking to the future, Wang is focused on fostering a diverse culture of innovation. "We have people working in a manufacturing capacity, engineers, scientists, and data scientists," she says. "It's this amazing microcosm of the world."

Julia Estacolchic, Head of brand and marketing, Chispa

Ever since Julia Estacolchic emigrated from Argentina 25 years ago, she has been focused on helping the U.S. Hispanic market. "It's a big market," she says. A year and a half ago, Estacolchic began leading the Hispanic dating app Chispa — under the umbrella of Match Group. Since launching in 2017, Chispa has become the largest dating app for Latinx singles, with more than four million downloads. It has also gone beyond the traditional purview of a dating app. When the pandemic hit, it participated in fundraisers for Latinx workers impacted by COVID-19 and partnered with the White House on vaccination efforts in the Hispanic community. During the election, Chispa supported Voto Latino with a digital, in-app campaign that helped register 600,000 people.

Veronica Garza, Cofounder, president, and chief innovation officer, Siete Family Foods

For Veronica Garza, starting Siete Family Foods took a bit of familial encouragement. "My brother Miguel told me that if I didn't do it and then saw one day that someone else had, I would be really upset with myself," she says. "I pictured that moment happening in my mind, and I didn't want it to happen in real life." Several years before, Garza had struggled with autoimmune issues, and in solidarity, her whole family had adopted a grain-free diet. Though many of Garza's symptoms improved, she missed the Mexican foods she grew up eating in the family's home in Laredo, Texas. So she started tinkering in the kitchen to come up with an almond-flour tortilla recipe. "It was just something for my family's diet," Garza says. "But seeing their excitement, I realized there must be so many more people out there like me."

In 2014, Veronica, Miguel, and their mother, Aida, joined forces to cofound Siete Family Foods (named for the seven members of the Garza family). Now Siete is one of the fastest-growing Hispanic-focused brands in grocery and has expanded into grain-free seasonings, sauces, chips, and cookies. The company received a $90 million investment in 2019, and last year Siete hit $150 million in retail sales. "It really came down to my family saying, "We can do this together,' the same way they helped me get through my illnesses," Garza says. "If I had done it by myself, I don't know if it would've happened."

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Joanna Smith, Founder and CEO, AllHere

Early in her teaching career, Joanna Smith identified her biggest challenge. "It wasn't lesson planning or behavior management," she says. "It was making sure my students were in class." In 2017, Smith decided to tackle the problem of chronic absenteeism by launching ed-tech company AllHere, a platform that uses AI chatbot technology to send personalized texts to students and families. The Boston-based company is now in more than 8,000 schools across 34 states, and the pandemic has only underscored the need for adaptable attendance solutions. By this June, the company had raised more than $12 million, and Smith is extending AllHere's reach to areas like student health and academic support. "I get messages from families day and night," Smith says. "They tell me, "Thank you — this is the most helpful resource we've had access to in a long time.' "

Mary Barra, CEO, General Motors

This January, Mary Barra accelerated straight into the future — announcing GM's commitment to selling light-duty vehicles that are zero-emission only by 2035. The company will also spend $35 billion to introduce 30 new electric vehicles, putting the rest of the car industry on notice. Barra has been steadfast in working toward this goal even during the pandemic, when GM added the production of masks, face shields, ventilators, and gowns to its manufacturing lines. In addition to its own brands' electric vehicles, GM will partner with Honda to develop two electric cars and will offer Uber drivers special pricing on electric vehicles. It will also work with EVgo to build fast-charging stations. In August, Barra gave shareholders the rundown on GM's lineup of new vehicles; the first Ultium-battery cars will launch this fall. "It's just the start," she said.

Amany Killawi, Cofounder, LaunchGood

We'd bought one-way tickets, said our goodbyes, and were about to leave for Syria when a friend was like, "You're not going anywhere,' " recalls Amany Killawi. "It was 9/11." Killawi was 8 at the time, living in Detroit with her family, and that day changed the trajectory of her life. Instead of moving back to her parents' home country, the family stayed in the U.S., and Killawi grew up in an era of intense Islamophobia. She was always looking for how she could change the narrative and give back to the world. Finally, in 2013, she found a way to do it. With Chris Blauvelt and Omar Hamid, Killawi cofounded LaunchGood, a crowd­funding platform for the Muslim community that is on track to help raise $85 to $100 million — for both charities and startups — and bring in $7 million in revenue. The biggest challenge has been what Killawi calls "banking while Muslim." In the past two years, LaunchGood has been off-boarded by three payment processors despite its stellar compliance process. "A lot of these guys are obviously afraid of terrorism funding, which is frustrating because that's exactly what we're fighting," she says. But LaunchGood has managed by building a payment system with more understanding partners. Now Killawi's goal is to raise $1 billion a year. "Why a billion? That forces us to think at a very different level," she says. "And it helps us reinforce that Muslims are valuable, that we can do so much. We lost our mojo as a community, and we want to bring it back."

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Amy Denet Deal, Founder, 4Kinship

Amy Denet Deal spent decades living in big cities around the world, designing clothes for major labels like Disney, Puma, and Reebok. But over time, her work started to feel at odds with her Native American heritage and values. "I realized I was not living authentically," Deal says. "I had more to offer beyond design." In 2015, Deal founded 4Kinship, a sustainably upcycled "artwear" brand that reconstructs or restores existing clothing and textiles. In 2019, Deal moved herself and the company to New Mexico to reintegrate with her Diné tribe. When the pandemic hit, she raised more than $800,000 for relatives on Navajo Nation, while supplying more than one million servings of food and distributing more than one million masks. Next spring, 4Kinship will help build Diné Skate Garden Project, a space for youth in the remote Two Grey Hills Diné community of Navajo Nation.

Rachel Tipograph, Founder and CEO, MikMak

When Rachel Tipograph was 24, she became Gap's global director of digital and social media — the company's youngest-ever director. But as an LGBTQ executive, she struggled to find a mentor she related to, and the pull of entrepreneurship was strong. So in 2014, she left Gap to found an e-commerce software, called MikMak, that helps consumer packaged goods brands improve conversion rates, shorten the online buying journey, and give them insights into their customers. MikMak works with clients like Unilever, L'Oréal, and Lego, and since the onset of the pandemic, MikMak has quadrupled revenue and headcount. "We now have employees in 22 states and two countries," Tipograph says. "That wouldn't have happened if we kept geographical constraints in New York, and it's been incredible for diversity."

Emily Ratajkowski, Cofounder, Inamorata

When I was 25, I would always get the question, "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?' " says Emily Ratajkowski. "I didn't do well with that question, because I didn't know." At the time, Ratajkowski had plenty to keep her busy; she was one of the most sought-after models in the world. But as she gained more experience with brand partnerships and licensing deals, she started paying closer attention to the levers of power. One day she had an epiphany: "These companies were relying on me heavily for creativity — it wasn't just my image but my way of selling things using Instagram. And I realized, Wait; if I'm making this much money from 4 percent of the profits, then what are they making?"

That revelation led Ratajkowski to found swimwear brand Inamorata with her best friend, Kat Mendenhall, in 2017 — and in the years that followed, she became increasingly outspoken. On Instagram, Ratajkowski curates an artful, provocative, and political feed for 28 million followers. She has faced criticism for her brand of "sexy feminism," but last year she penned a viral essay for New York Magazine called "Buying Myself Back," in which she detailed her years-long battle to reclaim ownership of photos of herself taken by men who profited from her image. The essay catapulted her into a new dimension of feminist dialogue, and her book of essays, called My Body, which promises to take an unblinking look at culture's simultaneous obsession with and contempt for women's sexuality, is out in November. Ratajkowski says that the root of her success, whether in business or championing feminism, comes down to one insight: "People's bullshit detectors are so high. So if you are trying to do anything, you need to be authentic."

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Nicky Goulimis, Cofounder and board director, Nova Credit

When Nicky Goulimis immigrated to the U.S. from England in 2014 for Stanford business school, she couldn't get a cellphone plan. The U.S. credit system didn't acknowledge her English borrowing history, which meant rejections by credit card companies, six to 12 months' rent up front at apartments, and exorbitant interest rates for student loans. "Talk to anyone who has moved to the States from another country and they'll tell you the various duct-tape solutions they've employed to get a foothold in the financial system," Goulimis says. So in 2016, she cofounded Nova Credit with Loek Janssen and Misha Esipov, immigrant students with similar experiences. They knew that to make real change, they'd have to build a whole new infrastructure. They bushwhacked through thickets of regulatory red tape, inched toward trust with huge financial institutions, worked with credit systems around the globe, and developed a platform to help financial institutions serve immigrants they would otherwise turn away. "We were sandwiched between giants who are not the fastest-moving players in the world, so it was a challenging space," Goulimis says. But she'd identified a problem everyone wanted to solve and VCs wanted to invest in — to the tune of $70 million. After all, Nova Credit not only helps immigrants; it gives financial institutions a whole new population to lend to. The company has hired nearly 80 people and this year is launching internationally to serve people moving to other countries. Beyond that? "With all the talk about space exploration, maybe interplanetary credit data," Goulimis says, laughing. "Give it a little time."

Erin Carpenter, Founder, Nude Barre

When Erin Carpenter was a teenager, a dance teacher told her to dye her beige ballet tights and cake her shoes with makeup to match her skin tone. "I did this into my professional career and thought it was ridiculous and unfair that artists of color had to do this," she says. So in 2009, when no one else had come up with a solution, Carpenter founded Nude Barre. The New York–based company makes undergarments and bodywear in 12 different skin tones. Carpenter started the company with $3,000 in savings and last October closed a seed round of $1.4 million with investors like Serena Williams and Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd. Carpenter's long-term goal is to change the perspective around the color nude. "With so many products, whether it's Band-Aids, flats, or heels, "nude' is typically beige, to represent white skin," she says. "And I feel nude should be more personal."

Amanda Hesser, Founder and CEO, Food52

After college, Amanda Hesser had a dream and a problem. She wanted to go to cooking school and apprentice in European restaurants and bakeries, but she needed money. So she asked the women's culinary organization Les Dames d'Escoffier to fund her dream. "Miraculously, they said yes, and I spent the next two years in Europe," Hesser recalls. "I didn't realize at the time, but that was my first fundraising pitch." Some 13 years later, Hesser founded Food52, a website that offers products, recipes, and ideas, and reaches more than 25 million people a month. The pandemic —­ with so many people cooking at home — ­doubled Food52's revenue, and in May the company bought the homeware brand Dansk. The staff is 78 percent women, and half of leadership is women of color. "We're holding our vendors and partners accountable for prioritizing diversity," Hesser says.

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Sarah Aubrey, Head of original content, HBO Max

When Sarah Aubrey was growing up in Texas, her role models were larger than life. Her mom was president of the Planned Parenthood board in Austin, and her dad, well… "I'm pretty sure he was a noncom officer in the CIA," Aubrey says, laughing. "I'm not kidding." As the head of original content at HBO Max, Aubrey has seen plenty of adventure herself. HBO's answer to Netflix launched in May 2020 and has since gained 47 million subscribers. Anticipated projects are the Sex and the City reboot and superhero franchise projects with creators like James Gunn and Matt Reeves. Aubrey has built a diverse team that reflects their target younger audience. "An equitable workplace begets equitable programming," she says. "Every single day on every single project, we're asking, "What are we doing to represent our audience?' It's not just a moral imperative. It's a business imperative."

Lydia Polgreen, Managing director, Gimlet Media

For me, journalism was always about getting people to think differently about the world, and it has become harder and harder for traditional journalism to achieve this," says Lydia Polgreen. "But the intimate experience of audio, which worms its way right into your brain, reaches people in a different emotional register." That, in a nutshell, is why the veteran reporter left her job as editor in chief of Huffington Post last spring to oversee content at Gimlet Media. The Spotify-owned podcast pearl makes hit series like Heavyweight, Science Vs, Crimetown, Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel, and newcomers like Resistance, which Polgreen is particularly proud of. "When a group of producers pitched me Resistance, I felt this flutter of excitement," she says. "This wouldn't be a show about victimhood or the ennobling nature of suffering. It would be a living, breathing blueprint of how to make change happen."

Kim Perell, Founder and CEO, 100.co

Kim Perell's first job was for a dot-com startup, and it went bankrupt after the bubble burst in 2000. She lost her job, her identity, and her livelihood. "I hit rock bottom," Perell says. "I could barely afford my rent; the bills were piling up. I knew I needed to make a change." So her grandmother loaned her $10,000 to start a digital marketing company, and two decades later, Perell is a serial entrepreneur, an angel investor, and a best-selling author. She sold her last company, Adconion Direct, for $235 million. In the past year, she founded her newest startup, 100.co, to reinvent how consumer brands are created using artificial intelligence. She also has a new book coming out, Jump: Dare to Do What Scares You in Business and Life, which she hopes will help people take a step forward in their professional lives. "I truly believe everyone is just one jump away from making a transformative life change," she says.

Related: Influential Women Discuss How To Fearlessly Navigate the Business World

Swan Sit, "Queen of Clubhouse", Independent board director

I'm an accidental creator," says Swan Sit. "I was thrust into the public eye without being ready for it." Though when Sit says "the public eye," what she really means is "the public ear." The former executive is a breakout star on Clubhouse, the audio-only social media app that blew up during the pandemic. Forbes has dubbed Sit, who has 3.6 million followers, the Queen of Clubhouse. She has been a digital marketing executive at companies like Nike and Revlon and is now an independent board director at Edgewell, NovaBay, and Far Niente. Over the past year, Sit has leveraged Clubhouse to interview everyone from Floyd Mayweather to Paris Hilton and signed a contract with Vayner Talent. "Impostor syndrome is real, but when I get messages that I've changed people's lives or helped them get through a rough spot, that makes it all worthwhile," Sit says.

Reshma Chattaram Chamberlin and Lori Coulter, Cofounders (from left), Summersalt

When trying to get funding for their St. Louis–based swimwear and apparel business, Lori Coulter and Reshma Chattaram Chamberlin had to have a sense of humor. "We joked that the closest beach to us is the Mississippi River," says Chattaram Chamberlin. But by focusing on growth instead of risk, they sold investors and launched in 2017. In 2020, the company saw 100 percent growth. "Our superpower is knowing where our customer is emotionally," says Chattaram Chamberlin. Early in the pandemic, the company launched a text-based support hotline called The Joycast, where team members responded to inquiries with self-care ideas, puppy GIFs, or videos of Italians singing on roofs. "It's the personification of brand as friend," says Chattaram Chamberlin, "and brand as community."

Wes Kao, Cofounder, Maven

Wes Kao was a good student. But traditional classroom learning always left her needing help from tutors. "I took a calculus class with
800 classmates where the professor never once turned around from the chalkboard, and I got a C," she says. "But when I retook the course with only five students and an engaging professor, I got an A." In 2020, to help similarly minded learners, Kao and Gagan Biyani cofounded micro­consulting platform Maven. Since January, Maven has sold more than $1.5 million in courses featuring "creators" with expertise on everything from community building to cryptocurrency. In May, Maven closed a $20 million round of funding. "I'm most proud of how we've been able to help creators monetize their expertise," Kao says. "They can charge a premium price and have near-unlimited room to scale their business. So they can focus on quality, not just quantity."

Related: Why Gender Equality And Women-Centric Policies Make Good Business Sense

Cathy Hughes, Founder, Urban One

Before Cathy Hughes was able to buy her first radio station in 1980, it took her several years to secure a license and approval from the FCC. Once she got approval, she needed a million-dollar loan — and the bank charged her 28 percent interest. Seven challenging years later, her balance sheet turned black. "I called my accountant and accused him of making an error," Hughes recalls. "He laughed and said, "No, that means you made money this month.' "

Urban One is now the largest diversified media company serving African American and urban consumers in the United States. Urban One's subsidiaries include Radio One, which owns and operates 55 broadcast stations in 13 markets. "At least 85 percent of our staff are people of color," Hughes says. "Issues of diversity, race, and inclusion are not a fad that we picked up recently. It is at the core of who we are as a company because we are determined to be a voice for and to our community." Each year, the company hosts Urban One Honors to celebrate people who make a meaningful community impact. Honorees in 2020 included Ala Stanford, a Philadelphia doctor who paid for more than 3,000 COVID-19 tests to help impoverished people of color, and Kim R. Ford of Washington, D.C.–based Martha's Table, which distributed millions of pounds of food and more than $1 million to people in need. "The opportunity to spotlight women who were moving the needle and doing things that may or may not reach the news is very meaningful," Hughes says.

Alicia Garza, Cofounder, Black Lives Matter Global Network & Principal, Black Futures Lab

When George Zimmerman was acquitted of Trayvon Martin's murder in 2013, Alicia Garza, a community organizer in California, took to Facebook to say: "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter." #BlackLivesMatter began trending, and a global movement was born. In 2018, after four years of overseeing the Black Lives Matter Global Network, Garza launched Black Futures Lab, which works in communities to build Black power at the local, state, and national levels. Last year, she debuted her first book, The Purpose of Power, and launched a podcast, Lady Don't Take No. "The podcast medium has brought me so much joy," she says. "Black people have always played a role in unlocking the promise of an America that has not yet been realized. If there was ever a time to tap into that power — it's now."

Elisabeth Vezzani, Cofounder and CEO, Sugarwish

Go be a kid in a candy store!" Nine years ago, Elisabeth Vezzani set out to bring that classic childhood thrill to adult gifting. Today, a gift card from her company, Sugarwish, is sent every minute. Recipients are pinged by text, email, Slack, Teams, or social channels and directed to the Sugarwish site, where they can pick out their favorite candy, snacks, or dog treats. Back in 2012, way before personalization was a retail buzzword, Vezzani and her cofounder, Leslie Lyon, went to a holiday gift show to test their novel idea. "Our first client sent the very first Sugarwish from our booth," says Vezzani. "And a few years later, he became an investor." In 2015 the company launched a corporate gifting program, which now has more than 25,000 clients, including Facebook, Southwest Airlines, and Capital One.

Related: We All Know There Is a Lack of Diversity in the Workplace. Who Is Responsible?

April Koh, Cofounder and CEO, Spring Health

I struggled with my mental health for more than a decade, mostly in college," says April Koh. "Every failed treatment made me feel even more hopeless." Koh's experience — and background in computer science — inspired her to found Spring Health in 2016 with fellow Yale grads Abhishek Chandra and Adam Chekroud. There are more than 200 mental health diagnoses with more than 200 possible treatments, so many patients are misdiagnosed or mistreated the first time they seek care. Spring Health uses hundreds of data points like demographics, family history, and specific symptoms to help providers diagnose and treat mental health issues more accurately and quickly. Spring Health has raised more than $100 million, and its clients include large employers like Whole Foods, Gap, and Equinox. "I'm proud I persevered and found something that worked for me," says Koh.

Sarah Harden, CEO, Hello Sunshine

Becoming a CEO was a moment for sure," says Sarah Harden. "I felt ready, but it was still humbling to have the chance to build — and hold — the trust that comes with being a leader of an organization." Harden was named CEO of Hello Sunshine in 2018, two years after she helped Reese Witherspoon start the media company that has emerged as a cultural force in recent years — creating women-centric projects like Big Little Lies, The Morning Show, and Little Fires Everywhere. This summer Harden oversaw the company's sale to a Blackstone-backed media company for $900 million. "Our vision is to use storytelling to change the way women — our partners, collaborators, audiences, and employees — get to walk through the world," says Harden. "It's the joy of my career doing that with Reese, our executives, and our team. I never take it for granted, and every day I'm learning to be a better leader."