Ever since the gender equality movement started back in the 1960’s, it has positively transformed the employment market, especially in the last two decades. Furthermore, digitalization has made jobs more accessible than ever for both women and men, with hundreds of thousands of online jobs on Jooble available for anyone, just a click away. (Disclaimer: This article contains spons0red content, meaning we may receive compensation from the products or services mentioned.)
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Consequently, more women are stepping into roles of power and influence in the business world, every day. They are leading immense teams and reshaping whole industries with their keen minds and talent. In this article, we look at the stories of top 10 women entrepreneurs and CEOs who have led or are currently leading some of the most successful companies in the world:
1. Indra Nooyi – PepsiCo
Indian-born American business executive Indra Nooyi is a trailblazer in the world of mega-corporations. Her resume includes reputable companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Booz Allen Hamilton, BCG and Motorola. However, she is best known for leading giant PepsiCo between 2006 and 2018, notoriously redirecting the company under the “Performance with a Purpose” headline. As a result of her leadership, the company’s total revenue doubled, from 35 billion USD in 2006 to almost 65 billion by the time she left.
2. Mary Barra – General Motors
Mary Teresa Barra is the current chair and CEO of General Motors, as well as the first ever female CEO of a “Big Three” automaker. Educated at the General Motors Institute, Barra has dedicated her life to a career at GM, starting with an internship when she was 18 years old and working her way to the top of its corporate hierarchy. Under her current leadership, General Motors is transitioning into driverless and electric-powered vehicles. In 2018, Barra was ranked fourth on Forbes Most Powerful Women, and in 2021 she was also included in Time’s Annual List of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
3. Sara Blakely – Spanx
In her youth, Florida-born Sara Blakely was planning on becoming an attorney. Instead, her career took her across the occupation spectrum, from a job at Disney World and performing stand-up comedy, to selling fax machines door-to-door. At 27, Blakely spent all of her savings and a year of her life to develop the now-famous Spanx. At first, she was single-handedly managing all the logistics, product positioning and marketing efforts of her company. Spanx grew at an astonishing pace, landing Blakely on the cover of Forbes in 2012, for being the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world.
4. Ginni Rometty – IBM
Virginia “Ginni” Rometty was the first-ever female chairman, president and CEO of tech giant IBM. After joining the company as a systems analyst and systems engineer back in 1981, she went on to fulfil a series of sales and management roles, becoming General Manager and then Senior Vice President of IBM Global Business Services. Finally, in 2012 she became IBM’s ninth chief executive in its history, as well as the first woman to get the role. By the time she stepped down in 2020, she had received many prestigious rankings and awards, including Bloomberg’s 50 Most Influential People in the World and the Time 100 list.
5. Whitney Wolfe Herd – Bumble
Whitney Herd started her career in 2012, at age 22, with the startup Cardify, later moving on to join the development team behind dating app Tinder and becoming vice president for marketing for the dating app. After Tinder, she founded Bumble, the most popular female-focused dating app in the world, currently valued at over 3.5 billion USD. Herd made the Forbes 30 under 30 list in both 2017 and 2018, as well as the Time 100 list in 2018. In 2021, she became the youngest female billionaire in the world.
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6. Anne Wojcicki – 23andMe
After graduating from Yale, Anne Wojcicki worked as a healthcare consultant for an investment fund and as a healthcare investment analyst. She quickly became disenchanted with Wall Street and decided to dedicate her time to biological research instead. In 2006, she founded 23andMe, a pioneer in personal genomics and biotechnology that lets people test for ancestry and various health risks. In 2021, when Wojcicki took the company public, Forbes gave her the title “newest self-made billionaire.”
7. Ursula Burns – Xerox
Ursula Burns is best known as the CEO of Xerox between 2009 and 2016, as well as the first black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company. Starting her career at Xerox as a summer intern in 1980, she managed to climb its career ladder up to the very top. Besides heading Xerox, she has also been on the board of directors at ExxonMobil, American Express and Uber. Forbes named Burns the 22nd most powerful woman in the world in 2014.
8. Reshma Saujani – Girls Who Code
Reshma Saujani is a lawyer, politician and civil servant who founded Girls Who Code, a nonprofit that seeks to close the gender employment gap in computer science. Coming from a legal and financial background, she became aware of the gender disparities in computing and decided to do something about it. As of 2022, Girls Who Code had more than 500 thousand alums.
9. Jessica Ennis-Hill – Ennis-Hill Sports Management
A former British athlete and Olympic champion, Jessica Ennis-Hill has managed to transition from athletics to business by founding Ennis-Hill Sports Management and launching Jennis, her own app-based training programme. Ennis-Hill Sports Management focuses on representing athletes and providing strategic guidance for their careers.
10. Marissa Mayer – Yahoo
As a Stanford graduate, in 1999 Marissa Mayer received 14 job offers, including from McKinsey and Carnegie Mellon University. However, she decided to become Google’s employee number 20 instead. She helped develop Google’s homepage and Google Ads. In 2012, Mayer was appointed president and CEO of Yahoo. During her five-year tenure at Yahoo, she managed to create 43 billion USD in market capitalization, triple Yahoo stock, and grow its number of users.