In times when women empowerment remains the topic of the town for many countries, we are really lucky to have women who are leading the top businesses in multiple domains and hence inspiring many young and upcoming female entrepreneurs. With my decent degree of research for this article, i can definitely say that women are not only equalling but leading compared to men especially at the top-level in businesses. And thus here’s my list of the women who are influencing the course of action for the entire planet in some way or other.
Also Read: Top 10 Most Successful College Dropouts
Let’s read about top 10 most successful female American entrepreneurs and influential women who made it to the Big and Famous League:
Oprah Winfrey
Rich, successful and famous but more importantly inspiring. This female entrepreneur who is also the host of the popular ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ truly proves that women are leading the world today. She is also an actress, producer and philanthropist.
Marissa Mayer
This 40 year old Yahoo boss who was also the first female engineer and 20th employee at Google when she started, later she held a key executive position, (she also had a nickname ‘Googirl’). She is ‘The Diva of the Tech World’ with her celebrity looks, lifestyle and yet top-notch technical, management skills she is amongst the top few ‘Beauties with Brains’ on the planet. With a net worth of $300 million she is an admiration and inspiration for many female entrepreneurs. She is yet another female leader leading one of the top companies in the world.
Sheryl Sandberg
The COO and one of the eight board members of Facebook, she is the one who figured out how to make Facebook profitable after she joined the company in March 2008. Yet another Ex-Googler she was previously on the board of Starbucks. Currently she is also on the board of ‘The Walt Disney Company’ and 4 other companies. With a net worth of a whopping $1.1 Billion, she is another female entrepreneur who is calling the shots at the top-level.
Beyonce
This 35 year old dazzling hot singer, songwriter, and actress, who is also a successful entrepreneur, with a net worth of $250 Million she is the hottest and most popular lady on this list.
Indira Nooyi
This 59 year old Indian Origin Pepsi boss is an extremely talented female entrepreneur, who started out as a manager at Johnson & Johnson in 1976 and has made her way to top of Pepsi which is the second largest food and beverages sector company in the world. With multiple Honorary degrees and ‘Padma Bhushan’ (The 2nd highest civilian award in India) under her belt, she is the source of inspiration for women all over the world.
Sara Blakely
I just knew a name called Sara Blakely (Probably because I never had much to do with female undergarments). But believe me if there is one story of a female entrepreneur that qualifies for the ‘The Most Inspirational Female American Dreamer’, it would be Sara Blakely. At the age of 16 she witnessed her Best Friend being run over by a car, then her parents separated that same year and both of her prom dates died in horrible circumstances not long after. All this tragedy around her struck a sense of urgency in her.
Another Must Read: Top Ten Most Revolutionary American Dreamers
According to Forbes:
“After these tragedies she sought solace in her fathers Wayne Dyer cassette tapes, memorizing all ten volumes of the motivational speakers How to Be a No-Limit Person series. She was also quoted saying The thought of my mortality–I think about it a lot. I find it motivating. It can be any time that your numbers up.”
In my opinion all this contributed a great deal in her sales success a few years later at Danka where she sold fax machines door to door. And it was during her sales job at Danka that her experience with pantyhose got her to start the Billion Dollar Spanx.
She individually turned her own $5000 into the billion dollar Spanx without any investors or favours owns it 100%. And yet she is the most down to earth and hard-working woman who I know of. Maybe I will write an article dedicated to her in the near future. Till then you can checkout this forbes article on her.
Lori Greiner
Known as the popular ‘Queen of QVC’ and ‘The Shark Lori’ she is one of the most popular female venture capitalists in the world. She started out small with her jewellery casing accessories line and made it to QVC. There was no looking back after that. And today she has made it to the most popular Venture Capitalist firm ‘The Shark Tank’. While the results she created are definitely fascinating, what’s even more fascinating is the journey. According to her book ‘Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!: Make Your Million-Dollar Idea into a Reality’ at the beginning of her journey as an entrepreneur, she did all the work from designing the catalogs to working with craftsmen and designers to make her dream product a reality, learning all that it took as she moved forward. She is one of the best example of the fact that you can make it to the top without any brilliance or gift with sheer determination and hard work.
Barbara Corcoran
She is yet another inspiring female entrepreneur who went from rags to riches. She worked in a bar to collect her first $1000 dollars which she put into her idea and turned it into a multi million dollar real estate business. You have probably heard this story a million times by now on ‘The Shark Tank’ starter. Another example of success from sheer hard work she is helping many entrepreneurs realise their dreams today and has helped create thousands of jobs across the country.
Arianna Huffington
This 65 year old Greek-American, co-founder of the Pulitzer prize-winning ‘Huffington Post’ is also a nationally syndicated columnist, radio host, and author of 14 books. The most noticeable incident happened to her when she collapsed out of exhaustion in 2007. After which her best advice for productivity was ‘Get more Sleep’ about which she has extensively written in her bestselling book :’Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder’. This multi talented lady is also an occasional actress and ran for LA governor only to lose to the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Elizabeth Holmes
This American beauty is one of the most prominent entrepreneurs of America. At the early age of 19 she founded the blood testing company Theranos in 2003. Currently she is another one of self-made billionaires with a net worth of U.S. $4.5 Billions at an age of 31. Her company wants to make blood tests quicker, more convenient and inexpensive, thus saving lives.
Feeling awesome to see this great Inspiration