Marie Forleo:
B-School
T
his queen CEO’s motto is,
“everything is figureoutable.”
Her mission and passion is to
empower people from cultures
around the world to start their own
business, not as a mechanism for
material success (although that
tends to be a happy byproduct!),
but as a way to “live your best life”
and provide the world with that
“special gift only you have.” Last
year, she was featured on Oprah’s
Super Soul Sunday and has grown
her brand to that level with radical
authenticity and unrelenting work
ethic. Her online course for modern
entrepreneurs, B-school, walks
participants through everything
they need to learn to make their
own difference in the world while
making their living doing so.
your way through the patriarchal
ranks of a large corporation to be a
CEO. You can; and if you want to,
you must. However, are thousands
of inspiring women running their
own companies that support
themselves and their families all
while pursuing something they’re
passionate about. Here are five
women CEOs that’ll make you say
“I can do that too.”
W
hen I began researching
women CEOs for this
article, the first (and
very obvious) query I typed into
Google was "women CEOs."
The first barometer of a CEO’s
success is how much money their
company is worth. All told, there
are 21 CEOs on the Fortune 500
list (2016) that are women, with a
largely white majority. While there
should absolutely be more women
in boardrooms across the world,
it would be a travesty to base the
success of a businesswoman off
of a list made for a patriarchal,
capitalist society. That list of
21 women doesn’t show the
thousands of female business
owners making both money and a
positive difference in the world.
Yet as I scrolled through the
results for my “women CEOs”
query, the headlines merely stated
how hard, rare, and unfair it is for
women executives and CEOs. I
don’t doubt that it’s damn hard, but
the rhetoric surrounding a simple
query seemed to say “don’t even
bother trying.” “Female CEOs, Still
a Rarity, Face Extra Pressures,”
read The Wall Street Journal. “Why
Most Women Will Never Become
CEO,” read the Forbes headline.
There are thousands of women
who are self-starters. Women who
had an idea, figured it out as they
went along, and followed through
until their idea became a profitable
business. You don’t have to climb