Over the past 50 years, daring females have challenged social norms to trailblaze new paths for women in the evolving realms of business and entrepreneurship. Today, I wanted to highlight three past and present female industry pioneers whose remarkable achievements and bold leadership have inspired millions.
In 1972, Katharine Graham made history by becoming the first female chief executive officer (CEO) of a Fortune 500 company, which is a list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Stepping into this leadership position in The Washington Post marked a monumental milestone for women in the 20th century. Women at the time held less than 20% of total newspaper jobs and were rather excluded from voicing their opinions openly in the press. Despite not having many female mentors in the business arena she could turn to at the time, Graham became one to many and today is recognized as “the most powerful woman in journalism” by The Washington Post. During her tenure as their CEO, she bravely held out against the U.S. government to release stories on the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, providing an example of courage and integrity for young women today.
Ursula Burns, former CEO of Xerox, is the first African-American woman to lead a S&P 500 company. Burns grew up in a low-income housing project on Manhattan’s Lower East Side raised by a single mother who ran a home day-care center and took ironing and cleaning jobs to pay for her daughter’s high school education. Burns later achieved a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and worked her way at Xerox up the ranks from a full-time entry level employee to CEO and chairman of the board. She stepped down after Xerox split into two public companies to found Change the Equation, a CEO-led and Obama administration-launched non profit organization that aims to boost STEM education, and join Uber’s board of directors.
Women like Karen Lynch have made significant waves in the pharmaceutical and healthcare world during an extremely relevant time period. Lynch is the CEO of CVS Health, the largest health provider in the world that impacts the lives of more than 100 million people each year. CVS Health plays a critical role in the nationwide response to COVID-19 via its efficient testing and vaccination; in fact, the company is in charge of the most independently run COVID-19 testing sites in the nation. In 2020, Forbes recognized Lynch as one of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.
As for the future, we still have some work to do to close this gender leadership gap. Although us women comprise approximately the majority — approximately 51% — of the United States population, we currently only fill about 7% of Fortune 500 CEOs. Dartmouth Women in Business calls for more gender representation in the business world, which starts from learning about the industry’s most inspiring female pioneers.
by Sydney Wuu (Co-Media & Branding Chair 21S/21F)
Works Cited
https://www.investopedia.com/news/top-women-ceos/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/brand-studio/fox/katharine-graham/
https://www.forbes.com/profile/ursula-burns/?sh=1c9a523b40a0
https://www.thewonderwomenproject.org/pages/biography-of-ursula-burns
https://cvshealth.com/about-cvs-health/leadership/karen-lynch