Announcing Our Q3 2026 FBW Awards Winners and Honorees

We are proud to announce the Q3 2026 FBW Quarterly Awards winners and honorees. This quarter's cohort spans cross-border payments, battery technology, labor and employment law, marketing and communications, sustainability consulting, and independent publishing, brought together by founders and leaders who built their work around trust, access, and measurable impact.

Every application submitted in the Q3 cycle is recognized in this announcement, in two groups: Winners and Honorees. Congratulations to everyone on this list.

Q4 2026 applications are now open. Apply today: https://www.foundedbywomen.org/awards/

Individual Leader Award Winners

👑 Strategic Leadership Excellence

Arina Anapolskaya, Co-Founder, CashQ

Arina co-founded CashQ and runs strategy, compliance, bank and partner relationships, and product for the cross-border payments company. Starting with an idea and no licenses, CashQ now holds Money Services Business licenses in Florida, California, and New York, has passed five independent AML reviews, and supports 174 payment corridors with payout coverage in more than 120 countries. She received the 2022 CrossTech Industry Choice Award and was named one of 200 founders in SFMOMA's 2026 Diversify: Female Founders in Focus.

Dania Ghantous, Co-Founder & Head of Technology, Qnovo

Dania co-founded Qnovo and leads the engineering teams building battery intelligence software for EVs and energy storage. Her team's health and safety diagnostics, unveiled at CES 2025, rest on an electrochemical database validated across more than 2 million km of real-world EV data, and she redesigned the integration architecture around standardized APIs so automakers can deploy in days rather than months. Qnovo received a strategic investment from Hyundai and Kia in March 2026, and Dania mentors the next generation of battery scientists as a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Santa Clara University.

📣 Marketing & Brand Leadership

Lauren “Lolo” Butts, Founder & CEO, Bound Agency

Lolo leads an eight-person, all-women agency whose clients range from Crocs and Huckleberry Roasters to BC4U, a free reproductive health clinic for young Coloradans. For one retail client, Bound's email strategy grew newsletter profits by 1,960% in two years, and for the past decade she has run social strategy for BC4U, helping prototype one of the first telehealth models for teens. She mentors early-career creatives through live client work, building the agency's next generation of marketing leaders.

⚖️ Legal Leadership

Kara M. Maciel, Co-Founder & Chair, Labor & Employment Practice, Conn Maciel Carey LLP

Kara co-founded Conn Maciel Carey and chairs its national Labor & Employment Practice, which grew under her leadership from four attorneys in one office to 15 attorneys across seven offices. She built a preventive model that combines compliance counseling, manager training, workplace investigations, and litigation preparedness, so employers address problems before they escalate. Kara has been named a Super Lawyer every year since 2014.

Individual Leader Award Honorees

🧩 Fractional Executive Excellence

Vanessa Matibag, Founder, Outside Lead HR Solutions

Vanessa runs a fractional HR consultancy that steps into the HR leader seat for nonprofits, startups, and mission-driven organizations that cannot afford a full-time hire. For one client she rebuilt performance management from the ground up, moving from paper to digital forms and coaching each manager through real evaluation conversations, which led every employee to complete a self-evaluation for the first time. Her work is organized around the 3 Gear Interlock Framework, which treats HR as one connected system.

📣 Marketing & Brand Leadership

Robin Dimond, Founder & CEO, Fifth & Cor

Robin leads a 32-person team and has guided Fifth & Cor from a traditional marketing agency into an integrated marketing and innovation company that unites strategy, creative, PR, digital marketing, and AI. One integrated campaign for a nonprofit initiative combined public relations, event support, social media, and an original content shoot, and raised $1.3 million over a single weekend.

🌿 Health & Wellbeing Impact

Sara Ellis, Founder, Stone & Sky Self-Mapping

Sara launched Stone & Sky Self-Mapping in August 2026 around the Human Translation Method, a reflective approach that helps people find language for experiences they have carried for years. In its first weeks she delivered 25 personalized products and built a free library of 33 self-understanding resources, with a focus on recognition and self-compassion over labels.

📚 Author Impact

Jen Thompson, Author, Wild Pivot: Notes from a Political Life Rewritten

Jen is a lawyer and former political campaign manager who served as senior counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and as a lawyer-lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Her memoir, published in September 2026 after 24 years and eight rewrites, follows a life rewritten after a near-fatal crash and the courage to live more authentically. She is currently Chief of Staff at the University of Redlands.

Company Award Winners

📣 Marketing & Communications Impact

Branch & Bramble: Emily Lyman - New York, NY | Founded 2019

Emily built Branch & Bramble on the idea that marketing should start with why customers care, not only what they do. Its A Stake in Stardom program for America's Best Racing turned creators into fractional owners of real racehorses on a flat $125,000 annual budget, reported 123.5 million video views in 2025, and earned three Gold American Business Awards across 2023 and 2025.

Fifth & Cor: Robin Dimond - Miami-Fort Lauderdale Area, FL | Founded 2021

Robin built Fifth & Cor around an integrated, business-first model that ties strategy, creative, PR, and technology to measurable outcomes. Reported results include $274,000 in additional attributable revenue in six months for a home décor brand, and a 1,000% increase in calls with a 91.25% lower cost per acquisition for a local service company.

Joyride Group: Katelyn Davis - Detroit, MI | Founded 2023

Katelyn built Joyride into a specialist communications and advisory firm for automotive, transportation, and mobility technology. For Electreon's debut of the nation's first public wireless EV-charging roadway, an entirely earned campaign generated 734 media placements, including NBC News, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, and TIME.

Magenta Marketing and Design (MAD): Jayde Pope - Worthing, West Sussex, UK | Founded 2022

Jayde founded MAD as a strategic organic marketing partner for independent agencies, built with no outside funding and more than 80% of its business from referrals. For a West Sussex estate agency client, a segmented email strategy generated £285,000 in valuation leads and £137,500 in direct instructions in 2025.

💼 Consulting & Advisory Excellence

ENVOLV: Gemma Branney - Scotland | Founded 2025

Gemma co-leads ENVOLV, a sustainability consultancy that treats sustainability as a driver of commercial value rather than a reporting exercise. For a global SaaS client she led a materiality assessment and net zero plan that delivered a reported 26% reduction in carbon emissions within 12 months, and the contract was extended. ENVOLV also pledges 1% of its time and profit to supporting women in its community.

🚀 Best Innovation

Make Lemonade Limited: Maria Sze - London, UK | Founded 2019

Maria and her business partner Sara Lemos developed SIGNAL NOIR®, a methodology for analyzing how AI platforms interpret and recommend brands in luxury travel. The firm has delivered 55 audits, published two original white papers, and now draws 59% of its business from AI intelligence work.

🌍 Social Impact

Forthright Advising: Katie Test Davis - Raleigh, NC | Founded 2019

Katie founded Forthright Advising to work exclusively with organizations that support children and families, including nonprofits, school districts, foundations, and government agencies. The firm has worked with more than 70 clients and over 30 public school districts, and Katie was named to the 2021 Forbes Next 1000.

Company Award Honorees

⚖️ Legal Excellence

Norton Basu LLP: Somita Basu - Los Gatos, CA | Founded 2014

Somita co-founded Norton Basu, a bootstrapped estate planning, probate, and litigation firm that has been profitable since its first year and now serves clients across California. She reports that revenue has grown fourfold since 2020.

📣 Marketing & Communications Impact

Cyber PR: Ariel Hyatt - New York, NY | Founded 1996

Ariel has led Cyber PR for 30 years, expanding from music publicity into artist development, consulting, coaching, and education for independent artists. She has written seven books, serves on the Senior Advisory Board of Women in Music, and founded RISE, a community for senior women in the music business.

Jaya Jaya Myra Productions (Jaya PR): Myra Godfrey - New York, NY | Founded 2018

Myra built a PR agency around an earned-media model with multiple senior publicists on every client and heavy investment in infrastructure and email deliverability. Her fully remote team works with generous time off and paid health benefits, and the agency reports being named PR Agency of the Year in 2025.

💼 Consulting & Advisory Excellence

Bamboo Bridge Ltd: Leah Geng - Cambridge, UK and Shenzhen, China | Founded 2022

Leah moved to Shenzhen to turn Bamboo Bridge from a sourcing service into an on-the-ground manufacturing partner for hardware startups. Over the past year she grew the China-side team from two to around ten people and established operating entities in China and Hong Kong.

Ibex Compliance LLP: Seung Earm - United Kingdom | Founded 2023

After almost three decades in compliance at institutions including Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas, Seung co-founded Ibex to give growing regulated firms senior, practical advice without the cost of a large consultancy. The firm supports clients across asset management, fintech, payments, and crypto asset firms, including UK regulatory authorisations.

🚀 Best Innovation

Milk Drunk Club: Shannon Pratten - Beaufort, SC | Founded 2024

Shannon, a NICU nurse and IBCLC, developed MilkHaven, a patent-pending reusable breast milk storage system built from individual 2-ounce silicone tubes organized in a dedicated freezer system. She took the product from concept through prototyping, tooling, and manufacturing to its September 2026 launch as a bootstrapped sole founder.

⭐ Rising Star

Human B4 Resources: LuCiana VeLiciana-Sanford - Antioch, IL | Founded 2025

LuCiana founded Human B4 Resources to bring enterprise-grade HR leadership to schools, growing businesses, and nonprofits, alongside confidential workplace guidance for individual employees. She created the 3R Journey (Recognize, Respond, Resolve) and is developing an AI-enabled tool that helps managers practice difficult conversations before they happen.

🌍 Social Impact

J & J Publishing House: JC Wilde - Dunmore, PA | Founded 2026

JC co-founded J & J Publishing House with her wife to publish illustrated, deeply personal books on grief and late-diagnosed autism that bring awareness and compassion to marginalized groups. The company's first book, Grief Monster: An Illustrated Diary of Grief, is about to be published.

Creatively LLC: Stacy Ennis - Boise, ID and Global Remote | Founded 2009

Stacy helps executives and thought leaders turn their ideas into books through coaching and her Nonfiction Book School course. She reports a manuscript completion rate above 90% in private coaching, and was named a Women of the Year Honoree by the Idaho Business Review in 2022.

What This Quarter's Class Represents

The Q3 2026 class reflects founders and leaders building trust in places where it is hard to earn. Taken together, they represent:

Regulated and technical industries made more accessible and accountable, from cross-border payments and battery safety to employment, estate, and compliance law (Arina Anapolskaya, Dania Ghantous, Kara Maciel, Somita Basu, Seung Earm, Leah Geng)

Marketing and communications tied to measurable business and community results (Lauren Butts, Robin Dimond, Emily Lyman, Katelyn Davis, Jayde Pope, Ariel Hyatt, Myra Godfrey)

Personal experience turned into practical support through HR, sustainability, authorship, publishing, and product innovation (Vanessa Matibag, Gemma Branney, Maria Sze, Katie Test Davis, Stacy Ennis, Shannon Pratten, LuCiana VeLiciana-Sanford, JC Wilde, Sara Ellis, Jen Thompson)

How We Selected This Quarter's Recognition

Every application submitted in the Q3 2026 cycle was read by the FBW editorial team and reviewed against the same criteria: measurable results, the applicant's personal role in driving them, leadership approach, significance for her field, and fit with the chosen category. Where an applicant's work clearly belonged in a different category, we moved her there. All results are as reported by the applicants and were not independently verified.

This quarter we are recognizing two groups. Winners are applicants whose applications showed the strongest documented results in their category. Honorees are women whose work and leadership we want to recognize and amplify, even where their results are earlier-stage or less quantified so far. Both groups receive the same recognition package.

We chose to recognize every applicant this quarter because FBW is a new community and our goal is to empower as many women leaders as possible. Winners and Honorees can both apply again in the next cycle.

Winner and Honoree Benefits Include:

• 📰 Featured Profile - In-depth article on FoundedByWomen.org
• 📱 Multi-Platform Promotion - Social media and newsletter features
• 🏆 Recognition Assets - Digital badge and certificate for marketing materials
• 🤝 Network Access - Connection with other recognized leaders
• 📊 Quarterly Showcase - Featured in the Q3 2026 winners report

Q4 2026 applications are now open. Apply today: https://www.foundedbywomen.org/awards/