Elizabeth Maruyama arrived in the US from Thailand in 2017 on a temporary work visa, with a finance background and a lifelong love of coding. The immigration system still felt like a maze. It took her two years to navigate the EB-3 skilled worker green card largely alone, and
Most art mediums are built on plastic, and most wall compounds contain crystalline silica. Alicia Garcia-Romero spent eighteen years working with these materials as an artist, an architectural designer and a furniture maker before she started questioning them. The turning point came while she was designing furniture, pregnant, with
Most founders do not ignore the warning signs. They see them, name them privately, and keep going. In a CEREVITY review of 307 executives who sought therapy, the median gap between recognizing serious strain and a first session was 21 months, and 58% waited until a crisis forced the decision.
Long before longevity became a mainstream conversation, Michal Cohen-Sagi was already thinking about how early choices shape a long, independent life. At twelve, she watched her father lose his eyesight to diabetes, an experience that taught her how deeply health can affect freedom. Her own journey through endometriosis and
When Stephanie Cartin and her co-founder Courtney Spitzer launched their social media agency Socialfly, they had no playbook. What they had was a habit of asking questions, admitting what they didn't know, and joining a networking group on day one. That habit became the foundation of Entreprenista,
Portia Allen grew up understanding visibility before she had a word for it. Her father was Fred "Rerun" Berry of What's Happening!!, and she later built an identity of her own in entertainment as Lady Rerun. She learned early what it means for people to know
Anita Lamb did not arrive in entrepreneurship through business school, investment or a polished start-up plan. She came from care work, and from a demanding period of family life that made her think seriously about building something of her own. Care taught her that service is personal: reliability, dignity,
Some communities begin with a business plan. Sisters In Strength began with a simple question: what if women had a place to connect without pressure, competition, or expectations? Co-founders Czha and Linz launched Sisters In Strength in Cebu, Philippines, in April 2026, building on a women's community
Padel is booming, but one basic problem still holds the game back. Every good match needs four players of similar ability, yet there is no shared way to describe how good a player really is. Levels are self-declared, calculated differently by each platform, and understood differently from one country
Lucy Clifton's path to the top of Spotlight Communications began in 1998, when she joined the then Prince of Wales's International Hotels Environment Initiative, an early introduction to luxury travel. It was there that she met the long-term business partner with whom she later founded
Access to AI tools does not automatically change how people work. That is the lesson Tina Saul took from her time at Meta, where early access to AI came without the practical training, visible sponsorship or protected time that teams needed to actually learn. It was only after she did
Francesca Rahimi grew up watching her mum work as a cleaner, and she saw how physically demanding the job could be and how much the right tools matter. That early view of everyday effort became the seed of FancysOfficial, a brand built around a simple idea: cleaning should be easier,
Women Who Lead
At 18, Dr. Iris Wright faced the possibility of up to 20 years in prison after being wrongfully accused of a crime. Her daughter was removed from her care, and she spent years rebuilding her life before receiving a pardon. Long before that day came, she decided that her circumstances
Women Who Lead
Construction materials testing is rarely the first career that comes to mind, yet it sits behind every safe and reliable building project. Before concrete, soil, or asphalt goes into the ground, it has to be tested, and the people in laboratories and out in the field depend on the right
Women Who Lead
With 20 years in communications across HSBC, Societe Generale, S&P Dow Jones Indices and Solactive, Barbara Mahe built her career in a male-dominated industry, where she learned to let her work speak for itself. Along the way, she also learned how to show CEOs and senior executives
Women Who Lead
Latris Latrelle Oliveira is a fashion entrepreneur, creative strategist, media founder, and runway producer whose work spans fashion, media, luxury experiences, and global creative industries. Her entrepreneurial journey began in 2014 with the founding of Pretty Posh Lingerie, a boutique inspired and supported by her late mother. Her passion for
Women Who Lead
Ty Vaughn is an entrepreneur, adventure travel curator, and founder of AdventuressTy, a luxury adventure travel company inspiring people to step beyond their comfort zones and experience life more boldly. Founded in 2019, AdventuressTy began with local California adventures and has grown into a global travel brand creating curated group
Women Who Lead
After more than 35 years in sales, including senior roles leading teams responsible for multi-million-pound revenues in the media industry, Moira Barnes saw how traditional sales approaches can leave people feeling pressured and uncomfortable, as though they had to become someone they weren't. In 2018, she
Women Who Lead
Bamboo Bridge did not start with a grand business plan. When her husband Dave needed help finding suppliers in China for his hardware startup, Leah Geng stepped in. Friends soon asked for help with their own products, and one project led to another. Today, Leah is the Founder & CEO
Women Who Lead
Anna Gahramanov is the founder of Elite Media Empire, a Miami-based agency that installs revenue systems for small businesses. Her work brings CRM, advertising, offers, and sales together into one integrated machine, so that every lead is captured, tracked, and followed up on. Her path into systems started close
Women Who Lead
After a 20-year career spanning people-centred systems, complex project delivery, organisational transformation and leadership development across Asia and Europe, JJ Byun, Founder and Managing Director of BYUN & CO, began asking a different kind of question - not how systems change, but how people do. That curiosity, shaped by
Women Who Lead
After more than a decade working in marketing across independent labels, distribution companies and management teams, Alison Lamb made the leap into self employment in 2023 with the launch of Project Allies. Her decision came at a pivotal moment, both in her own career and in the wider industry, as
Women Who Lead
Ethel Rio Cohen has seen the insurance industry from every angle. She previously helped build an insurance agency, which she later sold, and now she is the founder and CEO of Ensurance, a U.S. insurance-shopping company that helps people shop for better insurance prices and coverage options across
Women Who Lead
Debika Sen Chaudhury spent years working as a growth consultant for SaaS startups before she noticed a pattern that troubled her: companies kept hiring more SDRs, pouring money into marketing, and pushing new product versions, only to repeat the same cycle a few months later with a new agency or