Audacious, hard-working and innovative, these below-30 female entrepreneurs are turning heads in a shark-filled startup world, and penetrating the male-dominated c-suites.
Glass ceiling, watch out. A newer generation of female entrepreneur leaders are rising at lightening speed. And we love that!
Erika Jensen, The Flex Company, 29
Erika Jensen is a cofounder of The Flex Company, a startup which was backed with more than $4.2 million in venture capital funds. The Flex Company owes its creation to two female entrepreneurs, namely Jensen and Lauren Schulte. Flex manufactures menstrual discs, which reduce pain due to menstrual cramps - in other words, a product which would definitely appeal to a lot of women. Aside from her current venture, Jense is an advocate for body positivity and previously ran an e-commerce site for a high-end sex toy brand.
Suhani Parekh, Misho, 27
Suhani Parekh launched Misho as a fashion label in 2016, which has gotten her accolades for being an Indian designer with a global outlook. Parekh was the recipient of the Grazia Young Fashion Award the same year, followed by Elle Graduates and the Elle Style Awards in 2017. Her brand has been featured twice in Vogue Paris and her jewellery found its way onto the cover of Vogue Arabia and onto Rihanna.
Parekh didn’t actually start out as a fashion designer, but studied sculpture at Goldsmith’s in London. Fascinated by metals and how they could “activate the space of the body,” she continued making jewellery during her stint as part of architect and interior designer Ashish Shah’s team. Parekh’s jewellery combines traditional silversmithing techniques with modern inspiration from architecture and sculpture.
Talia Goldberg, Bessemer Venture Partners, 27
Talia Goldberg stands out as the youngest vice president in the 106-year history of Bessemer Venture Partners. Her accomplishments with Bessemer include co-leading their investments in shipping startup Shippo as well as payments startup Toss, though she actually started there back in 2012. Aside from this, she also tries to spot other startups for Pinterest to partner with or acquire, with its $12.3 billion in wealth.
Deepanjali Dalmia, Heyday Care, 27
Deepanjali Dalmia left her job as a financial consultant at Ernst & Young in New York, becoming another amongst female entrepreneurs who left a promising career to stake it out. Dalmia returned to her native India in 2015 and spent several months doing research, before deciding to go into personal hygiene. ,This happened when she learned that nearly 87% of Indian women use disposable sanitary napkins, while being unaware that plastic and other synthetic materials can cause cervical cancer.
Dalmia developed a sanitary napkin using bamboo fiber and corn, using her own funds to develop a product which doesn’t cause any irritation. Heyday care was launched in Delhi and Mumbai in September 2017, and their products are also available online as well.
Iyore Olaye, Walker & Company, 24
Walker and Company creates beauty products for people of colour, including Bevel (a men’s grooming line) and FORM (their haircare line). Walker and Company is backed by $33.3 million in funding, including from notable investors such as Magic Johnson and Google Investors among others.
24-year-old Iyore Olaye is their lead product engineer, and is known for her strong marketing and technical skills. Her accomplishments with Walker and Company include creating an 11-product hair care line in just 12 months, making her one of the inspirational female entrepreneurs whom you can look up to. Olaye has been an advocate for women and other underrepresented minorities in STEM fields, with her experience as the only African American woman in Cornell’s 2016 chemical engineering class making this a very personal thing. Olaye has conducted interviews and tours around the US to share her story with others, and she also founded the Iyore Noelle Olaye Scholarship Award to help minority STEM students through their challenging first year.
Seema Bansal, Venus ET Fleur
Seema Bansal is the cofounder of the New York-based rose atelier Venus ET Fleur, an internationally recognised brand which has revolutionised the experience of buying flowers online. Her story might not be the most inspirational amongst female entrepreneurs, but it’s definitely an interesting twist: Bansal co-founded her company with her partner, after the latter sent her flowers for Valentine’s Day back in 2015 which frankly weren’t up to the mark. Since then, the duo has taken to changing the way flowers are delivered.
Qin Yunquan, Kapap Academy, 29
Women around the world often worry about their safety, and this is what places Qin Yunquan amongst the top female entrepreneurs - she’s one of the cofounders of Singapore’s Kapap Academy. As an instructor and the CEO of Kapap, Qin has trained thousands of underprivileged women and children in the art of self defence - and she’s the only self-defence instructor to have ever received the Queen’s Young Leaders Award. Qin’s inspiration came from the death of her brother in a street fight, making her initiative a very personal venture.
Kanchan Amatya, Sustainable Fish Farming Initiative, 23
Kanchan Amatya might not be among the top female entrepreneurs in terms of sheer monetary success, but she’s definitely seeking to make a difference in the world. Amatya is the founder and executive director of the Sustainable Fish Farming Initiative, which is a women-led social enterprise whose purpose is to fight hunger and poverty in Nepal. The SFFI empowers women farmers in rural Nepal to use sustainable fish farming practises, and Amatya has rightly received a lot of recognition for her commendable effort.
Gigi Gorgeous, YouTube star, 25
With over 2.7 million YouTube subscribers and nearly as many followers on Instagram, Gigi Gorgeous’s story as a transgender model places her amongst other inspirational female entrepreneurs. Gigi started with YouTube a few years before her transition, but decided to start posting more personal content after loosing her mother to cancer in December 2013.
Gigi originally found YouTube as a way to connect with other people like her, and has always been honest and forthcoming even if she hasn’t always shown her emotional side. These days, she has a lot of fun online and also has a documentary in the works.
Lauren Cason, Ustwo Games, 29
Lauren Cason was one of the senior artists on the award winning Monument Valley 2, which drew inspiration from the work of MC Escher. Prior to this, Cason worked with Funomena, Dim Bulb Games, and Harmonix as an artist. She’s been active inspiring others, having worked on making games with incarcerated youth and speaking at Girls Make Games in order to inspire more young women to join her field.
Posts
