From the last couple of decades, women's contribution in the business field reflects a positive number. American Women seemed equally interested to participate in businesses and coming up with something new. This portrays a positive image of women empowerment and inspires young women to be more passionate about their interests.
Elaine Wynn
Elaine Wynn is an American Businesswoman, she co-founded Mirage Resorts in 1976 and Wynn Resorts in 2000 with her husband Steve Wynn. She was born in a middle-class family and completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science in 1964 from George Washington University.
She has been served on the position of Board of Directors and also, she serves on board of trustees in Elaine P. Wynn & Family Foundation, she has been on the executive board of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, appointed to Nevada’s Blue Ribbon Education Reform Task Force in 2011, consistently appointed on Nevada’s State Board of Education for two years in 2013 and 2015.
She was introduced to the Board of Trustees of Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in 2011 organized by President Barack Obama and has also been honoured as co-chair of the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts.
Judith R. Faulkner
Judith “Judy” is an American woman entrepreneur, she is the co-founder of healthcare software company Epic Systems in 1979 with the name of Human Services Computing with Dr. John Greist located in Wisconsin.
It was the company that did not stand through any investment from venture capital or private equity, on the contrary, all of the investments of $70,000 were invested by family and friends.
Epic System holds a medical record on a huge scale which is more than 200 million people. Faulkner and her family hold a 43% stake in the company. Forbes recognized her as “The Most Powerful Women in Healthcare” in 2013 and later, she was included in Forbes’ list of America’s Top 50 women in Tech in 2018.
Doris F. Fisher
Doris F. Fisher is co-founder of the clothing stores The Gap with her late husband Donald Fisher in 1969. She has served at Stanford University as a trustee. She shows a huge interest in art collection, she and her husband Donald Fisher collected around 1100 works by 185 artists including Richard Serra, Ellsworth Kelly, and Andy Warhol throughout their lives, they loaned their collection to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the largest modern art museum in the United States currently because of her dedicated efforts.
Her three sons- Robert J. Fisher, William S. Fisher, and John J. Fisher took over the business. She has succeeded to make her space in Forbes’ list of 100 Most Powerful Women.
Diane Hendricks
Diane Hendricks is an American businesswoman and a film producer from Wisconsin. She started her career in 1975 as a seller of custom-built houses and here she met Ken Hendricks who were roofing contractors, soon they married and became business partners.
In 1982 they established a company that sells roofing, windows, gutters and siding for residential as well as commercial buildings and named the company ABC Supply. She has also produced several movies like The Stoning of Soraya M., (2008), An American Carol, (2008) and Snowmen, (2010). In 2018 She was included in Forbes’ list of the US’ richest self-made women.
Carly Fiorina
Cara Carleton “Carly” Fiorina is an American businesswoman, from 1999 to 2005 served as CEO in a company like Hewlett-Packard better known as HP, a computer and electronic devices manufacturing company.
In 2002 HP acquired its rival personal computer manufacturer Compaq; this deal made HP the largest seller of personal computers. She also served in Good360 as chairwoman, a philanthropic organisation.
She started her career in AT & T as a management trainee in 1980 and within a decade in 1990, she was honoured as the first female vice president.
AT & T’s spin-off Lucent Technologies’ designation of corporate operations was held by her, she was credited for implementing the 1996 initial public offering of a successful stock and company launch strategy, hence making that spin-off one of the most successful IPOs in the history of the US. She was the first woman to lead a Fortune Top 20 company.
Marian Ilitch
Marian Bayoff Ilitch is an American Businesswoman who co-founded Little Caesars Pizza with her late husband Mike Ilitch in 1959. Now they have acquired in the field of sports, restaurants, entertainment, and gaming.
Apart from Little Caesars Pizza, she also holds Blue Line Foodservice Distribution, Little Caesars Pizza Kit Fundraising Program, Champion Foods, Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Tigers, Olympia Entertainment, Olympia Development, and several other food services and entertainment venues.
In 1994 she was included in the Greater Detroit Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners as one of Michigan’s Top 25 women business owners and in 2001 inducted into Michigan’s Women Hall of Fame; in 2008 she was elected to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.
She was ranked as the number one-woman business owner in the nation by Working Woman Magazine. And as Bloomberg listed in 2018, she was one of the world’s seven richest women.
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Gail Winfrey is one of those woman entrepreneurs who successfully came up with something new and established their identity as strong and innovative-minded women.
She was born on 29 January 1954 in Mississippi, belonged to a poor family, and was raised by single mother Vernita Lee. She is an American talk show host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, a Philanthropist, Actress, Author, and Television producer.
She has been the richest African-American billionaire and also had the honour of the greatest Black Philanthropist in the US. Her life did not go very smoothly and her initial life was filled with many emotional obstacles.
She herself revealed that she was molested in her childhood and had to bear a boy at the age of 14 who could not survive due to premature birth.
But she gathered herself and moved ahead in life and at the age of 19 she became the co-anchor for local evening news but soon transferred to a third-rated daytime talk show which gained great success after her engagement with the show and after the success of this show, she started her production company.
She has been honoured with many awards and several nominations include 18 Daytime Emmy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, Tony Award, Peabody Award, Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, Academy Award, and two more Academy Award nominations, also appointed as a member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021. She succeeded in making her place in the National Women Hall of Fame in 1994.
Lynda Resnick
Lynda Rae Resnick along with her husband Stewart Resnick founded the company named The Wonderful Company, which is used to facilitate business ventures. Lynda Resnick founded an advertisement agency called Lynda Limited at the very young age of 19.
Several other brands owned by Resnick couple POM Wonderful, Wonderful Halos, Wonderful Pistachios, and Fiji Water also hold clutches on some Californian large industrial citrus and nut farms. In 1979 Resnick acquired Teleflora as well; soon Lynda held the designation of executive vice president of marketing and also served as president.
As co-owner of Teleflora’s holding company, she was involved in securing flagship TV sponsorship roles. In 2009 she came up with the Super Bowl advertisement, which was recognised as one of the best Super Bowl ads by several newspapers, blogs, and online fan sites.
She co-authored a book with Francis Wilkinson, which was named ‘Rubies in the Orchard: How to Uncover the Hidden Gems in your Business’, which illuminates her life through her marketing strategies to make successful brands.
In 2019, she founded a female-focused luxury wine brand, named JNSQ. She has been honoured as a life trustee in Los Angeles County Museums of Art also is a trustee emeritus of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Johnelle Hunt
Johnelle Terria Hunt is one of the famous American women billionaires, the wife of Late Johnnie Bryan Hunt, in 1961 she with her husband co-founded a Transport Company named J.B. Hunt Transport Services, the US’ largest publicly owned trucking company. Hunt was born on 4 January 1932, in Heber Springs, Arkansas.
She dropped out of the University of Central Arkansas. Until 2007 She has served on the boards of J.B. Hunt Transport Services. She is having two children; her son Bryan Hunt is serving on the Boards of J.B. Hunt Transport Services. $3.5 billion was the net estimation of her wealth as of November 2020. She has been honoured with Arkansas’ Women Hall of Fame in 2015.
Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Sandberg is another name on the list of famous women entrepreneurs, COO of Meta Platforms, and founder of Leanin.Org and in 2012 became the first woman to be introduced to the boards of directors of Facebook.
She has also served in Google before joining Facebook as vice president of global online sales and operations and during this time she increased the ad and sales team from 4 people to 4,000.
And before serving Google she served as United States Secretary of the Treasury as chief of staff for Larry Summers under President Bill Clinton on forgiving debt in the developing world during the Asian Financial Crisis.
After joining Facebook, she started to analyze things and introduce some initiatives to make Facebook more profitable and, in her influence, the company agreed to invest in advertisements with the ads discreetly presented before this company was really interested in building a cool site.
Soon she very well looks into operations which include human resources, human development, marketing, communications, sales, and public policy. “Why we have too few women leaders”, her speech in TED in December 2010 gained huge applause.
In 2012 she made her place in Time 100, an annual list of most influential people in the world. Sandberg is marked to be worth $1.8 billion, due to her stocks in Facebook and other companies, as of December 2019.
Each woman mentioned in this list deserves huge applause, clearly aware of the women’s contribution in several fields. Here we find women as co-founders, CEO, Host, Film producer, and Entrepreneurs and there are other fields as well which could not make their name in this list but contributed from their efforts in their respective fields.
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