women leaders

The Soul of Leadership

Bess Gallanis — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:54:47 -0500

Leadership development programs that integrate personal and professional development are gaining traction, a topic I explore in ”The Soul of Leadership: An Executive Education,” in the J

The Most Influential Women in Technology

Lynne d Johnson, Ellen McGirt, and Sherri Smith — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:46:05 -0500

We inadvertently ignited a firestorm late last year when we posted a story on fastcompany.com called "The Most Influential Women in Web 2.0." The post became the subject of heated debate on the user-recommendation site Digg, as well as on our own site.

2009 BIO International Convention

Women in Tech: The Executives

Fast Company Staff — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:46:04 -0500

- Genevieve Bell
Director
User Experience Group
Intel

- Sandy Carter
VP, Service-Oriented Architecture & WebSphere Marketing
IBM

- Safra Catz
President
Oracle

- Susan DeckerPresident
Yahoo

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Women in Tech: The Entrepreneurs

Fast Company Staff — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:46:03 -0500

-Gina Bianchini
cofounder and CEO
Ning

This custom social-network maker made a splash on our May 2008 cover, and not just because she knew what a viral expansion loop was. With 500,000-plus networks now running on Ning, the company has had its share of developer challenges but remains cashed up and growing.

-Caterina Fake
cofounder
Flickr
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Women in Tech: The Gamers

Fast Company Staff — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:46:01 -0500

-Paulina Bozek
Development Director
Atari

After a six-year tenure at Sony running the 15-million-copy SingStar franchise, Bozek was tapped in September to revitalize Atari.

-Lucy Bradshaw
Executive Producer
Electronic Arts
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Women in Tech: The Evangelists

Fast Company Staff — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:46:00 -0500

-Mitchell Baker
Chairwoman
Mozilla Foundation

Baker, a part-time trapeze artist, is a full-time advocate for open-source software and an Internet that functions as a public resource.

-Danah Boyd
ethnographer and social-media expert
Microsoft Research New England
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Women in Tech: The Activists

Fast Company Staff — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:45:58 -0500

-Yvette J. Alberdingk Thijm
executive director
Witness

A member of Witness's board of directors since 2005, Alberdingk Thijm joined the nonprofit human-rights video community full time in 2008.

-Dana Bourland
senior director
Enterprise Community Partners' Green Communities
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Women in Tech: The Brainiacs

Fast Company Staff — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:45:57 -0500

-Vice Admiral Nancy Brown
Adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff

In the future, technology will be both the means of waging war and the key to keeping peace. Brown has literally written the book: Her Joint Net-Centric Operations Campaign Plan is the strategy to "better integrate and synchronize joint community transformation and maximize joint warfighting capabilities." Sit up straight when you read that, soldier.
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Women in Tech: The Bloggers

Fast Company Staff — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:45:55 -0500

-Heather Armstrong
Dooce

Best known for getting fired for blogging about her work life, Armstrong coined the term for the experience: "dooce." Now she's the model for mommy blogging, writing with humor and candor about her battles with depression, being a former Mormon, and, yes, the rugrats. Apparently, honesty puts food on the table too.

-Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins, and Lisa Stone
BlogHer
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The Hours

Margaret Heffernan — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:18:00 -0500

"Your people do turn up for work, don't they?" I was once asked by the chairman of my company. He was peeved. In his own office, he'd come in very, very early -- and not see anyone. When he left at night (very, very late) he couldn't see anyone either. He worked every waking hour. Why didn't everybody else?
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The Best of Both Worlds

Linda Tischler — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:42:58 -0500

To add additional context to Linda Tischler's feature story, Fast Company offers two edited transcripts of interviews with Professor Charles A. O'Reilly at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Catherine Hakim, a sociology professor at the London School of Economics.

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Feminine Mystique

Fara Warner — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:42:47 -0500

The Nike story -- from the shoes to the ads to the stores -- has always been fueled by a healthy dose of testosterone. So as the leaders of the Nike Goddess movement work to make the company's products and messages more compelling to women, they have been exploring a question so basic that it feels almost seditious: What does "feminine" mean, anyway?

Their search for answers did not take them to Milan's fashion runways or to Martha Stewart's kitchen. Instead, they looked to the burgeoning field of biomimicry, which seeks design ideas from the logic of nature.
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Carving Out a Niche

Anni Layne Rodgers — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:41:14 -0500

Roberta Rodger is a fiery 24-year-old with a penchant for mad half pipes and backcountry powder. She's also a calculating businesswoman, plotting ambitious sales forecasts and innovative marketing ploys. But, most notably, Rodger is a woman scorned -- and she's vowed never to be disregarded again.
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Sister Cities

Fast Company — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:40:43 -0500

In this age of economic distress and emotional despair, leaders need to demonstrate more strength and compassion than ever before. As company executives work to balance hard-line authority with softer initiatives, women are rising to the top as humane bosses with winning principles.
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Stay on Track

Anni Layne — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:38:55 -0500

Rounding turn four at roughly three times the interstate speed limit, Sarah Fisher heard the command from her pit crew crackle distinctly through her helmet's headset: "Green flag! You've got a green flag!" Barreling headlong toward the front straightaway in the number-15 car, she slammed down the gas pedal and rocketed past the grandstand at nearly 200 MPH as 500,000 fans leaped to their feet in rapt anticipation.
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Survival Tactic: Recognize Your Female Talent

Nancy Einhart — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:36:01 -0500

Most companies recognize that corporate America needs to usher more women into its upper ranks. They just don't understand why or how female executives serve their self-interest.
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Report From the Past - Jane Harper

Anni Layne — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:35:56 -0500

As competitors like Gateway and Hewlett-Packard sag under the weight of fourth-quarter sales slumps, IBM is standing stock-straight and enjoying the view. Earlier this month, Big Blue punctured the gloom and doom of Wall Street with a ray of sunshine: an end-of-year earnings report that actually exceeded analyst projections.
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Survival Tactic: Recognize Your Female Talent, Part Two

Nancy Einhart — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:35:52 -0500

Most companies recognize that corporate America needs to usher more women into its upper ranks. They just don't understand why or how female executives serve their self-interest.
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Susan Defife

Liz Zack — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:31:59 -0500

Susan Defife heads up the leading source of news and community on women in business -- Womenconnect.com. The site offers a variety of features catered to women business owners, including an updated news service, a directory of community leaders, and vibrant discussion groups.

How did you know how to start a business? Who taught you how to do that?
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Stephanie Allen

Erika Germer — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:31:23 -0500

After amassing two decades of experience in leadership and program development, Stephanie Allen took the plunge in 1989 by founding her own for-profit organization called the Athena Group. Allen's company now consults major companies, helping them to understand the potential of women as extraordinary employees. The Athena Group addresses gender differences at work, sexual harassment in the workplace, masculine and feminine perspectives, and methods for understanding customer bases.

Do you think your gender has helped or hindered your career?
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Melissa Moss

Marla Abramson — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:30:05 -0500

Melissa Moss is president of the Women's Consumer Network, an affinity-marketing group that works to provide goods and services to women by leveraging their collective purchasing power in the marketplace.

How did you get involved in your company?
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Carolyn Stradley

Liz Zack — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:29:48 -0500

Carolyn Stradley has overcome some unbelievably debilitating hardships. She was orphaned in a North Georgia shack at the age of 11, homeless in Atlanta at 13, married at 15, pregnant at 17, and widowed at 26.
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Cec Ortiz

Liz Zack — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:29:35 -0500

Cec Ortiz was a political appointment for the governor of Colorado, heading his small business development centers around the country and later spearheading the state's Minority Women's Business Outreach Program. Late in 1998 she was downsized, and left without work. It was time to make some decisions. A 9 to 5 job? Or was it time to expand upon her skill at getting community leaders to the discussion table to a new level? Just six months ago, Ortiz decided to start her own business.

How did you know what to do?
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Melissa Bradley

Liz Zack — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:28:58 -0500

Melissa Bradley got her MBA, took a job in corporate America, and hated every hour she spent there. Then, she decided to design her future. She created a company that works with Fortune 500 companies to help them build community development projects. She created an investment division that looks to fund business ventures of women under the age of 35. She is living the dream (although sleeping sometimes less than four hours a night) and loving it.

How did you learn how to start your own business?
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Athena, CEO

Fast Company — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:28:28 -0500

The story of every late 20th Century businesswoman began in 1848, when two bold and brassy suffragists drafted a declaration of independence for women in the New World. At their historical Seneca Falls conference, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Brownell Anthony asked for nothing less than equality. More than 150 years later, like-minded businesswomen are no longer asking - they are taking what belongs to them and offering no apologies in return.
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