Women in business world are not to be underestimated. Many people believe that a woman can’t reach heights without the support of a man(especially her husband), these following women will prove that not all the time will women need the supports of a man to be successful.
1. Emily Weiss: Emily Weiss is a American businesswoman who is the founder and CEO of the cosmetics company,Glossier. She was born in March 22,1985. Weiss launched Into the Goss, a blog featuring predominantly interviews with women, in September 2010. She worked at the Vogue side-by-side Into the Gloss.A popular series on the blog is Top Shelf, where subjects are interviewed in their bathrooms and photos of their shelves and medicine cabinets are featured. By early 2012, the site had more than 200,000 unique visitors per month. By May 2016, the site garnered 1.3 million visitors. After Weiss reached 10 million page views per month and acquired corporate partnerships for the site and a small staff, she quit her job at Vogue to focus on her business ventures full-time.In 2014, Weiss started approaching venture capitalists with ideas for expansion. Weiss eventually raised $2 million in seed funding, with the help of venture capitalist Kirsten Green, the founder of San Francisco-based Forerunner Ventures. Weiss used this initial investment to hire a small team and launch Glossier.com.
In October 2014, Weiss introduced Glossier’s first four products on her Into the Gloss blog and announced the launch of Glossier.com. The Glossier team launched the e-commerce site with an all-purpose balm, a facial mist, a sheer skin tint, and a moisturizer.Since its initial launch with four products, Glossier has expanded its product line to include skin serums, masks, shower gel, body lotion, fragrance, lip balms and several other beauty and skincare related items.
Glossier dropped GlossiWEAR on July 17, 2019. In early 2019, Glossier added Glossier Play to its products umbrella. The line includes pigmented and metallic makeup products e.g eyeliners. Glossier’s net worth is $10 Million in 2021.
2. Melanie Perkins:Melanie Perkins,born in 1987 is an Australian technology entrepreneur who is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Canva. She was also the founder of Fusion Books and Obrecht in 2007. Fusion Books allowed students to design their own school yearbooks by using a simple drag-and-drop tool equipped with a library of design templates that could be populated with photos, illustrations, and fonts.Perkins saw how much time was required to design a yearbook and thought the high level of consumer friction would make yearbooks a good niche to test the idea for Canva.Over five years, Fusion Books grew into the largest yearbook company in Australia and expanded into France and New Zealand.Perkins and her mother, Obrecht were originally based in Perth. Perkins claims that she was rejected by over 100 local investors in Perth.
In 2011, prominent investor, Bill Tai visited Perth to judge a start-up competition. Perkins and Obrecht pitched Tai the initial idea for Canva over dinner.They received no funding but became regular fixtures at gatherings hosted by Tai for investors and start-up founders. Some of the gatherings took place in Silicon Valley where Perkins and Obrecht met Lars Rasmussen, a co-founder of Google Maps. He expressed interest in the idea but told the founders to ‘put everything on hold’ until they found a tech team of the calibre required. Rasmussen then became the tech adviser to the business where he introduced Perkins and Obrecht to Cameron Adams, an ex-Google employee with the relevant technical expertise. Adams was initially not interested in joining the business as he was starting his own business called fluent.io, software attempting to disrupt email.[11] Adams was in Silicon Valley trying to raise funds for his start-up when Perkins sent him another email asking if he wanted to join the business.After that email, he agreed to join Canva, becoming its third founder and chief product officer.Perkins is the CEO of one of the few unique start-ups that are profitable. The Australian Financial Review assessed her and Obrecht’s joint net worth as A$7.98 billion on the 2021 rich list.
3. Jesse Genet:Jesse Genet, an American businesswoman,born in 1987 is the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Lumi, a firm that produces packaging and other branded materials for ecommerce ventures. Lumi was founded in 2009.Jesse Genet began experimenting with different printing techniques as a teenager in 2004, attempting to print photographs on cotton T-shirts. Unsatisfied with the results of screen printing and dye-sublimation, she pursued her research and found what became a precursor to Inkodye, a chemical formula from the 1950s owned by a retired engineer. After meeting Stephan Ango while studying at Art Center College of Design, the pair acquired the chemical formula and began modernizing it.In March 2015, Lumi announced its new software platform, Lumi.com, for designing and ordering custom-made packaging. The service was funded by seed capital firm Y Combinator. Lumi’s platform was inspired by the challenges the company had faced in producing packaging for Inkodye.
4. Tara Fela-Durotoye born 6 March 1977 is a Nigerian beauty entrepreneur and lawyer. A pioneer in the bridal makeup profession in Nigeria, she launched the first bridal directory in 1999, set up international standard makeup studios and established the first makeup school in Nigeria. She is the founder and CEO of House of Tara International and also the creator of Tara Orekelewa Beauty range, Inspired Perfume and the H.I.P Beauty range.
As at 2019, House of Tara, had 270 products, 23 stores, 14 beauty schools and 10,000 representatives all around Africa. In 2007, Tara was awarded the Africa SMME Award and the Entrepreneur award in South Africa and in 2013, Forbes listed her as one 20 Young Power Women In Africa. In 2020, the magazine Forbes listed her among “Africa’s 50 Most Powerful Women”.
5. Adenike Ogunlesi: Mrs. Adenike Ogunlesi is the founder & Chief Responsibility Officer of Ruff ‘n’ Tumble, theforemost indigenous lifestyle brand operating to international standards in the design, manufacturing and retail of children clothing.
She has built a reputation for being the best manufacturer of children’s clothing, with a network of stores nationwide. She is an entrepreneur with a great vision and determination who started from the boot of her car and turned Ruff ‘n’ Tumble into a recognizable brand
Adenike is the founding member and the first president of the Network of Entrepreneurial Women (NNEW) at the Nigeria Employer’s Consultative Association (NECA). She was an advisory board member of the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) at the Lagos Business School.She is an advisory board member and mentor at WISCAR (Women in Successful Careers) which is a structured mentoring programme for young women, a mentor at the Mara foundation and an avid motivational speaker.
She won numerous awards and was a finalist at the CNBC AABLA (All Africa Business Leaders Awards) in the category of the Business Woman of the year 2014 and 2015. She was appointed to the Board of Lafarge Africa Plc on March 11, 2015.
Great women with great visions.
These five women proved to us that life is not always a bed full of roses,there will be shortcomings but consistency brings out the best in us.