How The World’s Most Powerful Female CEOs Made Their Way To The Top

Susan Wojcicki

Bureau – YouTube

Income – $15 billion (2019)

Capital – $500 million

Age – 51

Susan Wojcicki has been the Chief Executive Officer of YouTube since 2014, but before that, she was an entrepreneur and one of today’s most successful female CEOs. When Wojcicki was only eleven, she began her foremost business by trading spice ropes to her neighbors in Palo Alto, California.

After writing for her institution’s newspaper, she aimed for a degree in humanities and took on her foremost computer science subject in university. She graduated with a degree in literature and history from Harvard. She was preparing to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy in economics but found her perturb in technology. It led her to interchange her professional plans and pursue a career in academia.

Later on, she got a job in marketing for Intel. It is where she met Sergey Brin, and Larry Page, the Google founders, through a mutual friend. To build their search engine, the duo rented Wojcicki’s garage and shortly rented all her rooms on the ground floor to have more space to work. They continued to work hard on their new project, which eventually paid off. Wojcicki received financial help from Google since her husband was struggling to make ends meet with a baby on the way, student loan dues, and a mortgage. The additional income helped them stay afloat during a difficult time.

By 1999, she had become Google’s marketing manager and sixteenth employee. She was responsible for the company’s online marketing and advertising initiatives. After being promoted to Senior V.P. of Commerce and Advertising, she supervised Google’s Google Vid Service – a competitor to YouTube at the time. Wojcicki saw potential in YouTube and proposed that Google buy the site. She eventually oversaw its possession for 1.65 billion dollars in 2006.

Lisa Su

Bureau – AMD

Income – $6.73 billion (2019)

Capital – $217 million (estimated)

Age – 50

The hardware in AMD’s products has become ubiquitous; you can find it inside your MacBook and the popular gaming consoles PS4 and Xbox One. Even military-grade drones used for defense rely on AMD components.

At the helm of AMD are Lisa Su- from Taiwan, and an American business executive and computer engineer. Starting her journey in various technical positions at International Business Machines, Freescale Semiconductor, and Texas Instruments before she became CEO and head of AMD in 2014; today, Su leads the firm that develops computer processors for both the consumer markets and business.

When Su arrived in the United States from Taiwan at age three, her statistician father urged her to learn science and mathematics. Su’s mother was an actuary who began her own business, exposing Su to various aspects of running a company. Since she was a child, Su has always been curious. She desired to be an engineer to understand how things worked.

At age ten, she began repairing her brother’s remote cars. Later, she attended Bronx High School and studied computer engineering at MIT. Her first jobs during her undergraduate degree were working as a research helper and creating test semiconductor wafers for undergraduates. In addition, she worked at Analog Devices during the summers, further developing her likeness in silicon-based engineering.

Ph.D. student Su was the foremost researcher to study a potential new technique for boosting semiconductor technology. Fortune journal named Lisa as one of the World’s topmost Leaders in 2017.

Lynsi Snyder

Bureau – In-N-Out Burger

Income – $575 million (2017 estimated)

Capital – $3.6 billion (2020)

Age – 37

In-N-Out Burger is the epitome of fancy junk food on the American west coast. Founded in 1948 by Esther Snyder and Harry, Lynsi Snyder is the possessor and heiress of the family-owned property.

The key to the brand’s success is its persistence and appreciation for tradition – buns are still slow-baked each morning; the restaurant hand-cuts its fries from potatoes, grinds meat in-house daily, and has kept burger and fry recipes unchanged for 70 years. To ensure their food is fresh, they don’t keep any freezers, microwaves, or heat lamps in their kitchens.

Lynsi Snyder’s path to CEO was far from typical. She didn’t finish college, her father succumbed to drug misuse, and she lost him, and she has battled addiction and gone through 3 divorces. If Rich Snyder, her uncle, hadn’t passed away in a plane crash, he would still be the Chief executive officer today. After losing many family members, Snyder drew energy from her faith – Christianity. Using her experiences, she maintained In-N-Out’s quality 1950s healthful before eventually helping it grow into a billion-dollar company.

Her first job was at In-N-Out, where she worked the money register and separated lettuce leaves. She married at 18 and took a job in corporate merchandising, approving projects such as T-shirt styles. She then moved to different divisions and taught herself how the business is run.

Mark Taylor, an In=N=Out executive and Lynsi’s brother-in-law passed on the title to her in 2010. At only 27 years old, she was spearheading In=N=Out, while it generated an estimated $550 million in sales from 251 locations.

Marilyn Hewson

Bureau – Lockheed Martin

Income – $453.76 billion (2018)

Capital – $88.2 million (2020 estimated)

Age – 66

Lockheed Martin, an American universal security and aerospace company, is home to some of the World’s most sophisticated fighter weapons. One of the World’s most inspiring ladies, Marillyn Hewson, potentially leads this successful organization.

The company boasts contracts with America’s most well-known institutions, such as the FBI, NSA, PENTAGON, CIA, and IRS. In 2008, it received a whopping 36 billion dollars through government agreements – more than any other company has ever received.

Hewson’s mother was an ex-member of the WAC, and she attributes her leadership ability to her mother. Her father departed from them when she was 9 years old, so her mother raised 5 kids alone. She joined Lockheed Martin after completing her undergraduate business management qualification, and her Master’s in economics from Alabama University. She later attended managerial training programs at Harvard and Columbia Business School.

In 1983, she became a part of the Lockheed Company as a superior operations manager. She then held several executive positions, like President & COO, L.P., EVP of Global Sustainment, etc. In 2013, she became the CEO after being elected to Lockheed Martin’s team of directors.

Whitney Wolfe Herd

Bureau – Bumble

Income – $162 million (2018)

Capital – $290 million (2019)

Age – 30

At only 20 years old, Whitney Wolfe Herd showed incredible social awareness by starting a business that sold bamboo tote bags. The young entrepreneur did this to help regions impacted by the devastating B.P. oil spill in 2010. She decided to start the ‘Help Us Project,’ a not-for-profit institution, with the help of Patrick Aufdenkamp, a celebrity stylist. This project blew up soon after its creation when Rachel Zoe and Nicole Richie were seen carrying her bags around.

After graduation, Wolfe Herd spent some time working in orphanages around South-Eastern Asia before joining Hatch Labs when she was 22. At an NYC incubator, she contacted Sean Rad and got engaged with Cardiff, a startup company. After the project’s failure, In 2012, she soon joined Rad’s other venture – that Chris Gulczynski was also a part of.

Wolfe Herd not only became the MM for Tinder but is also credited with coming up with the app’s memorable name. The fire in the logo symbolizes her Montana childhood when she would use tiny sticks (Tinder) to create fires in the fireplace at her father’s cabin. After an intense fallout with her superiors at Tinder, Wolfe Herd quit in 2014 to create a dating app that would give women more say–and Bumble was created. By 2017, the application had pulled in 22 million registered users.

Being one of the essential women in technology, she is also the proud CEO of MagicLab- newly acquired and housing multiple trending dating apps (Badoo, Latch, Bumble). It’s esteemed at a value of 3 billion dollars with an educated estimate of seventy-five million users worldwide across its overall system.

Mary Barra

Bureau – General Motors

Income – $147 billion (2018)

Capital – $55.8 million (2019 estimated)

Age – 58

For Mary Barra, working in the automotive industry is part of her heritage. Her father spent thirty-nine years employed at the Pontiac factory in Detroit. Additionally, she received her degree in computer engineering from General Motors academy. In 1980, when she was only 18 years old, General Motors employed her as a cooperative student while she studied. Part of her job required checking hoods and fender panels for quality assurance. Luckily, G.M. also paid her enough to finance her college education at the same time.

Barra worked her way up through G.M., starting in engineering and moving on to administrative positions before running the whole assembly plant. Using a General Motors fellowship, she attended GSB and obtained her Master’s in BBA degree.

By 2014, she had risen through the ranks to become the first woman to run an automobile manufacturing company due to her great dedication to the business.

Ginni Rometty

Bureau – IBM

Income 79.59 billion dollars (2018)

Capital – 90 million dollars

Age – 62

Ginni Rometty grew up as the oldest sibling. When she was only fifteen, her father left the family home, so she quickly became responsible for caring for her younger siblings in the late afternoon when her mom worked numerous jobs. This early experience helped shape Ginni into a leader later in life.

Under a G.M. scholarship, she attended NU in 1975 and interned for the company between her junior and senior years. In 1979, Rometty graduated with a high class from the G.M. Institute with a degree in computer technology and computer engineering. She then began her profession at the institute. 2 years later, she landed a job at International Business Machines as a systems engineer and system analyst. From there, she forwarded up through the ranks, eventually landing many management jobs related to sales.

In 2002, Ginni successfully negotiated an agreement to buy the consulting branch of PricewaterhouseCoopers for 3.5 billion dollars. The acquisition was the most expensive in executive services, allowing IBM to enter the industry.

In 2012, Rometty became IBM’s first female CEO and president in the company’s one-eighty years history. Recently, it announced that she would be stepping down as IBM’s Chief executive officer, with Arvind Krishna as the new CEO of IBM.

Sonia Cheng

Bureau – Rosewood Hotel Group

Income – N/A

Capital – $20.7 billion (family worth)

Age – 39

Sonia Cheng, the thirty-year Chief executive officer of the Rosewood Hotel Group, was born into one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families. However, she has left her indelible mark on the World. She is a powerful and successful businesswoman who is an inspiration to many.

In 2011, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts was acquired by New World Hospitality Group, a Hong Kong-based company owned by billionaire Cheng Yu-Tung and his family. Since then, Cheng’s granddaughter, Vanessa Cheng, has been leading the hotel group’s aggressive expansion into new markets around the World. Rosewood’s expansion under Cheng’s leadership has been impressive, with the company opening 28 new hotels in 16 different countries. Cheng aims to make Rosewood a more appealing brand for younger customers. So far, she seems to succeed as the company continues to grow and expand into new markets.

Cheng graduated from Harvard with a degree in applied mathematics and worked as a real estate banker for Morgan Stanley and the private capital company Warburg Pincus. From this experience, she discovered how small businesses develop and expand into bigger firms. She also grasped how to form competent administration teams and deal with problems related to overseeing growing businesses.

When 30-year-old Cheng first moved into her position at Rosewood, she was criticized by competitors and others who said she was just a rich kid playing around in the hotel business. Although some people wondered whether she could live up to her dad’s and grandfather’s legacies, Cheng is starting to change that perception today. Thanks to the humble values instilled in her by her family, Cheng saw how her dad and granddad earned loyalty and respect from the team to reach the goal.

After taking some time to familiarize herself with the features of how various departments in the hotel work, she decided to focus on the Rosewood Hotel Group. In 2020, they announced thirty- two new projects – their highest number yet.

Maggie Timoney

Bureau – Heineken USA

Income – €21.89 billion (2017 global)

Capital – N/A

Age -54

After being appointed the first woman manager of one of America’s most prominent beer firms, Maggie Timoney mentioned something unusual. At the business group’s yearly gathering in San Diego – which included most of the men who distribute beer – she announced: “I’ll be judged on my results, not on whether I’m male or female. I was put in this job not because I am a woman. I was put in this job because Amsterdam believed in me.”

Timoney’s cutthroat attitude in the workplace can be accredited to her earlier basketball days. As the youngest of four kids born in Ireland, she played on teams and learned how to correlate winning strategies between sports and work. She found that even though there were basketball teams composed of only boys or girls, they needed to join these teams when it was time to play against other teams – this increased their chances of victory. Basketball would naturally teach her self-empowerment, confidence, and resilience.

While attending college in NY, Timoney landed a job in the cheap alcohol industry. She started with Heineken America in 1990 as a national planning executive for sales. She was quickly promoted to superior positions in the Netherlands and later to Canada as G.M. After she moved back to the States, she became the senior V.P. of H.R. Ultimately, she excelled in this position even though she had no prior experience. After spending nearly two decades at Heineken, she was finally promoted to the highest job–a role in which she utilized her skills in international distribution, global partnerships, and strategic planning.

In 2018, she gave a speech about her newly found responsibility: “I understand that I have a lot of duty to perform for Heineken USA, the industry, me and my family, and for women leaders and youngsters all around who see me as an example.”

Safra Catz

Bureau – Oracle

Income – $39.1 billion (2020)

Capital – $1.1 billion

Age – 59

Safra Catz was only 6 when she and her family moved from Israel to the U.S. Even though she had an unremarkable childhood, Safra still managed to graduate from school and then study law at university. After working her way up in the banking industry, she finally secured a managing director position at Lufkin & Jenrette. Eventually, she was promoted to senior V.P. before leaving the company in 1999 to join Oracle Corporation. There, she started holding the same position as Senior V.P.

Having moved up the positions quickly due to her great talent, She joined the executive committee in 2001 and became boss in 2004. Her most significant accomplishment with Oracle came when they acquired PeopleSoft, their bitter software rival. The 10.3 billion dollar takeover earned Catz a place among the most influential women in the company and the role of CFO. Donald Trump’s election was a turning point for many high-profile Chief executive officers like Sheryl Sandberg, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Cook. They were all considered for positions in the incoming management. Today, she is America’s Top-Paid, Female Chief executive officer in a company. She’s also had the esteemed privilege of being a member of The Walt Disney Company’s executive board since 2017.

FAQs

Who is Susan Wojcicki?

Susan Wojcicki is the Chief Executive Officer of YouTube. She has been with the enterprise since its inception in 2005 and has played a considerable role in its growth into the popular video-sharing site it is today. Wojcicki has been instrumental in developing YouTube’s partnerships with content creators and advertisers, making it the triumphant platform it is today.

Who is Michelle Timoney?

Michelle Timoney is the present CEO of Heineken USA. She has been with the business since 1990 and has played a vital role in its growth into an international beer brewing giant. Timoney’s wealth of experience and dedication to her work has made her a key leader within the business. She has assisted Heineken USA in achieving enormous triumph in recent years.

Who is Safra Catz?

Safra Catz has been the CEO of Oracle Corporation since 1999. She was instrumental in the company’s growth into the software giant it is today. Under her leadership, Oracle has become one of the most successful and innovative companies in the World. Safra is a passionate advocate for technology and its potential to change the World.

What did Safra Catz do that earned her a place among the most powerful women in business?

Safra Catz is the president of Oracle Corporation and one of the most powerful women in business. She earned her place among the elite when she successfully oversaw the US$10.3 billion takeover of PeopleSoft, Oracle’s bitter software rival. Catz is known for her tough negotiating tactics and her no-nonsense attitude when it comes to business.

What is one similarity between Maggie Timoney and Safra Catz?

Maggie Timoney and Safra Catz have a lot in common. Both women are highly respected for their accomplishments in the business world. They are known for their intelligence and successes in their respective fields. In addition, they both share a commitment to excellence and a drive to achieve the best results possible. It makes them role models for other women in business and anyone who wants to succeed in their field.

Who is the target audience for these articles?

The target audience for these articles is anyone interested in learning about successful women in business. These articles would be particularly useful for young women who are looking to enter the business world and need some guidance. By reading about other women’s successes, they can understand what is possible if they put their minds to it.

What can readers learn from these articles?

Readers can learn the significance of hard work, dedication, and resilience in attaining success. These contents also provide insights into how to build and accomplish a successful career plan. Eventually, readers can gain inspiration and motivation from these articles by learning about the astonishing achievements of these successful women.