Fortune Most Powerful Women

Michelle Wahler just dropped off her kid at college. At least that’s how she describes the decision to step back from her company, Beyond Yoga, after 18 years of running the business. bit.ly/3W561O7 Wahler joined the brand’s first founder, Jodi Guber Brufsky, to bring a vision for size-inclusive activewear to life in 2005 and sold the brand to Levi Strauss in a buzzy acquisition in 2021. The $400 million deal was the $6.2 billion denim-maker’s entry into the activewear category and a way to reach more female shoppers. Wahler stayed with the brand through the acquisition and stepped down in early 2024; her successor is Nancy Green, the former CEO of Athleta. The acquisition has been seen as a success story. For Wahler, it came out of nowhere; she got a cold LinkedIn message from a Levi’s executive and initially though Levi’s was interested in some sort of brand collaboration. 

“It’s been a real privilege to be able to get to know Warren and get to learn from him.” In an interview with Fortune at the 2015 Most Powerful Women Summit, General Motors CEO Mary Barra shared the best way to secure Warren Buffett’s “vote of confidence.” “As we were going through the challenges last year, he was great at affirming, that our strategy to do the right thing for the customer, do it right, do it fast, and correct the situation, was absolutely right,” Barra said. bit.ly/3W0FVf9

"You don't have to be a therapist to everyone you lead, but you have to care about who they are as humans," Brené Brown tells Fortune in an exclusive interview. After speaking with countless Fortune 500 executives, Brown says that irrespective of industry, leaders want to live more courageously but don’t know how. “We know that courage is teachable, observable, and measurable, but we also know that for the change to be lasting, we need to go deeper," says Brown, a New York Times bestselling author on shame and vulnerability and a research professor at the University of Houston. Here's what it looks like to lead with resilience and courage: bit.ly/4czv1UC

“I learned everything I needed to know to be a CEO when I was little.” TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett, said last year at the commencement speech of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania’s MBA program. During childhood, Duckett built the skill that she claims to be central to her success: her character. “My purpose is fueled by my ownable asset—my character. Character is what drives it all,” she said, adding that she emphatically believes her purpose in life is to “inspire and make impact.” Duckett is currently one of only two Black women serving as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. And while character is an enduring virtue, the same can’t be said for our jobs. bit.ly/4eUFGL7

Wall Street veteran Sallie Krawcheck built Ellevest into a $2 billion juggernaut that creates wealth for women. Before that, she climbed the ranks of Wall Street in the 90s, eventually going on to serve as the CEO of Sanford Bernstein, and CFO of Citigroup. And throughout her career, she was often vastly outnumbered by her male colleagues.  “Whether I wanted to or not, I stuck out,” she recently told Fortune. But Krawcheck embraced the idea of standing out, ultimately using the gender imbalance to her advantage. Read more in Azure Gilman's latest edition of #LearningToLead ⤵

“I have the biggest job in front of me right now.” A month after taking on her new role as CEO of Walmart International, Kathryn McLay joined Fortune at it’s 2023 Most Powerful Women summit in Laguna Niguel, California, to discuss her vision for the retail giant’s $100-billion international business—as well as her approach to leadership. McLay, an Australian alum of Woolworths and Qantas, landed her new job after four triumphant years as CEO of Sam’s Club, Walmart’s warehouse club division that logged net sales of $84.3 billion last fiscal year. The promotion saw her rise to No. 14 on the 2023 Fortune Most Powerful Women list (she ranked No. 28 in 2022). bit.ly/46ePXy1

You’ve seen the Mighty Patch before. The tiny, translucent disks are increasingly adorning the faces of Gen Z and millennials when a pimple appears, and over 1 billion of the brand’s signature hydrocolloid patches have sold thus far. Manufacturer Hero Cosmetics also recently netted a partnership with content creator Alix Earle. Founder and CEO Ju Rhyu told Fortune she came up with the idea for the brand while living as an expat in South Korea while working for Samsung in 2012. In 2017, Hero began selling the Mighty Patch, including on e-commerce giant Amazon. But the company initially couldn’t get the product featured on Amazon Prime, which can increase orders by 25% as members get free shipping and other perks. bit.ly/3Lfqcnc

In February, Joanna Geraghty became the CEO of JetBlue. The promotion made the JetBlue veteran the first female CEO to lead a major U.S. airline. But to Geraghty, what could be called both a career and industry milestone is instead all about the business. “It means that I’ve got to deliver,” she told me last month at a luncheon for Concern Worldwide U.S., a nonprofit she chairs. “It’s about results.” Geraghty warned in JetBlue’s first-quarter earnings call, her first as CEO, that the company would miss investor expectations this year as competitors pour into Latin America, a critical region for the airline. The airline’s priority is a return to profitability. With those headwinds, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Geraghty is focused on the business rather than the significance of her promotion. Still, she acknowledges that a female CEO is meaningful in a historically male-dominated industry. bit.ly/4bE9zwp

Hero Cosmetics CEO Ju Rhyu's road to success involved a few bumps: including trying to unlock Amazon Prime. Once unlocked, the Mighty Patch sold out in 90 days! Now, Hero Cosmetics dominates the pimple patch field with their special formula and large variety of discreet patches to choose from. Check out my article on Rhyu's journey to building her empire: https://lnkd.in/gZ98vEBT Read more Fortune.

Sallie Krawcheck still has the gold earrings she wore on the cover of Fortune magazine 22 years ago. On a June 2002 cover, the Wall Street veteran was labeled one of the “last honest analysts,” with a photo that she now deems “weirdly up close” on her face. Only 35 when she took the reins as CEO and chairman of the research firm Sanford C. Bernstein, Krawcheck went on to high-level roles at Fortune 500 giants Citigroup and Bank of America. She now boasts $2 billion in assets under management at Ellevest, an investment platform and financial literacy program primarily for women that she cofounded. And she graced the cover of Fortune not once but twice. Read more from #FortuneArchives and subscribe to our new newsletter! https://lnkd.in/eNn3C-sX