women-owned-business
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Julie Mackenzie’s Other Office Has 27 Sheep
The Minneapolis strategist built a career helping organizations navigate change. Her clearest lessons in continuity, stewardship and scale may have come from an old apple tree, a restored farm and a flock of Rambouillet sheep.
Ellyn Davidson Put in 23 Years Before She Bought the Place
She arrived at Brogan & Partners as a 22-year-old intern. After learning the business from nearly every angle, she became its owner - and kept the agency's most unusual promises intact.
Tina Kozak Came Home to Detroit - Then Bought the Agency That Called Her Back
She nearly became a Spanish teacher, learned communications on the auto-show circuit, and returned to the city she missed. At Franco, a job became a stewardship - and eventually an ownership stake in a 62-year-old Detroit institution.
Nekesa Echols Built a Business Around One Point of Accountability
An 18-year Army veteran turned founder, Echols is building a Texas contractor around a deceptively simple promise: one team owns the work from first survey to final system.
Marion Crawford Learned to Find the Story Before She Built the Agency
Before she sold strategy, Marion Crawford sold bar-code scanners, wrote television news on the ride back to the station and learned to keep the day's number on a sticky note. Those old habits still explain the agency she runs today.
Cara Cross Took the Long Route to Ownership - Through the Sales Floor
She joined Gazelle Sports to help customers find shoes. Fourteen years later, she became one of its two owners - proof that durable brand strategy may begin by listening on the shop floor.
Amanda Christoff Built a Recruiting Firm on the One Thing Hiring Platforms Keep Flattening: Fit
For ten years, the San Francisco recruiter has built Bloom Talent around a stubbornly human idea: the best hire is not a keyword match, but a working relationship that can survive Monday morning.
Barbara Pantuso Put the Agency Office on the Chopping Block
A pastry chef turned strategist built Nimble·Works with her sister, proved a remote agency could grow on judgment instead of overhead, and found an exit without surrendering the experiment.
Dana Kim
Dana Kim is the co-founder and CEO of Highlight, a New York-based product intelligence platform that modernizes in-home product testing for consumer brands. A former qualitative market researcher who spent years collecting insights the slow way - standing in stores with paper surveys for brands like Coca-Cola and Nike - she went to Wharton for an MBA, met co-founder Ethan Kellough, and built a technology-driven alternative that pairs a proprietary consumer community with logistics automation and AI analytics. Founded in 2020, Highlight has raised more than $30 million and works with brands including Nestle, Procter & Gamble and Mondelez. Kim has been named to GreenBook's 2022 Future List and Inc.'s 2024 Female Founders 250 list.
Jessica Talbert
Jessica Talbert is the co-founder and CEO of Park Padel, a San Francisco-based padel club operator she launched in 2022 after discovering the racket sport on a summer trip through Spain. A former strategic UX researcher with a decade in tech at Chime, Lyft and Stanford's Graduate School of Business, she traded user interviews for blue glass courts and now builds membership communities around one of the world's fastest-growing sports. Park Padel raised $5M in seed funding, opened the most visible courts in the US on the Embarcadero, expanded to a six-court flagship in South San Francisco and a club in West Sacramento, and aims to put 100 courts on the ground across Northern California.
Elizabeth Lopez
Elizabeth Lopez is the CEO and founder of Brite Cleaning Industries (BCI), a California-based commercial cleaning and facilities management company she built from a single office client in 2005 into an operation serving over 50 million square feet weekly. A women-owned, GBAC-certified enterprise headquartered in Fremont with reach across Northern and Southern California, BCI serves corporate offices, manufacturers, healthcare facilities, aviation, and government organizations. Lopez is known for her community engagement and for maintaining a 90% employee retention rate and 85% customer retention rate in a demanding service industry.