11 women business leaders to watch in Silicon Valley
11 women business leaders to watch in Silicon Valley
International Women’s History Month began as a weeklong event in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 1978, local teacher Molly Murphy McGregor led a celebration of women’s contributions to culture, history, and society. She pegged the weeklong festivities to International Women’s Day on March 8—a rallying cry for women’s rights advocates dating back to 1908 when thousands of women marched through New York City, demanding better working hours and pay.
In the 1980s, President Jimmy Carter declared March 2-8 Women’s History Week before Congress expanded the holiday to a full month. Now, millions of people around the world celebrate the visionary accomplishments of women every March. From the Olympic podium to ultraviolet light devices that clean hospitals and shared offices in seconds, CANOPY highlights 11 inspiring women transforming the future from San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
Jenn Heil
CEO, Revvel
Freestyle skier Jenn Heil won her first Olympic medal, a gold for Canada, at the 2006 Winter Olympics and later held the Guinness World Record for most World Championship gold medals.
In 2023, after graduating from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Heil turned her energy and winning mindset toward founding RYA, an AI-powered health platform that puts an Olympic-level care team at every woman’s fingertips. Last year, Heil was at the start line once again—this time as CEO of Revvel, which matches women with a personalized team of AI agents built by elite trainers of the world’s best athletes. The goal? To build resiliency, performance, and confidence, and champion womanhood in all forms.
“Women’s health has been a hugely neglected area,” Heil said. “Women don’t have information on managing their health because it doesn’t exist, or their care providers aren’t adequately trained, and we’re looking to close that gap. I’m leveraging my background, taking sports science and blending that with healthcare to bring expertise from disciplines, including nutrition, physiotherapy, and kinesiology, to the everyday woman.”
Sam De Brouwer
Cofounder and CEO of XY.AI Labs; Curator and Producer, TEDAI San Francisco
Sam De Brouwer founded agentic AI health platform XY.AI Labs in 2023 after seeing firsthand how AI agents could solve problems to help mitigate the $1.5T “soul-crushing frictions” of healthcare operations. By offering a suite of AI agents to automate operations for revenue cycle management (RCM), data entry, document processing, and scheduling, XY.AI Labs gives clinicians more time to focus on care, not clicks. De Brouwer also curates and produces TEDAI, the first-of-its-kind TED Conference in San Francisco, inspired by her nonprofit work with One Laptop per Child from MIT Media Lab and TED conferences.
“I’m excited by the opportunities that generative AI can offer in education and healthcare, specifically in medicine and biotech, and how it could accelerate discoveries for new treatments and therapeutics,” De Brouwer said. “I’m also fascinated by the conversations that generative AI triggers and how it pushes us to think and reflect on progress. It’s almost like witnessing a new cycle of human evolution in real-time.”
Tory Schenkkan
Managing Director, AvroKO SF
Interior designer Tory Schenkkan worked in New York before returning to San Francisco, her home city, to raise a family and oversee the local studio of the critically acclaimed hospitality design firm AvroKO.
Globally, AvroKO has delivered projects in 22 countries, including the Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab in Dubai—a textured aesthetic journey across continents and cities—and Thailand’s BKK Social Club, which pays homage to Argentine cuisine and the Belle Époque era of Buenos Aires in 1900. In the Bay Area, recent projects include SingleThread Farms in Healdsburg, a restaurant and inn with three Michelin stars, the Jay Hotel in San Francisco’s Financial District, and the reimagination of a former popular stagecoach stop and Prohibition-era hangout into coastal escape The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern.
“It’s a challenging industry and can take a lot out of you, but there’s nothing like walking into a space you spent months or even years fussing over every detail and seeing all your ideas fully realized,” Schenkkan said. “If you want a career in interior design, go for it!”
Catherine Crystal Foster
Founder and Principal, Crystal Foster Advising
Catherine Crystal Foster has decades of experience as a social entrepreneur and philanthropic leader, most recently as vice president, advisory, at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, where she led the San Francisco-based team to serve clients worldwide, accelerating hundreds of millions of dollars in philanthropic capital for ultrahigh-net-worth families, independent foundations, and corporate foundations.
Now, Crystal Foster is dedicated to helping families and philanthropic organizations deliver “greater joy, meaning, and impact” under her eponymous advisory.
“In this moment of fundamental rupture and breathtaking change across the U.S. government and civil society, there’s no shortage of thoughtful counsel and alarm-ringing within the philanthropic sector,” Crystal Foster said. “But this chaotic moment gives donors the precious opportunity to ground themselves in their ‘why,’ recommit to their ‘what,’ while revising their ‘how’ (the way they give). This grounding process can both activate the courage necessary to address current challenges and influence others who otherwise might not feel emboldened to act.”
Liz Whitman
Founder and CEO, Exponent Beauty
Antioxidants are fabulous anti-aging ingredients because they fight free radicals, but they’re fragile and degrade easily—despite efficacy claims, today’s skincare products contain premixed ingredients that degrade within weeks when exposed to light and air. Serial entrepreneur Liz Whitman’s “aha” moment came when she was President of The Red Door by Elizabeth Arden, a marquee salon- and spa-inspired beauty brand. Inspired by the way talented estheticians optimized skincare by mixing it immediately before treatment, Whitman founded and patented Exponent Beauty: the first skincare system that protects active ingredients in a powder format for peak potency.
Exponent Beauty’s first product line, a consumer line of power serums available at Credo Beauty and Nordstrom, is patented to seamlessly dose clinical-grade vitamin C, retinol, and CoQ10 with hyaluronic acid to visibly reduce fine lines, wrinkles, and discoloration. Stamp, pump, mix in the palm of your hand, and apply.
“People who use Exponent products see visible changes in their skin within one to two weeks—we’ve had customers report that their stubborn sunspots have faded within a very short period of time, which is incredible,” Whitman said. “Getting to a place in my career where I can make a product that I know for sure works is such a pleasure and a privilege.”
Charlotte Weiner
Cofounder and CEO, Frontdoor Benefits
Charlotte Weiner and her cofounder Ben Sheldon launched Frontdoor Benefits in 2024. Their goal: to turn dead ends into front doors for public benefits access, so low-income Americans can easily access over $100 billion in unclaimed safety net benefits each year. Weiner says that while many people are aware that benefits like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) exist, the application process—from determining eligibility and enrollment through renewal and recertification—can pose significant obstacles and carry a stigma. Frontdoor Benefits partners with players like grocery stores and health plans to transform how families access public benefits through simple, mobile-friendly applications that connect directly to government systems and support people through every step.
“A single parent in Norwalk applied for SNAP with Frontdoor Benefits. I’ll never forget her reaction. She described the financial burden that receiving SNAP benefits each month will lift for her family, and she also realized that SNAP entitles her to $3 tickets to the Norwalk Aquarium,” Weiner said. “This client was able to bring her son to the aquarium right after they got enrolled and sent our team beautiful photos from the aquarium. Those photos remind me why we do the work.”
Jess Heitz
CEO, Tandy
Jess Heitz—who helped scale the supplements brand OLLY into a household name before its acquisition by Unilever—has always had a personal passion for all things sweet. When Tandy came knocking with an offer to develop candy that was both tasty AND beneficial, Heitz jumped at the opportunity.
Tandy’s line of gummies and chocolate, NomNoms—available in Salted Caramel Crunch, Peanut Buttery Peanut, and Chocolate Dipped Churro—combine fun and function in outrageously tasty bites that tear down the wall between “candy” and “supplements.”
“Tandy brings these worlds together for a treat that offers a real functional benefit, addressing the real reason you reached for it in the first place,” Heitz said. “Just enough sugar to taste amazing. A variety of classic, craveable flavors. Perfectly chewy texture—no stickiness was a must! Plus, functional ingredients people want: Stress Relief, Relaxation, Focus, Energy, and now Protein.”
Julia Collins
Founder and CEO of Planet FWD
In 2019, food systems pioneer Julia Collins founded Planet FWD, a leading sustainability and supply chain intelligence platform for global consumer brands. A year later, she leveraged Planet FWD to create the crackers brand Moonshot Snacks under a concept of shorter, low-emission supply chains and more traceable ingredients. (Moonshot was such a successful impact showcase that Patagonia Provisions acquired the company in 2023.)
Today, Planet FWD is focused on guiding companies to achieve net zero by spending less time reporting on their environmental impacts and more time actually reducing them. Using artificial intelligence to build digital twins of its customers’ operations, Planet FWD helps brands measure the impact of every aspect of its supply chain. from their head office downstream to a head of lettuce in a field.
“We find that customers working with Planet FWD, such as the world’s largest global food service company, Compass Group, have been able to accelerate the reduction of their greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 percent. We’re making expansive, measurable impact,” Collins said.
Karine Sarkissian
Founding Partner at Tamar Capital, Design Lead at Le Studio
Karine Sarkissian cofounded Single Family Office, Tamar Capital, with her two brothers in 2016; now, they operate offices in Beirut, London, and San Francisco with a shared mission: deploying human and financial capital to create value, empower societies, and communities.
Sarkissian believes that design is a way of life. In 2020, she cofounded Le Studio with Sophie Durey, an in-house Venture Studio-as-a-Service (VSaaS) model for enterprises, combining theory and practice to support every part of an entrepreneur’s journey through a curated curriculum and a series of resources, including workshops, toolkits, and a podcast.
“We aim to be thought leaders in the space and to promote impactful entrepreneurship,” said Sarkissian. “We understand a company’s lifecycle, and we can work with firms at many different stages, from inception to raising future rounds. Our biggest goal is to give teams something tangible to implement quickly and successfully. We aspire to become the recognized gold standard for purpose-driven founders.”
Caroline Barlerin
Founder and CEO, Platypus Advisors
Caroline Barlerin built her career on social innovation. Barlerin launched the neighborhood learning center NeighborNest as Twitter’s (now X) head of philanthropy and community outreach. She also built HP’s “Matter to a Million” game-changing partnership with Kiva, which subsequently made over $20 million of loans to more than 350,000 people.
As CEO and founder of Platypus Advisors, Barlerin partners with companies at any growth stage, including Google, Okta, Uber, Splunk, Cruise, and Sephora, to implement cross-sector social initiatives that accelerate real-world impact. Barlerin also sits on the Board of the Global Fund for Women, which does crucial work around the intersection of climate and women’s rights.
“Where planet and people come together is one of the intersections I think about most,” Barlerin said. “Tech has a critical role in sustainability and harnessing the power of innovation to help solve problems humans are causing in the short, middle, and long term. We must do this work in conversation with those impacted the most.”
Jennifer Nuckles
Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson, R-Zero
Healthy buildings company R-Zero combines ultraviolet light devices that disinfect air and surfaces in seconds with data to help companies and organizations improve indoor health while making energy savings across their real estate footprint.
Netflix, Stanford Children’s Health, and the 49ers are already customers. Jennifer Nuckles believes Far UV technology will be as commonplace as mains electricity and a clean water supply within the next decade, providing sustainable, cost-effective solutions for protecting human capital and the environment for future generations.
“I like building companies at scale, using technology to solve problems, benefit users, and disrupt large industries for the common good,” Nuckles said. “R-Zero allowed me to build a sustainable business that matters to everyone, not just early adopters. We spend so much money investing in computers and protecting our IP; why shouldn't we protect our human capital?”
This story was produced by CANOPY and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
