15 Inspiring and Successful Women to Watch in 2019

March is Women’s History Month, and there’s no better way to celebrate than by acknowledging some of the most inspiring women of our time who deserve more recognition.

These 15 women have reached the top and continue to climb higher into the unknown, paving paths for others to follow in their wake. The world is watching to see where these women go next.

Many areas of expertise have lacked female role models in the past, but fortunately, things are changing. Women are dominating technology and business to advance the way for the rest of us. So here are 15 women making a difference in the world every day.

Women in Technology

1. Falon Fatemi is founder and CEO of Node.io. After working for Google at age 19, Fatemi went on to found the first A.I. discovery engine to connect people on a massive scale. She also worked for YouTube and Firespotter Labs, and now contributes as a writer to Forbes.
2. Samantha Radocchia is the co-founder of Chronicled, Inc., a company that works through blockchain and IoT for smart supply chains. Chronicled was San Francisco’s Best Tech Company of 2018, following Google and Twitter.
3. Sheryl Sandberg is the current COO of Facebook and has been in the position since 2008. Her attempts to make Facebook a platform for small business advertising has raised ad revenue by 57 percent. However, she’s faced criticism over the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal.
4. Therese Tucker is founder and CEO of BlackLine, a leading provider of cloud-related software. Before founding BlackLine 2001, Tucker amassed 25 years of experience with financial accounting and technology development. Her focus on wealth management solutions led her to start BlackLine.
5. Mel Robbins is the co-founder and CEO of The Confidence Project, a digital learning company that works with Fortune 500 businesses. Robbins has an Audible Original series and a self-published bestseller, The 5-Second Rule.

Women in Business

6. Paula Stone Williams was once CEO of a large religious nonprofit organization and is now the pastor of preaching and worship ministries at Left Hand Church. As a doctor, transgender activist and spiritual leader, Williams has spoken at over 100 events in the last two years.
7. Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is the co-founder of Promise, which works with the government to give an opportunity to people awaiting trial so they afford to return to families and work if they can’t afford bail. Ellis-Lamkins also participated in Y Combinator and raised over $3 million from investors.
8. Melinda Gates is well-known for being the wife of Bill Gates, but she’s also a major activist in her own right. As co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she fights against poverty and disease in developing countries, while helping provide education to low-income students in America.
9. Zain Asher is a CNN International anchor based out of New York as well as providing field reporting during the 2014 kidnapping of schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria and the 2013 Boston Marathon attacks. Previously, she worked as a CNN business correspondent regarding the NYSE.
10. Christine Hassler is a spiritual life coach, bestselling author, television host and keynote speaker. Leaving her successful Hollywood agent job at the age of 25, Hassler pursued her dream of becoming a life coach. She’s spoken to over 100,000 people and appeared on various talk shows.

Women Who Overcame

11. Amy Purdy is a professional snowboarder, a guest on Dancing With the Stars and bestselling author. Despite missing both of her legs, Purdy took home the bronze medal in 2014 and silver in 2018 during the Paralympics for snowboarding.
12. Susan Robinson is an organizational leader and keynote speaker. After she became legally blind, ending her dreams of becoming an orthopedic surgeon, Robinson became a champion for more equality when it comes to people who are considered disabled.
13. Sylvia Baffour is a motivational speaker and executive coach featured as part of HubSpot’s Most Influential Female Speakers. Baffour is president of Baffour International, which improves how companies reach performance goals. After surviving an attack from an orangutan and her father’s death, Baffour left her stable job to become a speaker to motivate others.
14. Shonda Rhimes is the creator and executive producer of Grey’s Anatomy, making her the first African-American woman to serve in these roles with a Top 10 network series. Rhimes is also a writer and director for several other series, including Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder.
15. Terri Trespicio is the co-founder of Lights Camera Expert, a media strategy education company. Trespicio is also a standup comic, award-winning writer, brand adviser and speaker. In Hubspot’s “Top 15 Female Speakers Who Are Killing It,” Trespicio was second.

Celebrating Women’s History Month

It’s impossible to rank a woman’s achievements against other women — only against herself. The listings in this article aren’t in any particular order, but rather in a diverse range to celebrate women from many different backgrounds, places and creeds.

These are just some of the people deserving more recognition and awareness as 2019 moves on, but hopefully, they can inspire others to reach new heights, perhaps before the year is up.