10 Women Leaders and Entrepreneurs to Know

Women own more than 12 million businesses across the United States and employ almost 11 million workers, yet they are still largely underrepresented in business — specifically in tech. 

But that's not stopping women from starting businesses, leading initiatives, and advocating for each other. In fact, women-owned firms are growing at more than double the rate of others.

This International Women's Day, we're celebrating the women who are building each other up, supporting underrepresented groups, and looking toward the future. 

10 Women Leaders to Know

Ashley Walsh

As Chief Revenue Officer at LeanTaaS, Ashley Walsh, MHA, leads a nationwide team advancing AI-driven healthcare operations. Ashley has dedicated her career to bridging the clinical and technology worlds — she has prior leadership experience in perioperative administration at UCHealth. 

At LeanTaaS, she helped shape the iQueue for Operating Rooms and iQueue for Inpatient Flow solutions, fueling her passion for delivering data-driven, patient-centric innovations. Ashley is also a vocal advocate for women in tech — she champions inclusivity, mentorship, and collaboration in a heavily male-dominated industry. Ashley believes in pushing boundaries, improving patient access, and creating more accessible career pathways for the next generation of women leaders. Her work exemplifies the possibilities of combining deep healthcare expertise with tech-forward thinking, showing how empathy, innovation, and operational excellence can transform patient care.

Meagan Ward 

Meagan Ward is an advocate for global women empowerment. She is a dynamic leader in diplomacy and economic development — as a Diplomatic Speaker of the U.S. Embassies & Consulates she spearheads global initiatives that revolutionize women's entrepreneurship. 

Meagan is the founder of Femology, Detroit’s first women-centered co-working facility. Femology drives economic development in Michigan through partnerships with Michigan Central, where Meagan serves as the Community Builder in Residence, developing programs and resources for women in business. Meagan also co-founded femUniti Inc. in Japan, which empowers women by creating inclusive communities and spaces that support personal and professional growth, aiming to bridge cultural gaps and provide resources for women leaders and entrepreneurs.

Meagan serves on a variety of advisory boards, including Western Michigan University’s Young Alumni, SEEN Magazine, Reparation Generation, and co-chair of Michigan Tech Week. 

Dr. Mary Mason

Dr. Mary Mason is a health executive, clinician, and entrepreneur and the CEO and Founder of Little Medical School. The Little Medical School is a global organization that offers STEM-based curriculum to children to inspire medical careers and health awareness. Dr. Mason’s vision has led the Little Medical School to serve more than one million children across 12 countries.

Dr. Mason holds several other positions, including Enterprise Chief Medical Officer for CareSource, a nationally recognized, nonprofit managed care organization; a member of the Board of Directors and a healthcare expert at Dioun Health, a home healthcare organization that improves and expands patient-centric care while reducing costs; and the Chief Medical Advisor at VedaPointe, a healthcare data analytics and consulting company that helps providers and payers optimize performance and outcomes. 

Dr. Mason is a board certified internal medicine physician and a fellow of the American College of Physicians. She has received multiple honors, including the University of Illinois Illini Comeback Award and the St. Louis Business Journal Most Influential Business Women.

Sonali Vijayavargiya

Sonali Vijayavargiya is the Founder and Managing Director of Augment Ventures, a firm that works with founders to transform their ideas into successful businesses impacting global markets. In 2001, she established Augment Capital, a venture advisory practice that facilitated multiple fundraisings, forged customer partnerships, and mentored aspiring entrepreneurs. This laid the groundwork for the founding of Augment Ventures in 2011. Previously she was Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), and the Edelweiss Capital, where she played a pivotal role in pioneering one of India’s first technology-focused investment banks, Rediff.com, which debuted on NASDAQ.

Sonali serves on the boards of several companies, including Rivet, Serco, ConverSight, Optilogic, Crowdz, Cloud Agronomics, and Flume. She is also an advisor to the Zell Lurie Commercialization Fund at the University of Michigan Ross Business School, enriching the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Sonali is passionate about partnering with mission-driven founders who bring diverse perspectives and intellectual rigor to solving real-world challenges.

Monica Wheat 

Monica is the Managing Director of the Techstars Detroit Accelerator Powered by JP Morgan, part of a global seed-stage accelerator in 40+ cities worldwide. She is the Founding Co-Director of Founders Boost, a global Pre-Accelerator that enhances accessibility for the startup ecosystem.

Monica is also the Founder and Executive Director of Venture Catalysts, a non-profit that builds inclusive ecosystems through development and strategic support for large-scale ecosystem partnerships, entrepreneurship events, funding, and growth programs. 

She also served as a consultant for Backstage Capital, co-producing their multi-city live investment tour, and was the Detroit Managing Director of the Backstage Capital Accelerator, a 4-city global tech accelerator investing in scaling startups for underrepresented founders.

Sandra Tice

Sandra Tice is the Founder and CEO of MIP Mind Connect, which delivers a transformative AI decision-making solution called MIP Internet of Thought™ that leverages the power of interconnected minds and worlds.

She is an accomplished management consultant and cognitive scientist with more than 30 years of experience in artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics and decision-making processes. Notably, Sandra received international recognition for developing the first AI code generator and she has developed AI systems for planning, finance, sales, and information technology. 

Previously, she was a reliability engineer on NASA’s Saturn Rocket Project, which put the first man on the moon. Sandra was also a lecturer and researcher at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, where she taught students how to capture and use expert decision-making processes with Dr. Robert Ashenhurst.  Their joint findings were published in Minds and Machines...the Journal for Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy and Cognitive Science.

Adiya Dixon Wiggins 

Adiya Dixon Wiggins is both the SVP, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of Potbelly Corporation and Founder and Inventor of Yubi Beauty. Adiya founded Yubi because of a gap she saw in the market — as a working mom she needed a shortcut when putting on her makeup in the morning. She couldn’t find it, so she made it herself. 

Since then, Adiya oversaw the operations, marketing, sales, communications, and manufacturing teams at Yubi as well as new product development. Yubi has been named to Time Magazine's Best Inventions and featured in Forbes, InStyle, Essence, the LA Times, Black Enterprise, and Cosmopolitan Magazine. 

Adiya also continued to pursue her legal career during this time. As the SVP, Chief Legal Officer, she provides legal advice and manages compliance for Potbelly. In addition, she is the senior leadership sponsor of Potbelly’s Women’s Leadership Forum and company service initiatives. 

Lisa Carrel 

Lisa Carrel is President at Renovation Sells, where she works with the executive team to plan strategic initiatives and find growth opportunities for the company. She is an investor, executive, founder and operator with experience imagining products, implementing roadmaps, and turning ideas into scalable business models.

Lisa also co-founded and was CEO at Proxfinity, a wearable event technology startup — Lisa launched and operated a category-creating social hardware platform. Proxfinity raised over $2.5M in Seed Capital, developed and released two versions of custom designed hardware and software. Proxfinity was a 2019 Momentum Awards finalist, Chicago Innovation Award winner, and was recognized by A.T. Kearney as a Digital innovator and by Chicago Inno as a top five startup to watch.

Vanessa Stephens 

Vanessa Stephens is a private equity M&A attorney turned consumer and CPG investor. She is Principal at Capitalize VC, a firm that invests pre-seed capital in commerce-enablement tech companies solving critical problems for retailers, brands, creators, and manufacturers. Vanessa is also Venture Partner & Investment Strategist at Stealth. 

She is deeply engaged in impact investing and mentorship, serving on the Advisory Board of Emory Impact Investing Group and as a Director for Girls on the Run Georgia and Savvy Ladies in NYC, where she supports financial education for women. Vanessa was named to the Black Women in Asset Management BWAM 40 Under 40 list. 

Brittni Abiolu

Brittni Abiolu is the Founder and Managing Director of Venture Hue, a startup accelerator with a mission to help overlooked, underserved, and underrepresented founders access capital and gain traction. She is also the Program Manager of Michigan Founders Fund Pre-Accelerator which provides startup founders operating grants, personalized coaching and programming, access to mentors, customers, and investors.

Brittni believes in fostering innovation and supporting emerging entrepreneurial talent. She is a volunteer startup mentor and advisor for renowned organizations like TechStars Detroit, TechTown Detroit, FirstFounders (Nigeria), and an Entrepreneur Trainer for ProsperUs Detroit, and Global Detroit. 

Brittni is also dedicated to community involvement — she has served on company boards and was an Appointed Commissioner for local municipalities, where she actively contributed to economic development initiatives.