![]() "As we work to increase our efforts in community-centric fundraising," Babineaux-Fontenot says, "my hope is that this fund serves as a model and testing ground for our organization, our funders, and beyond." The fund's first round of grants went out earlier this year to 24 food banks partnering with 59 community-based organizations serving communities of color. Last year, it provided 6.6 billion meals to people in need, while establishing a fund to drive investment to communities of color disproportionately impacted by food insecurity. As the nation's second-largest charity, managing nearly $4 billion in grants and contributions, Feeding America has an outsize influence on the nonprofit industry. The woman overseeing much of this effort was Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America. In 2021, 1 in 6 Americans visited a food bank or food pantry, requiring unprecedented mobilization by hunger relief organizations. In 2019, an estimated 108.4 billion pounds of food was thrown away in the U.S., and in 2020, 38 million people lived in food-insecure households. ![]() Then it took on more and more complexities - negotiating and coordinating with multiple carriers, keeping up with carrier certification compliance, integrating into platforms like Shopify, pondering why, oh why do all carriers not use the same kinds of barcodes? It streamlined everything into intuitive choices, helping small and medium-sized businesses shrink their shipping prices. Shippo began as essentially an Expedia for shipping labels it compared prices across carriers. But she became fascinated by the industry's nuances. "You don't grow up thinking you want to go and solve the world's shipping problem," Behrens Wu says. Now their shipping software company, Shippo, is used by over 120,000 online stores and is valued at a billion dollars. But over the following years, the two shelved the handbag business and focused on this problem instead. "Every e-commerce store needs to ship - there is no way around that - and we couldn't figure it out," Behrens Wu remembers. It was all post office lines and difficult-to-compare alternate carriers and pain. They found a wealth of tools to drive sales and process payments - stuff like Shopify and Stripe - but could not find a good solution for actually shipping products. This was 2013, and she and her cofounder, Simon Kreuz, had launched an online store selling bags from upstart designers. Laura Behrens Wu was just trying to ship some handbags. ![]() We hope their stories inspire you to make the most of your own influence. If there's one thing you can take away from the women on this year's list, it's that they are doing things, changing things, and influencing our world in real and concrete ways. You'll hear from founders influencing the way we eat, dress, reduce waste, heat our homes, diagnose diseases, respond to natural disasters, build environmental policies, find mentors, get funding, get pregnant, get our children to school, get people talking about what really matters - and even how to make protein out of thin air. You'll hear from leaders at companies like Apple, Instagram, Reformation, Stax, FIGS, Waymo and Uber Health on key moments in their careers, and how they're working to shift the status quo. You'll get insights from Oscar-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay and Wall Street vanguard Sallie Krawcheck on overcoming barriers to influence. ![]() You'll learn from the original influencer, Kim Kardashian, about how to stay influential. This year, the question was: Who is most influential? Eventually, we broke that question down into five parts: Who is influencing the industries that shape our lives? Who is influencing our culture, and the way we see ourselves in it? Who is influencing our equity, and access to resources? Who is influencing our behavior - the things we buy and how we go about our days? And finally, who is influencing our future?Īs you scroll through the women below, you'll hear from cultural icons like our cover star, Jennifer Lopez, on the whole point of having influence. Welcome to Entrepreneur's annual 100 Women list! Every year, after reviewing hundreds of inspiring, accomplished women - we decide who to feature by asking a specific question.
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