Inspirational Women Leaders — Modern Day
Happy International Women’s Day! Upon beginning my research for my dissertation (focusing on women leadership), I have read about many different strong women in leadership positions. Reading their stories reminds me how much I aspire to be a strong female leader in the healthcare industry. Here are a few inspirational women in different companies that have caught my attention recently and want to share with you:
Penny Streeter is a Zimbabwean born, South African/British entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of A24 Recruitment Group — a United Kingdom and South Africa based company. The A24 Group consists of Ambition 24hours, Arabella Health Staffing and the NS Health Staffing. She was awarded OBE (Order of the British Empire) and CBI (Confederation of British Industry).
Penny Streeter’s success story wasn’t smooth sailing at first. She left school at the age of 15 and started working in the recruitment sector. She was fired from her job for being “too expensive” as she was earning quite a bit of money in commission and they wanted to hire someone cheaper. This was the catalyst for launching her first recruitment company in 1989, which unfortunately failed. She then divorced and was left homeless with her three children. She had borrowed a substantial amount of money to fund that company so was also in serious debt. Penny reflected back, saying, “I had hit rock bottom. It was a horrible, horrible time.”
She had her second attempt at founding her recruitment company with her mother in 1995 after working in other recruitment companies for a couple years. After the failure of the first company, Penny was determined to not have any debt or borrowings. She funded this venture through her part-time job as a children’s party entertainer and continued to reinvest everything she earned in the new venture back into the business. The recruitment agency initially started out in the finance sector but eventually moved into the healthcare sector. After discovering a gap in the market, they became the first 24 hour business to operate within the healthcare sector in the agency business. The company grew very quickly. She moved further into the hospitality and wine business when she purchased Benguela Cove Lagoon Wine Estate in Hermanus, South Africa.
Penny Streeter showed incredible determination and perseverance. She knew what she wanted to do from a young age and pursued her passion even when things were tough. She never gave up on her dream. It is truly inspiring!
Whitney Wolfe Herd is the founder and CEO of the unicorn (a start-up valued at more than 1 billion dollars), Bumble. Bumble is a female-focused, online “dating” app where women make the first move — the control of the conversation, therefore, held by women. The app has different platforms by which you can date, make friends, and network with like-minded people.
Whitney has become a billionaire at the age of 31 and very recently listed her company on the NASDAQ stock market. Not only is she one of the few female billionaires, but she is also the youngest women to lead a company to an IPO.
However, it wasn’t without a few hiccups that led her to where she is today. She started off by co-founding Tinder — a dating app — where she was the vice president of marketing. However, she experienced sexual harassment and sex discrimination and her title of co-founder was stripped from her. She filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the firm — receiving a settlement amount of $1 million plus stocks in Tinder. A couple months later, she started Bumble.
Whitney shows great strength and leadership, empowering young women to firstly, stand up for themselves and what they believe in, and secondly, to make the first move — and not just in dating! She shows women that they can go out and do anything they set their minds to and be strong business women.
Linda Greub & Corinne Nevinny are co-founders and partners at Avestria Ventures. Avestria Ventures invests in ‘early-stage women’s health and female-founded life science ventures’. They are women who believe that the femtech and women’s health companies are misunderstood and undervalued and generally overlooked by most venture capital firms. These women are investing in women-focused health companies.
Women make up about 75% of the healthcare workforce so it’s not surprising to the partners at Avestria that they come across so many innovative women in health care. However, what is surprising to them, is that only 3% of venture capital funds go towards women led businesses. Linda and Corinne saw a gap in the market and focused their efforts on supporting women in health. Avestria Ventures invested in now successful companies such as Genome Medical, Alydia Health, Radiant Oximetry, and Avation Medical. Go team!
