Our Top 21 in 2021
Say what you will about the wrecking ball that was 2020, but in momentous ways it was the Year of the Woman. We may not yet have our Madame President, but as the Wall St. Journal states, “As voters, as candidates and as campaign leaders, women were—and now are—in the driver’s seat as never before.”
Women voters were responsible for President-Elect Biden’s victory and a record-number of Republican women were elected to the House, doubling the number of GOP women.
We think it’s time for the world to sit up and take notice that many of the women who will be shaping 2021and beyond are older women.
In all areas of life. Not just politics, but in tech, finance, healthcare, the arts, sports, journalism, entertainment, and philanthropy.
Which is why we predict 2021 will be the Year of the Older Woman. Starting with these 21trailblazers who will crush it in 2021.
Proclaim 2021 The Year of the Older Woman with us! Which older women would you add to the list? Share them in the comments section below.
1. Kamala Harris, 56 - On January 20, 2021, Harris will be the United States' first female vice president, the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history, and the first African-American and first Asian-American vice president. Also, the first vice-presidential candidate to represent every woman when she said, “I’m speaking, Mr. Vice-President.”
2. Tsai Ing-Wen, 64 - The first female President of Taiwan, she is also the first to be unmarried. Her leadership in 2020 earned her the title, The Covid Crusher. Taiwan will likely be among the few economies to experience growth this year, with officials in August forecasting gross domestic product to expand 1.56%.
3. Mackenzie Scott, 50 - The novelist, philanthropist, and third-richest woman in the world gave away more than $4 billion in the last four months alone. She is re-writing the script on philanthropy, giving unrestricted gifts with no strings attached to organizations for women, people of color, and people in poverty. Oh, and she is the ex-wife of Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, with whom she helped found the company.
4. Shonda Rhimes, 50 - We’re still fanning ourselves after watching Bridgerton and can’t wait to see what TV producer, screenwriter, author, and creative dynamo, Shonda Rhimes has reimagined next. With 17 other projects in development for Netflix, we’re all in as warriors of Shondaland “for the mighty, the competitive, the smart, the daring, and the bold.” No wonder she was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 People Who Help Shape the World.
5. Janet Yellen, 74 - If confirmed, the battle-tested economist and former Chairman of the Federal Reserve would be the first female U.S. Treasury Secretary. She would also become the first person to have headed the Treasury, the central bank and the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Her kind but firm leadership style was instrumental in leading us out of the Great Recession in 2007, and is just what we need now.
6. Deb Haaland, 60 - If confirmed, the New Mexico congressional representative would be the first Native American to lead the Interior Department, the federal agency most responsible for the well-being of the nation’s 1.9 million Indigenous people. A petition supported by more than 120 tribal leaders backing her said, “Like no year prior, 2020 has shown us what happens when we fail to see the importance of putting proper leaders in position to safeguard society,”
7. Kim Ng, 52 - In November, Ng hit a home run and broke the glass ceiling in Major League Baseball becoming the first female GM for the Miami Marlins, the highest-ranking female executive in MLB history. Says Ng, "'You can't be it, if you can't see it.’ I guess I would suggest to them, now you can see it.” Score!
8. Patty Jenkins, 49 - As director of the first Wonder Woman movie, Jenkins proved that female superheroes are every bit as powerful at the box office. Now with the sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, successfully surviving this pandemic year with a theatrical and streaming Christmas Day release, Jenkins goes on to direct the next Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. We can only hope a Wonder Woman 3 is in the works.
9. Susan Wojcicki, 52 - CEO, YouTube. Mother of five. Love it or hate it, or both, it is an extraordinary challenge running the world’s largest video platform with two billion active users, stemming the flow of extreme content as the internet’s gatekeeper. Under Wojcicki, the proportion of female staff at YouTube has increased from a quarter to a third, she says, “and that includes our leadership”.
10. Aileen Lee, 50 - Lee is the founder of Cowboy Ventures, one of the first VC firms to be launched by a woman, which invested in startups like Bloom Energy, Dollar Shave Club and Rent the Runway. Lee has been vocal about the state of diversity in Silicon Valley. She’s a founding member of All Raise, which runs Female Founder Office Hours, a one-on-one mentorship series for female entrepreneurs and investors.
11. Stacey Abrams, 47 - Abrams is the founder of Fair Fight, a voting rights organization based in Georgia. She was formerly the minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, and candidate for Governor. She is credited with organizing a grassroots movement that helped register more than 800,000 Georgian residents to vote in 2020. "We changed the trajectory of the nation," Abrams said in November.
12. Christine Lagarde, 64 - First female President of the European Central Bank. As head of European monetary policy, Lagarde faces a critical test: ensuring the coronavirus pandemic does not wreak further havoc on the Euro zone. “I think that there is a lot of inner strength in all of you and in each and every one of us in order to just carry on and wherever we are, push, push, push.”
13. Dolly Parton, 74 - Parton announced earlier this year that she would donate $1million to the center to help fund research efforts for COVID-19. “Without a doubt in my mind, her funding made the research toward the vaccine go 10 times faster than it would be without it,” says physician Naji Abumrad.
14. Sheikh Hasina Wajed, 73 - She is the longest serving prime minister in the history of Bangladesh, currently serving her fourth term. During what she believes will be her final term, Hasina plans to focus on food security and access to education and healthcare. An ongoing struggle for Hasina has been establishing a firm democracy in Bangladesh.
15. Sahle-Work Zewde, 70 - Ethiopia's first woman president and the only serving female head of state in Africa. In her first address to Parliament, Zewde promised to be a voice for women and stressed the importance of unity. Zewde's appointment is a tremendously symbolic move for the conservative country, opening the door for gender parity.
16. Sonia Sotomayor, 66 - The first and only Latina Supreme Court Justice is one of the court’s most outspoken members and prolific authors. Her voice has become even more critical in the conservative majority court. "In every position that I've been in, there have been naysayers who don't believe I'm qualified or who don't believe I can do the work. And I feel a special responsibility to prove them wrong."
17. Karen LeFrak, 69 - Composer, author, and a director of the New York Philharmonic. “After a 30-year hiatus as a mother and grandmother, I'm back in music! I compose every day and have had my music choreographed and performed all over the world. It's never too late to dream big."
18. R. J. Palacio, 57 - Worldwide bestselling author of Wonder, which was also a movie, and several other children’s books. “As the daughter of Latin-American immigrants, I worked very hard to prove myself, to achieve, to validate the tough choices I know my parents made. I have also been blessed by good fortune, but it takes a lot of work to be this lucky. Audentes Fortuna iuvat. Fortune favors the bold."
19. Dana Canedy, 55 - Canedy, who spent two decades at the NY Times and most recently as the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, is only the third woman and first black person to hold one of the biggest titles publishing – Executive Vice-President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster. She’s also the author of the New York Times bestseller A Journal for Jordan.
20. Jhumpha Lahiri, 53 - The Pulitzer Prize, Pen/Hemingway/Mann Booker/National Book Award-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland is set to release her first novel in ten years in April 2021. Need we say more?
21. Mary Berry, 85 - The doyenne of baking, food writer, broadcaster and judge of The Great British Baking Show shows no sign of slowing down. Her new cookbook Simple Comforts launched in September 2020. Just the recipe we all needed this year.
