It can be challenging to imagine what the world will look like in five years, much less ten. The future of technology and innovation is an especially tricky thing to predict, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Today’s business world is more diverse than ever, and as the years go by, it’s getting even more so. As such, it can be hard to think of just 10 women who will make a difference in 2022. We recently took a stab at looking into the crystal ball and identifying the top 10 women disruptors of 2022 – visionary women who are already making their mark on our world, and who have the potential to make it even better in the coming years.
Steanie Naaji
Steanie Naaji and her brand celebrating femininity. ‘Millennial’, creative and disciplined, Steanie Naaji, 34, fights hard from her social media to guide many people to have a healthy lifestyle and in humanitarian advocacy. She is a lifestyle blogger and influencer who enjoys traveling. Her sensitive eye for beauty has allowed her to build a brand on a foundation of celebrating femininity, creating a new appreciation of elegance for today’s woman. With high doses of inspiration, aesthetic sense and intuition, she brings a personal and fun vision of her knowledge to inspire many.
She attended Barbizon Modeling School in the United States when she was 13 and began working from the age of 16, from retail to major corporations around the world. He attended Northeastern University, where he studied Finance and Accounting Management. She also served in the U.S. Air Force and was a consultant for a top-tier international company. Drawing on her personal experience as a divorced wife and mother of one, Steanie has helped guide many people to a healthy lifestyle. She assures that, although she is a single mother, she values the family home more and prefers to promote the family unit.
Caroline BRUN
Caroline BRUN is an informed palate and instinctive artist who masters the art of sharing wine culture through her abstract art. Creator and founder of LA DEGUSTATION VISUELLE©®, this super educator and host, puzzles the wine industry with her “out of the box” way to share wine expertise through her textured art. She gives educational Champagne masterclasses to wine lovers and professionals adding a touch of soul in the wine world. She dared to show her artworks on social media during the Covid lock down. Within few months she has been offered to participate the 2021WINE ART MUSEUM art contest of Portici in Italy, and was rewarded as Best International artist. Her 1st art show in USA, The Art of Champagne” took place in San Diego has been a smashing success for both champagne education and her art.
Karina Michel
Karina Michel is an executive producer with 20+ years of experience in TV, film, and print. As the Owner and Executive Producer of the production company Tallulah Films, Karina is passionate about film that matters. Her films can be found on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Channel 4, and other VOD platforms and her films have been screened at over 70 film festivals worldwide. “Our mission is to bring together directors, entrepreneurs, film investors, and screenwriters to produce award-winning TV and film projects. We continue to be drawn towards meaningful, influential, and uplifting films.” Current projects include To The Moon and the UK comedy Mother of the Year. She is an entertainment journalist with columns in Rolling Stone and Authority Magazine and a host for the award-winning podcast, “Coffee with Karina” – Entertainment Unfiltered. Karina is a co-owner of FreshPatch.com (as seen on ABC’s Shark Tank) and she also offers virtual consulting for filmmakers and actors wanting to fast-track their careers in the entertainment industry.
Emily Hankemeier
Emily Hankemeier, an entrepreneur from Georgetown, Texas is fearlessly disrupting the beauty industry. As the Founder of Grow Salon + Wine Bar, she spends every day challenging the “norms” of the beauty industry and looking for ways to elevate the experience not only for her guests but also for her employees. Her brand, Grow Salon + Wine Bar is challenging and disrupting the “beauty industry leadership status quo”. Her salon enhances the lifestyle of all its patrons – guest, and stylist alike. Her approach to her salon culture and team development is making waves. In each challenge she sees an opportunity to ask, “How can we elevate this experience?” Emily actively seeks inspiration from other industries and business models outside of the beauty industry, infusing the best ideas to create a fresh approach to beauty industry leadership. The result is something radically different. A team culture and leadership style that is based on respect, empowerment, flexibility, and transparency. This innovative approach to leadership is exactly what makes Emily Hankemeier one of our Top Women Disruptors of 2022.
Khnuma Simmonds
Khnuma – Founder and Visionary of the GirlfriendismTM Brand – is a full time mom-preneur with two sons, a doctoral candidate with a PhD in Advanced Studies in Human Behavior in progress, advocate for survivors of domestic violence, lover of family and owner of six unique businesses under the GirlfriendismTM umbrella! Having recently hosted her second annual GirlfriendismTM Retreat in her first international location of Greece alongside 31 women from her home and beyond, she has maintained focus on her purpose of empowering women through the areas of fashion, fitness, wellness, business, philanthropy and most recently, travel! Though the GirlfriendismTM brand was born from the inception of her first business in 2011 – a brick and mortar fashion boutique called My Girlfriend’s Closet (MGCSTX) – this humble island business that was inspired by the women of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands has grown into a global movement for women all over the world!
Jessica Weaver
Jessica Weaver is a wealth advisor, best selling author, and founder of the Women’s Wealth Boutique, the fastest growing female financial firm in the US. The Women’s Wealth Boutique has offices in several states, and they are onboarding new women financial advisors every month. After spending over a decade in the financial industry, Jessica became a trailblazer in transforming the financial industry for women financial advisors and women investors. By focusing on building relationships with her advisors and clients, starting with education first, and sales last, she has created a new model compared to others in the industry. Jessica has launched three best selling books, Strong Woman Stronger Assets, Time to Refine, and Confessions of a Money Queen to empower women to take action with their money. Her books, events, and online presence showcases an abundant and spiritual approach to growing wealth, which has become an innovative take on money.
Julie Reby Waas
Julie Reby Waas is a Miami, Florida based abstract artist, and has exhibited her work in London, New York and Miami. A lawyer by trade, but a self-taught artist her whole life, it was only during the isolating, stressful time of the coronavirus pandemic that Waas began turning her original designs into artwork. Her geometric shapes and patterns serve as a way to bring order to her sometimes disordered life, and Waas identifies three recurring symbols in her work: vines, Venn diagrams, and jigsaw puzzle-like designs. To her, these symbols represent friendship, connection, common ground, and fragments coming together to create a bigger picture, which all relate to Waas’s belief that everything and everyone is interrelated in some way, and when we come together in friendship and strength we create a beautiful tapestry. Her work is available at Intuitive Abstract Art by Julie.
Beth L. Hoel
Beth Hoel is the founder of BHG Consulting Group, a consulting firm where she offers services to individuals in the criminal justice system for a sex offense, survivors of sexual abuse and their families. Prior to starting BHG, Beth spent nearly 25 years in community corrections where she managed thousands of complex cases, expertly navigating the complexities of each. Beth has developed several trainings related to sex offender topics regarding supervision and treatment in collaboration with treatment providers. Beth retired from her career in corrections to start BHG Consulting Group where her passion is to create solutions to difficult subject matters, and she believes in taking a holistic approach to the management of each case. Beth provides consultation to attorneys, clients and their families regarding the justice system specific to sexual offenses. Her mission is to create healthier families and communities by empowering, problem-solving, coaching and educating.
Alivia K Barrett
In March 2020, Alivia K Barrett started on a journey to discover her voice. After her husband’s business had come to a halt, Alivia realized something new needed to happen in her life and work. That’s when she had a game-changer moment and decided to go all in on a new business model that focused on her ability to speak, teach and motivate others. Upon her courageous leap into this new place, Alivia discovered her confidence was deficient despite her being a leader, deeply motivated by God and an entrepreneur at heart. It took 2 years of valuable investment from mentors, teachers, courses and prayer to arrive at a new platform for her voice in radio.
After a nudge in the right direction, Alivia created and pitched a show to a radio station and within a week was signing a contract for Let’s Talk Kingdom radio to air. Currently, as Alivia’s voice thrives on the radio, she wants to activate true life inside of people and acquaint them with a higher perspective. Let’s Talk Kingdom radio has expanded its waves to multiple states nationwide. The show focuses on joy, purpose, a higher perspective and intentional connection to Kingdom conversations.
Amanda Schlichting
After serving honorably in law enforcement, Amanda Schlichting broke into the private investigation business via brilliance and branding. Leveraging her specialty in animal cruelty cases, she formed Cool Cat Investigations LLC. Schlichting’s out-of-the-box approach to intel includes both tech-y and traditional investigative work, along with specialized categories such as occult abuse, human trafficking, and animal cruelty. She has taught Report Writing and Interview/Interrogation at the University of Missouri Law Enforcement Training Institute Animal Cruelty Investigations School.
She’s also rocked as a bounty hunter/fugitive recovery specialist, bringing rare skill sets to her company, and her industry. With law enforcement increasingly moving toward outsourcing and privatization, Schlichting has positioned her agency to work cases which law enforcement is unable to investigate. Her firm operates both parallel to and in collaboration with police, blending resources and redefining Community Policing. And this Cool Cat gives back: each quarter, a portion of her fees is donated to an animal non- profit. When she’s not burning the midnight oil, you can catch her hosting Jail Break Podcast, a show that explores criminal justice in America.
Final Thoughts
While much of the talk about changing the world tends to focus on men, there are some incredibly powerful women who are innovating and disrupting all aspects of business and technology across the globe that you need to know about. These were the top 10 women who will change the way businesses operate around the world in 2022, based on our expert knowledge and intuition gained from years in the industry
