The future of leadership is female. With more women than ever taking on the challenge of leading in their respective industries, it’s no wonder that 2023 is poised to be a banner year for women’s leadership. From business executives to politicians, there are an impressive array of women making an impact in the world. Here, we will take a look at some of the top 20 unstoppable women entrepreneurs to watch out for in 2023. From trailblazers to trendsetters, these women are all redefining what it means to be a leader and paving the way for the future of female leadership.
Janessa Gornichec
Janessa Gornichec is pushing through all the “green washing” and contradicting health world with her business partner, Cecilia Salvesen, to create skincare that is ACTUALLY good for you on the outside, all while nourishing the inside! Janessa developed her love for good quality skin care and clean ingredients when she first started modeling at the young age of 15! The world of models and actors meant you had to look and most importantly, feel your best to perform on set, cast with directors and shoot for companies delivering them photos that would help them sell their products!
Janessa quickly learned about ingredients and what they would each do for the body, only to realize that 70% of the ingredients listed in skincare, were so chemically made by man. These ingredients did exactly the opposite of what they promised. That’s where Cecilia comes in! Cecilia, a Master Aromatherapist, created skincare so pure and natural, it not only worked but gave people clear skin, relief from symptoms they couldn’t find anywhere else and people LOVED it! Janessa with her modeling and Instagram reach and Cecilia have been business partners for a year and continue to grow Honestly Essential to new heights! Janessa is a massage therapist specializing in Trauma Massage and Aromatherapy facials, using all their own essential oils and skincare.
Cecilia specializes in Aromatherapy, Reflexology and Hair Nutritional Analysis, which tells you exaclty what is going on in your body, based on a few pieces of your hair! Together, they plan to contitnue adding new products that are organic, preservative free and high quality, as well as educating everyone they can on the real reasons for choosing a healthy lifestyle! Honestly Essential takes us all back to our roots: Mother Nature.
Isis Indriya
Isis Indriya is an educator, minister, culture creator, founder of the Academy of Oracle Arts and Co founder of Imaginal Community and bridge builder who has dedicated her life to prayer, education, and community activism. Raised on the island of Guam, she began her studies in mythology and breathwork at 17, which led her to focus on ancient mystery studies, sacred sciences, and earth wisdom traditions. With over 20 years of experience in event production, ritual, and education, Isis is passionate about creating platforms for teaching sacred sciences, indigenous wisdom, cultural exchange, nature’s intelligence, and inner transformation. She is known for her role as one of the lead producers of The Compass at the Lightning in a Bottle Festival, where she has hosted thought leaders and entertainers from around the world.
As a member of the Oracle Clan, Isis is an educator of ritual, divination, Egyptian cosmology, and Hermeticism, sharing her knowledge through the Academy of Oracle Arts, pilgrimages to Egypt, and community gatherings in her Temple. She is also on the board for Water Now, Church of the Essence, Living Village Culture, and the Oracle Clan, and is an advocate for The Fountain.earth, Bioneers, Unify, and the Compass @ Lightning in a Bottle. While she is flourishing in the industry, her focus is on ‘communion with the Sacred’ as an offering to future generations.
Altreisha Foster
Dr. Altreisha Foster is a Jamaican born vaccine scientist who is currently developing her creative side through baking. She owns a premier baking and dessert making company, Sugarspoon Desserts, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her desserts are highly sought after and have appeared in local and international media, both print and electronic. Sugarspoon Desserts has been published in People Magazine, Us Weekly, Perfete and B collective magazine, to name a few. She recently baked two cakes for the Bachelor spin-off the Bachelorette for ABC. Her work is sought after internationally and was recently recognized for most inspirational story by The Jamaica Observer Food Awards.
Sugarspoon Desserts recently established the Cake Therapy Foundation, an organization focused on teaching systems impacted women and girls the healing/therapeutic properties of baking. She is a graduate of Howard University and The George Washington University, her career in public health and vaccine science has led to her research being published in several prestigious journals including Nature.
Diana Vazalf
Diana Vazalf was born in Mexico in 1983. Her family suffered from the economic crisis of 1994, so she and her brother, Luis, started working when they were still very young. Using their personal history, they decided to create something that would help young people, so in 2020, they founded Kosmic Tribes, dedicated to incubating businesses for digital tribes. Kosmic Dust is the first project set by the company.
This line of holistic supplements was launched in the United States in 2022 to improve the physical and mental health of gamers, streamers, and content creators. They also created a social selling program so that they could have economic welfare through income. Kosmic Dust will arrive in Mexico in 2023. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Diana is a journalist, a single mom of two, and part of social organizations that fight to eradicate violence against women in Mexico.
Ronda Conger
Ronda Conger has flourished in the male dominated housing industry for 30 years. As Vice President of CBH Homes, Idaho’s largest homebuilder, Ronda leads the troops daily, and has overseen all areas of the company for the past 20 years. Firmly believing that winning is a habit, she’s been named the 2021 NAHB Woman of the Year by the National Association of Home Builders, and recently recognized as a Top 50 Women Leaders of the Mountain Region.
As a business woman, professional speaker, and author of 5 books, her latest book New Market. New You, released in 2022, guides leaders on how to stay positive and adapt in any market. She thanks the heavens each day for this incredible journey and is so grateful for the opportunity to serve and love all those that she comes in contact with.
Patricia Azevedo
Patricia Azevedo, a born and raised Brazilian and master cosmetologist has brought her culture to her Brazilian Waxing/ Sugaring business. She began in Missouri where she could not find a Brazilian wax salon. She saw the need to offer speed waxing at a low cost. This allowed her clients to come back on a monthly basis while receiving a great experience. After a few years, she moved to Georgia with her two kids and husband. In 2015, Patricia opened The Waxing Spot in Buford, GA, offering full body and face waxing along with eyebrow designing. In 2018, she introduced Sugaring into the area.
Sugaring is another form of hair removal that is more gentle on the skin, reduces ingrowns, and is very effective. This introduction to sugaring has been a great success! Patricia has been able to take her business to another level. There are many waxing salons in Georgia, but what makes The Waxing Spot different is the multicultural exceptional team of estheticians that Patricia has built over the years. The comfort and cleanliness of the salon are one of her top priorities. Patricia thanks her husband and kids for their patience and support.
Sarah Elizabeth Quigg
Psychotherapist, entrepreneur, and author Sarah Quigg is the heart-centered Leader we need for our future. She is highly intuitive, kind, and intelligent, and less than two weeks ago was fighting for her life. “I was in my second trimester of pregnancy. I went into labor and birthed both babies at home. Two days later, I developed a life-threatening infection in the uterine wall and became septic, sepsis, and septicemia”.
Quigg is known for her success as, The Heart-Centered Therapist. Her product line, Heart-Centered Thoughts, has grown to reach over 15 different countries. She creates practices to show others how to move through grief, and sit with the mystery and awe in the process of staying wide open and vulnerable. What’s next for Quigg, I can only imagine how she will take what has happened to her and use it to heal as many Hearts as she can!
Kate Dychangco-Anzani
President of Anzani International Group Inc, a mother of 3, and Wife to Chef Marco Anzani, Kate graduated with a bachelor’s Degree in Restaurant Business Management, with honor certification in wine & food gastronomy from Le Cordon Bleu. She worked with the WWF on ISO sustainability. ANZANI received the ISO certification (2021) standing to be 1 out of 3 restaurants in the Country that has received the Green Choice Philippines award.
Kate finished with Harvards’ “ life’s purpose “ on sustainable elevated cities. Her thrust on sustainability and foraging (nurturing farmers ) have been put on the spotlight during the 2020-2022 pandemic with a Recovery project to create a city farmers market and the Cebu food & wine festival. She is Authoring her Second cookbook called GUSTO to launch in the US (April 2023) Market and European (June 2023) Market. The cookbook is meant to be a Road map of Cross culture and cuisine.
She has been a Restaurateur for 14 years together with her husband Marco. The ANZANI brands are New Mediterranean in Nature with headquarters in Cebu, Philippines. ANZANI is expected to roll out nationally for the year 2023 in Manila, Philippines. By 2025 ANZANI Agriturismo & Vineyards in Italy. Taking with them Showmanship, championing sustainability and Chef collaborations.
Milica Dervišević
Milica Dervišević is known for her dedication to health. Her unique medical (DMD) and scientific (PhD) background, constantly building up on and leveraging business knowledge and skills (EMBA) is making her shine outside the health obsessed community. With impeccable naturally looking beauty standards, she’s wanted for beauty consultations and anti-age facial corrections. Her rapid growth within the area of health-care business development for a large CRO company is making it hard to keep up with.
Constantly juggling around with her two toddlers has brought even more attention and raised her influence as being smart and glamming mom. She’s the founder of a dental care toy start-up to (@kosken_toys) and finds joy in bringing smiles to children’s faces. Her focus on health never ceases to impress, and includes wellness, fitness and beauty care. She represents a new generation of upcoming leaders with an imperative on being smart and having youthful mindset.
Majo Portilla
Majo Portilla is creating waves as a founder of Majo Portilla Art®. She started a powerhouse little gem of a boutique and art gallery in a quaint building in Hilversum’s center, half an hour east of Amsterdam. Majo Portilla Art is a true old school gallery/Art academy, offering exquisite and unique artworks, bringing a colourful lifestyle and gifting as well many lovely laughs.
Her true passion, original art, has found a home in the gallery she built on the bohemian Havenstraat, and now abounds with incredible art from both local artists and talent around the globe. The gallery has a charming summer patio that offers evening social events with great music ambiance as well as the opportunity for private event bookings
After involving herself into intensive research and development, she introduced to her already multifaceted Art, NFT’s in 2020. Within a few short months of showing the first glimpse of her creation on OpenSea and other platforms, Portilla captivated huge attention and adapted to build a virtual education and powerhouse women empowerment platform with ZeeArts Gallery leveraging the advancements of the digital world during the pandemic. Her collaboration with ZeeArts ensures that artists around the world have exposure. Majo Portilla Art since its creation in 2019, along with her 20+ years of experience and during a global pandemic, has grown to include a worldwide network of artists in different countries who all received training and ventured into NFTs.
Amanda Dunn
Amanda Dunn is the owner and sole trainer of One AND Dunn Health and Fitness, LLC. She started her own health and wellness journey 24 years ago, and now uses her experiences and education to inspire busy adults, specifically busy moms, and dads, to take back their “me” time. One AND Dunn was formed during the pandemic, at a time when commercial gyms were closing, and people were struggling to balance their mental and physical health. Acquiring her certification as a Master Certified Personal Trainer and Nutritionist, with numerous specializations, allowed her to provide an online option for busy moms and dads who may have limited resources when it comes to finding daycare for their children, prefer to workout from the comfort of their own home and not be overwhelmed with commercial gym settings, or struggle to find work/life balance.
Kieaira Francis
Kieaira Francis is a certified life coach who has a big heart and loves making a difference in other people’s lives. Her online women’s clothing store is a shop that one should keep an eye on. In what originally started as a Facebook women’s support group to help uplift women during the pandemic. Kieaira decided that through the support she garnered in the group, it was time to finally take the advice and words of encouragement she gave in the group and pursue her passion. Along with her degree in Business Management, she decided to take that leap and step out on faith.
Fashion has always been something that she took seriously and, in a world, where it seems that scantily clad is what sells, she chose the sexy, yet less revealing route. She wants women to feel sexy and empowered without showing too much! She aims to make a difference and become a mentor/influencer to women and especially to the (black and brown community). She wants to help women know ANYTHING is possible and to follow their dreams no matter what. She loves giving back and helping others, which is why her brand does philanthropy work at the beginning of the company’s journey.
Courtney Moeller
Courtney Moeller is an Amazon #1 best-selling author, US Navy Veteran, international speaker, entrepreneur and blockchain expert. She is the co-host of the vodcast, Ladies Kickin Assets, which empowers listeners by providing the financial education they need to live the lives they want. Her ventures include investments in oil and gas, carbon capture, real estate, Bitcoin mining and blockchain technologies. As a general partner of EMPR Investment group and Bitcoin Mining Womxn, she helps professionals mitigate tax problems and create new income streams. With nearly 20 million dollars of carbon capture equipment under management, EMPR expects to return over 2 million dollars back to their investors in 2023.
Courtney is also the CEO of Invest on Main, the real estate and alternative asset marketplace of the future! This platform will allow real assets like multifamily apartments, self-storage and other investment options to trade in small “shares or tokens” just like the stock market creating liquidity, accessibility and transparency.
Patricia Jo Grover
Patricia Jo Grover, The Goal Achievement Strategist, incites action with the platform that she specifically created around her proprietary “Conquering Skills Education” to Encourage, Educate, and Empower individuals to achieve more success and be able to “Rise Above” any Challenges they may have in any of the 8 Dimensions of Life.
Patricia uses a heart – centered approach, that focuses on helping her clients have Mindset Shifts, create New Belief Windows, and find their Why & Purpose. Allowing them to Dream, Conquer Fears, and Create a Work/Life Balance so they can Have, Be, Do, and Earn more while they live their lives Purposefully, Joyfully, and Gratefully. In her 30 years of Business Management & Ownership, she has recruited, trained, coached, consulted, taught, and mentored over 3500 Entrepreneurs, Corporate Employees, and Staff of her own businesses. And is now working on her Ph. D in Entreprenology at the International University of Entreprenology.
Penny Stayropoulos
Penny Stayropoulos is making waves as a founder and highly regarded financial professional. Known for her practical approach to Total Wealth Management, she started her journey years ago to bridge the gap between the male dominated financial industry and human centric methods to Total Wealth conversations, and practical approach to financial strategies. After involving herself into broad and specific research and development, she has created a unique approach to Total Wealth Management.
Within a few short months of sharing her story, showing the first few modules and stat driven social media posts, Penny captivated huge attention within the financial community; specifically, business owners, executives and women who are driven. Since it’s original concept launch in 2020, during the global pandemic, her idea generation and unique platform and partnerships have evolved and set the stage for empowering Total Wealth conversations – enabling the “confidence to be comfortable in any situation.”-Penny Stayropoulos
Bre Daniels
Bre Daniels is the founder and CEO of Vera Massage & Spa: located in Sevierville, Tennessee. She is also a Licensed Massage Therapist, who is known for her techniques in deep-tissue and lymphatic drainage massage. Her business provides work for other licensed professionals such as massage therapists, estheticians, and nail technicians. Bre opened the spa in February of 2020 when, unfortunately, the business was forced to close its doors from March until May of 2020. At first, she struggled to find clients in such a close contact industry; however, throughout the past 3 years, the business has consistently increased in success. Bre prides herself on not only being a successful business owner, but also in giving back to the community. She is currently organizing multiple events to host in the year of 2023 that will benefit non-profit organizations in her hometown, in surrounding areas, and in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Victoria Maennel
Victoria Maennel is the founder of the unique Practice for Osteopathy and Holistic Health a true gemstone in Munich, Germany. Together with her team of wonderful, empathic women, she created a space to help women, children and their families into longlasting Health and their optimal potential.
As holistic experts they combine their broad knowledge in Osteopathy, Physiotherapy, Naturopathy, Yoga and Holistic Coaching for a unique therapy and guidance, live and online. They are specialized in Osteopathy for pregnancy, womens health and Osteopathy for babies. Focusing on the inner self-healing powers and wisdom, that lies within each body and soul, their therapeutic approach is truly holistic and empowering. Often it isn’t enough to put a bandage on or swallow a pill, that covers the pain. Healing starts within and with combined interdisciplinary wisdom, true magic can happen. Over the years she and her team guided many patients into a painfree, relaxed and happy life.
Mary Margaret Vollmar
Mary Margaret is the creative mastermind behind Mary Margaret Photography, a boutique lifestyle photography business specializing in bright and airy images that beautifully showcase life’s natural moments. Since starting her business, Mary Margaret has been on an upward trajectory in the world of lifestyle photography. She has completed more than 100 shoots and has been featured in eight publications in her first year as a photographer. Her unique ability to connect with each client on a personal level and elicit authentic expressions and real moments during her sessions sets her apart and has clients booking with her again and again.
In addition to her thriving photography business, Mary Margaret is also an experienced HR professional in the corporate world. She uses her professional skills to enhance her client experience through care and connections. Her ability to multitask makes her one to watch out for in 2023!
Sabine Wojcieszak
Sabine Wojcieszak is the Enthusiastic Future of Work Enabler at getNext IT. She coaches companies, leaders, and teams on the path to better collaboration and modern leadership for more productivity, improvement, and success. Fun, an agile mindset, and good communication are game changers for her. It is essential to finally talk openly, appreciatively, and constructively about challenges, risks, and opportunities. Significantly when the world of work is changing rapidly, and more technology is finding its way in, it is vital to have this open conversation to find ways to benefit from these changes and technology without fear.
Companies can only meet future challenges with a willingness to replace outdated behaviors and patterns with more appropriate ones. And the future is already here. Sabine regularly writes articles, speaks at international conferences, and coaches others to succeed on stage. As a mentor, she also helps start-ups on their way.
Elana Swart-Traut
Elana Swart-Traut help clients unlock their potential, set goals, and achieve their dreams through programmes of self-discovery. These programmes are anchored in identifying and overcoming self-limiting beliefs and reprogramming them. Through 25 years as an entrepreneur, an educator, and a public speaker, she’s made it her business to inspire and guide others to reach higher, dream bigger, and achieve more.
She’s a firm believer in the power of positivity, and all the more so after surviving a rare cancer and six rounds of chemo. Elana learned a number of ways to keep her mind strong, and when she returned to work, she found ways to share this with others in the workshops she hosts. Our fears prevent us from living the lives we’re born to live. Through bravery we overcome those fears. Elana designs and presents empowering workshops to individuals, professionals and employers that unlock individual potential and open up new avenues of possibilities.
Final Thoughts
In today’s world, female leadership is on the rise. From the C-suite to the boardroom, more and more women are making their mark on the corporate landscape. In 2023, we can expect to see even more amazing women leading the way in business, politics, and other fields. The women in the list are pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo, and they are sure to have a lasting impact on their respective fields.
