For every woman entrepreneur, it is vital to be a person of mettle as well as metal. Women must be of strong intent and be conclusive of the purpose of establishing her business- from the underlying goals to the execution layout, to the ultimate objective says, India’s most celebrated Astro-Strategist cum Business Astrologer, Hirav Shah on his extraordinary insights on business-women or women entrepreneurs.
It is important to cut out a definite roadmap- whether it is a purely passion-driven pet project or with a business viewpoint to it; whether to maintain it as a small-scale boutique business or likely arrangements of development and expansion. All these elements need to be tended with crystal clarity, which would then shape the establishment for the structure for their business.
On that note, let’s find out who all have made it to The Hirav Shah’s list of Most Successful Business-Women in the USA who can inspire you in 2021.
Table of Contents
1.Diane Marie Hendricks
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Panama1968, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sector : Entertainment
Diane Marie Hendricks (born 1947) is an American billionaire businesswoman and film producer from Wisconsin. She is one of the most successful business women in 2020.
Past Work
In 1975, she was selling custom-built homes and Ken was a roofing contractor. They married and became business partners. In 1982, they used their lines of credit to secure a loan that enabled them to establish ABC Supply, a company that sells roofing, windows, gutters, and siding for residential and commercial buildings.
Turning Point
Turning Point came when she became the owner of the Hendricks Holding Company, and the owner and chairperson of ABC Supply. In 2018, Forbes ranked Hendricks the USA’s richest self-made woman.
Another turning point came when she produced movies, including The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008), about an execution in an Iranian village, An American Carol, (2008), and Snowmen, (2010).
Earnings
Net Worth- $8 Billion
Source- Roofing
2. Judy Faulkner
Sector : Healthcare
Judith “Judy” R. Faulkner (born August 1943) is an American billionaire, and the CEO and founder of Epic Systems, a healthcare software company located in Wisconsin.In 2013, Forbes called her the most powerful woman in healthcare.
Past Work
In 1979, shortly after receiving her master’s degree, Faulkner co-founded Human Services Computing, with Dr. John Greist. Human Services Computing, which later became Epic Systems, began in a basement at 2020 University Avenue in Madison, WI. The company was started with a $70,000 investment from friends and family, but has never taken investment from venture capital or private equity and remains a privately held company.In fact, Faulkner prides herself in the fact that Epic is homegrown; they have never acquired another company and Faulkner has stated they will never go public.Epic Systems now holds the medical records of over 200 million people. Faulkner and her family currently own 43% of Epic Systems.
Turning Point
The turning point came in her career, when Faulkner founded Epic Systems in 1979, with the original name of Human Services Computing.
Earnings
Net Worth- $5.5 Billion
Source- Health IT
3. Margaret Cushing Whitman
Max Morse, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sector : FMCG
Margaret Cushing Whitman (born August 4, 1956) is an American business executive, former political candidate, and philanthropist. She is a board member of Procter & Gamble and Dropbox. Whitman was previously president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She was also the CEO of Quibi before its closure in October 2020. Whitman was a senior member of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns in both 2008 and 2012 and ran for governor of California as a Republican in 2010, but supported Democrats Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.
Past Work
Whitman began her career in 1979 as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio. Whitman later moved on to work as a consultant at Bain & Company. She rose through the ranks to achieve the position of senior vice president.
Turning Point
There were many turning points in her career. The first one was when Whitman became vice president of strategic planning at The Walt Disney Company in 1989. Two years later she joined the Stride Rite Corporation, before becoming president and CEO of Florists’ Transworld Delivery in 1995.
As Hasbro’s Playskool Division General Manager, starting in January 1997, she oversaw global management and marketing of two children’s brands, Playskool and Mr. Potato Head. She also imported the UK’s children’s television show Teletubbies into the U.S.
Earnings
Net Worth- $5 Billion
Source- e Bay
4. Judy Love
Sector : Gas Station
Judy Love and her husband Tom opened their first gas station in Watonga, Oklahoma, in 1964 using a $5,000 loan from Tom’s parents. Judy kept the books and ran the company with Tom until 1975, when she returned to college. Today, Jude has become one of the most successful business women in the USA in 2020.
Past Work
Judy Love went back to college in 1975 at age 38. She received undergraduate and graduate degrees in interior design from the University of Central Oklahoma. Judy has been the executive secretary at Love’s and chairman of the Love Family Fund.
Turning Point
For Tom and Judy Love, their road to becoming effective philanthropists began in 1964 when they leased an abandoned filling station in Watonga, Oklahoma. From this humble beginning, their family-owned and operated company, Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, has grown to include more than 520 locations in 41 states and is one of the country’s top privately-owned companies. Her husband Tom is Love’s chairman; three of the couple’s four children work for the company.
Earnings
Net Worth- $4.7 Billion
Source- Retail and Gas Stations
5. Marian Bayoff Ilitch
Sector : Restaurant and Gaming
Marian Bayoff Ilitch (born January 7, 1933) is an American billionaire businesswoman, and the co-founder of Little Caesars Pizza with her late husband, Mike Ilitch. In 2018, Ilitch was one of the world’s seven richest women, according to Bloomberg. Today, in 2020, she is one of the most successful women in the US despite the pandemic.
Past Work
The Ilitches founded Little Caesars Pizza in 1959, which they expanded as a franchise. They have since expanded their interests to include restaurants, entertainment, sports and gaming.
Turning Point
One of the original investors in Detroit’s MotorCity Casino, Ilitch realized an opportunity to purchase total interest in the casino resort complex from various minor stakeholders and Mandalay Resort Group in 2005. Marian solely paid $600 million to buy MotorCity Casino from the other investors and for subsequent renovations.Michigan gaming laws prohibit one company from owning more than one Detroit casino property. With Ilitch as owner, MotorCity Casino is reportedly one of the largest independently owned casino enterprises in the United States—likely the largest woman-owned casino in the U.S. This became the turning point in her life.
Ilitch and a partner, Michael J. Malik, Sr., have pursued other casino gambling interests outside of Detroit, and from coast to coast. They have acted as a developer of casinos for federally recognized tribes of Native Americans, who have started to use this as a means of generating revenues. They have worked with the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, developing Little River Casino Resort in Manistee, Michigan. Ilitch has partnered with the Shinnecock Indian Nation in Hampton Bays, New York on plans to develop a casino on Long Island. Ilitch also partnered with Barwest, LLC and the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians to develop casinos in Barstow, California.
Earnings
Net Worth- $4.1 Billion
Source- Little Caesars
6. Lynda Resnick
The Wonderful Company, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sector : Agriculture
Lynda Rae Resnick (born 1943) is an American billionaire businesswoman. Resnick is married to Stewart Resnick, who is her business partner, and through their holding company The Wonderful Company, they own the POM Wonderful and Fiji Water brands, Wonderful Pistachios and Almonds, Wonderful Halos, JUSTIN Wines, Landmark Wines, JNSQ Wines and the Teleflora floral wire service company.
Past Work
Lynda Resnick has been involved in many companies. The Wonderful Company, formerly Roll Global, is a holding company which the Resnicks use to facilitate their various business ventures. Notable brands controlled by the Resnicks include POM Wonderful, Fiji Water, Wonderful Halos and Wonderful Pistachios. They also operate large industrial citrus and nut farms in California. The Resnicks met while he was president of American Protection Industries, Los Angeles, California, and she was pitching her ad agency to get his business.
The Resnicks purchased Teleflora in 1979,at which time Lynda left her advertising job to become the company’s executive vice president of marketing and eventually president. As Vice-Chair and co-owner of Teleflora’s holding company, Resnick has been involved with securing flagship TV sponsorship roles. She won a Gold Effie Award for her idea to pair fresh flowers with a collectible keepsake container,while her Mother’s Day special on NBC resulted in another Effie win.
Turning Point
January 2009 saw her company’s first Super Bowl advertisement, which was voted one of the best Super Bowl ads by several newspapers, blogs, and online fan sites. This became the turning point in her life.
Earnings
Net Worth- $3.6 Billion
Source- Agriculture
7. Johnelle Hunt
Sector : Transportation
Johnelle Terria Hunt (born January 4, 1932) is an American billionaire, the widow of Johnnie Bryan Hunt, and co-founder of J.B. Hunt Transport Services, the company they started in 1961.
Past Work
Hunt was on the board of J.B. Hunt Transport Services, the largest publicly owned trucking company in the US, until 2007, the year after her husband, J.B. Hunt died.
J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. is a transportation and logistics company based in Lowell, Arkansas. It was founded by Johnnie Bryan Hunt and Johnelle Hunt in Arkansas on August 10, 1961. By 1983, J.B. Hunt had grown into the 80th largest trucking firm in the U.S. and earned $623.47 million in revenue. At that time J.B. Hunt was operating 550 tractors, 1,049 trailers, and had roughly 1,050 employees.
J.B. Hunt primarily operates large semi-trailer trucks and provides transportation services throughout the continental U.S., Canada and Mexico. The company currently employs over 24,000 and operates more than 12,000 trucks. The company’s fleet consists of over 100,000 trailers and containers.
Turning Point
The turning point came when the company had grown into the 80th largest trucking firm in the US. The company after that, grew in leaps and bounds and is still growing in Hunt’s leadership.
Earnings
Net Worth- $3.5 Billion
Source- Trucking
8. Thai Lee
Sector : IT
Thai Lee (born 1958) is a Thai-born Korean American billionaire businesswoman, the co-owner, CEO and president of SHI International, reported by Forbes to be the largest woman-owned business in the US.
In addition to her responsibilities at SHI, Thai is Dean of the Advisory Board at Harvard University and a Life Trustee of Amherst College.
Past Work
Thai Lee founded Software House International in 1989 and has led the company over the last 31 years to become the largest Minority & Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) in the United States.
Turning Point
The strategy of the Thai Lee became the company’s turning point only…
The strategy has been streamlining the business of IT with innovative e-commerce, fulfillment and IT asset management solutions, helping to build hybrid data center and storage solutions, securing growing diversity of data and assets or building a truly collaborative digital workplace.
Earnings
Net Worth- $3.2 Billion
Source- IT Provider
9. Oprah Winfrey
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aphrodite-in-nyc, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sector : Entertainment and Media
Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years from 1986 to 2011.
Past Work
By 19, she was a co-anchor for the local evening news. Winfrey’s often emotional, extemporaneous delivery eventually led to her transfer to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.
Credited with creating a more intimate, confessional form of media communication, Winfrey popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue.In 1994, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
By the mid-1990s, Winfrey had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, mindfulness, and spirituality. Though she was criticized for unleashing a confession culture, promoting controversial self-help ideas,and having an emotion-centered approach,she has also been praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. Winfrey had also emerged as a political force in the 2008 presidential race, with her endorsement of Barack Obama being estimated to have been worth about one million votes during the 2008 Democratic primaries.In 2013, Winfrey was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama and honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard. In 2008, she formed her own network, Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
Winfrey has won many accolades throughout her career which includes 18 Daytime Emmy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Chairman’s Award, 2 Primetime Emmy Awards, including the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, a Tony Award, a Peabody Award and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, awarded by the Academy Awards and two additional Academy Award nominations.
Turning Point
The turning point came when she was dubbed the “Queen of All Media”. She was the richest African American of the 20th century and North America’s first black multi-billionaire, and she has been ranked the greatest black philanthropist in American history. By 2007, she was sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world.
Earnings
Net Worth- $2.6 Billion
Source- TV Shows
10. Doris Fisher
Sector : Fashion
Doris F. Fisher ( born 1931) is an American billionaire businesswoman, who co-founded The Gap clothing stores with her late husband, Donald Fisher in 1969.
Past Work
Fisher is a noted art devotee. She loaned the collection she and her husband spent their lives collecting, which consists of 1,100 works by 185 artists, including Andy Warhol, Ellsworth Kelly, and Richard Serra, to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which, because of her support, is now the largest modern art museum in the United States.
She has been named as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes Magazine. She has served as a trustee of Stanford University, her alma mater.
Turning Point
When the pandemic started, actually came the company’s turning point.
One of the best-known clothing retailers in the world has embraced edge computing technology and realized significant operational advantages as a consequence.
As a result, The Gap today operates more than 2,500 stores in North America and handles more than 2 billions in transactions per year. The company has switched from traditional point-of-sale technology to a system based almost entirely on Apple’s iOS products, as iPads replace cash registers and scanner guns across sales floors.
Earnings
Net Worth- $2.4 Billion
Source- GAP
Conclusion
Sometimes success is so close, yet we time our actions wrong and efforts go waste. This happens in all major businesses in the world, right !!
And, who on Earth wants to fail ??
Nobody.
On that note, World Famous Astro-Strategist, Hirav Shah concludes by saying Astrology is the only tool that can warn you beforehand of incorrect timing / bad period. In short, to ensure a brighter future in any Business, ASTROLOGY is ‘need of the hour’
