Although Women’s History Month is coming to a close, the dismal number of women in company leadership positions remains an issue.
On the heels of 2020, we’ve also been reminded that progress is not linear. In 2020, millions of women dropped out of the workforce, and Crunchbase data shows that venture funding to female founders in the U.S. dropped to 2.4 percent from 3.4 percent in 2019.
Despite these setbacks, women are continuing to push forward. According to Crunchbase News, as of Feb. 19, Black and female founders have landed 30 percent of the largest U.S. early-stage rounds in 2021. Six new female-founded companies reached $1 million valuations (or more) and have joined the Crunchbase Private Unicorn Board.
Along with this progress, new female BIPOC company leaders have also been announced this year. Starting on May 1, Thasunda Brown Duckett will become the second Black female CEO currently in the Fortune 500, joining Walgreens’ new CEO Rosalind Brewer, who started her role earlier this year. And there are many other women in leadership positions who are chipping away at that, albeit very thick, glass ceiling.
Using Crunchbase’s leadership hire data, we highlight a few of these women in new leadership positions at some of the top-funded companies in 2021.
*Note: This list is not exhaustive, and the companies featured here are listed in descending order starting with the highest total funding. You can find the full list of companies with new leadership hires in 2021 here.
1. Asha Sharma, Instacart
- New Position: Chief operating officer at Instacart (previously vice president of product at Facebook) (full details)
- Total Company Funding: $2.7 billion
2. Allison Miller, Reddit
- New Position: Chief information security officer and VP of trust at Reddit (previously senior vice president of technology and design at Bank of America) (full details)
- Total Company Funding: $919 million
3. Enakshi Singh, Zymergen
- New Position: Chief financial officer at Zymergen (previously vice president of finance at Zymergen) (full details)
- Total Company Funding: $874.1 million
4. Stephanie Buscemi, Confluent
- New Position: Chief marketing officer at Confluent (previously formerly global CMO at Salesforce) (full details)
- Total Company Funding: $455.9 million
5. Michelle DeBella, Knock
- New Position: Chief financial officer at Knock (former vice president of finance at Lyft) (full details)
- Total Company Funding: $434.5 million
6. Aditi Dravid, TPx Communications
- New Position: General counsel and secretary at TPx Communications (full details)
- Total Company Funding: $292 million
7. Tarsha McCormick, WP Engine
- New Position: Vice president of diversity, equity, inclusion, culture and engagement at WP Engine (previously the North America head of diversity, inclusion and social change at ThoughtWorks) (full details)
- Total Company Funding: $290.7 million
8. Cindy Goodrich, BetterUp
- New Position: Chief marketing officer at BetterUp (previously vice president of marketing at HubSpot) (full details)
- Total Company Funding: $269.8 million
9. Donna DeBerry, Seismic
- New Position: Vice president, inclusion at Seismic (previously the director of inclusion at Indeed) (full details)
- Total Company Funding: $256.5 million
10. Vanna Krantz, MasterClass
- New Position: Chief financial officer at MasterClass (previously CFO of Disney Plus and ESPN Plus) (full details)
- Total Company Funding: $236.4 million
Want more stories and career advice from other glass-ceiling-smashing women? Check out the Crunchbase Female Founder Series.
Learn more about our efforts to centralize and highlight diversity data through Diversity Spotlight here.