Susan Wojcicki, 1968-2024

Wojcicki in 2016. Photo credit - Wikipedia

One of Google's first employees and the CEO of YouTube.

Susan Diane Wojcicki was born in Palo Alto, California, and grew up on the Stanford campus, where her father taught physics. After graduating from Gunn High School, she attended Harvard University, studying history and literature to earn a Ph.D. in economics and pursue an academic career. In 1993, at 25, Wojcicki completed her master’s degree in economics at the University of California, followed by a Master of Business Administration from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. During her studies, she worked as a management consultant in R.B. Webber & Company and Bain & Company and at Intel’s marketing division.

In 1998, at 30, Wojcicki married Dennis Troper, and the couple settled in Menlo Park, California. In that same year, she rented her garage space to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, who turned it into its headquarters. In the following year, Wojcicki joined Google as its first marketing manager and 16th employee. In the beginning, she worked on viral marketing programs, heading products such as AdSense, AdWords, and Google Analytics, before developing new services, such as Google Images and Google Books. Under her direction, Google became the leading company for online display advertising.

In 2006, she initiated and handled the acquisition of YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars, and within two years, she oversaw two of Google’s biggest acquisitions – DoubleClick and AdMob. In 2010, she became senior vice president of AdWords and AdSense.

In 2014, at the age of 46, Wojcicki was named CEO of YouTube. In this position, she is responsible for all the developments of the service, from channel memberships and merchandise to YouTube Premium and YouTube TV, and oversees the website’s localization all over the world. She tightened YouTube’s policy on videos that contain violent and hateful speeches. As a loud advocate against gender discrimination at technology companies, she increased the number of YouTube’s female employees from 24% to 30%.

Along with her role at YouTube, Wojcicki serves on the boards of several organizations, including Salesforce, UCLA Anderson School of Management, and Room to Read, an organization that promotes gender equality in education. Wojcicki is also an activist and involved in numerous social causes, such as the expansion of paid family leave, girls in STEM, and support of Syrian refugees.

She died of cancer at the age of 56, in 2024.

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“Whether it's salary or a promotion or a job… it's important for women to ask for what they think they deserve.”

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Fun Facts

  • She has five children.
  • In 2014, she published an article in The Wall Street Journal about the importance of paid maternity leave.
  • Her sister, Anne Wojcicki, is the founder of 23andMe, a direct-to-consumer genetic testing company, and was married to Google's co-founder, Sergey Brin.
  • Her grandmother, Janina Wójcicka Hoskins, assembled the biggest collection of Polish material in the US.
  • At 11, she founded her first business, selling spice ropes door-to-door.
  • She holds both US citizenship and Polish citizenship.
  • In 2017, she launched her own YouTube channel with a video titled My First Video - Advice From Creators.
  • In 2015, she was named one of Time's 100 most influential people.
  • In 2017, she was ranked six on Forbes' list of ‘The World's 100 Most Powerful Women.’
  • In 2019, she was ranked first on Vanity Fair's New Establishment list.

Awards

  • The Google Founders' Award (2003)
  • The Free Expression Award (2021)

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Category: Business & Entrepreneurship, Economics & Finance, and Science & Technology
Tags: Businesswoman

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Adena Friedman WWP
Economics & Finance

Adena Friedman, 1969

A businesswoman, the president and CEO of Nasdaq, the first woman in this position and to lead a global exchange.

Born Adena Robinson Testa in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned her BA in political science from Williams College in Massachusetts and an MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. In 1993, at the age of 24, she married Michael Cameron Friedman. In that same year, she joined Nasdaq as an intern and soon began moving up. In her first 18 years at Nasdaq, Friedman served in various positions, such as marketing manager, head of data products, head of corporate strategy, and Chief Financial Officer. In 2011, at 42, Friedman left Nasdaq to join Carlyle Group, a private investment firm in Washington DC. There, she served as Chief Financial Officer and Managing Director. After three years, she returned to Nasdaq as president and Chief Operating Officer. In 2017, in addition to her role as president, 48 years old Freidman was appointed CEO of the Nasdaq. The first woman in this position and the first woman to lead a global exchange. She oversees the company’s business segments, focusing on efficiency, product development, expansion, and growth. Under her leadership, Nasdaq transformed into a leading global exchange and technology solutions company, operating across six continents. In addition to her work in Nasdaq, Freidman is also a member of several boards. Among them are – the board of directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the board of FCLTGlobal – a non-profit organization that works on ways to encourage long-term investing, and the board of Greater Washington, DC. A Chapter of Junior Achievement – a non-profit organization that supports teens in their way to financial independence. Freidman often speaks about women in leadership positions, advocating for mentoring and creating career opportunities for women in the financial industry. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Fashion & Beauty

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The legendary editor in chief of Vogue magazine; one of the most powerful fashion industry figures.

Anna Wintour was born in London, England, the eldest of five children. Her interest in fashion started at a young age, watching music television broadcasts and reading Seventeen magazine. She attended North London Collegiate School, where she was known for being a rebel for shortening the hemlines of her skirts. At age 15, she began to work at a fashion boutique, and at 16, she dropped out of school to participate in a training program at Harrods while taking fashion classes. Not long after, she began to work at OZ magazine. At the age of 21, Harper’s & Queen magazine hired her as an editorial assistant, and a few years later, she moved to NYC to work as a junior fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar, from which she got fired because she “did not understand the American market.” Afterward, she found an editor position at an erotic magazine for women, and when it shut down, she took a hiatus from work for a couple of years. In 1980, she returned to NYC and worked as a fashion editor in several magazines until she landed a position as Vogue’s first creative director. At the time, she began dating her future husband, David Shaffer and got married in 1984. The following year, she moved back to London to take over the UK Vogue. After two years, she relocated to NYC to edit House & Garden magazine but shortly after, she was appointed editor-in-chief of US Vogue. In her new position, she made radical changes in the magazine, renewing its focus on fashion and changing the style of the cover pictures. She began to present unfamiliar models and famous women on the covers and mixed high fashion with inexpensive clothes. Under her editorship, the magazine became at the forefront of the fashion world, setting new trends and launching the careers of many models, photographers, and designers. She became and still is the fashion world queen and a fashion icon. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Business & Entrepreneurship

Annie Turnbo Malone, 1869-1957

An inventor and entrepreneur who established one of the first black-oriented cosmetic empires and the first African-American woman self-made millionaire.

Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone was born in Metropolis, Illinois, the tenth of eleven children of formerly enslaved parents. Her parents died when she was young, and she moved to nearby Peoria to live with her sister. There, she attended high school and developed an interest in chemistry. She was also fascinated with hair, often styling her sister’s hair and becoming aware of the differences between hair textures. These days, women used soap, heavy oils, goose fat, and bacon grease to straighten curly hair, which irritated the scalp and damaged the hair. Combining her love of hair and chemistry, she began experimenting on herself, developing a hair product that straightened black hair with no side effects. In 1900, at the age of 31, Turnbo moved to Lovejoy (today Brooklyn, Illinois) and began manufacturing a line of hair straightener products, including a hair-stimulant for African-American women, “Wonderful Hair Grower.” Her target customers were black women who could not access traditional distribution places, so Turnbo promoted her products by going door-to-door and offering free demonstrations. After achieving success in the local market, she wanted to expand her clientele and moved to St. Louis, MO, where she hired three employees who continued her door-to-door method. Soon after, she opened her first shop. Turnbo held news conferences and went on tours throughout the South to promote her products, giving demonstrations and recruiting women as local sales agents. By 1910, she broadened her line to include cosmetics, and under the label Poro, she manufactured lipstick, shades, cold cream, face powder, and her famous hair grower. In 1914, at the age of 45, Turnbo married her second husband, Aaron Eugene Malone, and appointed him as the company’s chief manager and president. In 1918, she founded a cosmetology school called Poro College. The college curriculum included classes on nurturing and styling black hair as well as personal coaching on how to walk, talk, and dress as a “Poro agent.” The college building had a retail store, manufacturing plant, auditorium, offices, chapel, gymnasium, and dormitory. It served as a community center and a meeting place for organizations such as the National Negro Business League. The center became a source of employment for many African Americans, especially women. Through the school and the Poro franchise, Turnbo’s business employed almost 75,000 women in the US, South America, Africa, and the Philippines. By the 1920s, Turnbo became one of the wealthiest African American women, with an estimated worth of $14 million. Despite her wealth, she lived modestly, donating thousands of dollars to various establishments, such as the local black YMCA, the Tuskegee Institute, and the Howard University College of Medicine, in addition to supporting two students in every black land-grant college in the US. In 1927, at the age of 58, Turnbo divorced her husband. He forced her into a court battle in which he demanded half of its value as the company’s president. She reached a settlement that affirmed her as the business’s sole owner but harmed the business’s financial worth. Three years later, she relocated her business to Chicago to a city block she bought. During the 40s-50s, she spent much of her time fighting lawsuits in court, first from a former employee who claimed credit for her success and then from the government for unpaid taxes. Eventually, she had to sell most of her properties to pay her debts. Afterward, the business continued to operate but on a significantly smaller scale. Turnbo continued to run her business until she died of a stroke at the age of 87. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Academy & Education

Betty Reid Soskin, 1921

A singer, businesswoman, and social activist. The oldest National Park Ranger in the US.

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