Women in Business

Elizabeth Arden

Elizabeth Arden, cosmetics business executive, pioneered many advertising and marketing techniques.

Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel's fashion designs helped define style in the 1920s and the 1950s.

Esther Dyson

Esther Dyson is a consultant on emerging technologies, businesswoman, founder and chair: EDventure Holdings (New York). Her influence has also been felt through her forums on technology, open to subscribers to her publication.

Mary Parker Follett

Mary Parker Follett was a pioneer theorist on management theory. That her work is nearly forgotten today is sad, because even in 1918 and 1924, her work shows the direction of much of 20th century management thinking.

Lydia Pinkham

Lydia E. Pinkham converted her home medicine remedy to a major business, and pioneered advertising to women. That her patent medicine had a high percentage alcohol content didn't hurt its attraction -- and some temperance leaders unwittingly lent their names to her advertising campaigns.

Helena Rubinstein

Helena Rubinstein founded a worldwide chain of beauty salons and created a cosmetics empire, beginning by distributing one facial crème in Australia. She continued to run the business until her death at 94.

A'Lelia Walker

A'Lelia Walker helped develop the Walker business empire with her mother, Madam C. J. Walker, and then became its president after her mother's 1919 death.

Maggie Lena Walker

Maggie Lena Walker, African American business woman of Richmond, Virginia, was the first woman bank president in the United States.

Madam C. J. Walker

Sarah Breedlove Walker, known as Madam C. J. Walker, was the first African American woman millionaire in America, known not only for her hair straightening treatment and her salon system which helped other African Americans to succeed, but also her work to end lynching and gain women's rights.

Oprah Winfrey

Wealthy businesswoman and entertainer Oprah Winfrey is an American success story. Her popular talk show is oriented towards informing women and changing women's lives. She is involved in many causes, including a number focused on helping African American women, in recognition of her own journey.