As long as there are still places where women lack the same basic economic rights as men, the fight for gender equality is not over. But for International Women's Day this week, we’re celebrating women leaders worldwide who have brought us this far and the ones who will one day transform our future.

Though gender equality needs to go beyond the C-suite, #BreakTheBias often starts with representation at the top, where women can and do shape companies (and even drive better performance). From Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser to TPM’s Maya Chorengel to Afsaneh Beschloss of the Rock Creek Group, the women on Barron’s annual list of the 100 most influential women in US finance are examples of the many women who are bringing new perspectives and ideas to the teams they lead. And the list is just the tip of the iceberg, as a growing number of women are managing successful portfolios—and shaking up systems along the way. 

There’s more to come, too: in one recent survey of women re-entering the workforce after pandemic-induced absences, nearly half say they’re “very ambitious.”

Few corporate leaders are more fearless than Mellody Hobson, who has broken barriers throughout her career as head of the largest Black-owned asset management firm (and, as readers of Be Fearless know, among the most diverse) and the first Black woman to chair the board of a Fortune 500 company. Now there’s data to back up her “color brave, not color blind” mantra: Ariel Investments, Hobson's firm, released the first-ever study of Black corporate directors. The findings call for more accountability and transparency as corporate boards become increasingly diverse.

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