Last week I watched the PBS special Women in Business and read the October 6th issue of Fortune magazine, which featured the 50 Most Powerful Women. Today I thought I would introduce you to four business women who caught my interest.
Anne Marie Sastry. Hidden within the Fortune pages is the intriguing story of a former engineering professor at the University of Michigan, Dr. Anne Marie Sastry. Dr. Sastry has started a company that invented a new kind of battery that may revolutionize the electric car industry. The company is called Sakti3 and its battery would allow electric cars to travel 300 miles on a single charge and cost much less than current batteries. It will be interesting to see how Dr. Sastry figures out how to scale the product and deal with Elon Musk, the inventor-entrepreneur behind Tesla.
Barbara Banke. If you drink wine you have probably heard of Jackson Family Wines, the largest producer of premium wines in the United States. Its Kendall-Jackson Vintner Reserve Chardonnay is the best-selling chardonnay in the country. Barbara Banke is the CEO and is leading its strategy to expand its vineyard holdings up into Oregon. One of their strategic concerns is whether or not American wine drinkers will embrace wines made from non-California grapes. The Fortune story of how Banke got involved in the business and how she is leading the research behind how the tastes of millennials are impacting the wine industry is very interesting.
Jessica Alba. Have you heard of The Honest Company? It is a $150 million e-commerce business founded and led by actress Jessica Alba. Here is what she wrote in Inc Magazine about why she started the business: “I founded The Honest Company on this idea: Everything that touches you and your family–everything in your home–needs to be nontoxic, needs to be effective and beautiful to look at, and needs to be affordable. I really wanted it to have an e-commerce model. What are the things that all parents need? Diapers and wipes, for sure. And then a mix of cleaning and personal care products. Wouldn’t it be great if you could pick five things and get them delivered through a monthly subscription?”
Sharon Anderson Wright. Here in the east we have not seen Wright’s business, Half Price Books. But it is a very popular chain of book/audio stores that has carved out a niche over 30 years. Wright took over the disorganized business from her mother and has grown it into a $240 million business today with over 120 locations in 16 states. The business story in Fortune is worth reading because it tells of how a business got started in a simple, low cost fashion, and then grew under a second-generation leader, Sharon Wright.
Next week I am going to write about the challenges that two powerful women leaders, Ginni Rometty of IBM and Janet Yellen of the Federal Reserve Bank, are having with their own organizations’ cultures.
