Raya Advisory Women in Power List 2024

At Raya Advisory, we are incredibly proud to spotlight the Women in Power who are trailblazers and thought leaders in their industries. Many successful women, like the ones on this list, are CEOs of public companies, renowned investors, founders of mission-driven businesses, executives of high-growth companies, industry influencers, and university professors; all of them are truly changing the world for the better.

We all agree that stats such as the ones below are disappointing: 

• Women held only 11.8% of C-suite roles at publicly traded US companies 
• Companies founded solely by women received only 2% of all VC investment
• Only about 15% of all VC 'check-writers' are women

Despite these stats, we’ve witnessed many incredible women in key roles, like the winners of this list, driving impact across many industries. At Raya Advisory, we like to focus on the positives. We believe that by spotlighting women in power, we can celebrate the successes of today’s women in leadership and inspire our next generation of leaders. 

This past March, in celebration of Women's History Month, we co-hosted a successful Women in Power event with Perkins Coie. We had 100 female founders, investors, executives, board members, and influencers join the event as speakers and attendees. The event was a huge success, and we aim to repeat it in 2025. 

In partnership with the Virtualness team, we kicked off our inaugural Women in Power list this year. All the Women in Power featured on our list will receive a personalized virtual trophy that will be delivered to them on the Virtualness platform.     

If you are interested in hearing about our future events, including an invite for our March 2025 Women in Power event, sign up to join the List of Raya Advisory Events and follow Raya Advisory and Yasi Baiani (CEO and Founder of Raya Advisory) on LinkedIn. 

Please join us to congratulate all the winners below and share their stories by sharing this article: 

Hayden Brown, CEO of Upwork, a publicly traded company. In the 13 years since she joined the business, she has overseen Upwork's revenue growth from $10M to over $700M, with the platform facilitating approximately $4B in client spend annually. As CEO for the past 4.5 years, she has navigated the company through numerous global crises, maintaining focus on Upwork’s mission to create economic opportunities so people have better lives through a work marketplace that supports skilled professionals and clients worldwide.

Her notable career began with a pivotal shift from corporate strategy to product development, driven by a deep resonance with Upwork’s mission. 

One of Hayden's toughest challenges was the decision to suspend operations in Russia and Belarus due to the war in Ukraine. This move tested her leadership and commitment to Upwork's values. She relied on expert input strategic principles from both inside and beyond the company to minimize the impact on customers. Initiatives like empowering freelancers in Ukraine and assisting displaced professionals through an innovative program established by Upwork and the Tent Partnership for Refugees called Opportunity Unlimited highlight her adaptive and values-driven approach.

Mentors like Brad Smith, former CEO of Intuit, and Charlie Songhurst, former head of corporate strategy at Microsoft, have significantly influenced Hayden’s career. Their guidance has helped her navigate complex decisions and think innovatively.

Under Hayden’s leadership, Upwork has integrated AI to revolutionize work. The platform’s AI, Uma, enhances customer experience, streamlines project execution, and supports job postings. Upwork also serves as a premier destination for AI-related talent and work opportunities, partnering with companies like Adobe and Amazon to provide freelancers with advanced AI tools.

Hayden’s favorite books include The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.

Cara Brennan Allamano, Chief People Officer of Lattice. She is a distinguished People Leader who led HR and people functions at Lattice, Udemy, Planet, and Pinterest to name a few. She scaled 3 startups to IPO.  At Udemy, she was instrumental in building an IPO-ready company, driving substantial growth during the pandemic. This period was marked by significant organizational and revenue expansion, highlighting her ability to lead through challenging times.

Cara believes deeply in the strategic importance of people teams in driving business success. This belief is reflected in her work as a founder of PeopleTech Partners, a network of people leaders dedicated to driving innovation in HR technology. Through this network, Cara has played a crucial role in developing tools that empower HR teams to demonstrate their strategic value.

One of Cara's significant challenges has been overcoming the undervaluation of HR as a strategic business function. She has consistently worked to demonstrate the critical impact of effective people management on business outcomes. 

Balancing motherhood and a demanding career has also been a personal challenge. Joining Pinterest and Planet while pregnant, she was supported by CEOs and colleagues who believed in her capabilities. These experiences have motivated her to inspire other parents to successfully balance career and family.

Cara’s favorite AI product remains ChatGPT as well as Lattice's new AI feedback summary tool. Her top books include A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman. She emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and reflection, both in her professional and personal life.

Bonnie Hyun, US Head of Capital Markets at New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), where she significantly grew NYSE's tech market share to over 60% by IPO proceeds over the past decade. She has partnered with renowned companies such as Uber and Snowflake, marking one of her proudest career achievements.

One of Bonnie’s significant challenges was pivoting from investment banking during the 2008 financial crisis when uncertainty and fears about the economy, particularly financial services, were paramount. She was able to successfully transition to a tech company in Silicon Valley, applying her skills to help the company go public.

Bonnie has benefited from great mentors, including a CEO from her running club who coached her through her first marathon. Their conversations during long runs provided her with valuable insights into leadership.

At Intercontinental Exchange, NYSE's parent company and the largest global financial data services business, AI has become a core competency. The launch of the AI Center of Excellence focuses on developing AI-enabled products and maintaining governance guardrails to manage AI risks.

Bonnie is an avid adopter of AI tools; she replaced Google with Perplexity for search due to its user interface, information sourcing, and follow-up questions.

Her favorite podcasts are Think Fast, Talk Smart from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, ReThinking with Adam Grant, and Decoder with Nilay Patel.

Mar Hershenson, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Pear VC, managing $820M in assets. As an early-stage generalist investor, she focuses on a wide range of sectors, including AI, consumer, infrastructure, DevOps, B2B, healthcare, and biotech. 

Mar is particularly proud of her investments in Doordash (IPO), Guardant Health (IPO), Gusto, Aurora Solar, Orby, and Kale. These investments represent her commitment to backing founders who build significant businesses despite challenges.

Mar’s biggest career success is creating Pear VC with Pejman Nozad, fostering a strong culture and team dedicated to supporting pre-seed and seed-stage founders. She is known for her hard work, clear feedback, and storytelling skills, which help companies fundraise.

Mar prides herself on being there side-by-side with the founders during the early days of the company, navigating the challenges. Her superpower is storytelling and helping companies fundraise for the next round. She believes in backing great founders and acknowledges that great founders know more than investors do – great founders have a special ability to see the future.

Mar’s favorite books are The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank, The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, and The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick.

Brooke Boyarsky Pratt, CEO & Co-Founder of knownwell, a pioneering startup addressing the obesity epidemic by integrating metabolic health care into primary care. Brooke raised $24.5M from a16z, Flare Capital Partners, and other investors. knownwell longitudinal approach folds obesity medicine into weight-inclusive primary care, and provides comprehensive support like nutrition counseling, behavioral health services and more.

Brooke is proud of transforming her personal experience of struggling with obesity since childhood into a well-funded startup that is actively changing the lives of patients. knownwell created the gold standard for weight-inclusive primary care and comprehensive obesity medicine. Unlike many in the market, they take commercial insurance, as well as Medicaid and Medicare, without a membership fee. Since its launch, knownwell has seen thousands of patients, and of those thousands of patients, knownwell’s current net promoter score is 92 – a score that’s uncommon in healthcare.

Mentors like Jeff Shulman at McKinsey and Hilary Provinse at Berkadia have been pivotal in Brooke's career, providing guidance and support. At knownwell, partnering with Dr. Angela Fitch has been crucial in advancing obesity treatment.

knownwell is integrating AI to enhance patient care, including AI-powered patient stratification and asynchronous communication platforms. The acquisition of Alfie Health has brought the AI-powered ObesityRx™ platform to knownwell, improving clinical decision support and metabolic health treatment.

Brooke’s favorite book is Nothing Special: Living Zen by Charlotte Beck, which offers insights into staying focused on what matters.

Vanessa Larco, Partner at NEA, with $25B under management. She focuses on investments in B2B and B2C apps as well as app layer technologies. Some of her notable investments include Greenlight, which was her first seed investment; Assembled, her largest initial check investment; Kindred, which is led by inspiring founders with a magical product; Limitless (formerly Rewind), a bold product with an inspiring founder; and Robinhood, where she served as a Board Observer.

Vanessa’s biggest career success is the lifelong friendships she’s made along the way. As an investor, she emphasizes focusing on long-term goals. Her favorite AI tool is Limitless AI, which helps her organize and retrieve information efficiently. Her favorite books include The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman, The Five Temptations of a CEO by Patrick Lencioni, and Good to Great by Jim Collins. 

Noosheen Hashemi, Founder and CEO of January AI, a generative AI, seven years in the making, that predicts the next glucose level without the use of invasive and expensive CGMs. January AI leverages millions of data points from thousands of people, along with commercial vision and language models, to help people eat smarter and live healthier. Their food logging app covers 32 million foods plus the best photo scan in the market.

In the past, Noohseen was VP of Finance and Administration at Oracle, where she established the critical sales and administrative infrastructure, driving the company’s revenue from $26M to $3B and expanding its market cap to $19B over a decade.

One of the biggest career challenges for Noosheen early in her career was her age. Even though she always exceeded expectations when it came to the quality of her work and her business results, she had to navigate the fact that she was significantly younger than others in similar roles. 

She has been inspired by many mentors, notably Larry Ellison in business and Chuck Feeney and Vartan Gregorian in philanthropy.

Noosheen’s favorite books include Radical Wholeness by Philip Shepherd, The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama, and the poetry of Mehdi Akhavan Sales.

Kirthiga Reddy, CEO and Co-Founder of Virtualness, has been at the helm of global, technology-driven transformations. Kirthiga was the first female Investment Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, where she managed the $130B SoftBank Vision Fund. During this time, she led about $1B in new investments across various sectors, including web3, metaverse, gaming, quantum computing, additive manufacturing, mental wellness, and enterprise. She transitioned from leading Facebook India and South Asia to co-founding Virtualness in 2022. Virtualness leverages blockchain and generative AI for authentication, engagement, and monetization. The company partners with global sports leagues, influencers, and brands, having raised $8M in seed funding and expanding to eight figures.

Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of Facebook, has been a pivotal influence in Kirthiga’s career, offering guidance and support that shaped her leadership approach. Beyond Virtualness, Kirthiga co-founded Liftery, a social impact initiative aimed at addressing the steep mid-career drop-off for working mothers. She also serves on the Board of Trustees at Syracuse University, served as Chair of Stanford Business School Management Board, and was the 2023 Blue Ribbon Commissioner for the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) to issue guidance on dynamics and culture within the Boardroom.

Her favorite books are The 8th Habit by Stephen R. Covey, Deep Work by Cal Newport, and Winning by Jack Welch.

Amy McDonough, Managing Director of Strategic Health Solutions at Google, which acquired Fitbit for $21B in 2021. Amy built Fitbit Health Solutions from the ground up, scaled it to be incorporated in 70 of the Fortune 500 companies and 1,600 employers. She now leads the Strategic Health Solutions team, which creates, prototypes, and accelerates the adoption of products and services that positively impact global health by connecting with products across Google and the health ecosystem. Having the ability to build a brand, a category, and a high-performing cross-functional team was an incredible experience. Most importantly, over the course of more than a decade, through her work at Fitbit, she improved millions of individuals’ daily health.

Building a business within a startup while raising a young family was challenging. She almost quit (at least in her head) a dozen times.  She experienced the full range of emotions - exhaustion, uncertainty, imposter syndrome - and sometimes all in the same day!  Her resilience was always guided by a commitment to doing the right thing for her team and customers.

Amy credits the Co-Founders of Fitbit, James Park and Eric Friedman, for empowering her and fostering her growth. She also highlights the influence of Dr. Karen DeSalvo, Google’s Chief Health Officer on her, as well as her support network, which includes her husband and sons.

Amy’s favorite books include Uptime by Laura Mae Martin and The Women by Kristin Hannah.

Hayley Bay Barna, Partner at First Round Capital, a top-tier seed stage fund. Hayley is a generalist tech investor, focusing on healthcare, marketplaces, consumer, and climate sectors. Her notable investments include Alma, enhancing accessibility of therapy and supporting therapists with necessary tools; SiteRx, improving clinical trial recruitment and advancing neurological treatment; Caper (acquired by Instacart), innovating real-world shopping experiences; and Studs, leveraging tech to enhance consumer shopping.

Hayley’s proudest achievement is the creation of a virtuous cycle of company creation. Many colleagues from her early days at Birchbox, where she was Founder and CEO, are now venture-backed founders – demonstrating her lasting impact on the industry.

Hayley is known for her empathy towards founders, innovative business models, and support of the NYC tech scene. She believes that founders are on twin journeys, one focused on execution and the other focused on the emotional aspects of company-building, with the latter often determining success.

Jen Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of Scribe, the company that simplifies how knowledge is shared and distributed within companies. Scribe had a staggering 400% increase in revenue last year, is used in 97% of Fortune 500 companies, and is currently cash flow positive. 

Jen Smith is most proud of building Scribe and witnessing the growth of its happy customers and talented team. A significant challenge in Jen's career was learning to ignore external expectations and trust her instincts.