Dr. Jen WalterGirls can play just as hard on the field as the boys. This week, Dr. Jen Welter made history by becoming the first female coach in the NFL. Jen grew up loving football. She won the 2004 championship with the Dallas Diamonds of (then the Women's Professional Football League). "I didn't even dream that it was possible," she told ESPN. I think the beauty of this is that, though it's a dream I never could have had, now it's a dream other girls can grow up and have."
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Sally FitzgibbonsSurf’s up! Surfing is not just a sport for long-haired boys at the beach. Aussie surfing sensation Sally Fitzgibbons is only 25 and she's an international icon. She started the sport as a teenager and broke records from the start. At the age of 14, she became the youngest surfer to win an Association of Surfing Professionals Pro Junior event, and at 15, she represented her country on an international level. She’s won titles everywhere from Fiji to Brazil and France. “I have a great love and passion for my sport and what I do,” she told news.com.au. “I love encouraging people to get outdoors and be active in what they are passionate about.”
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Julie GreenwaldCan’t stop listening to Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk”? Love Wiz Khalifa? Thank Julie Greenwald. In the notoriously masculine music industry, she sits at the top. The Chairman and COO of Atlanta Records has been dominating the charts for decades. Prior, she was boss lady at Def Jam Records (where she began as a lowly personal assistant), working with hip-hop’s elite artists like Jay Z and Kanye West. She’s topped Billboard's Women in Music power list for five consecutive years and points to her unique management style as one of her secrets to success. “I’m most proud of the fact that this company is a very flat organization," she tells JW Magazine,"There isn’t a hierarchy or a lot of political drama. It’s just a creative, artistic company where everyone has a voice and an opinion. It’s about music.”
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Saira BlairSaira Blair is not only one of the few women in politics but she became the youngest elected politician in history this year. While still a student at West Virginia University, she defeated her 44-year-old opponent for a seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates. It’s not a fluke. At just 17-years-old, (before she could even vote) the Conservative joined her state delegate. Like many teens, she worked at her parents’ apple orchard and water softener company, not for a new car, but to raise money for her campaign. When she’s not running government, she likes to spend her time—where else—on Instagram.
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Zhou QunfeiMeet the world’s richest self-made woman. Zhou Qunfei started from the bottom as an impoverished factory worker in China and turned her technological know-how into Lens Technology, one of the leading suppliers of cover glass used in laptops, tablets and mobile devices. Look down at your iPhone. You can thank Zhou for that glass screen. Her factory turns out a billion—that’s with a b—glass screens a year. At just 44-years-old, she’s one of the only self-made female billionaires in the world. “In the village where I grew up, a lot of girls didn’t have a choice of whether to go to middle school. They would get engaged or married and spend their entire life in that village,” she told the New York Times, “I chose to be in business, and I don’t regret it.”
