Good morning, Broadsheet readers. The appointment of the nation’s first female CTO is basically a done deal and one of the most powerful women in media is out. Read on to learn more about AOL’s new venture to fund women-run media startups. Have a great Wednesday!
EVERYONE'S TALKING
• The Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink. "Fortune and our Time Inc. sister publication Food & Wine spent months searching for the most groundbreaking women in the food and drink world. The women listed below may not all operate at the same scale as the big industry players, such as PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi and Mondelez International’s Irene Rosenfeld, who are regulars on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business ranking (online Sept. 18). But this group is permanently changing the way we eat and how we think about food. Now that’s power in its own right." Click over to meet these incredible women. Fortune/Food & Wine
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
• Megan Smith's White House job: Basically a done deal. The White House plans to name Google executive Megan Smith as the nation's next chief technology officer, Fortune is reporting. Smith, currently a vice president at the tech giant's top-secret R&D lab Google X, would be the first woman ever to hold the U.S. CTO position. Fortune
• Katharine Weymouth resigns from WaPo. Almost a year after buying The Washington Post, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is replacing the CEO and publisher, effectively ending eight decades of Graham family members running the paper. “The greatest honor of my life has been serving as publisher of The Post these past seven years,” wrote Weymouth about the decision. “Now it is time for new leadership.” Fortune
• Under Armour signs Gisele. The athletic-apparel company that made headlines for its latest provocative marketing campaign geared to women, "I Will What I Want," has brought on supermodel Gisele Bundchen to help sell its new women's line. Bloomberg
• Williams sister act ousted. Serena and Venus were beaten on Tuesday in the U.S. Open doubles quaterfinals by the fourth-seeded Russian team of Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina. Venus is out of the tournament entirely now, whereas defending champion Serena is still competing in the quarterfinals of the singles tournament. ESPN
• These women may decide the Internet's fate. FCC commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel probably will cast the deciding votes on revising "net neutrality" rules that currently bar Internet provides from slowing down the loading times for various websites. HuffPost
• Big change at CVS. The drugstore chain officially stopped selling tobacco today. To highlight its new image as a health company, CVS also announced a corporate name change to CVS Health. Retail stores will continue to be called CVS/Pharmacy. Helena Foulkes, President of CVS/Pharmacy, was a key architect of the company's decision to ban tobacco from its 7,700 stores. USA Today
• Starbucks, Samsung shine in South Korea. The companies are being praised by Park Geun Hye, the Asian nation's first female president, for having many part-time jobs available to Korean women looking to re-enter the workforce after having children.“Korea needs more women to work and people need to postpone their retirement or find second jobs to generate income," says an economist on the importance of companies creating more part-time work. Bloomberg
• MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Marie Donoghue, a longtime ESPN executive, was promoted to executive vice president of global strategy and original content. Angie Chang, a director at engineering fellowship program Hackbright Academy, and Kim Le, CEO of financial accounting startup A2Q2, have joined the advisory board of The Club, an incubator for women leaders.
BROADVIEW
Meet the woman behind AOL's women-focused fund
AOL announced on Tuesday that it is launching a venture capital fund aimed at women-led digital startups. It's tentatively called the BBG Fund, which stands for Built By Girls, and will start with roughly $10 million.
The new venture will be run by Susan Lyne, a longtime media exec who was wooed by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong in early 2013 to run AOL's brand group. Interestingly enough, before accepting the job, Lyne told Fortune's Pattie Sellers that she seriously considered saying no. "I thought, I’m going to start investing and advising, and it’s going to be a wonderful, free existence."
Now Lyne will get to do just that.
The media mogul -- who has worked for the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Martha Stewart and Jane Fonda -- has never shied away from taking on any opportunity to reinvent herself, as Fortune's Jennifer Reingold wrote in 2011. Before going to AOL, Lyne was CEO and later chairman of e-commerce company Gilt Groupe, where she still sits on the board of directors. “I’ve taken a leap of faith on several occasions,” she explained. “And in every case, on some level, I’ve become a beginner again.”
This time, Lyne will be a pioneer in the trendy field of investing in women-led companies. Despite research that shows women-run startups outperform and take on less risk than male-led startups, the vast majority of funding still goes to companies run by men. Lyne hopes to help AOL change that: “Women are such an important part of the Internet and need to be represented better in funding," she said in an interview yesterday with Re/Code's Kara Swisher.
One practitioner in the space, Sallie Krawcheck tells me that investing in women has clearly been a passion of Lyne's for years. Krawcheck, founder of Ellevate Network, which funds and advises women-led companies, added that she is glad to see Susan and AOL making such a move.
"Susan is such a respected executive," says Krawcheck. "I'm glad to see her add her voice to that of other senior professional women in taking action to support and invest in other women."
How do you think Lyne should focus the new fund at AOL to make it successful? Email me at caroline.fairchild@fortune.com with your thoughts.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
• Where working women are the most equal. The Northeast is the best place for working women to live, according to an analysis of employment and earnings equality data by the Institute for Women's Policy Research. WaPo
• Single mom fights Macau billionaires. Cloee Chao, a former Macau casino employee, started a union to crack down on smoking within the casino for workers who may be pregnant on the job. She also is focused on better wages. Bloomberg
• The "year of the women governor" likely no more. Female candidates likely will grab a couple of governorship seats this fall, bringing the total of women governors across the country to seven. That falls short of the record of nine gubernatorial spots held by women twice during the last ten years. Politico
ON MY RADAR
Natalia Oberti Noguera: How to get ahead Cosmo
Summer is over: How to ease back into work Fast Company
GM cars soon will tell you if you're distracted Fortune
U.S. Open has made for more compelling women's tennis WSJ
Absurd headline about female exec is the worst Policy Mic
QUOTE
So why are people so quick to point the fingers of blame at the women who are victims of the hack? It’s likely because it’s easy — far easier than blaming a culture that nurtures this kind of misogynist attack — and also because it makes people feel safe. After all, if you’re not the kind of person who would take nude photos then you’re not the kind of person who has to worry about this kind of invasive crime, right? Time writer Megan Gibson on why we should stop blaming celebrities for the nude photo hack