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MPWFortune Superwomen

10 Powerful Women Share Their Motivational ‘Pump Up’ Songs

By
Kevin Kelleher
Kevin Kelleher
and
Devin Hance
Devin Hance
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Kevin Kelleher
Kevin Kelleher
and
Devin Hance
Devin Hance
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 8, 2019, 6:45 AM ET

Ask ten powerful women which ‘pump up’ song helped motivate them to achieve success and you’ll get ten different answers. Taken together, you have a playlist for the 21st Century.

Kathy Murphy, president of Personal Investing at Fidelity Investments, says that Cyndi Lauper’s timeless and irrepressible pop anthem, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” has stuck with her over the years.

Zola CEO Shan-Lyn Ma likes “anything by Drake,” while Lisa Sherman, CEO of the Ad Council, says she’s a “huge Stevie Nicks fan.” Sherman’s favorite song of all time is Fleetwood Mac’s”Landslide,’ which she says is “all about not being afraid to change.”

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Melissa Hobley, chief marketing officer of OkCupid, stands by AC/DC. “I’d probably put ‘Thunderstruck‘ or ‘Back in Black’ right up there,” she says. “You can’t play those songs and not be like, ‘Game on. Let’s bring it.'”

Kat Cole, Focus Brand’s chief operating officer and North America president, says her power song is “It Can’t Get Better Than This” by Parachute Youth. “It’s an anthem from one of the years that I went to Burning Man,” she says. “And it just brings back memories of dust and creativity and independence and awesomeness and badassery.”

Check out these and other power songs in the video. You can also listen to the playlist here. To see the rest of Fortune’s International Women’s Day Superwomen series, click here.

About the Authors
By Kevin Kelleher
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By Devin Hance
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