Nobody starts out in the C-suite. Members of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women community tell you how they navigated corporate America to get to the top

Trailblazers

 Thank you. [INTERPOSING VOICES] All right. OK. Cool. Good morning. I'm Anna Maria Chavez. I'm the chief executive officer for Girl Scouts of the USA. How do you feel being a woman has influenced your career path? [MUSIC PLAYING] You know I think being a woman, being a mother has really influenced the way that I look at things. I had two amazing women who mentored me. My grandmother who taught me at a very early age the importance of education because she never was able to receive an education. And then my mother who was one of the first women to run for public office in southern Arizona. As an adult when I transferred my skills to the law, I had seen her take on so many things, even without a law degree. So as a lawyer, I thought, well, private education I should be able to do so much more for society. As a young woman growing up in southern Arizona where there wasn't a lot of resources, when I think back and people asked me, so did you have obstacles, did you have barriers? I'll be honest. I have lot of adults who kick down a lot of barriers for me. That's why I'm so grateful and honor to be the head of the Girl Scouts because I give girls hope everyday. It was the 100th anniversary of Girl Scout Houston, Texas. I was looking out the audience and had brought to Houston the young woman who I introduced to Girl Scouts. She was a positive force in her school. She did everything she could to help her Girl Scout sisters. Irene is a bright girl who is, unfortunately, faced some challenges. And at the end of the year, the Girl Scout year, I learned that through all of this, Irene, since the age of nine, had been homeless. A couple of years later, she was traveling all over the country speaking on behalf of youth and she had become a national spokesperson for kids like her. Her life had been changed because Girl Scouts and I'm on stage and it hit me I was being a role model how powerful is that. There are going to be other women that are going to follow you, they're going to have it a little bit easier because you broke through that barrier for them. 

The Girl Scouts CEO Is Kicking Down Barriers for Young Girls

Careers

She tells us how in our new series “Trailblazers”.

 If I could just have you give your name. OK. And your position in the company. OK. Hi, I'm Sandi Peterson from Johnson & Johnson, and I'm the group worldwide chairman. How do you feel being a woman has influenced your career path? [MUSIC PLAYING] I think it's influenced it a couple of ways. I'm of the age that, for many years, I was the only woman in the room. I was the only woman with children. But I also think it's made me much more empathetic towards people who are different and wanting to bring in different voices to figure out how to solve issues and problems. Over time, it's been easier for people, particularly women, to show up as their full selves at work. I remember when I started working. You had to sort of pretend you were an automaton. You didn't have a personal life. And that doesn't happen anymore. And so I think one of things for me that I get jazzed about every day is when I show up at work, and I help other women be successful. And it's as important to me as it is what I do in terms of building businesses and making them profitable and growing market share. It's about enabling other women to become their full potential. [MUSIC PLAYING] I always say every day until 50% of the people in the company that I'm responsible for from top to bottom are female, we haven't done our job because we don't reflect the environment and the society in which we live in. We still have a lot of work to do. But it's a lot nicer now, and it's a lot easier when you walk into a room and half the people in the room are diverse of some way, shape, or form. The other thing I think is really fun to see is that a lot of men who were under the ages of 35, they want to have time with their kids too. They want to have time to support their spouses. And they don't want to be just working and not being able to make that work for them as well. So I actually think having more women in the workplace makes it better for men in the workplace too. [MUSIC PLAYING] 

How Having More Women in the Workplace Benefits Everyone

Leadership

 So are you ready to go? Yes. Excellent. I'm Michelle Johnson. I'm the superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy. And my rank in the Air Force is Lieutenant General. How do you feel being a woman has influenced your career path? [MUSIC PLAYING] I didn't really think of it that way. I don't wake up every morning and saying, I'm a woman. That's different, right? I just am. This is who I am. For women in the '70s, the doors were starting to open, but it was-- they weren't completely open yet. So we didn't really know what was possible. You tried to make possible. It was a bit of a shock to be in the second coed class at a service academy, and to be suddenly feel like the other. Probably the crucible of going through that when I was 18 to 22 years old helped kind of fortify me for other times when I'm other for other reasons. Having the resiliency to say I can get through this and I can't be distracted by being treated as other, especially in flying. One of the forgiving things is the airplane doesn't care, right? It doesn't care what you look like or sound like or where you came from. But if you allow the other people's reaction to change oneself, that could be distracting, and it could undermine in your performance on the very thing that you want to do well at. People often say women have to work harder and try harder. I think it's just sometime overcoming other people's expectations. But my own father was in tears when I got my pilot wings. He said, I could never imagine my daughter wearing jet pilot wings. I said, but Dad, you said we could do anything. And he said, but I just couldn't imagine it. So I think that's part of not-- of only having maybe mothers in certain roles or sisters in certain roles has made it difficult for some people to even picture someone in different packaging, doing the work we do. 

How This Woman Went from Being the 'Other' to Being a Trailblazer

Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson explains.

 Yes. OK. Why don't you tell us your name. Muriel Bowser, I'm the mayor of Washington DC. How do you feel being a woman has influenced your career? [MUSIC PLAYING] If you'd asked me that a few years back, I would tell you that I didn't think it was a big factor. Still, I think that Washingtonians want a great mayor-- a female mayor or a male mayor. They want somebody who's going to be honest, somebody who is going to reflect their values. Now, if you ask me about the impact on campaigns and how women leaders are treated differently, that's a long conversation. But there are some differences, but I approach them the same way. I do my job, and I deliver for the people of DC. And that's how they're going to judge me. The biggest obstacles are people who will try to put you in a box or try to discourage you from moving ahead. And so I think that a lot of people-- if you're under 40, if you select a nontraditional path, if you're a woman, you always have people who doubt and will try to dissuade you. It's especially clear when you may be one woman in a field of men, and so it becomes easy to see differences. And that became very clear to me. I don't know that I would say that I changed anything about what I did or how I approached my work, but I am aware. The obstacle for me has been putting that kind of what I call the static or the noise to the side and focusing on what I think is best. 

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser Discusses What It's Like Being a Woman in Politics

 I'd rather go hide. I'd rather just not do not be in that situation. Those hallway conversations and those networking opportunities really can drive your business forward. It's just something I have to-- I always continue to focus on and always push myself. [INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC] So for me, I think the biggest challenge I faced in my career, which has both been personal and professional, has been that I am an introvert. And I started to really understand, as I started to get my first sort of management roles, it wasn't something that came naturally to me. Which, many other things did. I was lucky. But this didn't. My very first really understanding that I was fairly introverted and that it was required in leadership skills was how tired I was when I got home. I started to realize that I was working really hard. This job isn't that much harder. I don't know what's different. I was starting to manage teams. And I started to realize it just took a lot of energy for me to be on. So one would think someone leading a community team would not be introverted, as really the whole corpus of that is that people are willing to put their opinion out there and be out there, meet both online and offline often. I'd say the other thing I really have focused on is hiring teams of people that really dial up those skills that I don't have. When you're in leadership, there's definitely multiple axes that you have to look at. So both managing your team and your people, your stakeholders, and then managing up. If you aren't innately capable of being out there and talking, you're not going to win. You're not going to drive your strategies. And you're not going to deliver on the mission that you've set out. You can have the best mission and the best data in the world. But if you can't talk about it or win people over or sell people, you can't make moves and get things done. So it's part of the business. It's part of being a leader. If you are someone who feels like that, it's totally workable. Just get out there and start talking about it. Because you'll feel better once you know other people feel really similarly. [INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC] 

Can You Be a Leader and an Introvert?

 Pleasure meeting you. What do you-- want me to look directly at you? OK, great. My name is Kay Koplovitz, and I am the co-founder and chairman of Springboard Enterprises and the Springboard Fund. How do you feel being a woman has influenced your career path? In my career, I faced many situations where women were not accepted. At Augusta National Golf Club, where I had a contract, women were not allowed to go to the second floor club. That sounds simple, but you're excluded from the club of people who are running something that's important in television coverage. You just find your way around things. I was never thinking that it was going to be a barrier for me. I was going to find a way around it, because I knew, to be successful, I would have to. And so I never really looked at it as a barrier, I just looked at it as something I-- you know, a challenge. I think it was very natural for me to expect myself to be successful in business. I at one time produced television for WTMJ in Milwaukee. And I realized that people thought that I had perhaps reached the pinnacle of my career, because they had never had women producers. And they just didn't quite understand that wasn't it for me. That I didn't want to be the manager of the TV station. That I didn't want to be the President of the Milwaukee Journal that owned the TV station. I wanted to be the president of NBC. You know, you have to draw the picture for yourself of what you believe you want to really do and not let other people define you. It's one success after another that really gives you confidence, I think. 

Here's What the First Female Network President Has to Say About Gender Barriers

Kay Koplovitz founded USA Networks in 1977.

 Thank you. So inspiring. My name is Sarah Kate Ellis, and I'm the CEO and president of GLAAD. How has being a woman influenced your career path? [MUSIC PLAYING] I think being a woman has made me work harder, smarter. And for me, it's been a real advantage. I love being a woman. That's a weird thing to say. But I guess I like the camaraderie of other women executives. We have this little club that we call the GSDs-- Get Shit Done, because I always say women get shit done, because we have no choice. We've got to manage kids, we've got to manage a household, we've got to manage a business. You get it done. You don't mess around, and you focus on it, and you move things forward. And I think that's an advantage of being a woman. I think there are advantages to being a woman, and I think that's one of them-- we can do multiple things at multiple times. The biggest obstacle I faced I think in my career has probably been myself-- in my own head, getting in my own way, thinking that I could be less than because I was a woman or that I was gay. And when I started my career, I never was out because I thought it could really hurt my career. So I was very, very quiet about my private life. And it wasn't until I actually came out that I felt that my career really flourished, because then I was being authentic and true. And that showed in the work that I was doing. We're always solving some sort of problem. It doesn't matter what business you're in. And I think that if you bring your authentic self there, you can really have real conversations with people to understand how to move the bar forward. You take your struggle and turn it into a triumph or you turn it into an asset. I do feel a tremendous amount of strength being a woman. 

GLAAD CEO: 'I Think Being A Woman Has Made Me Work Harder'

CEO and president of GLAAD Sarah Kate Ellis explains how being a woman helped her career.

 There's this idea that you have to be something other than yourself. Society often will reinforce this idea that something else is better, which then leads you to think that exactly who you are isn't necessarily good enough. My name is Jotaka Eaddy, and I'm the vice president of policy, strategic engagement, and impact at LendUp. Silicon Valley is very interesting, in that the images of Silicon Valley, in particular at the time that I transitioned into the industry, was largely white men in t-shirts or hoodies that knew how to code. What you saw was not necessarily a representation of myself or people who looked like me. And that was a bit discouraging. So I was afraid, one, of just sort of not fitting in. Number two, I was afraid of the fact that I don't know how to code, so does my skillset really fit into this industry? Do I actually have value add in this industry? I basically took myself out of the opportunity the move forward. And it took some other people to come and just sort of kind of hit me and be like, are you crazy? You've lobbied in the UN. You've helped win major Supreme Court cases. Why can't you be successful in this industry? But that own sort of second guessing, not thinking you're smart enough or good enough, questioning-- am I supposed to be here? Is this place for me? Was something that constantly got in my way. I talked to other women, particularly mentors, and eventually was really pushed by someone I admire greatly, Frieda Kapour Klein, who basically had like a real talk with me and was like, hey, you need to really go and do this. And you have an opportunity to do good and do well. And the industry needs you. And that was something that was extremely transformative in helping me get out of my own way. That has been a real important lesson for myself and something that I often tell other young women. Get out of your own way, and always know that you are enough. 

How LendUp's Jotaka Eaddy Learned to Thrive in Silicon Valley

She says she needed to "get out of my own way."

 Everybody assumes that we have full rights in this country, but we don't. You can still be fired from your job, evicted from your home, or denied access to services like health care because you're LGBT. The laws of the land do not support it in every state. I'm Lisa Sherman, and I'm the President and CEO of the Ad Council. The Ad Council is the country's organization that produces all of the pro-social marketing activities and campaigns, taking on the most important and pressing social issues of the day. I think the biggest challenge I had was being in the closet for the first 17 years of my career and never feeling comfortable that I could be my full self at work. I thought I was going to be committing career suicide. I hid for a long time. I pretended. I had mastered the black art of pronoun puppetry. I would substitute him, he, and we for her and she whenever I would talk about my weekends. I had a picture of my best friend Bob on my credenza. I really, I think, separated myself from my colleagues because I was unable to socialize with them as much. It got to the point where I had been out in every other part of my life, and it started to take its toll on me. And so I knew that I at some point would have to leave, which I ultimately made the decision to leave. But I promised myself that on my last day that I would go and see the CEO, who I'd known my entire career, and tell him why I was leaving. He listened, and it was, for me, the relief of having this huge secret out in the open was incredible. And I decided that I would never at that point, never be in a corporate closet or any closet ever again. And I will tell you, what became very clear very fast was how much energy it took to hide all of those years. When I got to my new job, I was so happy, and I was probably more productive and more creative because I had no secrets. It was amazing. Fast forward probably two months-- I get a call from another closeted gay executive. And he said to me, Lisa, did you come out to Ray on your last day? And I said, I did. Why do you ask? And he said, well, we were having a meeting to talk about benefits, and domestic partnership benefits in particular, and Ray was sitting in the back of the room very quietly, and then he got up and walked to the front of the room and he said, Lisa Sherman on her last day came to my office to say goodbye, told me that you were blocking this policy, and I'm not sure I believed her. But sitting in here listening to you talk, it's clear that she was right and you were going to figure out how to get domestic partnership benefits implemented across this company as soon as possible. And I will tell you that within six months, domestic partnership benefits were a reality to every employee at the company. In some ways for me, while I felt quite guilty while I was there for not having the courage to come out, in that moment, I sort of assuaged some of my guilt because I understood that that one conversation had such an incredible impact. And I think the lesson for me was you just have to speak your truth, and one conversation can make a huge difference. And it's just important to have those conversations. 

Lisa Sherman: "You Just Need to Speak Your Truth"

The Ad Council President and CEO on coming out at work.

 We're women, we're scientists so we don't have a lot of business experience and we're pitching a company about emotions and often we're pitching to older male investors. So that makes it really hard. Yeah, definitely quite challenging, actually. I'm Rana el Kaliouby. I'm co-founder and CEO of Affectiva. Affectiva is an AI company on a mission to humanize technology. We build technology that can understand all things human. Your facial expressions, your emotions, your voice intonations, your activities, your behaviors, all in the service of making technology more human really. When we spent Affectiva out of MIT, I took on the role of chief technology officer and we hired kind of a seasoned executive to run the company as a CEO. Part of me felt that I wanted to really be the CEO, but I didn't have the kind of the guts to do it. Early 2016, we were re-evaluating our market opportunities and I had a particular view on how we should approach the market. I was starting to see trends around kind of conversational interfaces and smarter devices. And I knew that we had a role within that ecosystem of technology. And so I went to our then CEO and I said, hey, we need to be co-CEOs. And he was like, why should I ever do that? So I wrote down a list of like here are the responsibilities of the CEO. And as I started to do that, I realized that I was actually doing a lot of them, right? I was already the face of the company. I already kind of ran the technology team of Affectiva. And so the more we talked about it, the more I became convinced that I'm ready, that I really should take this on. And so we debated it back and forth and the conversation more from let's be co-CEO to you know what, I actually want to be CEO. I think he saw that. He saw that I was extremely passionate. He'd also been my mentor over the years so I learned a lot from him. And at some point, he said you know what you're ready, let's take this to the board together. I remember I was on a train back from New York to Boston when he called me and said, you know what, I've thought about this you should become CEO. And I almost said, no, no, no, I was joking. I almost reneged on the whole thing. I was that scared, but I persisted. And it's been two and half years and it's been a great experience. Definitely challenging and stressful, but but very fulfilling. And the company is in a much better place. 

How Affectiva Founder Rana el Kaliouby Became CEO

At first she didn't "have the guts to do it."

Yeah. Very nice meeting you. [INTERPOSING VOICES] Very nice to meet you. We're good to go. All right, great. My name is Susan Schwab. I am the former US Trade Representative, great job. I now teach at the University of Maryland. I'm a professor there. I used to be the dean. And I'm on a number of corporate boards and a number of nonprofit boards. How do you feel that being a woman has influenced your career path? [MUSIC PLAYING] When I became the US Trade Representative, I was the third woman-- not the first, not the second. I was the third. It was a ho hum experience for everybody. And that was good, the way it should be. Frequently in negotiating sessions, I'd be the only female in the room. And what that ends up meaning, they remember me long after they've forgotten all of the other white guys on my side of the table. Sort of interesting, I still have people coming up to me 30 years later who were in negotiations. I remember you. It's because I was the only female on our side. To an extent, the trade policy field has been a good one for women. It's not a field that has a very specific path. You can come into the field as a lawyer, as a foreign policy expert, as an economist. There isn't a well-honed old boys' network. And to the extent that there is in the trade policy field, it really helped me. So I'm not sure I can answer your question. 

Ambassador Susan Schwab: Being the Only Woman in the Room Made Me Memorable

Politics

The third woman in our Trailblazers series is Susan Schwab, who served as the U.S. trade representative under President George W. Bush.

 So why don't you start by telling us your name and your title? Sure. I'm Salle Yoo. I'm the general counsel of Uber Technologies. How do you feel being a woman has influenced your career path? I guess I haven't really thought about it that way, because I am a woman, and so I've lived, you know, the path that I've been given. I think that I've never made choices because I'm a woman. I've been cognizant of certain challenges that are presented because I'm a woman, and that I have to operate differently in certain circumstances. I've also been extremely fortunate. I've had a ton of mentorship from other women. I think that women naturally have a community of support, of expertise and advice. I look at my career and then the career of my husband, and yes, he gets a lot of feedback from his mentors, as well, but really I think that the community of support and a willingness to help each other really exists with women. And that it's been quite meaningful for me in my career. I think that there are several things that I face that are fairly common to all women. One of the reasons why I wanted to pursue partnership at the law firm was that the American Bar Association published a study that showed that within 10 years, minority women at the largest 200 law firms in the US, the chance that they were still at that firm was statistically zero. And that was meaningful to me, because that meant that minority women were not making it into partnership. So that was one thing that kind of propelled me through my career. I wanted to make partner not only for myself, but so that I can figure out how to do it so I can teach other women how to kind of crack that puzzle. 

Minority Women Still Have Big Hurdles in the Workplace

Uber’s top lawyer explains how she's overcome them all.

 One of the things I say often is we need to take our clients' issues as personally as they do. They're counting on us to help them-- most of the time to help them with their family's goals and dreams. When my dad died unexpectedly, I was 27. And then the three youngest kids were freshman, sophomore, and junior in college. My mom and dad had the traditional duties in the house. She paid the bills, he did the investing. So I saw up close and personal what happens when you don't plan enough for the future. My mom had no idea what to do. Historically, I was not actually that interested in a career in financial services, to be honest. I started as a lawyer and doing health care. And then when that happened, it's like, whoa, once she got closer to retirement, it's like we got to put a plan together here in order for you to figure out when you can retire, how much you can spend per month, et cetera-- and helping her out along the way. She didn't know who she could count on. The investment advisor-- she had no idea who to trust. And it's funny, because when we were kids, I'm old enough that we all got taken down to the local bank and got our little passbook. And so all of us were told to save money, and all of us had summer jobs and worked. But it was about saving money, not investing for your future. And there's a big difference. That challenge has informed a lot about how I approach things and also my approach to helping other people in terms of their finances. So I listen to 20 hours of customer calls every month as I'm driving to and from work. And so to hear people like my mom what they're going through-- the most memorable call I had, a young sounding voice says he's calling because he's on long term disability. What's this all about? Turns out, he has multiple sclerosis and he's in his 40s. He said on the call, I'm counting on going to get my two daughters through college. I'm investing in this solution in order for you to get my girls through college. They're 11 and 12. It's like, this is real. It makes a difference how we approach our jobs and how we help people. 

Fidelity's Kathy Murphy: Her Dad's Death Changed Her Career Path

She never planned to wind up in financial services.

[MUSIC PLAYING] They constantly had things that would be challenges, but you can never let it get you down. You have to prove it wrong and come out stronger on the other side. I'm Maria Molland. I'm the CEO of Thinks. Just I did interview with this company because of what it did and it was a woman founded business. It was a platform raising up girls and women in society. And so I was really excited about the fact that I'd be joining a business that seemed so focused on making women's lives better. But what I found shortly, thereafter, in the final round of interviews is that one of the board members told me directly that they were concerned around my having a young child and my ability to do the job. I think I paused. I was pretty blown away, to be honest. And I kind of collected my thoughts as to how to best respond to it in the moment. I was traveling at the time in this interviewing process from Tennessee to New York, I was bringing my daughter with me. And I had proving kind of time and time again that I was willing to do lots to ensure that I could do this job and could indicate that I was really excited about it. And you kind of started thinking maybe they're right, to some extent, right? Can I do this, right? Because it was my first CEO job. But there is another part of me that thought, I have to prove them wrong, and I need to make sure that they know that I am completely committed, that I'm able to do this job better than anybody else, and that I will hit it out of the park. But I also realized it was this opportunity to ensure that I could create policies that would make it easier for working parents to be able to have a career and a family life. So a lot of the benefits that we've now put together actually are really oriented towards making sure that you can cover the cost of a nanny and a daycare. We have childcare stipends. We have more flexible leave policies. We have longer parental leave policies. And those things I think will help-- it certainly helps me think about how to manage it all and try to manage it all. And I'm hoping it helps the other people at the company, and sets an example also to other companies as to what we need to do to help working parents. It is hard, right? I completely admit that there are times when I leave my child Monday mornings and she's really upset because she spent the whole weekend with me, that it's difficult. You have something that really gnaws at you for a few hours afterwards. But I love my job so much, and I also love what we do where we're really helping women and girls. And not only the ones that can afford underwear. We have a very big give back component for more the marginalized girls and women out there that I'm so proud of. And that makes me feel like my daughter as she gets older too she's going to, hopefully, be proud of me and I realize that it perhaps was a sacrifice. But it's something that I did for me, of course, I enjoy it as well, but also for her and for the world at large. 

Thinx CEO on the Importance of Good Benefits for Working Parents

Maria Mulland says creating these policies is a key part of her job.

Fortune introduces the newest season of Trailblazers.

Zilingo’s Ankiti Bose: Building a successful startup as a woman in India

She faces obstacles as a woman business leader there.

Zilingo’s Ankiti Bose Builds a successful startup in India

The Riveter’s Amy Nelson: Moms 'seen as a distressed asset' at work

The company includes men in the conversation.

'The Riveter' wants to change corporate America for women

Ignite’s Anne Moses: Fighting to get more women into political office

Women hold only about 25% local political seats.

Ignite’s Anne Moses: get more women into political office

Cora’s Molly Hayward: Out to improve the world since age 10

The female-focused wellness company does a lot of good.