Tech for Good: 10 Female Leaders Making a Positive Impact
When it comes to startups, females are making strides on a number of fronts.
For example, the United States has seen a surge of women choosing the path of entrepreneurship. According to the 2024 Impact of Women-Owned Businesses report there are 14 million women-owned businesses, employing nearly 12.2 million people and generating $2.7 trillion in revenue. This makes up a total of 39.1% of all U.S. businesses.
Data also suggests that female entrepreneurs have a powerful influence on other areas of the workplace. A landmark global study found that female-owned businesses empower other women and employ more women on average than male-owned businesses.
Yet despite these positive changes, gender-based discrimination in the corporate workplace is actually on the up after years of progressive change. The Young Women’s Association found that workplace discrimination against women hit a three-year high in 2024.
When we zone into the tech sector, the picture gets more complex still. Despite ongoing initiatives to encourage more women to study for and participate in the traditionally male-dominated STEM industries, only 27% of female students said they would consider a career in technology, compared to 61% of males.
To tackle this reality head-on, it’s important to highlight female tech leaders who hold influential positions today. From innovative founders improving healthcare outcomes in mental health to the C-Suite executives leading ambitious programs, these 10 female executives are helping to accelerate action through the strength of their work in 2025.
1. Yoona Kim, Co-Founder and CEO at Arine
A San Francisco-based Stanford alumni, Yoona Kim created Arine to solve the problem of medication mismanagement across the healthcare continuum. Arine uses data science and clinical expertise to develop evidence-based programs that optimize therapy, reduce errors and improve outcomes.
Yoona spearheaded a technique that delivers meaningful clinical service programs that deliver the right intervention, for the right patient, at the right time by partnering with world-class data scientists and engineers with expert clinicians. This approach builds on decades of experience in healthcare and outcomes research that led Yoona to become a healthtech founder.
Her work offers an inspirational example of the powerful impact that tech companies with a desire to drive positive change can achieve.
2. Priyanka Srinivas, Co-Founder of DE3PBIO
Priyanka Srinivas is an example of a female entrepreneur working to address multiple challenges at once.
Part of the Live Green Co, DE3PBIO harnesses AI-ML and big data to revolutionize the production of Active Functional Ingredients, delivering sustainable solutions at unprecedented speed, scale, and efficiency.
As the company’s co-founder, Priyanka is leveraging technology to address both environmental concerns and improve health and well-being in human populations through innovative food solutions with tailor-made precision.
For example, DE3PBIO recently launched human breast milk fats using precision fermentation. These yeast-derived lipids mimic the unique composition of human breast milk fat, unlike traditional infant formula that relies on vegetable oils devoid of short and medium chain fatty acids. This commitment to precision fermentation is pivotal in enhancing consumer health and reducing ecological footprints across various industries.
3. Elizabeth (Liz) Rafferty, Ness Digital Engineering
Elizabeth Rafferty is the Global Chief People Officer at Ness Digital Engineering, a full-lifecycle digital engineering firm with a global reach.
Rafferty, an accomplished HR leader with experience in technology and professional services, began with Ness in October 2024 following a successful tenure at Dentsu.
At Ness, Rafferty is spearheading the company’s growth strategy by enhancing people and cultural practices, setting a forward-looking HR vision, and highlighting the strategic importance of personnel.
More broadly, this approach means that Rafferty is building pathways to furthering company culture that supports team members in the future of work.
4. Grace Chang, Founder and CEO at Kintsugi
As a five-time entrepreneur, Grace Chang is no stranger to the world of tech startups. Her deep background in consumer behavior and products driven by tech led to the creation of Kintsugi.
Kintsugi is the culmination of Grace’s work developing novel voice biomarker software to detect signs of clinical depression and anxiety from short clips of free-form speech. With an API-first platform, Kintsugi Voice embeds into existing clinical workflows and aids clinicians in real-time.
Mental health is as important as physical health, but it often goes undiscussed or unexamined. According to research claims by Kintsugi, 1 in 6 people suffer from some sort of adverse mental health condition, with 1 in 3 young people reporting having anxiety.
As the company’s founder and CEO, Grace is helping to address this huge mental health burden by leveraging the power of technology.
5. Sarah McGarr, Sim Local
Sarah is an executive at Sim Local, a global eSIM company. As a commercial astute director with expertise across revenue management and ownership of full customer KPIs, McGarr is central to the strategy at Sim Local.
She represents an influential figure that helps to work against the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles. Furthermore, a recent study on tech solutions for female travelers emphasized the importance of authentication, location detection, and sensing technologies to improve safety. One of Sim Local’s core goals is to empower travelers by ensuring seamless and reliable mobile connectivity.
With eSIM solutions, travelers can connect to local networks immediately upon arrival, avoiding the hassle of physical SIMs or expensive roaming fees. This enhanced connectivity provides peace of mind, making business and personal travel more accessible and secure.
6) Shagun Malhotra, SkyStem
Shagun Malhotra is the CEO and Founder of SkyStem, and has long been recognized for her contributions to the fintech industry. She is also a speaker for Fast Trac, a Kauffman Foundation program and the NY Business Plan Competition Awards ceremony.
This builds on Shagun’s career as a certified CPA, CIA and experienced auditor and process consultant. Shagun started her career in public accounting and has worked in Fortune 100 companies such as Marriott and Freddie Mac. Her work focused primarily on internal controls and risk mitigation in both international and domestic arenas.
With a passion for seeing how internal controls and systems can help to mitigate business risk, Shagun founded SkyStem in 2009 to offer an industry-wide solution to the manual account reconciliation processes that had major implications to business compliance.
7. Norelle Done, Viking Pure Solutions
Norelle Done is an executive-level marketer and Director of Marketing at Viking Pure Solutions, which is a sustainable cleaning technology company that installs and maintains proprietary electrolyzed water generators at schools, hospitals, senior living communities and other commercial facilities.
These systems produce all-natural, certified organic, hypoallergenic, and Green Seal-certified cleaning and disinfecting solutions on demand, using just salt, water and electricity.
By reducing the amount of single-use plastics coming from the cleaning industry and the amount of toxic chemicals relied on to clean and disinfect, Norelle is using her keen expertise in marketing to guide commercial consumers towards more sustainable choices, enacting change for the environment at scale.
8. Laura Hernandez, Source Meridian
With years of experience in management and team building, Laura Hernández is a Product Manager at Source Meridian and excels at leading high-performance teams, promoting collaboration, and driving professional growth.
Laura Hernández is a passionate leader when it comes to talent development with the tech industry and currently leads specialist projects at Source Meridian in health compliance to drive the future of healthcare software solutions.
At Source Meridian, Laura advises companies on critical certifications such as SOC 2, HITRUST and HIPAA while actively contributing to projects focused on business expansion, building a strong company culture, and developing products that have a meaningful impact on patients’ lives.
9. Alexandra Hudak, SQream
Alexandra Hudak is the Director of Strategic Alliances at SQream, a data acceleration company at the forefront of machine learning infrastructure solutions.
Hudak is a lifelong tech enthusiast who holds a deep passion for building strategic alliances and fostering collaboration across teams. She has extensive experience in developing innovative co-sell strategies including the launch of partner programs that have generated significant new business opportunities alongside industry giants like NVIDIA, Oracle, and AWS.
Hudak is also a regular speaker at Oracle Data & AI Forums, acting as industry thought leader for AI and data analytics. Her work offers a prime example of a visionary female tech leader driving results with an alternative approach.
10. Ana Aguilar Pérez, <IMPACT> Accelerator
Ana Aguilar Pérez is a Project Manager at <IMPACT> Accelerator, the startup accelerator where startups, public institutions, and corporations work together to change the world.
Pérez takes a leading role in managing both national and international initiatives, focusing on business acceleration programs and EU-funded projects. She is responsible for driving the success of Acelera Startups, supporting dozens of startups through tailored growth strategies, and taking an active role in mentorship and training.
On a European level, Pérez leads the strategy for RoboSAPIENS, an EU-funded project aimed at maximizing visibility, engagement, and long-term impact. Through these varied contributions, Pérez not only helps to bring forward innovative new startups but creates pathways to change to build the future of work.