Tech is notorious for its gender gap, and nowhere is it more evident than in the leadership ranks of SaaS companies. A staggering 78% of women in tech feel the constant pressure to prove themselves, working harder than their male counterparts. This persistent disparity widens even further at the highest levels of SaaS leadership.
But amidst these challenges, a wave of exceptional women are defying the odds. They're not just building successful companies; they're leading the next-gen companies reshaping the SaaS landscape.
The 22 women we highlight below are prime examples. Despite facing a 65% higher risk of job loss and receiving only 2% of all VC funding, they're leading the charge in innovation. Their diverse perspectives bring a unique strength to their businesses, fostering resilience and adaptability in tech.
These women aren't just CEOs or Founders; they're pioneers. As they redefine customer service, optimize efficiency, and develop groundbreaking AI solutions that transform the way businesses operate. Their leadership styles are a testament to the power of inclusion, proving that diverse teams lead to stronger and more successful companies.
This is just a glimpse of the incredible women shaping the future of SaaS. We celebrate their accomplishments and the groundbreaking companies they've built. But the story doesn't end here.
If you're a female founder or CEO making strides in SaaS, your narrative is invaluable. We’d love to meet you. Share your journey with us, and let's celebrate the collective force of women transforming this industry.
Anna Wang and Kerry Wang
Twins Anna and Kerry Wang are co-founders of Searchlight, a talent intelligence platform that helps companies hire better people, faster. Searchlight brings you a bias-free AI that finds top applicants, assesses candidates, and validates the quality of hire.
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Emily Gittins
Emily is the Co-founder of Archive, a technology company that enables brands to launch and scale profitable resale businesses. Archive works with more than 40 global brands, including The North Face, Oscar de la Renta, Diane von Furstenberg, and Hanna Andersson.
Prof. Lourdes Agapito
In 2017, Lourdes co-founded Synthesia, a pioneering company in AI-powered video creation. Synthesia empowers users to create professional-looking videos featuring realistic AI avatars in minutes.
Haya Odeh
Haya is a co-founder and VP of Design at Replit, a revolutionary in-browser IDE that lets you code in over 50 languages, collaborate seamlessly with others, and turn your ideas into actual software—all without ever needing to download anything.
Therese Tucker
Therese is the founder, director and co-CEO of BlackLine a software company that develops cloud-based services designed to automate and control the entire financial close process.
Caitlin Colgrove
Caitlin is a co-founder and CTO at Hex. Hex is revolutionizing how people work with data by building a collaborative, shareable analytics workspace. With Hex, users can seamlessly ask new questions, share insights, and unlock the full potential of data analytics – all within a single, frictionless platform.
Kim Crawford Goodman
Kim is the CEO of Smarsh, which enables companies to transform oversight into foresight by surfacing business-critical signals in their digital communications. Regulated organizations of all sizes rely upon the Smarsh portfolio of cloud-native digital communications capture, retention, and oversight solutions to help them identify regulatory and reputational risks.
Rachel Lea Fishman
Rachel is the co-founder and CEO of arketa. arketa empowers fitness instructors to host live and on-demand classes, monetize their expertise with video content and memberships, and even offer retreats – all from one streamlined platform.
Melanie Perkins
Melanie is the CEO & Co-founder of Canva. Canva is a simple-to-use online design and publishing platform that allows everyone to create professional quality designs.
Danielle Cohen-Shohet
GlossGenius is a comprehensive business management solution designed for beauty and wellness professionals. It streamlines booking, payments, and point-of-sale operations, empowering them to focus on client care and business growth.
Jennifer Tejada
Jennifer is the Chairperson and CEO of PagerDuty. PagerDuty is the central nervous system for a company’s digital operations. They identify issues and opportunities in real-time and bring together the right people to respond to problems faster and prevent them in the future.
Yoko Spirig
Yoko is the co-founder and CEO of Ledgy, a prominent equity management platform for scaleups. Ledgy automates equity processes for thousands of companies worldwide, helping teams stay compliant, deliver value, and unite around a single mission.
Laura Spiekerman
Laura co-founded Alloy, an API enabling financial services companies to safely onboard more “good" customers. Alloy connects many data sources for identity verification into a rules engine, converting more good customers and reducing fraud and risk.
Mathilde Collin
Mathilde is the CEO of Front. Front is a customer operations platform that enables support, sales, and account management teams to deliver exceptional service at scale. Front streamlines customer communication by combining the efficiency of a help desk and the familiarity of email, with automated workflows and real-time collaboration behind the scenes.
Sara Teare
Sara is a founder of 1Password. 1Passwords provides a secure and convenient password manager for documents, credit card information, and addresses.
Julianna Lamb
Juliana is a Co-Founder & CTO at Stytch, an identity platform built for developers. With advanced features like device fingerprinting and account takeover-resistant authentication, Stytch provides the infrastructure to make your company’s identity and access management secure, reliable, and scalable.
Jennifer Bisceglie
Jennifer is the Founder and CEO of Interos, which protects global clients from hidden threats across regulatory, financial, cybersecurity, geopolitical, catastrophe, and ESG compliance.
Edith Harbaugh
Edith is an Executive Chair co-founder at LaunchDarkly, a feature management platform that allows software development teams to deliver to their customers.
Shensi Ding
Shensi is the Co-Founder of Merge. Merge’s platform makes secure data accessible by offering Unified APIs across crucial software categories, including HRIS, accounting, CRM, file storage, etc.
Nicole Clark
Nicole is the Co-Founder and CEO of Trellis a state trial court research and analytics platform serving some of the largest law firms, and legal departments, in the world. Trellis makes the fragmented US state trial court system searchable through a single interface.
Stacy Edgar
Stacy is the CEO of Venteur. The company is building the health insurance system of the future —- one that is more affordable, simple, portable, and, most importantly, gives individuals a greater voice in their health care decision-making.
Suchi Saria
Suchi is the CEO, Founder, and Chief Scientific Officer of Bayesian Health. Bayesian is on a mission to make healthcare proactive by empowering clinicians with real-time data to save lives. Bayesian’s AI platform activates state-of-the-art AI within the electronic medical record (EMR) to deliver accurate and actionable clinical signals that catch life-threatening events early, resulting in better patient health outcomes.
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