Rebel Girls Awesome Entrepreneurs: 25 Tales of Women Building Business
8 ANJALI SUD BUSINESS EXECUTIVE When Anjali was a young girl she dreamed of becoming a playwright In her basement she sang and danced and created scenarios for her siblings to act out But as she grew older Anjali realized that her real passion was business So when she was about to graduate from college Anjali set her sights on banking She applied to dozens of powerful companies To her disappointment none of them would hire her Many said she just wasn't the right fit She felt rejected but didn't give up Instead Anjali refocused her job search She applied to smaller companies and eventually went to work for an online video platform called Vimeo That's when she faced another greater challenge Vimeo was struggling to compete with larger video platforms These companies had millions and millions of subscribers who were posting videos on their sites No matter what Vimeo tried it couldn't grow an audience to match its larger rivals And without a bigger audience it might fail How could Anjali battle such giants to make her company more popular And then like a lightning bolt striking Earth an idea hit her Instead of battling the bigwigs by competing why not make Vimeo different from them Anjali reinvented the company by offering creators and businesses online tools to help them make videos look amazing Vimeo would also allow their customers to distribute their videos to other social media sites turning their competitors into partners After proving this idea worked Anjali was promoted to chief executive officer CEO As CEO Anjali has grown Vimeo into a billion-dollar company With creativity and fresh thinking she's writing her own story BORN AUGUST 13 1983 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDRESSA MEISSNER LOOK WHERE OTHERS AREN'T LOOKING ANJALI SUD
ANN MIURA-KO FOUNDER AND INVESTOR lease please please Ann begged She was just two years old and she knew that more than anything she wanted to take violin lessons Ann was different than the rest of the kids she knew In third grade she explored her native language by creating Japanese letters for her computer And in fifth grade she signed up for an adult business class In her twenties Ann couldn't figure out what she wanted to be A farmer A doctor A lawyer Nothing sounded quite right that is until she took a simple job filing papers at Yale University and met an important CEO This CEO invited her to shadow or follow him around his workplace at a giant technology company Ann said yes Afterwards the CEO sent her two photos in the mail One was of her sitting in a huge white chair facing him and the other was of the famous software developer and philanthropist Bill Gates sitting in the exact same chair facing the same CEO Suddenly everything seemed possible Why can't I run a big company too Ann thought It was rare to see a woman or an Asian American at the head of a venture capital firm but Ann didn't let that slow her down She did her research cofounded her own venture capital company called Floodgate invested in many new businesses and became known as the most powerful woman in startups While male venture capitalists usually invested money in technology firms Ann took chances on businesses they often ignored like clothing companies She couldn't be exactly like all the men around her so she decided to do what she did best be different And it worked BORN NOVEMBER 27 1976 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 10
DIFFERENCES CAN ACTUALLY BE AN IMPORTANT PART OF WHO YOU ARE CAN HELP YOU STAND OUT CAN HELP YOU BE MEMORABLE ANN MIURA-KO ILLUSTRATION BY NAKI NARH
