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Founders in Focus: Women Leading Growth-Stage Companies and Changing the Game

  • Writer: The WW Team
    The WW Team
  • Dec 8, 2025
  • 6 min read

Updated: Dec 11, 2025

🚀 At the end of 2025, we had the privilege of introducing you to powerhouse women founders who are scaling real companies—with serious momentum—and making an even bigger impact.


As part of our Founders in Focus series, proudly presented in partnership with Metropolitan Partners Group and Audience Haus, we spotlighted women who are building and leading growth-stage companies.



These founders are navigating complexity, driving innovation, and setting a new standard for what leadership looks like in businesses built for impact and scale. These are fast-growing companies—led by women—delivering results, creating jobs, and reshaping industries.


And make no mistake: women founders are a force.

But they’re still building in a system that wasn’t built for them.


In 2023, companies founded solely by women received just 2% of all venture capital funding (PitchBook). And while women now make up nearly half of new entrepreneurs in the U.S. (GEM 2023), they remain dramatically underrepresented among the ranks of scaled, high-growth companies.


That’s what makes these leaders—and this series—so powerful.


These founders aren’t just building companies. They’re building momentum.

They’re launching in competitive markets, growing teams, and doing it all with purpose and vision. They’re shaping team culture from the ground up. They’re creating products that solve real-world problems—and pushing their industries forward along the way. And they’re doing it while being asked the kinds of questions male founders rarely face.


We featured founders who are:

  • Innovating across sectors from SaaS to sustainability

  • Driving growth and closing transformative deals

  • Building inclusive, values-driven organizations

  • Speaking openly about the highs and the hard parts of scaling

  • Mentoring the next generation of women leaders behind them


Founders Worth Following


Scroll down to learn about the women we featured in this Founders in Focus series...

(p.s. Know someone else we should feature? Nominate here here.)



Mada Seghete — CEO & Co-founder, Upside

 After 10 years as a CMO, Mada was tired of guessing what actually worked in closing deals. That frustration sparked Upside—her second startup—bringing AI-powered clarity to B2B revenue teams. Her advice? Choose your early partners wisely. The right ones help you flourish.


Mehak Aggarwal — CEO & Co-founder, Sybill

Mehak saw sales reps drowning in admin work—and built Sybill to give that time back. Her AI assistant handles the busywork so reps can focus on real conversations. Her biggest lesson? Execution beats invention. Details matter.


Arianna Cignarale— CEO & Co-founder, Nomad

 Arianna didn’t just launch a company—she pioneered an industry. As the creator of “Marketing Operations as a Service,” she made expert-level ops accessible to all. Her secret to growth? Stay focused on why you started—and build a team that challenges you.


Cristina Flaschen — CEO & Founder, Pandium

 After 20 years using clunky tools, Cristina turned frustration into action—building a developer-first integration platform that works. Her founder edge? Ruthless focus. No hype, no distractions—just solving the right problem, deeply.


Esha Joshi — President & Co-founder, Yoodli AI Roleplays

 Esha is helping people speak with confidence. At Yoodli, her AI-powered speech coach gives judgment-free feedback—used by Google, Toastmasters, and beyond. Backed by $7M+, Esha is leading with purpose: helping everyone own the room.


Emily Dong — Founder & CEO, Snout

Emily launched Snout after facing her own stress with surprise vet bills. Her startup helps pet parents afford routine care—paying vets directly at the time of service. Her advice? Be radically honest with yourself. The dream matters—but so does what’s real.


Melissa Rosenthal — Co-founder, Outlever

Melissa is reshaping how companies go to market—drawing on deep roots in digital media and B2B SaaS. Her founder mindset? There’s no single path—just constant forward motion. She’s building with focus, and scaling for $100M and beyond.


Feyi Ayodele — CEO & Founder, CancerIQ

Feyi is transforming cancer care—bringing precision prevention to patients everywhere, not just in academic centers. Today, her platform powers 50+ health systems. Her belief? The tools to beat cancer exist—we just need to get them in the right hands.


Oana Manolache — Founder & CEO, Sequel.io

At HP, Oana saw the disconnect—marketers sent users away at peak engagement. Sequel.io fixes that, keeping webinars on-site to boost conversions and insights. Her edge? A strong team, smart GTM, and grit to navigate volatile markets.


Maryna Hradovich — COO & Co-founder, Maestra.io

 Maryna’s mission is personalization at scale—without the chaos. At Maestra, she’s helping DTC brands unify their data and deepen customer engagement. Her advice? Build your support system. Family, community, and culture will carry you through.



See the post featuring Li, Arlene, Meghan, Bethany, and Juhi
See the post featuring Li, Arlene, Meghan, Bethany, and Juhi

Thyagi is redefining success at the intersection of people, planet, and profit. With OOt Social Health, she’s using AI to foster inclusion and belonging in workplaces around the world. Her belief? Connection drives performance—and business can be both prosperous and kind.


After raising $7B+ on Wall Street, Stephanie saw how inefficient fundraising really is for founders. Diadem Capital is her answer: a capital network that accelerates, not just connects. Fundraising should build momentum—not burn time.


Natalia Karayaneva — CEO & Founder, Propy Inc.

Natalia got tired of real estate’s endless paperwork—so she built Propy to automate deals with smart contracts and bring property rights onchain. Backed by Tim Draper and NAR, she’s turning weeks of work into simple, secure clicks.


 Digital assets don’t need more hype—they need execution. Jaime’s delivering just that at ReserveOne, building institutional-grade infrastructure with operational discipline and strategic clarity. She’s led public transformations. Now, she’s doing it again.




Wednesday Women features extraordinary leaders with our special weekly features - and we kept founders as our focus this week, of course:


Veronika Wax | Founder & CEO @ Demodesk

See Veronika's feature post and read about how she built a killer business leveraging AI to power up sales teams—while staying radically honest about the real startup journey.

“Clarity wins! If you know what you want to build, who you want to serve, and where you are going, everything else becomes easier."

Ashley Wilson | Cofounder & COO @ Momentum.io

See Ashley's feature post and read about how she recently turned AI innovation into a revenue growth engine—while navigating the hard calls of scaling a startup.

“You basically have a new company every year that you’re in business... You’ve got to be incredibly adaptable and flexible as you build a startup."

But wait! There are even more women founders we met along the way - many of them at earlier stage companies - that you should be sure to follow on LinkedIn!



....Who else would YOU add to this list?


How YOU can help?


Our mission with Founders in Focus wasn’t just to highlight who’s thriving now—it’s to help shift what’s possible for the women coming next. That starts with visibility. And continues with action.


So if you want to support women founders, here’s where to start:

✅ Follow them and amplify their stories

✅ Fund them—access to capital is still a gatekeeper

✅ Feature them on panels, podcasts, and press

✅ Fuel the pipeline so more women don’t just launch—they scale


Learn About Our Partners: Metropolitan Partners Group & AudienceHaus


This series was made possible by our generous partners at Metropolitan Partners Group and Audience Haus, whose commitment to elevating diverse leadership made Founders in Focus a reality.


Their support goes beyond sponsorship—it’s a shared belief in the power of visibility, access, and storytelling to shift the narrative around who gets to lead, scale, and succeed.


Metropolitan is a New York-based private investment firm providing non-controlling growth capital to ambitious founder-led businesses. Unconstrained by industry or asset class, Metropolitan partners directly with exceptional operators to scale strategically while preserving majority control and decision-making power—with particular focus on supporting women founders and expanding representation in emerging sectors, making them an aligned and values-driven partner for Wednesday Women.


 Audience Haus helps visionary founders build category-defining brands rooted in purpose, clarity, and long-term impact — turning great companies into movements people rally around. They work closely with leaders to articulate a compelling mission, sharpen positioning, and create the kind of resonance that drives real, sustainable growth. As a partner in our Founders in Focus series, Audience Haus brings their expertise in elevating standout founders and spotlighting the voices shaping what’s next.


Interested in supporting Wednesday Women and seeing more executive women features?


To stay up-to-date with everything Wednesday Women, follow us on LinkedIn, subscribe to our monthly newsletter, and check out The Ripple—our podcast featuring executive women in leadership.

 
 
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