Once upon a time, you might’ve been reading this same magazine for the Power 100 list. But a new era is emerging, and so we at Worth decided it was time for an update. Thus, the Worthy 100, a list showcasing over 100 entrepreneurs working to make a serious impact both personally and through their businesses, was born. On this list, you’ll find entrepreneurs like Chobani’s Hamdi Ulukaya, Lava Records’ Jason Flom and digitalundivided’s Lauren Maillian, who live and breath their life’s mission into their businesses. Because business truly is personal, as this year’s Worthy 100 show.

Finance

Sallie Krawcheck

Sallie Krawcheck 

Ellevest

Industry: Finance/Tech

Year Founded: 2014

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

“It is not unusual these days for me to be walking through an airport or down the street with my Ellevest bag in hand and be stopped by a woman who asks, ‘Oh, are you with Ellevest?’ And then tell me I changed her life,” says Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and cofounder of Ellevest.

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Read the full profile on Krawcheck here

Arlan Hamilton

Backstage Capital

Industry: Venture Capital

Year Founded: 2015

Headquarters: Los Angeles, Calif.

About Her Business & Career: Hamilton built Backstage Capital from the ground up in 2015 while homeless; today, the VC firm has invested more than $20 million in over 180 companies led by underrepresented founders since its founding. With plans to raise up to $30 million for its newest fund, Backstage hopes to double its current level of investment in minority-led startups.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Hamilton’s entire mission is to make funding more accessible to founders who have traditionally been excluded from venture capital (women, POC and LGBTQ+). By building one of the largest portfolios of exclusively underrepresented founders, Hamilton is committed to breaking down barriers.

Ross Iverson 

Manna Tree

Industry: Private Equity

Year Founded:2018

Headquarters: Vail, Colo.

About His Business & Career: Ross Iverson is the cofounder and CIO of Manna Tree, a private equity firm that works exclusively with companies focused on nutrition. Manna Tree provides its investors with precise investment goals and maintains an aligned portfolio of growth-stage companies, which they also invest in.

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Why He Made the Worthy 100: By specializing in nutrition-focused companies, Manna Tree has generated exponential impact through its investments. Iverson is tackling the problem of human health on a macro level, working with a global community of investors committed to improving worldwide health.

Flori Marquez    

BlockFi

Industry: Fintech

Year Founded: 2017

Headquarters: Jersey City, N.J.

Started in 2017, BlockFi is one of the world’s fastest growing fintech companies. BlockFi centers its work around financial inclusion—something cofounder Flori Marquez is passionate about. Worth talked to Marquez about how BlockFi is making an impact, what worth beyond wealth means to her and the importance of the work BlockFi is doing.

Read the full profile on Marquez here.

Jordan Gaspar   

AF Ventures

Industry: Venture Capital
Year Founded: 2014
Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Her Business & Career: A former corporate lawyer, Gaspar founded AF Ventures (formerly known as AccelFoods) in 2014 with cofounder Lauren Jupiter. Together, they created a VC firm that invests in founders creating the next generation of consumer brands with a focus on health and wellness. The firm has recently broadened its investment thesis, expanding from just food and beverage into other healthy living sectors, such as personal care, beauty, health and wellness and pets. AF Ventures manages over 30 portfolio brands and cosponsored a $224 million SPAC (AF Acquisition Corp.) that is looking to partner with a consumer packaged goods company in the better-for-you space that is “authentic, innovative and sustainably-minded,” according to its website.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: What started as a mission to invest in and help scale small food and beverage companies in the better-for-you space has grown to become one of the leading investors in the F&B space, according to CB Insights. Working with disruptive, wellness-conscious brands and cosponsoring one of the only SPACs currently available with an exclusive focus on the better-for-you sector is what makes Gaspar a part of this year’s Worthy 100 Entrepreneurs.

Abbey Wemino and Samir Goel copy

Abbey Wemimo and
Samir Goel

Esusu

Industry: Finance/Tech
Year Founded: 2018

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

With 45 million people in the United States lacking credit scores, and millions more marginalized due to their background, race and zip code, entrepreneurs Abbey Wemimo and Samir Goel realized they had an opportunity to help bridge the wealth gap. So the pair founded Esusu—a financial technology platform that leverages data solutions to both empower tenants and improve property performance. Today, Esusu is the leading rent reporting platform.

Read the full profile on Wemimo and Goel here

John Duong   

Kind Capital

Industry: Impact Investing
Year Founded: 2020
Headquarters:New York, N.Y.

About His Business & Career: John Duong is the founder and CEO of Kind Capital, an impact investing and strategic advisory firm aiming to generate positive social impact across all industries. Kind Capital has set the goal to generate positive social change for one billion individuals through its work with impact investing and strategic advising.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Duong has built a firm dedicated to generating positive social impact across all industries. Kind Capital is a mission-driven company with a clear goal—to utilize the power of investing to generate lasting, positive change.

Serena Williams           

Serena Ventures

Industry: Venture Capital
Year Founded: 2017

Headquarters: San Francisco, Calif

With 23 Grand Slam singles titles under her belt, Serena Williams is considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time. And while her career on the court is one of legend, her various business ventures are equally impressive. Most impressive among them is Williams’ early-stage venture capital fund Serena Ventures. Serena Ventures was founded with the mission to champion diverse, creative founders who are changing the world with their ideas and products across a wide array of industries.

Read the full profile on Williams here

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - FEBRUARY 16: Serena Williams of the United States celebrates after winning a point in her Women's Singles Quarterfinals match against Simona Halep of Romania during day nine of the 2021 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on February 16, 2021 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson

VC Include

Industry: Venture Capital
Year Founded: 2018

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Her Business & Career: Bahiya Yasmeen Robinson is the founder and CEO of VC Include, a venture capital firm dedicated to investing in female and diverse founders to drive racial and social justice forward at a systemic level. Robinson has founded a firm that is working from the top down to support diverse emerging managers around the globe—not only through who they invest in but also by who is doing the investing. The VC Include team is made up of a diverse group that is rising to meet the discrepancy between diverse and female asset managers and the venture capital world.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Robinson has committed herself to investing in deserving founders who for too long have been underrepresented. The founding of VC Include is representative of the fight against systemic injustice that is so necessary to building a more just and equitable society. Her work through VC Include demonstrates the practical steps needed for a top-down approach to generating a more diverse and inclusive industry. By building a team of diverse and female asset managers, Robinson has built an ecosystem that maintains focus on the company mission and maintains intrinsic longevity and impact.

Catherine Berman

CNote

Industry: Impact Investing

Year Founded: 2016

Headquarters: Oakland, Calif.

About Her Business & Career: Catherine Berman is the cofounder and CEO of CNote, an impact investing firm committed to helping institutions invest in underserved communities. CNote’s main goal is to open the door for the average investor to be able to invest in existing programs that combat systemic inequality. One of the main product categories that allow for this are community development financial institutions (CDFIs). CDFIs have historically been too complicated for the average investor to invest in, but CNote is working to make it easy.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Berman’s innovative financial problem-solving has made it more accessible to invest in CDFIs. Although this type of investment has traditionally been unavailable due to its complexity, Berman has paved the way for investors to be able to elevate these community programs while also receiving reliable and profitable returns. Berman has established herself as a innovator in the investing world by simplifying the process of investing in community programs, thus finding the common ground between thriving capitalism and community support.

Sezzle-6612 copy

Charlie Youakim             

Sezzle

Industry: Finance/Tech
Year Founded: 2016

Headquarters: Minneapolis, Minn.

It’s seven o’clock in the morning, and Charlie Youakim is already into his second meeting of the day, this one a video ‘meet and greet’ with the Sezzle team in Brazil—a new market where the Minneapolis-based fintech company recently announced expansion plans for its ‘buy now, pay later’ installments-based payments platform. Youakim launches into the topic of Sezzle’s mission of financially empowering Gen Z, a subject that he discuesses with all the gusto and optimism you might expect of a young entrepreneur in his first investor pitch.

Read the full profile on Youakim here

Leslie Feinzaig   

Graham & Walker

Industry: Accelerator/Venture Capital
Year Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Seattle, Wash.

About Her Business & Career: Leslie Feinzaig is the founder and CEO of Graham & Walker, formerly known as Female Founders Alliance (FFA), a national network of female founders dedicated to helping one another thrive. Graham & Walker is home to over 25,000 members across the nation, and together they are working to combat the discrepancy in entrepreneurial funding between male and female founders. FFA became Graham & Walker in mid-October, announcing a venture fund dedicating $10 million to women-led tech companies. Feinzaig is a working mother of two and her inspiration to found this organization came from the desire to create a more equitable business world not only for her own daughters, but also for your daughters.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Feinzaig, who was named by Forbes as one of the Most Powerful Women from Central America, founded the recently rebranded Graham & Walker in order to create a network of women that are committed to generating greater gender equality in the business world. Feinzaig has created a massive community of women in business, providing them with a network of founders, investors and resources. Together, the 25,000 members are working to push more capital investments into female-run businesses and corporations in order to disrupt the disparity in funding between male- and female-led organizations. If you are a woman-led organization that is committed to making a positive impact, you belong in Graham & Walker’s community.

​​Jason Wilk            

Dave

Industry: Finance/Tech
Year Founded: 2016

Headquarters: Los Angeles, Calif.

About His Business & Career: Jason Wilk is the CEO at Dave, a banking app that protects its customers from overdraft fees by offering them advances on their paycheck to be reimbursed on pay day. Wilk has experienced firsthand what it is like to be struggling to pay your bills only to get hit with overdraft fees, effectively kicking you while you’re down. That is why he created Dave, which maintains the mantra: banking for humans. Dave also offers a number of other services to support its customers in their financial life, such as budgeting help, credit building, income creation and more.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Wilk saw that big banks were (and are) taking advantage of their customers by treating them like machines rather than humans. That is why he created Dave—to protect the interests of everyday people and offer them a system that allows for human error without penalty. Wilk told the Los Angeles Business Journal that he does not hate big banks because he understands that they need to use their model in order to make a profit, but he believes that there is a better way. Managing personal finances can be an intimidating endeavor for many. However, with apps like Dave that believe in banking built on compassion and are committed to transparency, protecting their customers and finding innovative ways to solve problems, it doesn’t have to be.

Retail

Beatrice Dixon Head Shot

Beatrice Dixon    

The Honey Pot Co.

Industry: Retail/Feminine Care
Year Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Atlanta, Ga.

The way we talk about women’s health has changed a lot in recent years, and we have entrepreneurs like Beatrice Dixon to thank for that. While it might once have been seen as taboo to discuss vaginal health freely, leaders like Dixon have helped to normalize it, encouraging women not to suffer in silence.

Read the full profile on Dixon here

Neil Blumenthal

Warby Parker

Industry: Retail

Year Founded: 2010

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About His Business & Career: Eyeglasses company Warby Parker has been heralded for being a socially conscious brand, but this is not Neil Blumenthal’s first foray into impact-driven eyewear. Warby Parker’s cofounder and co-CEO was previously the director of VisionSpring, a nonprofit providing low-income consumers with affordable eyeglasses. Warby Parker strives to provide affordable eyewear by designing glasses themselves and working with customers directly. The company went public at the end of September, achieving a $6.8 billion valuation.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Blumenthal has seemingly made a home in the affordable eyewear market, looking to help people get the eyewear they need. Warby Parker has a Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program, working with partners around the world to provide eyeglasses to some of the 2.5 billion people who need glasses, but can’t get them. So far, Warby Parker has donated eight million eyeglasses through this program.

Chantel Davis   

Castamira

Industry: Retail/Fashion
Year Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Miami, Fla.

About Her Business & Career: As a former Wilhelmina model, Chantel Davis understands women’s bodies. She founded swimwear brand Castamira in 2017 after struggling to find high-quality options to accentuate her own curves. Influenced by the aesthetic of the 1970s and 1990s, Davis’ swimsuits are designed with the woman’s form in mind, enhancing the beauty and sensuality of the wearer. Catamira’s bathing suits are proudly made in America, and Davis says their elevated, yet playful ethos, immersed in luxury, is meant to empower and inspire women of all shapes and form.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Castamira bills itself as “conscious luxury,” and Davis’ respect for the earth is inherent in the brand’s DNA. In partnership with regenerated nylon brand Econyl, Castamira uses the company’s eco-friendly fibers—including a yarn made from fishing nets and fabric scraps—in its swimwear production, which can be recycled,  recreated and reused again and again. In addition, the swimwear brand utilizes sustainable green packaging, sourced from eco-friendly shipping supplies company EcoEnclose, to reduce its environmental impact. Castamira’s debut collection of one-piece swimsuits isn’t just sustainable; it’s also meant to be inclusive and respectful of the female form. That’s part of the reason Davis has focused on one-pieces instead of bikinis. “In truth, the woman’s body itself is a form of art, and draping the fabric of a full-body suit shows the full landscape of her curves and heightening the imagination of what’s underneath,” Davis told Miami-based outlet VoyageMIA in 2019.

Tim Brown and
Joey Zwillinger

Allbirds

Industry: Retail/Fashion

Year Founded: 2012

Headquarters: San Francisco, Calif.

About Their Business & Career: Hailing from New Zealand, Tim Brown found himself wondering why merino wool—a natural and renewable fiber—wasn’t being utilized as a material for shoes. Brown worked with Joey Zwillinger to create a wool fabric that would become signature to Allbirds, thus creating a new type of shoe—one that utilized natural materials instead of synthetic ones.

Why They Made the Worthy 100: Brown and Zwillinger made it their mission to not only utilize sustainable materials in their shoes, but also to consider the environment throughout their business. Allbirds is a certified B Corp, uses 90 percent post-consumer recycled cardboard and works with nonprofit Soles4Souls, which collects gently used shoes, like the ones from Allbirds, and clothing and then helps people around the world launch businesses where they sell these donated items, thus empowering communities and giving the shoes another life. They are very dedicated to sustainability, having rolled out their Allbirds Flight Plan, listing their sustainability commitments. Brown and Zwillinger are working to reduce Allbirds’ carbon footprint with the goal of getting it to almost zero by 2030. Additionally, they are already 100 percent carbon neutral.

Dave Bolotsky

Uncommon Goods

Industry: Retail

Year Founded: 1999

Headquarters: Brooklyn, N.Y.

About His Business & Career: One of the first e-commerce companies, founded in 1999 as a way to connect artists directly with a community of buyers, Uncommon Goods is a founding B Corp that has always put social responsibility and environmental sustainability at the core of what they do.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Through its Better to Give program, Uncommon Goods donates $1 for every purchase to its nonprofit partners, donating over $2 million to date. David Bolotsky also successfully helped advocate for raising the minimum wage and for paid family leave in New York State.

Yvon Chouinard

Patagonia

Industry: Retail/Fashion

Year Founded: 1973

Headquarters: Ventura, Calif.

Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, is widely acclaimed as an industry leader who is setting the standard for sustainable business practices. Patagonia’s inspirational philosophy, which guides them toward innovative sustainability, has become a trademark of the brand that generates consumer loyalty, awareness and motivation to protect the planet we all call home.

Read the full profile on Chouinard here

Yvon Chouinard at the Tin Shed, Ventura, CA 2010

Tal Dehtiar   

Oliberté

Industry: Retail/Footwear
Year Founded: 2009
Headquarters: Ontario, Canada

About His Business & Career: Since launching in 2009, Oliberté, the world’s first and only Fair Trade-certified footwear company, has become something of a model for the new world of corporate social responsibility. Each pair of shoes is handcrafted, in small batches using the finest materials to ensure unmatched quality—a claim the company backs up with its lifetime warranty. And building on Dehtiar’s vision to support workers’ rights and environmental stewardship worldwide, the company pivoted to manufacturing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: The company’s first pair of shoes were handcrafted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. For nearly a decade, Oliberté operated this factory with the ethos: treat everyone with respect each step of the way. And that ideology remains to this day, despite the company moving its manufacturing to Canada in 2019. A proponent of an inclusive economy, Dehtiar has remained steadfast in his commitment to sustainability, ethical work practices and taking care of everyone from shareholders to factory workers.

Vanessa Barboni Hallik 

Another Tomorrow

Industry: Retail/Fashion

Year Founded: 2018

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Her Business & Career: Another Tomorrow is a sustainable, ready-to-wear fashion brand. Vanessa Barboni Hallik began working on Another Tomorrow while on sabbatical from her former job in finance. She intended to take that time to study sustainable finance, but instead she ended up learning about the fashion industry’s impact on people, animals and the planet. And thus, Another Tomorrow was born, along with its mission to provide ethically and sustainably made clothing to its customers, while also considering the welfare of the clothing’s makers, the environment and the animals that provide the materials for the clothes.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: One of the most fascinating aspects of Barboni Hallik’s career is how she’s pivoted. She spent 15 years at Morgan Stanley before founding Another Tomorrow. She’s dedicated to the idea of sustainability, and now she works to not just craft sustainably made clothing, but also to educate customers on how we can all be doing better by being aware of the impact our clothes have on the environment, on animals and on people in the supply chain.

Jeffrey Hollender

Seventh Generation

Industry: Retail

Year Founded: 1988

Headquarters: Burlington, Vt.

About His Business & Career: Decades before sustainability and CSR entered the public consciousness, Jeffrey Hollender was on a mission to transform the world—and in 1988, the serial entrepreneur cofounded Seventh Generation with Alan Newman. While Hollender and Newman may have been ahead of their time—Hollender asserts the company struggled to stay afloat for its first decade—eventually, the rest of the world caught up. And in 2016, Unilever acquired the eco-friendly household products brand for an estimated $700 million.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: One of the first major proponents of stakeholder capitalism, Hollender infused purpose into the heart of Seventh Generation, but his commitment to making the world a better place extends far beyond the retail company. In 2009, he founded the American Sustainable Business Council, which represents over 250,000 companies and advocates for policy changes that support sustainability, equity and justice. A leading expert on corporate responsibility, Hollender has also served on the Board of Directors of Greenpeace U.S. and on Morgan Stanley’s Sustainability Advisory Board.

Eileen Fisher 

Eileen Fisher

Industry: Retail/Fashion

Year Founded: 1984

Headquarters: Irvington, N.Y.

As an entrepreneur, designer and brand, Eileen Fisher represents the type of leadership that we would all do well to emulate. For decades, Fisher has been innovating across industries; whether it is designing some of the first clothing for women in the workplace, handing over a percentage of her company to employee shareholders or pushing to be an entirely sustainable brand, Fisher has been helping to elevate the standard for business accountability for years.

Read the full profile on Fisher here

Ian Rosenberger       

Thread, First Mile, Day Owl

Industry: Textiles/Recycling/Retail
Year Founded: 2010

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.; Pittsburgh, Pa.

About His Business & Career: Ian Rosenberger is a serial entrepreneur working to end poverty through job creation and the reallocation of resources. Through his work with Thread, First Mile and Day Owl, Rosenberger places his focus on communities with too much trash and not enough employment opportunities. By working at the intersection of these two problems, Rosenberger has helped generate countless job opportunities and funneled nearly $10 million dollars into communities in need.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: By recognizing the connection between underfunded communities with too much trash and not enough jobs, Rosenberger has been able to help solve two problems simultaneously—job insecurity and trash pollution. Rosenberger’s commitment to solving the issue of poverty combined with his innovative and climate-positive method of creating employment opportunities has led his entrepreneurial ventures to have a significant social and environmental impact.

Monti Landers   

Riot Swim

Industry: Retail/Fashion
Year Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Anaheim, Calif.

About Her Business & Career: There’s nothing sexier than confidence, but finding your stride in swimwear is no easy task. In fact, a 2012 study published in the scientific journal Sex Roles found that bathing suit shopping makes women anxious and depressed. That’s where Monti Landers comes in. She founded Riot Swim with the mission to make women feel comfortable walking around in a bikini. The bestselling brand combines multifunction, style, comfort and design into a wide variety of pieces meant for everyone—regardless of size, body type or skin tone.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Landers’ entrepreneurship philosophy centers around her customers by putting them front and center. Before releasing any new pieces, Riot Swim brings its clientele into the creative process, and customer feedback is integral to the company’s business model.

Blake Mycoskie    

TOMS

Industry: Retail/Footwear

Year Founded: 2006

Headquarters: Los Angeles, Calif.

About His Business & Career: Blake Mycoskie is the founder and CEO of TOMS, a shoe company that helped pioneer the one-for-one business model. Their founding principle is that with every pair of shoes bought, they give a pair to a child in need.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Mycoskie has been a changemaker in the social impact space, pioneering the one-for-one business model that allows for-profit businesses to make positive change at a massive scale. By using this model, TOMS has been able to donate 95 million pairs of shoes to children in need through its collaboration with organizations like Save the Children.

Quinn Fitzgerald and Sara Dickhaus de Zárraga   

Flare

Industry: Retail/Consumer Electronics
Year Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Boston, Mass.

About Their Business & Career: The statistics are staggering: One in five women in the United States has experienced rape or attempted rape in their lifetime, with 81 percent experiencing some form of sexual assault. And as two survivors, Fitzgerald and de Zárraga were painfully aware that the personal safety industry had missed the mark. So, after working with thousands of people over four years to develop their product, they launched Flare. The wearable tech brand currently offers two different styles of smart bracelets that connect with the company’s app. By touching a hidden button, the wearer can trigger a fake phone call, text friends for help, send GPS locations and even call the police to discretely take control when needed in unsafe situations.

Why They Made the Worthy 100: Both Fitzgerald and de Zárraga had a passion for solving social issues when they met at HBS, and that passion is evident in Flare’s mission: to put themselves out of business and create a world where Flare is no longer necessary. On their website, the two founders refer to their product as a “stopgap for today while real change is made,” and they aren’t sitting around waiting for that change either. The company has lobbied Congress, calling for the passage of the Violence Against Women Act and demanding accountability and real action to eliminate the “safety tax.” But they are clear that Flare isn’t just for women—they want to empower any and all marginalized communities. To help do that, they offer the Flare Nomination Program, which allows you to nominate someone in need who cannot currently afford a Flare; each month, Flare selects as many as five people to receive a free bracelet.

David Heath and Randy Goldberg

Bombas

Industry: Retail/Fashion
Year Founded: 2013
Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Their Business & Career: After learning that socks were the number one most requested item at homeless shelters, David Heath and Randy Goldberg saw an opportunity to use their entrepreneurship skills to make a difference. And in 2013—after years of R&D into what makes the perfect sock—direct-to-consumer sock brand Bombas was born. Engineered for both comfort and performance, Bombas socks are made of high-quality natural fibers with antimicrobial and moisture-wicking properties, allowing the socks to keep your feet dry all day long. In 2019, the brand added T-shirts to its inventory and, early this year, launched underwear, the second most requested clothing item at homeless shelters. And for each item sold, Bombas donates a clothing item to a homeless shelter.

Why They Made the Worthy 100: To date, Bombas has donated more than 50 million items to more than 3,500 community organizations. But the company, which became a certified B Corp in 2017, doesn’t just give away its products, Heath and Goldberg have also invested heavily in bringing awareness to America’s homelessness problem. In addition, the brand has been a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and the LGBTQ+ community, launching its Pride Collection in 2020 and its Black Hive Collection in 2021. For each pair of socks sold from these recently launched collections, Bombas donates a pair to someone in need within the LGBTQ+ and Black communities, respectively.

Jessica Iclisoy     

California Baby

Industry: Retail/Personal Care
Year Founded: 1995

Headquarters: Los Angeles, Calif.

Twenty-six years ago, Jessica Iclisoy realized her mission. She knew there was a gap in the market for a brand that provided natural, safe personal care products that actually worked, so she founded a company committed to filling that gap. Twenty-six years later, the impact is astounding.

Read the full profile on Iclisoy here

Indré Rockefeller   

Paravel

Industry: Retail/Travel
Year Founded: 2016

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Her Business & Career: Indré Rockefeller is a passionate traveler and environmental activist. Through her company Paravel, a luxury luggage company, she has combined these two passions, using her business platform to raise awareness about climate change. As the industry leader in sustainability, Paravel has made it clear that its number one priority is creating sustainably sourced, packaged and shipped products that simultaneously fill a consumer need and raise awareness about climate change. Paravel has committed itself to three main goals—reducing carbon emissions, using upcycled materials and fighting deforestation by planting trees.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Rockefeller has utilized her social and business platforms to fill the gap in the market for sustainable luggage. It is impossible to shop for Paravel’s products without being made aware of their mission of sustainability, and this heightened awareness of every Paravel customer is representative of the goal that the company is committed to. Rockefeller has pledged to make Paravel entirely sustainable by the end of 2021 and has left no stone unturned in her quest to find new methods of sustainable product production. By choosing sustainability as Paravel’s number one priority, Rockefeller raises the bar for other companies to do the same.

Busayo Olupona  

Busayo

Industry: Retail/Fashion

Year Founded: 2011

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Her Business & Career: Busayo Olupona is the founder of Busayo, a fashion and textile company based out of Lagos, Nigeria. Through her company, Olupona is preserving the traditional method of fabric dyeing that is used in Nigeria and incorporating it into the contemporary fashion world here in the U.S. By basing her company out of Nigeria, which is where the founder’s family is from, Olupona is able to work with and support local businesses and artists firsthand while providing them with a platform for their work to be seen around the world.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Olupona’s dedication to the preservation of traditional dyeing methods used in Nigeria has led her company, Busayo, to tremendous amounts of visibility and success. By persevering in her mission to expose the world to the beauty of traditional African textiles, Olupona has contributed greatly to the diversification of the fashion world, bringing awareness to the value of diverse representation in the industry. Additionally, the support she offers to the small businesses and artists in Nigeria who dye and sew her contemporary designs demonstrates the many areas in which diversification of style and method can be beneficial.

   

Ian Rosenberger       

Thread, First Mile, Day Owl

Industry: Textiles/Recycling/Retail
Year Founded: 2010

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.; Pittsburgh, Pa.

About His Business & Career: Ian Rosenberger is a serial entrepreneur working to end poverty through job creation and the reallocation of resources. Through his work with Thread, First Mile and Day Owl, Rosenberger places his focus on communities with too much trash and not enough employment opportunities. By working at the intersection of these two problems, Rosenberger has helped generate countless job opportunities and funneled nearly $10 million dollars into communities in need.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: By recognizing the connection between underfunded communities with too much trash and not enough jobs, Rosenberger has been able to help solve two problems simultaneously—job insecurity and trash pollution. Rosenberger’s commitment to solving the issue of poverty combined with his innovative and climate-positive method of creating employment opportunities has led his entrepreneurial ventures to have a significant social and environmental impact.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 09: Gregg Renfrew attends the In goop Health Summit New York 2019 at Seaport District NYC on March 09, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for goop)

Gregg Renfrew      

Beautycounter

Industry: Retail/Beauty

Year Founded: 2013

Headquarters: Santa Monica, Calif.

Gregg Renfrew has always been an entrepreneur. In 2013, with a robust portfolio of businesses under her belt, Renfrew launched her latest and greatest venture—Beautycounter, an online retailer selling clean skincare and cosmetics products.

Read the full profile on Renfrew here

Bob King

Humanscale

Industry: Retail/Office Furniture

Year Founded: 1983

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About His Business & Career: King founded Humanscale when he was just 27 years old. Humanscale creates ergonomic furnishings and software, including chairs and sit/stand desks, for the workplace, designed with functionality and worker wellness in mind. With Humanscale’s products, King is hoping to have a net positive impact on the planet.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Under King’s leadership, Humanscale has concerned itself with the many facets of sustainability. Humanscale’s products are made with fewer parts and they utilize recycled materials, staying true to its “Design for Environment” manifesto. As well, 26 of the company’s products are certified net positive, making Humanscale the first brand to provide net positive products. In addition to the company belonging to the UN Global Compact, Humanscale also partners with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)—of which King has long been a National Council member. Humanscale’s partnership with WWF focuses on the Eastern Plains of Cambodia, which hosts a great diversity of wildlife but had been enduring a poaching problem. Humanscale worked to terminate poaching and has set up security to help keep the problem from recurring.

Brianne West             

Ethique

Industry: Retail/Beauty
Year Founded: 2012

Headquarters: Christchurch,
New Zealand

About Her Business & Career: The idea for Ethique was born out of Brianne West’s frustration at how much plastic waste was coming from her bathroom products. With a degree in biology from the University of Canterbury, West set out to create a solid shampoo bar, and thus created Ethique (formerly known as Sorbet).

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Ethique is notable for being one of the most sustainable beauty brands across the globe. And while the products are completely plastic-free, West has also built the company to be environmentally friendly. In March, Ethique became climate positive, offsetting 120 percent of its carbon emissions.

David Wolfe and Jamie Diamonstein 

Leesa

Industry: Retail
Year Founded: 2015

Headquarters: Virginia Beach, Va.

About Their Business & Career: One of the pioneers in the bed-in-a-box, direct-to-consumer mattress space, Leesa’s high quality, luxury mattresses are made to order in the United States and shipped using contact-free delivery. From concept and prototype all the way through to research, testing and build, impeccable detail is at the heart of everything Leesa makes. The company’s Leesa Hybrid was named Wirecutter’s Best Memory Foam Mattress of 2021, but with Leesa’s 100-night, risk-free trial, you don’t have to take their word for it.

Why They Made the Worthy 100: For every 10 sold, Leesa donates one mattress to a family in need and has donated nearly 40,000 mattresses to date. Working with over 1,000 giving partners, Leesa aims to provide children and their families with a safe place to sleep and is committed to building stronger communities across the country. Giving back is clearly a major part of the brand’s DNA, but the B Corp doesn’t stop there. Leesa’s headquarters run on renewable energy; the company’s mattresses use recycled and environmentally friendly materials; and in 2020 alone, the brand donated nearly $17,000 to help fight social injustice.

Rihanna     

Fenty Beauty, Savage X Fenty

Industry: Retail/Fashion/Beauty

Year Founded: 2017

Headquarters: San Francisco, Calif.

In August of this year, Rihanna officially reached billionaire status, making her the richest female musician in the world, with a net worth estimated at $1.7 billion, according to Forbes. But most of the chart-topping popstar’s wealth hasn’t come from her music; despite the enormous commercial success she has had over her 16-year career, the 33-year-old musical superstar (born Robyn Rihanna Fenty) has quietly transitioned into a legitimate business mogul since the launch of her beauty brand Fenty Beauty.

Read the full profile on Rihanna here

Davis Smith        

Cotopaxi

Industry: Retail
Year Founded: 2014

Headquarters: Salt Lake City, Utah

About His Business & Career: Growing up, Davis Smith lived in places like the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Ecuador. Living abroad and seeing some of the poverty in these places really shaped him, leading him toward his eventual career path. Today, Smith is the founder and CEO of Cotopaxi, a sustainable outdoor apparel and gear company that abides by the ethos, “do good.” Designed to fuel both adventure and global change, Cotopaxi’s durable products are produced in the most ehtically sustainable way possible, while a portion of its revenue goes toward developing and uplifting communities—creating a lasting impact.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: As a B Corp, Cotopaxi is extremely dedicated to making an impact. The company does this all throughout its business model. Its products are made with responsibly sourced materials through an ethical supply chain, which makes sure fair working conditions are met. Plus, the company has committed to creating all of its products with repurposed, recycled and reused materials by 2025. Additionally, one percent of the company’s revenue is used to help address poverty through the brand’s impact arm, the Cotopaxi Foundation. The foundation is intended to further drive Cotopaxi’s mission of alleviating poverty. It does this through allocating grants to humanitarian organizations, such as the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Mercy Corps and Nothing But Nets, that have great track records of improving the human condition. So far, the Cotopaxi Foundation has allotted 42 grants in six countries, with a large focus on Latin America’s poorest communities.

Michael Stausholm         

Sprout World

Industry: Retail
Year Founded: 2013

Headquarters: Brøndby, Denmark

About His Business & Career: Sprout World is not Michael Stausholm’s first foray into sustainable business. The founder previously helped companies like Nike and Walmart move toward more sustainable textile production processes. Stausholm, of course, went on to found Sprout World, which today is the only patented pencil that can be planted upon the end of its life as a writing instrument.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Sprout World’s products (pencils and its new eyeliner pencils) are clearly sustainable, since you can plant the pencil and watch it become flowers, herbs or vegetables. The company is also a part of the UN Global Compact and noted that it would implement sustainable development goals 4, 12, 13 and 15 into its business strategy in Sprout’s 2017 Communication on Progress report. But Stausholm is concerned about the human side of sustainability, as well, working to ensure decent working conditions are met in their supply chains. Stausholm also noted in an interview on Sprout World’s website that he employs individuals with special needs at a sheltered workshop in Denmark to help pack the pencils.

Tech

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Jensen Huang  

Nvidia

Industry: Tech
Year Founded: 1993

Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.

In 1993, Jensen Huang helped change the world when he founded Nvidia. The innovative creation of graphic processing units (GPUs)—as well as all of the parallel technological advancements that have come along with them—generated a new age that has allowed technology to become the pervasive entity that we can no longer live without. Nvidia is one of the companies responsible for the integration of the GPU into every aspect of digital life as we know it today.

Read the full profile on Huang here

Emily Kennedy

Marinus Analytics

Industry: Tech

Year Founded: 2014

Headquarters: Pittsburg, Pa.

About Her Business & Career: A Carnegie Mellon alum, Kennedy holds an advanced degree in public policy and management. Two years after achieving her degree, Kennedy founded Marinus Analytics, a company using AI to solve social issues. Marinus Analytics uses AI technology to help defend against systemic exploitation.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Marinus Analytics is tackling major systemic issues, like child abuse, human trafficking and cyber fraud. The company works to help investigators and social workers better protect those who are in danger through SaaS platforms and big data. One of the company’s main tools is Traffic Jam, a program largely designed to uncover human trafficking, but can also help locate missing persons and identify organized crime. Traffic Jam helps save precious time by moving 60 times faster than a physical search and can help form a case against a trafficker much quicker. Marinus Analytics partners with over 80 law enforcement agencies globally, helping find victims and dismantle crime rings.

Brennan Hatton and Rick Martin 

Equal Reality

Industry: Education/Tech
Year Founded: 2017
Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Their Business & Career: 2020 brought about a racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd sparked Black Lives Matter protests across the nation. And with that, a move to prioritize DEI initiatives took over corporate boardrooms. But one company that didn’t need to rethink its position around DEI was Equal Reality. Founded in 2017, Brennan Hatton and Rick Martin took a leap of faith, pioneering the industry as the first and only company in the world creating VR training for diversity and inclusion. Since then, they have grown to offer an entire VR learning experience library focused on everything from unconscious bias to workplace bullying; their technology has been adopted by major corporations from Amazon to J.P. Morgan; and their team has won numerous awards.

Why They Made the Worthy 100: We think Equal Reality’s product speaks for itself, but if you need more details: In the wake of COVID, the company is now working on education around the systemic bias in our health care system.

Nadine Hachach-Haram 

Proximie

Industry: Medicine/Tech

Year Founded: 2016

Headquarters: London, England

About Her Business & Career: An NHS plastic surgeon, Hachach-Haram started Proximie to bring surgeons’ expertise to operating rooms in different parts of the world. This way, there is less of a variation when it comes to quality of care, and it allows surgeons to lend their expertise to clinicians carrying out surgical procedures. Proximie isn’t just a video-streaming platform, however. What makes Proximie special and effective is its use of augmented reality technology that allows the outside surgeon to instruct the clinician through clear visuals.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Hachach-Haram’s health technology company would’ve been cutting edge regardless, but her company was very important during COVID, when many surgeons could no longer travel to perform surgeries in person. At the heart of it, her company is changing lives by working to provide the same quality of care for patients all over the world, having assisted in performing 6,000 surgeries as of 2020 and being used in 35 countries across five continents. Hachach-Haram and Proximie are changing the face of surgery.

Angela Benton

Streamlytics

Industry: Tech

Year Founded: 2018

Headquarters: Culver City, Calif.

About Her Business & Career: Angela Benton is the CEO of Streamlytics, a human-led data company that forgoes the use of cookies and other forms of AI-driven data collection. Streamlytics has identified many issues with AI-driven data collection, such as privacy violation, risk of perpetuating racial bias through reproducing patterns and much more. By allowing individual users to upload and sell their data themselves, Streamlytics is able to collect more accurate and ethical data that puts the power back in the hands of the consumer and democratizes data collection on many levels.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Benton’s innovative company, which allows consumers to collect and sell their own personal streaming data, has the power to combat issues surrounding privacy, inaccurate data collection and the perpetuation of the underrepresented consumer. It is no secret that a crucial flaw in AI technology is the perpetuation of patterns that need to be changed. Benton has devised a way to introduce human-led data collection that takes the power out of the hands of the computer and gives it back to the consumer. By placing her focus on Black and underrepresented communities, Benton is working to ensure that Streamlytics data collection is providing a more diverse portfolio of data packages than can be provided from other forms of machine-led data collection.

Kevin Cornish 

Moth+Flame

Industry: Tech
Year Founded: 2015

Headquarters: Brooklyn, N.Y.

About His Business & Career: Kevin Cornish is the founder of Moth+Flame, a VR company that is changing the entertainment game. However, Moth+Flame is not only lending its technology to entertainment companies like Netflix, it is also applying its software to training programs in the public and private sectors. Moth+Flame technology is being used to create immersive learning experiences for companies’ diversity and inclusion training as well as suicide prevention. It has been proven that engagement and focus are drastically increased when programs are delivered via VR as opposed to standard online courses, so the educational benefits of VR have tremendous potential.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Cornish’s VR technology is poised to revolutionize the way we consume media. Apart from its applications in the movie and television space, the level of engagement generated by VR experiences means that it could revolutionize education as well. Moth+Flame technology is currently being used to administer HR training programs, as well as DEI initiatives,  prevention workshops for serious social issues like suicide and sexual assault, pilot training and more. The application opportunities for VR education are vast, and the impact that a more immersive educational experience can have is significant. Cornish’s technological advancements in the VR space have had an impact across numerous industries as they work collaboratively to find new ways to incorporate the technology.

Lauren Maillian   

digitalundivided

Industry: Tech

Year Founded: 2012

Headquarters: Newark, N.J.

Starting when she was eight years old, Lauren Maillian launched a lemonade stand in Manhattan. Realizing that it was too hot to stand out in the sun, she convinced a nearby mom-and-pop shop to “lease” her a space under their awning for $50 a week—which she could afford making $300 a summer day in lemonade sales.

“Before I celebrated my 10th birthday, I had my first taste of entrepreneurial success,” she wrote in her 2014 book The Path Redefined: Getting to the Top on Your Own Terms.

Read the full profile on Maillian here

Naysa Mishler  

Everest Effect

Industry: Tech
Year Founded: 2019

Headquarters: Jersey City, N.J.

About Her Business & Career: In 2017, Naysa Mishler began working on what would become Everest Effect. After many natural disasters occurred in quick succession, she started considering how to get those people enduring disasters access to capital. This is the crux of Everest Effect—a tech platform built to help with crisis recovery by connecting people suffering from a disaster to other people, as well as brands, who can help them.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Mishler is looking to introduce the patent-pending Crisis Impact Score as a tool through Everest Effect. At large, it will be a resource for governments, nonprofits and businesses to not only help communities impacted by disasters, but also to help accelerate their economic recovery.

Chami Akmeemana

Convergence.Tech

Industry: Consulting/Tech

Year Founded: 2018

Headquarters: Ontario, Canada

About His Business & Career: The three-year-old startup has deployed blockchain in Mongolia to help farmers deliver sustainable cashmere; developed a blockchain-enabled land registry in India; and transformed how educators recognize the achievements of students. With a recent $2.2 million investment from Australia and the adoption of its Trybe.ID Travel Pass by Singapore’s government, Convergence.Tech is proof that purpose and passion can lead to profit.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: The company is committed to the UN’s SDGs and has partnered with UNDP, UNICEF and OECD to tackle these issues. Their work with traceability has also led to more transparent, more reliant and fairer supply chains.

John Katzman

Noodle

Industry: Education/Tech

Year Founded: 2010

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About His Business & Career: John Katzman is the founder and CEO of Noodle, an education platform that provides students with resources, connects them with experts and houses comprehensive info about schools and programs.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Noodle aims to democratize access to education by lowering the cost of admission and providing students and schools with easily accessible information. Unequal access to higher education is a systemic problem, but companies like Noodle are helping raise awareness and tackle accessibility issues through their work with schools and families alike.

Jenny Xia Spradling         

FreeWill

Industry: Estate Planning/Tech
Year Founded: 2017

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Her Business & Career: Before founding FreeWill, Jenny Xia Spradling was a business analyst for McKinsey & Company and a private equity associate for Bain Capital. Shortly after exiting Bain Capital, Xia Spradling founded FreeWill, an online platform that offers free estate planning tools. Because creating wills can often be complicated and expensive, she and her co-CEO Patrick Schmitt set out to create a company that can help more Americans make their wills in a way that is simple, completely free—and can benefit charity.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Through FreeWill, Xia Spradling has put a real emphasis on giving back. FreeWill has come up with a way to make leaving money for charity in wills simple, which has resulted in the site’s users pledging over a billion dollars to charity. And this idea of making charitable giving more accessible through wills is gaining traction. Xia Spradling said in an interview with Authority Magazine on Medium that she’s seen more online estate planning companies place a bigger priority on charitable giving since founding

​​Jay Wilkinson             

Firespring

Industry: Marketing/Tech
Year Founded: 1992

Headquarters: Lincoln, Neb.

About His Business & Career: Jay Wilkinson is the founder and CEO of Firespring, a marketing consultancy that provides its clients with strategic guidance to help them prosper. As Nebraska’s first certified B Corp, Firespring is committed to transparency and using its resources to make a difference. One of the ways that they do this is through their Power of Three program. This program pledges one percent of their revenue to nonprofits, two percent of their products and services to be delivered as donations and three percent of their staff volunteers one day every month at an organization of their choice.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: As the founder of Nebraska’s first registered B Corp, Wilkinson has paved the way and raised the bar through his work with Firespring. His company utilizes its resources by consciously making an effort to give back in three key ways: donation of revenue, donation of products and services and donation of time. Additionally, Firespring was ranked on Inc.’s “50 Best Places to Work,” demonstrating that supported employees feel empowered to pay it forward. Wilkinson has made a commitment to give back not only to society but to his employees as well; this commitment, combined with the company’s status as a groundbreaking B Corp, demonstrates Wilkinson’s mission to be a force for good.

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Doug Lessing   

Phin

Industry: Philanthropy/Tech

Year Founded: 2018

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

Phin is changing how companies integrate philanthropy into the core of their business. Worth recently spoke with Phin founder Doug Lessing about how he’s marrying purpose with profits.

Read the full profile on Lessing here

Nate Morris   

Rubicon

Industry: Tech

Year Founded: 2008

Headquarters: Lexington, Ky.

About His Business & Career: Considered the “Uber for trash,” Rubicon was founded with one goal—to end waste. Now valued at over $1 billion, the waste and recycling software provider works with businesses, governments and organizations worldwide to develop solutions that bring transparency and more sustainable outcomes to the waste and recycling industry.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Rubicon is revolutionizing how brands eliminate waste to create a circular economy through recycling and reuse. However, it’s not only physical waste that the certified B Corp cares about; Rubicon also aims to reduce wasted time, energy and money to create a more efficient and effective society.

Food & Beverage

José Andrés

ThinkFoodGroup

Industry: Food

Year Founded: 2010

Headquarters: Washington, D.C.

For many in the hospitality industry, the last year and a half has been about survival. With almost 80,000 U.S. restaurants going under in such a short time, according to Datassential, chefs and restaurant owners have been doing whatever they can to keep their businesses afloat and their staff employed. A few celebrity chefs have emerged during this time as hero figures, doing whatever they can to help others. Perhaps the most notable example of this is José Andrés.

Read the full profile on Andrés here

Mashama Bailey

The Grey

Industry: Food

Year Founded: 2018

Headquarters: Savannah, Ga.

About Her Business & Career: If you’re a fan of Mashama Bailey’s, you know she is primarily known for being the executive chef and partner at The Grey, an acclaimed Savannah, Ga. restaurant situated in what was once a segregated Greyhound terminal. But Bailey, along with her business partner John O. Morisano, is expanding the universe of the restaurant, by introducing The Grey Diner Bar and The Grey Market, slated to open in Austin, Texas early next year.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Opened in 2014, The Grey, and Mashama Bailey, saw success quickly. Bailey was, and continues to be, heralded for her excellent dishes that are both refined and comforting. But Bailey has also been a part of the racial reckoning in the American culinary world—an industry that is still largely white- and male-dominated. Whilst making her way through culinary school, she went looking for a culinary role model—someone who looked like her. And she found Edna Lewis, a renowned Southern chef and cookbook author. Through her cooking at The Grey, as well as her book with Morisano, Black, White and The Grey, Bailey is playing a big role in the conversation surrounding Black cuisine and Black chefs getting the seat they deserve at the table.

Jasmine Crowe   

Goodr

Industry: Food
Year Founded: 2017

Headquarters: Atlanta, Ga.

About Her Business & Career: Jasmine Crowe is the founder and CEO of Goodr, an app that is connecting organizations with excess food to those in need. Crowe has been working her whole life to solve hunger, but through participation in countless food drives and volunteering opportunities she quickly realized that America is going about solving hunger the wrong way. “Hunger [is] not an issue of scarcity, but rather a matter of logistics,” Crowe said in her 2019 TED Talk. That is why she started Goodr—to use technology to solve logistical problems and fight hunger, and all the issues that come along with it, at scale.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Crowe’s dedication to the war on hunger has led to the creation of an app that has the potential to change the way we fight hunger worldwide. By recognizing that the issues we face are not due to a scarcity of food, but rather the logistical problem of distributing excess food to where it is needed most, Crowe has laid the groundwork for a system that helps deliver real meals to families in need while also preventing food waste from ending up in landfills, which in turn contributes to increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Ryan Pandya
and Perumal Gandhi     

Perfect Day

Industry: Food/Tech

Year Founded: 2014

Headquarters: Berkeley, Calif.

About Their Business & Career: Gandhi and Pandya’s meeting seems almost fateful. The two men were both vegan and missing dairy products, when in a similar timeframe, the two—completely unaware of each other—began considering how to make milk without using anything from animals. The two were introduced to each other by executive director of New Harvest, Isha Datar, and so began their quest to create quality animal-free milk. Utilizing their bioengineering backgrounds, the two created Perfect Day to transform dairy as they knew it.

Why They Made the Worthy 100: What Pandya and Gandhi have done goes far beyond making plant-based milk. The two have effectively created the perfect vegan milk protein—one that acts like the proteins found in cow’s milk without affecting any animal at all. This means that they can create vegan dairy products, like ice cream and cheese, that are just like traditional dairy products, while being better for the animals and the environment.

Jaden Smith       

JUST Water

Industry: Beverages
Year Founded: 2012

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

For more than half his life Jaden Smith, 23, has been using his entrepreneurial spirit to help make the world a better place. While he may be best known as the son of Will and Jada Smith, the actor-rapper-designer-singer-songwriter is a philanthropist and humanitarian first and foremost; he not only uses his platform to advocate for change, but he is also working to directly create impact through his business endeavors.

Read the full profile on Smith here

UNSPECIFIED - AUGUST 2020: Jaden Smith attends the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, broadcast on Sunday, August 30th 2020. (Photo by Rich Fury/MTV VMAs 2020/Getty Images for MTV)

Susan Danziger    

Wally Farms

Industry: Food/Tech
Year Founded: 2018

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Her Business & Career: Susan Danziger is an investor and entrepreneur, founding a venture capital firm along with several social and environmental impact organizations including Wally Farms—a living research project dedicated to finding a food system that is better for the planet, the economy and the consumer. With their eyes set on the future of farming, Wally Farms is looking to find new, more sustainable ways to structure the food industry. By working with farmers, processors, distributors, chefs and more, Wally Farms is actively looking for solutions to the sustainability and nutrition accessibility issues that pervade our current system. Wally Farms also offers an extensive educational program, providing online courses, workshops and events as well as hands-on experiences for the local community at the farm. Additionally, Wally Farms is committed to reducing their carbon footprint by building a microgrid of solar panels. This grid provides Wally Farms with their main, and soon to be only, source of energy. They also reduce their carbon footprint by utilizing electric vehicles, prioritizing electric tools, tractors, cars and bikes for all on-site projects.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Danziger’s project, Wally Farms, is finding innovative ways to improve the farming, processing and distribution methods that make up the American food supply chain. Their holistic approach to improving our current food system focuses on researching ways to address the climate crisis and providing communities with educational experiences as well as access to more nutritious foods.

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Shazi Visram         

Happy Family Organics

Industry: Food
Year Founded: 2003

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

Shazi Visram, founder of Happy Family Organics, is a leader in more ways than one. Not only did she found a company that filled the gap in the market for naturally and sustainably sourced baby food, but she also turned that company into a force dedicated to supporting underserved communities and fighting child hunger worldwide.

Read the full profile on Visram here

Kim Jordan   

New Belgium Brewing Company

Industry: Alcohol

Year Founded: 1991

Headquarters: Fort Collins, Colo.

About Her Business & Career: Started 30 years ago, New Belgium Brewing Company has grown to be one of the largest breweries in the country. Its beer is now available in all 50 states, as well as Sweden, Norway, Canada, Japan, Australia and South Korea with limited availability in Lima, Peru. The brewing company was acquired by Lion Little World Beverages in 2019.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Prior to that acquisition, the brewing company was fully employee-owned—something Kim Jordan had strived to achieve for her company. In an interview with Forbes, Jordan noted that empowering her employees was not only what she felt was right, but it also benefited the brand. Her conviction in doing right by her employees is what makes her part of this year’s Worthy 100 Entrepreneurs list.

Micah McFarlane 

Revel Spirits

Industry: Alcohol

Year Founded: 2013

Headquarters: Culver City, Calif.

About His Business & Career: You’ve heard of tequila. You’ve heard of mezcal. But have you heard of avila? If not, we’re betting you’ll hear about it soon thanks to Revel Spirits, the company bringing an entirely new agave-based spirit to the market. Made from 100 percent pure agave, handpicked by families dating back generations to Morelos, Mexico, Revel’s unique flavor profiles have already attracted celebrity investor Justin Hartley and won the brand numerous awards.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: McFarlane’s philosophy is to create positive social consciousness by embracing philanthropy as an integral part of Revel’s brand identity and supporting the environment and community of Morelos. The company’s commitment to the region has extended well past creating jobs to building infrastructure and supporting entrepreneurs.

Danny Meyer    

Union Square Hospitality Group

Industry: Food
Year Founded: 1985

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About His Business & Career: Hailing from St. Louis, Mo., Meyer has become renowned in the culinary world for Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and, of course, Shake Shack. In addition to founding many notable restaurants, Meyer also founded and is CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns Gramercy Tavern and over 15 other restaurants.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Meyer is the chairman of USHG Acquisition Corp., a SPAC looking to work with a mission-driven company that prioritizes its employees and customers above investors in an approach Meyer terms “enlightened hospitality.” He’s also served on many boards, including City Harvest and Madison Square Park Conservancy, and in April, he was appointed chairman of the board for the New York City Economic Development Corp.

Fausto Zapata and Vicente Cisneros    

El Silencio, Dahlia, Casa Silencio

Industry: Alcohol
Year Founded: 2013

Headquarters: Oaxaca, Mexico

There are many players in the mezcal category, but El Silencio is unmatched. Founded by Fausto Zapata and Vicente Cisneros, the Silencio brand has thoughtful sustainability practices and a deep relationship with the Xaaga community in Oaxaca, Mexico, as well as with the city and state of Oaxaca itself.

Read the full profile on Zapata and Cisneros here

Yonatan Medhin   

Grain4Grain

Industry: Food/Tech

Year Founded: 2018
Headquarters: San Antonio, Texas

About His Business & Career:
Yonatan Medhin, founder and engineer at Grain4Grain, developed a system that allows breweries and distilleries to make use of their spent grain—the byproduct of brewing beer or distilling whiskey. The spent grain is high in protein and fiber, but low in carbs and gluten, because the carbs and gluten are what is extracted during the brewing process. The San Antonio-based local food tech company is committed to the mission of upcycling food and making use of the massive quantities of spent grain produced daily by breweries and distilleries. This upcycling prevents food waste and provides a healthier alternative to flour.

Why He Made the Worthy 100:

Grain4Grain lives up to its name by matching every sale with a donation of their Barely Barley Flour to local organizations in need. Medhin made the mission of Grain4Grain a reality through the innovative design of his patent-pending mill which cuts down the drying and milling time of spent grain from six hours to just 20 minutes. Medhin’s mill design has allowed his food tech company to make use of massive quantities of spent grain that would otherwise have ended up in landfills. Grain4Grain has taken the inconvenience out of utilizing spent grain by drying and milling it into a healthy alternative to regular flour. They have even turned their Barely Barley Flour into dry mixes for pancakes, waffles and more, along with providing recipes for its use on their blog. Medhin’s creative and innovative approach to making use of spent grains has opened the door to preventing massive amounts of food waste, and the company’s founding principle of donating grain for grain means that they have an intrinsic policy to match sales with donations of their product.

Hamdi Ulukaya         

Chobani

Industry: Food
Year Founded: 2005

Headquarters: New Berlin, N.Y.

“It’s time to admit that the playbook that guided businesses and CEOs for the last 40 years is broken,” said Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of Chobani, in his 2019 TED Talk. Ulukaya is an entrepreneur unlike most. Not only has he built the most successful yogurt company in the country, but he has done it by sticking to an unconventional set of principles and guidelines—chief among them, putting his employees before his shareholders.

Read the full profile on Ulukaya here

Noah Robbins     

Ark Foods

Industry: Food
Year Founded: 2013

Headquarters: Brooklyn, N.Y.

About His Business & Career: Coming from a family of citrus farmers, Noah Robbins knew that he wanted to go into agriculture, but he didn’t want to do it the same way his family had. Having noticed that fresh vegetables were not readily available to everybody, Robbins decided to fill the gap in the market by democratizing access to healthy, fresh vegetables. However, making vegetables more accessible was not Robbins only goal, he also wanted to bring the farmstand feel to the commercial space. The popularization of a larger variety of vegetables, such as shishito peppers, can be credited to Ark Foods. Through vertical integration, Robbins has been able to make a wide variety of freshly grown foods available to the general public while keeping costs low, thus achieving his goal of making healthier choices available to a much broader customer base.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Robbins’ goal to democratize healthy food options is a goal worthy of recognition. Food deserts and accessibility to affordable, healthy meals is a systemic issue that needs the help of innovative companies like Ark Foods. Through his compassionate and conscientious vision, Robbins has built a practical business model that has a substantial social impact. Not only has Ark Foods been able to bring new and interesting vegetables to grocery stores at an affordable price, but through the success of his business, Robbins has also shown that democratizing accessibility is a mission that benefits all.

Kara Goldin   

Hint

Industry: Beverages
Year Founded: 2005

Headquarters: San Francisco, Calif.

Kara Goldin, a veteran of major roles at major firms including Time, CNN and AOL, grew her own formidable business from the seeds of her own priorities as a consumer. It was when trying to kick her own Diet Coke habit and find healthy alternatives to “boring water” that Goldin started naturally infusing water with fruit. And sort of like a kid who likes playing with Legos recommending Legos to people shopping at a toy store, Goldin figured that if she wanted a healthy, tasty way to drink more water, others would too. She was right. The result—Hint—is now the single largest independent, nonalcoholic beverage company.

Read the full profile on Goldin here.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 16: Kara Goldin attends 2018 Women's Entrepreneurship Day at United Nations on November 16, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Chance Yeh/Getty Images)

Environmental Betterment

Al Subbloie        

Budderfly

Industry: Energy
Year Founded: 2007

Headquarters: Shelton, Conn.

About His Business & Career: Al Subbloie is the founder and CEO of Budderfly, an energy savings company that takes the hassle out of monitoring both your energy use and what the best services and products are for your company. Pioneering what Subbloie calls “Energy Efficiency as a Service,” Budderfly is helping companies save money while providing them with the best, most sustainable energy solutions. And he believes in his solution so much that Budderfly takes all of the risks for its clients—the groundbreaking business model means that Budderfly takes on the responsibility of its clients’ utility spending, even putting up the capital for installing energy-efficient improvements, and then shares in the savings. By monitoring the most efficient energy technology, Budderfly—which already counts major food chains like Just Salad, Little Caesars, Subway and Tropical Smoothie Cafe as clients—is helping companies reduce their energy use or, at the very least, utilize technology to use it more efficiently.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Subbloie built a company that helps guide organizations toward using energy smarter. In doing so, Budderfly has been able to help reduce the amount of energy wasted through providing careful monitoring and technology upgrades for its clients. Subbloie found the intersection between the benefits of saving costs on energy bills for the consumer and the benefits that saving energy can have for the planet. Through innovation and a customer-facing business model, Budderfly is working to reduce the amounts of pointlessly wasted energy and money.

Leigh-Kathryn Bonner

Bee Downtown

Industry: Environmental Services

Year Founded: 2014

Headquarters: Raleigh-Durham, N.C.

About Her Business & Career: Leigh-Kathryn Bonner is the founder and CEO of Bee Downtown, an organization that installs and maintains beehives at corporate campuses. Bonner comes from a long line of beekeepers and therefore grew up being taught the value of both agriculture and our planet’s most crucial little workforce. Bee Downtown works to share that knowledge by installing and maintaining hives at companies’ headquarters and then providing a program that educates the company’s employees and gives them a taste of the rewarding and hands-on experience that Bonner’s family has been enjoying for generations.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Bonner discovered that the positive impact of honey bees extends past their environmental contributions; through the introduction of beehives across a wide variety of company campuses, Bee Downtown has been able to bring specific and valuable experiences to their clients. Not only do the bees create a positive environmental impact on up to 18 acres of land surrounding their hive, they also provide their onlookers with valuable lessons. Beyond raising awareness of the importance of protecting bees, which are a vital part of our ecosystem, companies have found that there is much to be learned about productivity, conservation, teamwork and leadership from the small insect colonies. Bonner has proven that unconventional ways of bringing joy, inspiration and education to companies is beneficial to everyone involved, including the planet.

Kathy Hannun

Dandelion Energy

Industry: Energy

Year Founded: 2017

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Her Business & Career: Kathy Hannun is the founder and CEO of Dandelion Energy, a renewable energy company aiming to eliminate the need for oil, propane and natural gas to heat our buildings. Hannun, who is ardently committed to sustainability, is tackling the problem that too often goes undiscussed—that roughly one third of greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the way we heat our buildings. By incorporating geothermal heat pumps that are completely emission free, Dandelion Energy is looking to popularize a sustainable and affordable way to heat your home.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Finding ways to live more sustainably can be a daunting task, and, at times, it might seem impossible to feel like we are making an impact. However, companies like Dandelion Energy, which are committed to making it possible for the average consumer to do their part to limit greenhouse gas emissions, bring hope to the mission of climate change. By eliminating the need to purchase harmful fuels to heat and cool your home, Dandelion Energy is providing sustainable investment that will save their customers money and reduce emissions generated by homes by over 70 percent. Through their virtual onboarding process and site inspection, Dandelion has created a safe and affordable way for their customers to do their part to fight climate change while saving money at the same time.

John Salzinger       

MPOWERD

Industry: Retail/Tech
Year Founded: 2012

Headquarters: Brooklyn, N.Y.

About His Business & Career: John Salzinger, a serial entrepreneur and business veteran, founded MPOWERD in 2012, and it has quickly become a heavyweight in the social and environmental impact space. MPOWERD is a solar energy company dedicated to providing light and safety to people all over the world, particularly to those in communities without access to clean, harmless energy. One of the main products produced by MPOWERD is their inflatable, solar-powered lamp. These affordable, safe, and easily distributed lamps are donated in droves by the B Corp to help those left powerless by natural disasters and to replace the need for the use of harmful fuel sources, such as coal or kerosene.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Salzinger’s MPOWERD is a mission-driven company dedicated to providing clean, safe energy to those who go without. Salzinger is acutely aware of the disadvantages posed when power is inaccessible, such as medical safety, health risks that accompany the burning of kerosene lamps, safety for women, restrictions on education and so much more. MPOWERD partners with over 700 nonprofits and NGOs to provide broader access to clean, safe solar-powered light. One of the ways that MPOWERD is able to donate and distribute thousands of solar lamps is by utilizing their consumers—with every purchase, the website makes it easy to donate $10, which provides a lamp to someone in need. Sustainability and safety are at the forefront of MPOWERD’s mission, and they emphasize this with every decision they make.

Nooshin Behroyan

Paxon Energy & Infrastructure

Industry: Professional Services/Energy

Year Founded: 2016

Headquarters: Pleasanton, Calif.

About Her Business & Career: Nooshin Behroyan is the CEO of Paxon Energy & Infrastructure, a Women’s Business Enterprise that offers a vast portfolio of services for all things energy. Behroyan is committed to the elevation and success of women in business as well as the diversification of the energy industry. She serves as chairwoman of the board at IKAR industries, president of the board at NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners) and board member of the American Gas Association.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Behroyan’s efforts as the CEO of Paxon Energy & Infrastructure has led the company to be ranked by the Inc. 500 as the ninth fastest-growing company, as well as the number one female-led company in America. Behroyan’s role as an advocate for women in business and the diversification of the energy industry—an overwhelmingly male dominated field—has established her as a changemaker in the space.

Sandra Kwak 

10Power

Industry: Energy
Year Founded: 2015
Headquarters: San Francisco, Calif.

About Her Business & Career: Once upon a time, Kwak was an artist, owning studios, serving as a stage manager, founding an arts nonprofit and freelancing as a graphic designer and photographer. But that’s not why Kwak is on our list. Today, Kwak is known for her work in climate solutions and sustainability, not least of all through her company 10Power. A certified B Corp, 10Power seeks to democratize renewable energy in Haiti by financing solar projects and collaborating with local partners to make them a reality.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: The work Kwak does through 10Power not only helps the planet, but also provides underserved communities with clean water and power. Additionally, Kwak is on the board of the Foundation for Climate Restoration, a nonprofit looking to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in order to heal the climate.

Tom Szaky          

TerraCycle

Industry: Recycling
Year Founded: 2001

Headquarters: Trenton, N.J.

About His Business & Career: Interestingly enough, Tom Szaky’s career began with worm poop. Yes, you read that right. Though he didn’t complete his degree at Princeton University, the college played an important role in forming TerraCycle. During his freshman year, he discovered you could use worm poop as fertilizer. And with that, he left Princeton to start a company that produced fertilizer from vermicompost, which is made by feeding organic waste to worms, and packaged in reused plastic bottles. From there, Szaky diversified into creating upcycled products from waste. And so TerraCycle was born.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Szaky’s company had impact built in from the start. Now a multimillion-dollar company, TerraCycle is doing right by the planet, constantly seeking new, innovative ways to upcycle and recycle products and materials, such as turning flip flops and juice pouches into parts for playgrounds, launching zero waste boxes as a solution to collect nearly all types of waste and the company’s revolutionary cigarette butt recycling program. TerraCycle also introduced Loop in 2019—something the company refers to as “the 21st-century milkman.” Through this offering, TerraCycle delivers brand name products to customers in refillable packaging, which the consumer then puts back in the Loop tote when they’re finished to be sent back to TerraCycle for cleaning and reuse—thus reducing waste from single-use products. And in 2020, the company began a PPE recycling initiative for disposable masks. Only time will tell what Szaky will come up with next.

Travel

Bruce Poon Tip     

G Adventures

Industry: Travel

Year Founded: 1990

Headquarters: Toronto, Canada

Back in 1990, a young Bruce Poon Tip maxed out two credit cards to launch his tour operator travel company, G Adventures, in Toronto. The entrepreneur developed his winning formula early: Find a hole in the market—preferably one driven by passion and purpose—and invent an innovative way to meet the demand.

Read the full profile on Poon Tip here.

Luis Vargas            

Modern Adventure

Industry: Travel
Year Founded: 2018

Headquarters: Portland, Ore.

About His Business & Career: A certified B Corp and carbon neutral company, Modern Adventure creates profound travel experiences that also help make an impact. A certified sommelier who has also studied business and marine biology, Luis Vargas has a deep passion for travel and curating meaningful moments for people.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Through Modern Adventure, Vargas works to support local communities through the tourism he brings in and believes the majority of the earnings should stay within that country. The travel operator is also certified climate neutral—only furthering their ethos of using travel to do good.

Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum      

Space Perspective

Industry: Aviation & Aerospace

Year Founded: 2018

Headquarters: Earth

Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum are spearheading Space Perspective, a space tourism company that aims to ferry travelers to the edge of space with the help of a giant balloon.

The venture is the latest chapter in the lives of its founders, who are best-known for participating in Biosphere 2, a project from the ‘90s where eight people sealed themselves in an artificial world for two years.

Read the full profile on Poynter and MacCallum here.  

Photo courtesy of Space Perspective

Tiffany Turner         

Adrift Hospitality

Industry: Hospitality
Year Founded: 2004

Headquarters: Long Beach, Wash.

About Her Business & Career: Tiffany Turner, and her husband and business partner Brady Turner, forayed into the hotel space back in 2004 with the Inn at Discovery Coast. They then bought and developed the notable Adrift Hotel & Spa in 2011, paving the way for Adrift Hospitality SPC—a hospitality group made up of boutique hotels, restaurants and distilleries throughout Washington and Oregon.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Adrift Hospitality is a certified B Corp in addition to being a social purpose corporation. With Tiffany at the helm as CEO, the hospitality group places a lot of importance on sustainability and the social impact the company has, not least of all by being transparent with guests and staff but also by utilizing local goods and services wherever they can.

Media

Mindy Kaling 

Kaling International

Industry: Media

Year Founded: 2012

Headquarters: Los Angeles, Calif.

About Her Business & Career: The Emmy-nominated writer, producer, director, actress and New York Times bestselling author is fostering representation on screen through the many projects her production company, Kaling International, currently has in the works. In 2019, she signed an overall deal with Warner Bros., rumored to be a six-year contract worth about $8.5 million per year, and her debut screenplay Late Night sold to Amazon for a record-breaking $13 million. Currently, she has 10 projects in development; her highly acclaimed Netflix series, Never Have I Ever, was just renewed for a third season; and her latest series, The Sex Lives of College Girls, premiered on HBO Max this month.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Lauded for its multifaceted and culturally complex characters, Never Have I Ever has been celebrated as a “watershed moment for the representation of South Asians in Hollywood,” and with Asians representing an abysmal 4.2 percent of broadcast scripted roles, the diversity Kaling is bringing to the small screen is sorely needed. And she’s not just putting people of color in front of the camera either; Kaling is opening the door for women and minorities across all parts of the industry.

Michael Bloomberg

Bloomberg L.P.

Industry: Finance/Media/Tech

Year Founded: 1981

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About His Business & Career: The former mayor of New York City, with a net worth estimated at $59 billion, has always been an entrepreneur first and foremost. In 1981, he revolutionized the investment industry with his Bloomberg Terminal technology, leveling the playing field for smaller firms; today, with 167 offices, nearly 20,000 employees and $10 billion in revenue as of 2019, Bloomberg has become synonymous with financial software and media.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Encompassing all of Michael Bloomberg’s personal giving, as well as corporate philanthropy at Bloomberg L.P., Bloomberg Philanthropies invested $1.6 billion in 810 cities across 170 countries last year, with over $11.1 billion donated to philanthropic organizations to date.

Raeshem Nijhon    

Culture House

Industry: Media
Year Founded: 2019
Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Her Business & Career: Raeshem Nijhon has worked in TV and film for almost 20 years. She was an executive producer before founding Culture House—a Black-, brown- and women-owned production company dedicated to telling powerful and diverse stories. The production company works with streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Disney+  to house their projects.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: There is still a need for more diverse stories on the big and small screens. Culture House is meeting this need. Nijhon, along with founding partners Carri Twigg and Nicole Galovski, also started the Culture House Consultancy to provide films, TV shows and multiplatform projects with consultants to advise on topics like race, gender and identity to help make projects culturally empowered.

Will and Jada Smith        

Westbrook Inc.

Industry: Media
Year Founded: 2019

Headquarters: Calabasas, Calif.

About Their Business & Career: Will and Jada Smith founded Westbrook Inc. in 2019 in order to provide artists with a platform to tell their impactful stories. Encompassing several of their previous business ventures, like Westbrook Media and Overbrook Entertainment, Westbrook Inc. aligns the goals of each company into one mission—to share stories that inspire the next generation of artists to make a positive impact. Some of the ways they do this is through offering services like social media management, incubative brand management and content curation services. By working with the next generation of artists across all major media platforms, and helping them to create and curate content that has a strong, positive impact, Westbrook Inc. is guiding the army of digital changemakers toward a more conscientious and inclusive future.

Why They Made the Worthy 100: Will and Jada Smith have utilized their platform and social impact potential by building a company that gives a voice to and inspires the next generation of artists. Westbrook Inc. is dedicated to supporting and sharing passion projects, positivity and art that have a meaningful and impactful influence on the entertainment industry. The ever-changing role of media today has broadened the definition of celebrity, and those celebrities can come from anywhere—movies, TV shows, YouTube, social media platforms and so much more. Through various modes of content curation and management, Will and Jada Smith have dedicated Westbrook Inc. to being a positive, guiding force for the generation that holds the potential to create massive social influence.

Nonprofit

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Jacqueline Novogratz    

Acumen

Industry: Nonprofit Venture Capital

Year Founded: 2001

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

Today, even the stodgiest investment firm will boast about its impact investing arm. But when Jacqueline Novogratz started Acumen in 2001, the term “impact investing” had barely been used.

“When we started, I can’t tell you how many people would tell me that I clearly didn’t understand how business operated,” Novogratz told Worth.

Read the full profile on Novogratz here

 

Daniela V. Fernandez   

Sustainable Ocean Alliance

Industry: Nonprofit
Year Founded: 2014
Headquarters: San Francisco, Calif.

About Her Business & Career: Fernandez’s Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA) is a nonprofit designed to solve the challenges our oceans are facing. The organization offers an Ocean Leadership Program, in which SOA provides funding, mentorship and resources for their leaders to help them create actionable change for the ocean, and an Ocean Solutions Accelerator, which supports startups that are actively taking on the ocean’s greatest challenges and developing solutions for them.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: An acclaimed social entrepreneur, Fernandez started SOA at just 19 years old. Since then, her organization has worked with ocean leaders in more than 150 countries, making it the largest network of young ocean leaders across the globe. As well, SOA’s Ocean Solutions Accelerator is the first of its kind, helping innovators develop technological solutions for our oceans. Fernandez’s work to help restore our oceans’ health and her dedication to furthering UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 is what makes her part of this year’s Worthy 100 Entrepreneurs list.

Music

Tony D. Alexander
and David Porter

Made in Memphis Entertainment (MIME)

Industry: Music

Year Founded: 2015

Headquarters: Memphis, Tenn.

About Their Business & Career: Tony D. Alexander and David Porter are cofounders of MIME, a Black-owned entertainment company that provides full-service production for their artists. MIME staffs their organization with diversity and inclusion in mind—with one half of the company being run by women and three-quarters of the company being staffed by Black employees.

Why They Made the Worthy 100: Alexander and Porter’s conscientious hiring techniques, along with their support and partnerships with organizations that focus on diversity, has steered them toward their goal of reshaping the Memphis music industry.

Jason Flom   

Lava Records

Industry: Music
Year Founded: 1995
Headquarters: Burbank, Calif.

About His Business & Career: Jason Flom made a name for himself in music, founding Lava Records with Atlantic Records in 1995. In 2004, he then sold his record label to Atlantic Records Group before being named chairman and CEO of the umbrella label. A year later, he was made chairman and CEO of Virgin Records, only to then head up Capital Music Group by 2007. The next year, Flom relaunched Lava Records, but this time with Republic Records, owned by Universal Music Group. Throughout his career, he has signed musical talents including Katy Perry, Kid Rock and Lorde.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: The argument could be made that Flom is just as notable for his work in music as for his work in criminal justice reform. Flom was a founding board member of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to get justice for those who were wrongfully convicted of a crime through the use of DNA testing. Flom also launched Wrongful Conviction Podcasts, highlighting the stories of people who have been freed from prison after enduring a wrongful conviction. In addition to this, he also sits on the boards of the Legal Action Center, Proclaim Justice, Injustice Watch, VetPaw, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Drug Policy Alliance, the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and the NYU Prison Education Program.

Real Estate & Development

Britnie Turner        

Aerial

Industry: Real Estate
Year Founded: 2009

Headquarters: Nashville, Tenn.

Zebras. That’s perhaps one of the coolest fun facts about Britnie Turner—she houses zebras on her private island in the Virgin Islands. But what you need to know is that Turner is not frivolously spending money on exotic animals. Even her rehabilitated zebras living at Redemption Farm are a part of her greater mission.

Read the full profile on Turner here.

John Abrams

South Mountain Company

Industry: Architecture/Design/Planning

Year Founded: 1973

Headquarters: West Tisbury, Mass.

About His Business & Career: South Mountain Company has been in business for almost 50 years and has been employee-owned for 35. John Abram’s company is notable for the fact that it is a fully integrated design and construction firm that will take care of everything from architecture to interior design to engineering and renewable energy.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Not only is his company innovative, but Abrams has built accountability and transparency with his clients into the fabric of South Mountain Company. Additionally, the firm boasts the largest and most experienced solar team in the area, helping bring homes and businesses into a more sustainable future.

Kieran Bowers

Swire Properties

Industry: Real Estate

Year Founded: 1972

Headquarters: Miami, Fla.

About His Business & Career: Kieran Bowers is the president of Swire Properties, a property development company originally established in Hong Kong in 1972. Bowers operates out of the U.S. headquarters in Miami and leads the company’s SD 2030 plan to become the global industry leader in sustainability. This plan aims to identify and improve every aspect of Swire’s impact, particularly its environmental impact. Since 2017, Swire Properties has been recognized for its commitment to sustainability by the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, the Hong Seng Corporate Sustainability Index, the RobecoSAM Sustainability Yearbook 2017 and the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark, among many others.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Bowers heads up Swire Properties’ sustainability initiatives and is working to transform the company into a leader in sustainable development. Under his leadership, the company has established sustainability projects like the Home Grown initiative—a project that focuses on donations and project support for underserved communities—as well as the SD 2030 plan which aims to turn Swire Properties into a global leader in sustainability through a myriad of sustainable development initiatives and invigorated commitment to transparency.  In addition to their sustainability goals, Swire Properties is also conscious of its social impact, partnering with FlexCourt to host wellness driven youth programs in underserved communities.

Software

Marc Benioff

Salesforce

Industry: Software

Year Founded: 1999

Headquarters: San Francisco, Calif.

Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff hardly needs an introduction. For years, he’s been one of, if not the, loudest champions for stakeholder capitalism and has wielded his wealth and corporate power to help make the world a better place, tackling challenges from homelessness and climate change to the gender pay gap, LGBTQ+ rights and the country’s gun crisis. Worth recently caught up with “the people’s billionaire” to discuss his philanthropy-centric business model, why traditional capitalism doesn’t work and how every one of us can be a platform for change.

Read the full profile on Benioff here.

Kentaro Kawamori

Persefoni

Industry: Software
Year Founded: 2020
Headquarters: Tempe, Ariz.

About His Business & Career: Persefoni is a first-of-its-kind intelligent carbon accounting and management SaaS-based platform. The venture-backed startup’s carbon footprint management platform aims to revolutionize carbon footprint performance, as well as sustainability reporting, by enabling organizations to measure, analyze, plan, forecast and report on their carbon footprint.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: Large-scale decarbonization needs to take place immediately. Companies need clear, accurate data to do this. Persefoni not only allows organizations to calculate and manage this data in real-time, but it also uses AI to provide actionable insights toward decarbonization efforts.

Professional Services

Susan McPherson 

McPherson Strategies

Industry: Communications

Year Founded: 2013

Headquarters: New York, N.Y.

About Her Business & Career: Susan McPherson is the founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies, a boutique communications consultancy that specializes in helping brands increase their social impact. McPherson has an extensive network that she puts to use for her clients to connect them with other mission-driven companies.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: McPherson has committed herself and her company to helping organizations increase their social impact. Working with a myriad of organizations such as Intel, Dell, Salesforce, Tiffany & Co. and more, her consultancy has placed an emphasis on helping staple organizations do their part to generate positive change.

Kathryn Rose        

wiseHer

Industry: Consulting/Professional Services
Year Founded: 2017

Headquarters: Framingham, Mass.

About Her Business & Career: Kathryn Rose has designed and built her incredibly successful career around helping small, women-owned businesses gain traction and grow in size, visibility and revenue. The creation of wiseHer, a consulting agency that specializes in and targets women-owned businesses, is no different. This tech-based organization is dedicated to elevating female entrepreneurs by answering all of their questions, big and small, providing resources and access to education. Additionally, wiseHer allocates a portion of its profits every year to grants and funding for women-owned businesses, putting its money where its mouth is and transparently working to elevate female entrepreneurs.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Rose, an acclaimed speaker and entrepreneur, is dedicated to supporting and elevating female entrepreneurs. Recognizing the lack of funding and information available to women in business, Rose has committed herself to closing the gap between female and male entrepreneurs in the effort to support greater gender equality. WiseHer, which maintains the consistent mission of helping female entrepreneurs to “rise up,” demonstrates the effectiveness of a goal-oriented organization dedicated to a worthy cause.

Ingrid Vanderveldt           

Empowering a Billion Women (EBW)

Industry: Education/Professional Services
Year Founded: 2010

Headquarters: Austin, Texas

About Her Business & Career: Formerly an entrepreneur-in-residence at Dell, founding Dell’s Center for Entrepreneurs, the $125M Dell Innovators Credit Fund and the Dell Founders Club, Ingrid Vanderveldt is now the founder, chairman and CEO of Empowering a Billion Women, EBW Cares Distributors and Vanderveldt Global Investments. EBW seeks to not only empower women founders, but also to educate them and provide access to resources and a community to help them thrive. As well, EBW Distributors is the first woman-owned and -led platform for PPE distribution across the globe.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: Vanderveldt’s work to empower and uplift female entrepreneurs through education, mentorship and community makes her a worthy contender for this list, but it was her work in the health care space during COVID that really sealed the deal. EBW Cares Distributors is a medical supply ecosystem that helps get medical supplies to the organizations that need it, whether that be health care providers or organizations in the public and private sectors. Additionally, Vanderveldt also runs the EBW Foundation. Officially founded in 2016 to get cell phones to all women and girls to help solve the information and tech gap with the help of Dell, the mission shifted to help raise funding and provide resources and education for girls and women in developing countries. EBW teamed up with the nonprofit and now offers its EBW Business School for Women all over the globe for free.

Miscellaneous

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Sir Richard Branson

Virgin Group

Industry: Conglomerate

Year Founded: 1970

Headquarters: London, England

Fifty-one years ago, Sir Richard Branson founded Virgin. In 1970, Virgin was a mail-order record shop that then grew to have a brick-and-mortar store. Today, there are over 40 Virgin companies across the Virgin Group, including Virgin Mobile, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Galactic. The universe Branson has created with Virgin is far reaching and includes many initiatives designed to help better the environment and push for progress on various social issues. Here, Branson talks to Worth about the impact he and his businesses have had, what it means to him to begin democratizing space travel and how Virgin is “changing business for good.”

Read the full profile on Branson here.

Stacy Flynn   

Evrnu

Industry: Textiles
Year Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Seattle, Wash.

About Her Business & Career: Stacy Flynn is the cofounder and CEO of Evrnu, a textile company that has developed a new type of technology called NuCycl that generates new fibers from recycled ones which can then be used in the production of entirely new fabrics. Evrnu was founded in order to help prevent the massive environmental destruction—an estimated 92 million tons of waste is created annually—caused by fast fashion and the linear production system employed by the textile industry. The company has partnered with leading brands, such as Target, Adidas and Levi’s, to help bring sustainable alternatives and closed-loop solutions to the retail world and create a circular economy for fashion in the process.

Why She Made the Worthy 100: When Flynn traveled to China to meet with manufacturers, she realized the damaging impact that the textile industry was having on the environment. So, she geared up to tackle the issue of fast fashion, saying in her 2015 TED Talk: “This problem is so much bigger than me, but I am pissed and incredibly well trained.” The year prior, Flynn had cofounded Evrnu, a textile recycling company that uses its patented technology to completely transform the molecular structure of discarded garments. Through its regenerative fiber technologies, Evrnu has been able to generate not only upcycled material, but an entirely new material all together.

Ashley Hunter    

HM Risk Group

Industry: Insurance
Year Founded: 2006

Headquarters: St. Louis, Mo.

According to an S&P Global Market Intelligence report published last year, the percentage of Black employees in the insurance industry is up from 9 percent in 2010 to 12.4 percent in 2019. While, yes, it’s an improvement, the numbers are still quite abysmal. But Ashley Hunter, founder and managing director of HM Risk Group, hasn’t let the lack of representation stop her from turning her boutique insurance and risk management firm into a leader in the development of niche insurance products. The founder recently spoke to Worth about how HM Risk Group is changing the insurance game and what type of impact she hopes to have on the world.

Read  the full profile on Hunter here.

Dan Meyer   

Nehemiah Manufacturing Company

Industry: Consumer Packaged Goods
Year Founded: 2009

Headquarters: Cincinnati, Ohio

About His Business & Career: Meyer, a CPG industry veteran, founded Nehemiah to build brands, create jobs and change lives. The manufacturing plant works with Procter & Gamble, among other companies, to license brands and launch new product concepts.

Why He Made the Worthy 100: The company is committed to stimulating community development, with 80 to 85 percent of its workforce comprised of “second-chance hires.” Meyer not only employs people considered hard to hire due to spotty work histories and/or criminal records, but he also provides support through life coaching and a full-time social services team.