OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 FORTUNE .

COM

Business Discovers TikTok!

C O R P O R AT E A M E R I C A I S R AC I N G TO C A S H I N O N T H E
A D D I C T I V E V I D EO P L AT FO R M — A N D T H E B O O M I N G C R E AT O R E C O N O M Y
Hiding in
plain sight

Stealthy cyber-attacks blend into the background.

But with Self-Learning AI, organizations can
interrupt threats before they escalate.
darktrace.com/new-era-of-threat
CONTENTS FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 5

Features October/November 2021

VOLUME 184 • NUMBER 2

MOST POWERFUL WOMEN 2021

59
The Most
84
Shopping Outside
94
Are Women on a
102
Ladies Who
Powerful Women the Aisle Collision Course Launch
The 24th edition of Instacart is betting With the Meet the private space
Fortune’s list of the that its new CEO, Fidji COVID Ceiling? industry’s expanding
most influential women Simo, can push its constellation of
A look at how the
in business. business beyond female stars.
pandemic may infect
grocery delivery and BY MICHAL LEV-RAM
Plus: The international the pipeline to the top of
toward an IPO.
list. Page 80 corporate America.
BY MARIA ASPAN
BY BETH KOWITT

112 128
SPECIAL REPORT

Welcome to the
TikTok Economy
Burned
As California’s wildfires
141
The ultimate brain candy grow more intense, Change the
buffet is reshaping hundreds of thousands World 2021
social media. Corporate of homeowners confront Compiled in the
America—and creators the high cost of shadow of COVID-19,
everywhere—are climate change. this year’s list spotlights
scrambling to capitalize. BY JEFFREY BALL
more than 60 com-
Cover Illustration by
BY JEFFREY M. O’BRIEN
RAMI NIEMI panies deploying the
creative tools of capital-
ism to address society’s
unmet needs.
6 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 CONTENTS

Departments

Foreword
WHAT OUR
8 TikTok’s Challenge to EDITORS
ARE UP
Brands: Be Authentic TO NEXT
or Be Gone
BY BRIAN O’KEEFE

The Brief
21 Hard Right Turn:
Companies’ Tricky
Road Ahead in the
Culture Wars
BY MEGAN LEONHARDT
MOST POWERFUL
28 Startups Still Vie WOMEN SUMMIT
to Be King of In Washington,
the Billboard D.C., Oct. 11–13,
BY LUCINDA SHEN preeminent
women in
41 Can High-Tech business,
Tools Help Fight government,
Wildfires? philanthropy, and
BY KE VIN T. DUGAN
media will gather
for conversation,
47 2021’s Best Workplaces
connection, and
for Women
BY LYDIA BEL ANGER
debate. Confab
The Conversation attendees will
51 How Can Investors receive a com-
Tell Which 12 ROSALIND BREWER memorative MPW
Companies Are The CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance on what health care and retail cover featuring,
Truly “Green”? might look like in a post-COVID world. INTERVIE W BY BETH KOWIT T clockwise from
BY K ATHERINE DUNN lower left, CEOs
Thasunda Brown
Duckett (TIAA),

R O A D S I G N : S E L M A N D E S I G N ; B R E W E R : L U C Y H E W E T T; F O R T U N E C O V E R : N H U N G L E
Carol Tomé (UPS),
Rosalind Brewer
(Walgreens Boots
Passions The Cartographer Alliance), Jane
Fraser (Citi), and
172 Pole Position: 176 Riding the “Unicorn”
Karen Lynch
The All-Electric Boom: The Creation
(CVS Health).
Polestar 2 Deserves of $1 Billion Startups For more: fortune-
Your Attention Accelerates Worldwide conferences.com.
21 BY DANIEL BENTLE Y BY JES SICA MATHE WS &
NIC OL AS R APP

Fortune (ISSN 0015-8259) is published monthly, delivered in combined issues in February, April, June, August, October, and Decem-
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8 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
Under the Influencers
FOR A FATEFUL WEEK in early August,
the social media universe was focused
breathlessly on daily reports coming out of the
University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. For once,
the suspense and fascination had nothing to do
with Alabama football coach Nick Saban or his
Crimson Tide, though the defending national
champions were again picked as the preseason
favorites. Rather, the world was captivated by
the #BamaRush TikTok craze.
In a development that could
probably be fully understood only
by TikTok’s all-knowing algorithm,
videos posted by incoming first-years
going through the high-stakes soror-
ity rush process became a national
obsession. TikToks in which the
young women revealed their #OOTD
(“outfit of the day”) garnered millions
upon millions of views—and spawned
1 2 3 4
5 has emerged as the flagship of what’s
8
6
7
12
11
9 10
13
15
14
18 16
17
Our artist’s interpretation of:
1. @barbarakristoffersen 2. @kendrascott 3. @hannahschlenker
4. @jameshenry 5. #squishmallows 6. @alexisnikole
7. @skincarebyhyram 8. @humphreytalks 9. @trinidad1967
10. @kyliecosmetics 11. @beauty2thestreetz
12. @kentuckyfriedchicken 13. @walkerhayesofficial
14. @hellosweetscandy 15. @bennydrama7 16. @itsjojosiwa
17. @detroitlions 18. @siderswoodcrafting
additional videos about the phenome-
non that further boosted the hashtag.
As a graduate of the University of
Alabama myself, I was as surprised as
anyone by these developments. But I
was also intrigued by the power of the
ultra-addictive video-sharing plat-
form that now dominates so much of
our collective attention.
It’s an increasingly potent engine
for commerce too. With more than
1 billion monthly users and off-the-
chart engagement metrics, TikTok
known as the creator economy—a
$104-billion-and-growing ecosystem
of self-propelled entertainers, experts,
and everyday folks ranging across the
social media landscape. And accord-
ing to TikTok, it now works with
hundreds of thousands of advertisers,
all of whom, no doubt, are hoping to
go viral—in a good way.
We asked longtime Fortune
contributor Jeffrey M. O’Brien to go
deep on what makes TikTok, well,
tick. And his richly entertaining story
(page 112) is full of insights about
what works on the app, and what
doesn’t. Jeff learned a couple of core
FOREWORD
lessons from his conversations with
creators and marketers. “First, don’t
be shy,” says Jeff. “Be yourself.” Cre-
ators who succeed tend to do so by
being totally authentic. “Because of
the power of the algorithm,” he says,
“if you create something universally
funny or wise, it will pop.”
TikTok’s radical bias in favor of
authenticity of all types makes for
a vibrant landscape—one captured
wonderfully on this month’s sub-
scriber cover by artist Rami Niemi.
The annotated guide at left identifies
some of the real-world influencers
and brands in the illustration. For ex-
ample, No. 16 in the key is JoJo Siwa,
a bona fide social media sensation and
member of our new Creator 25 list
(previewed on page 121). And No. 2 is
Kendra Scott jewelry, which received
a windfall of free marketing because
the brand’s trendy accessories were a
staple of the #BamaRush outfits.
This issue is also filled with stories
about leaders who wield their influ-
ence far from the spotlight of social
media. That includes the executives
in the 24th edition of our Most Pow-
erful Women in Business ranking.
Five of this year’s top 10 have become
CEOs since the pandemic began,
including our new No. 1, Karen
Lynch of CVS Health. And this year’s
Change the World list, our seventh,
profiles a total of 64 companies that
are harnessing the power of capital-
ism to improve the world around us.
Now that’s a creative economy.
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y S A M K E R R
BRIAN O’KEEFE
Editor-in-Chief, Fortune
@brianbokeefe
 Content by the Buzz Business

SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia is developing new techniques to preserve and restore its vibrant coral reefs.

SOWING SEEDS
FOR THE FUTURE
Saudi Arabia has launched two green initiatives that will preserve ecosystems
and transform the environment in the Middle East and beyond
As global leaders count down to the
landmark COP26 conference on
climate change, the world’s largest
energy exporter is spearheading efforts
to accelerate the energy transition,
reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
and protect wildlife and environmental
resources across the Middle East.
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia launched
the Saudi Green Initiative, which will
plant 10 billion trees in the country
over the coming decades. The
ambitious environmental initiative
will multiply the area of Saudi Arabia
covered by trees by a factor of
12, equivalent to rehabilitating 40
million hectares of degraded land.
The Saudi Green Initiative will not
only increase vegetation cover and
fight desertification, it will also focus
on reducing carbon emissions,
combatting pollution, and the
protection and repopulating of wildlife.
The country’s ambitions for a greener
future do not end at its own borders;
Saudi Arabia has also unveiled a far-
reaching Middle East Green Initiative
that will see the planting of an additional
40 billion trees across the region. This
international effort to restore an area
equivalent to 200 million hectares of
degraded land is the world’s largest
reforestation program, projected to
reduce global carbon levels by 2.5%.
By sharing best practices, stimulating
investment, and tracking progress
toward targets, the Middle East Green
Initiative also aims to reduce carbon
emissions from hydrocarbon production
in the region by more than 60%.
Setting the pace for renewables
in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia
is already ramping up projects,
particularly in solar and wind. At the
same time, it is implementing energy
efficiency programs, investing in
low-carbon public transportation
such as high-speed rail lines, and
developing cutting-edge technologies
including carbon capture and green
hydrogen production. By 2030, at
least 50% of the country’s energy
mix will be drawn from renewables.
In October, to continue the momentum,
the country is hosting the Saudi Green
Initiative Forum, where it will unveil
its roadmap for meeting its climate
 Content by the Buzz Business
Millions of trees are being planted all across the Middle East to combat climate change.
targets and tracking its performance
in the fight against climate change.
The forum will be followed by the
THE KINGDOM’S STRONG Middle East Green Initiative Summit,
where international and regional
COMMITMENT TO TACKLE leaders will collaborate on climate
BIODIVERSITY LOSS AND LAND change solutions, working to ensure
a sustainable future for all. A Youth
DEGRADATION, INVEST IN Green Summit will also be held to
NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS, AND help incubate the next generation of
leadership in environmental stewardship.
PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT IS
AN IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION Protecting natural treasures
TO INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS As part of the Saudi Green Initiative’s
TO COMBAT ENVIRONMENTAL formidable environmental commitment,
more than 30% of the total territory
CHALLENGES. of the Kingdom will be designated as
_ protected areas. This also includes a
focus on the country’s biodiverse coastal
INGER ANDERSEN, regions and its dazzling coral reefs,
UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL which are threatened by the rise in sea
temperatures caused by climate change.
OF THE UNITED NATIONS AND
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE UN Saudi Arabia is accelerating its efforts
to preserve its unique ecosystems
ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME both on land and in the sea. Over the
past four years, the percentage of the
Kingdom’s protected natural reserves
has increased from 4% to more than
16%, and 75 additional land, coastal,
and marine areas are proposed for
SUSTAINABILITY
SGI IN NUMBERS
10 billion
trees to be planted in
Saudi Arabia
30%
of Saudi Arabia designated
as protected areas
50 billion
trees to be planted in the
Middle East
50%
of Saudi Arabia’s energy
mix to come from
renewables by 2030
At least
130 million
metric tons
of CO2 emissions eliminated
annually by 2030
further protection. In 2020 alone, the
country planted more than 2 million
mangrove trees along thousands of
miles of coastline. Mangrove forests
are rich carbon sinks and serve as a
nursery for many marine animals.
Meanwhile, new populations of
celebrated desert animals such
as gazelle, oryx, and ostrich are
being carefully reintroduced to
their native Saudi environment.
To support these rewilding efforts,
Saudi Arabia will increase the size of
its new force of special environmental
guards by almost tenfold over the next
four years. There are also plans to
reintroduce animals such as the Arabian
leopard—currently extinct in the wild in
Saudi Arabia—back into its ancestral
home, instilling reverence for the past
and sowing hope for our collective future.
RETAIL
RENAISSANCE
WOMAN
With a background
spanning bulk
goods and coffee—
and now, makeup,
mouthwash, and
prescriptions—what
can’t Brewer sell?
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 13

The
Conversation
ROSALIND BREWER
Brewer became the CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance in March, soon after the
struggling pharmacy giant took on a key role in the COVID-19 battle as a vaccine
provider. We talked with the new chief (No. 6 on this year’s MPW list) about her
path to the corner office, the historic nature of her appointment, and what health
care and retail might look like in a post-pandemic world. INTERVIEW BY BETH KOWITT

T H I S E D I T E D Q & A H A S B E E N C O N D E N S E D F O R S PAC E A N D C L A R I T Y.

GETTING TO YES it’s unique for a CEO.

The first thing I do in a new role is
I’m sure you got a lot of calls about take 90 days and just immerse my-
“This is 2021. CEO jobs. What was it about WBA
that made you say yes?
self. I always visit stores, but when I
would go into a Walgreens, they’re
[A Black BREWER: This was a tough one
because I was at Starbucks 1 and
not operating the way they typically
do. The question was, how do I feel
woman having what felt like the time of
my life being in the coffee business.
about this interim operating model?
I did something a little different this
becoming a I was about to become an empty
nester, thinking about things like, do
time as well. I went to the competi-
tion to see how the new operating
Fortune 500 I want to start painting? Do I want
to start doing something creative in
models compare.
I also had to be very intentional
CEO] should my spare time? But I never thought
about a career change.
about meeting my direct reports one
by one by video. This just doesn’t fit
not be that Timing is everything, and when
this call came in, we were dead
my natural style whatsoever. I never
would recommend starting a new job
big of a center in the pandemic. I couldn’t
think of anything else more impor-
during a pandemic.

deal. It’s tant than keeping people healthy. I

would not have done this for any
BLAZING A TRAIL

unfortunate other company except for WBA,

quite honestly.
that it is.” We’ve heard a lot about the chal-
lenges that come with starting a job
during a pandemic, but I imagine
Your accomplishments have often
been framed as your being “a first”
or “an only.” 2 Tell me honestly,
how does that make you feel?
When I got into the throes of evalu-
ating this opportunity, one of the

PHOTOGRAPH BY LUCY HEWETT

14 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
members of the WBA board said to
me, “You do realize that this is going
to hit the news like crazy.” I had not
thought about that, because in my
mind I wasn’t going after the CEO
job. I was like, this is interesting—
health care and vaccines.
But it hit me one day, when I
reached out to one of my mentors,
[former PepsiCo CEO] Indra Nooyi,
and she said, “Whoa, this is huge.”
I began to think about it—this is
2021. This should not be that huge
or that big of a deal. And it’s unfor-
tunate that it is. Shame on me if I’m
still in this role and there are not
other minority women making it to
this level.
BETTER LEADING THROUGH
CHEMISTRY
You started as a bench chemist at
Kimberly-Clark. I doubt many other
CEOs have that background. How
do you think that led you to this
path?
I enjoyed chemistry and science, but
I was always in the lab. It’s a very
isolating job. But I really learned
to home in on my critical thinking
skills. I’m quite analytical. I love to
make decisions based on some form
of data. That’s in my DNA. I’ve never
been comfortable with the status quo.
So if things are going smoothly, I
want to mix it up.
As someone with a deep back-
ground in science, are you worried
about the anti-science sentiment
we are seeing that’s contributed to
some of the vaccine hesitancy?
I am really adamant about letting
science lead your decisions, espe-
cially in this case. This is about the
science of the virus, the chemistry
of our bodies, and the environ-
ment that we’re in. This is well-
understood science, and I try to get
people to respect that. This is why
we’ve mandated vaccines here in
the office, and I’ve been speaking
openly about taking that broader in
T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N — R E TA I L
our company all the way through to
BET WEEN THE
LINES the store level. It is very frustrating
for me, being a scientist by nature,
(1) Coffee talk: that people are not paying attention
Brewer joined the to the facts. I try to be the messen-
board of Starbucks ger because the vaccines are saving
in 2017 after leaving
her role as CEO of lives. It is the game changer.
Walmart’s Sam’s
Club. Less than a When you look at the trends in
year later, Starbucks vaccinations right now, what does
CEO Kevin Johnson
that tell you about the stage of the
tapped her to be the
company’s COO. pandemic we’re in?
This pandemic has shown us that
(2) First and parts of our communities are very
foremost: Brewer unhealthy. We have to ask ourselves,
was the first woman why is that? Are these environ-
and first Black ments physically unsafe, or are they
person to be CEO
of Sam’s Club, and food and health care deserts? This
subsequently also pandemic struck them the hardest
to hold such a senior because they came into it in a very
role at Starbucks. compromised position. 3
She is one of four
The other part of it is we all need
Black women to ever
run a Fortune 500 to understand how important it is
company, and to keep ourselves generally healthy
WBA is the largest because you may be less of a target
company ever run by to these kinds of viruses. It speaks
a Black woman.
to how are we going to take care of
ourselves and how are we going to
(3) Jabs for all:
Walgreens has made provide health care in places where
vaccine equity a there’s a medically underserved
priority, offering population. We’ve got places in the
COVID-19 vaccine United States that operate almost
clinics in churches
identically to third-world countries.
and community cen-
ters in underserved
areas. In May, the P R E S C R I P T I O N P R O G N O S T I C AT I O N
company launched
a mobile clinic bus Pharmacies have played a big role
tour.
both as vaccination and testing
sites. 4 What do they look like when
(4) A shot to the
bottom line: In July,
the pandemic is over?
WBA’s third-quarter We have 9,100 stores across the
fiscal year 2021 U.S., 8 million customers interact-
financial results beat ing with our stores and online per
analyst expectations
day, and 78% of people in America
thanks in part to its
role administering live within five miles of one of our
the vaccine. The stores. The pharmacist is really a
company also raised consultant, and in this pandemic
its fiscal 2021 guid- they’ve become more so. Our phar-
ance for the second
quarter in a row. macy technicians have also stepped
up. We have trained them, and even
some of our store managers, on how
to deliver immunizations. You can
almost think about this as leveling
up our talent, and our pharmacists
The future of work is changing.
Together, we can make it more inclusive.
Imagine a world where everyone has a seat at the table and equal access to the
opportunities they seek – regardless of where they work and live. Now is the
time to do more than imagine. Now is the time to make this our shared reality.
That’s why Cisco has made it its purpose to power an inclusive future for all.

cisco.com/go/bridgetopossible

Cisco is proud to be a Fortune Most Powerful Women 2021 Partner.

16 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
are becoming more critical in terms
of the whole care therapy around a
patient.
Drugstores including Walgreens
have struggled against Amazon.
How do you compete?
The health care space is wide open. I
think there’s room for all of us to play.
We’re not so intimidated about what
Amazon can do. To me it’s interesting
to see what we could do with Ama-
zon or do with Microsoft. I look at all
the data that Apple has been collect-
ing just by doing the health fitness
apps—could we tie into that? What I
want for WBA is to be able to partner
with these companies, because there
are ways for us to accelerate great
health care globally.
You’re the youngest of
five and became the only
one to leave Michigan
when you attended
Spelman College. 7
How did that shape you?
My parents never went to college, so
filling out a college application was
foreign to them. My siblings helped
me, but I really broke that umbilical
cord more than they did. They’re
all still in Michigan. It was a game
changer for me because I was totally
on my own. I was a working college
student starting a whole new life.
My dad would tell me he did the
same thing at 18. He left southern
Alabama—a Black male getting out
of the South at a time when things
were risky for him to be there. He
and I would have this thing about
“the great breakaway.” We had that
in common.
T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N — R E TA I L
What has surprised you the most
BET WEEN THE
LINES as you’ve gotten more steeped in
the business?
(5) Brewer meets I really understand the true cost of
Bezos: She joined health care, and who gets paid and
the board of Amazon
5 who doesn’t. It’s totally out of bal-
in 2019, the week
her noncompete ance in terms of who benefits, both
with Walmart ended, financially and then intrinsically
and stepped down from the patient care standpoint.
earlier this year after It’s a long stream. So you might
her appointment
to Walgreens was go to visit a primary care physi-
announced. cian and then there’s the insurance
arm, and then you might need other
(6) Your phar- services—physical therapy or getting
macy is ready your prescription filled. There are a
for pickup: In lot of mouths to feed in this whole
September, WBA
channel. We need to make sure that
spent $970 million
to take a major- the person who doesn’t suffer is the
ity stake in Shields patient, because they can’t afford it.
Health Solutions, a We’re doing a lot of work to try to
specialty pharmacy get our costs down, like automating
that partners with
hospitals. everything behind the pharmacist.
We want to be bigger and better
(7) A proud Jag-
than just dispensing pills. 6 We
uar: Brewer chairs want to help people maybe not be
the historically Black
college’s board of
so dependent upon medicine. That’s
another way to get costs down—to
trustees and funds
an annual scholar-
have a healthier society.
ship program for
first-generation SHOP OR SHIP?
students.
(8) Retail revolu-
What’s the retail landscape going to
look like in 10 years?
tion: Walgreens
launched curbside
When the pandemic hit, retailers
pickup in 2020 and went into alternative channels 8 that
said in July that were so novel only a year ago. There
it had completed were only a few companies that did
6 million curbside, pickup in-store, and now almost every
drive-thru, and last-
store and every restaurant can do that.
mile delivery orders.
We’re going to start to see the
great reconnection that we were talk-
ing about as I was leaving Starbucks.
People are going to want to go places
where they connect. Specialty items
and experiences that you can create
in a physical building are going to be
a real opportunity. And then every-
thing else will be, just ship it to me.
We’ll continue to see a wider spread
of people using digital to purchase.
I look at my tiny little nieces and
nephews—they know how to order
stuff at 3 or 4 years old. You have to
watch your iPad.
 BUILT FOR THE ICE DIVER
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 CONTENT FROM NUTRIEN

world continues to battle a climate crisis, it’s impor-

tant to also acknowledge the ways farmers across the
country are helping to mitigate the effects of climate
change through sustainable practices.
Nutrien, the world’s largest provider of crop

WORKING WITH services, inputs, and solutions, works directly with

farmers to develop these innovative solutions for
protecting the planet. “We work side by side with nearly
500,000 farmers around the world. Every action we

FARMERS AROUND take is in service to helping them succeed,” says

Mayo Schmidt, who grew up on his family’s farm in
Kansas and is now president and CEO of Canada-

THE WORLD TO FEED based Nutrien.

To address not only climate change but also the
challenge of producing food for a world population
projected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, Nutrien

A GROWING PLANET is implementing its Feeding the Future Plan, based

Nutrien is leading the next evolution
in sustainable agriculture.
FROM THE STRAWBERRY FIELDS OF CALIFORNIA TO THE
apple orchards of New England, 2.6 million farmers
work hard to put food on America’s tables. Though
gratitude is shown to farmers nationwide every
Oct. 12 on National Farmer’s Day, this year, as the
around commitments targeting environmental, social,
and governance imperatives. “A key priority,” Schmidt
says, “is enabling farmers to adopt sustainable and
productive agriculture practices on the 75 million acres
that Nutrien influences globally.”
As part of that effort, the company has launched
a comprehensive carbon program, which incentivizes
farmers to utilize agronomic methods proven to
increase soil carbon sequestration, a process in which
carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere
and stored in the soil, thereby reducing harmful
emissions. Nutrien has more than 3,500 agronomists
and crop consultants who work in farmers’ fields,
using proprietary digital tools to analyze
their soil, calculate carbon content, and
devise sustainable—and ultimately more
profitable—growing plans.
“The pilot carbon program now un-
derway is proving to be a huge success,
with over 200,000 acres under cultivation
across the U.S. and Canada,” Schmidt
reports. “We are taking a pilot approach,
backed by science and data, and working
with strategic partners across the value
chain to test different practices and
protocols. Those insights will ensure we can
effectively scale the program more broadly
with our growers.”
Another component of the Feeding the
Future Plan is inclusive agriculture, which
helps diverse growers, such as women
and Indigenous farmers, access capital to
purchase goods and services.
“Eliminating inequities in agriculture
requires bold leadership and a focus on
extending opportunities for those who have
faced historic disparities,” Schmidt says.
“We are committed to transforming
agriculture. And this is just the beginning.” ■
 NUTRIEN’S CARBON PROGRAM
RAM
õðæïåôöññðóõ
Ûéæâèóêäöíõöóæêïåöôõóúďôîðôõäðîñóæéæïôê÷æäâóãðïñóðèóâîðĢæóêïèæïåõðæïåôöññðóõ
çðóèóðøæóôõðåóê÷æêîñóð÷æåôöôõâêïâãêíêõúñæóçðóîâïäæâïåêïäóæâôæåñóðģõâãêíêõú
ģõâãêíêõú

HOW IT WORKS
...
It starts at the farm.
Nutrien is uniquely positioned with our direct relationship with over 500,000 growers globally
bally to provide
úæâóâóðöïåâèóðïðîêäôðíöõêðïôõéâõæïâãíæèóðøæóôõðñóðģõçóðîõéæâåðñõêðïðçôöôõâêïâãíæñóâäõêäæô
âãíæñóâäõêäæô

01 PLAN
Building on our trusted relationship with our grower customers and our focus on full-acre solutions, this program
will help growers integrate the use of sustainable agronomic practices into their farm planning process.

05 PRESERVE 02 PLANT
rd
Our program will reward growers With our deep portfolio of 3 -party and
for the adoption of sustainable agronomic proprietary products and value-added
practices, empowering them to continue to âèóðïðîêäâïåģæíåôæó÷êäæôøæäâïäóæâõæ
meet the challenge of feeding a growing a customized recipe of inputs and
global population, while minimizing their agronomic recommendations that are
environmental footprint, while helping to proven to drive positive carbon outcomes.
establish the Ag industry as a leader in
climate action.

04 PROFIT 03 PRODUCE
At the end of the season, Ðïâååêõêðïõðñóð÷êåêïèôæâôðïíðïè
äâóãðïðöõäðîæôøêííãæ÷æóêģæåöôêïè âèóðïðîêäôöññðóõâïåâå÷êäæøæøêííøðóì
êïåöôõóúâääæñõæåôõâïåâóåôèæïæóâõêïè øêõéèóðøæóôõðäðííæäõçâóîâïåģæíåíæ÷æí
carbon credits available for purchase data to reliably measure carbon and other
by Nutrien, other value-chain partners ôöôõâêïâãêíêõúðöõäðîæôõéóðöèéðöó
âïåäóðôôêïåöôõóúãöúæóôèæïæóâõêïè êïåöôõóúíæâåêïèåêèêõâíñíâõçðóî
êïäóæîæïõâíñóðģõçðóèóðøæóô

THE ROAD TO FEEDING THE WORLD

...
With a long-term goal to scale this program and build real, lasting change, Nutrien is also challenging all to come together to evolve the
system and policies needed to unlock the potential of the agriculture industry as a leader in climate action, while meeting the challenge of
feeding a growing global population.

Nutrien’s global reach supports partnerships with a broad base of value-chain and other stakeholders to create an ecosystem that enables
the generation and monetization of positive carbon outcomes at scale, while helping to meet common sustainability goals and objectives.
It all adds up to
The New Equation.
The New Equation is a passionate community
of solvers coming together in unexpected ways.
It’s human-led and tech-powered. It’s how we
build trust for today and tomorrow.
Learn more at TheNewEquation.com

© 2021 PwC. All rights reserved. PwC refers to the US member firm, and may sometimes refer to the PwC network. Each member firm is a
separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details. This content is for general information purposes only, and should not
be used as a substitute for consultation with professional advisors.
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 21

THE BRIEF BUSINESS. DISTILLED.

POLITICS

Hard Right Turn

Companies face a tricky road ahead as business-friendly states
enact laws that put politics in the mix. BY MEGAN LEONHARDT
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SELMAN DESIGN
22 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
With its abundance of top-rated
restaurants, bustling music scene, and
community of young professionals, Austin
seemed like an ideal place to relocate for Karyn
Lewis. A PR professional currently based in
Jackson, Miss., Lewis planned to take advantage
of the fact that her New York–based firm had an
outpost in Austin and move to the midsize
Texas city early next year with her partner.
“I think of Austin as kind of a hip-
pie city,” Lewis, 28, tells Fortune. “It
seemed like the easiest and the most
affordable move.” But the passage
of a controversial new law in Texas
that effectively bans abortions after
six weeks of pregnancy has Lewis
rethinking those plans. “We are now
looking at other options,” Lewis says.
“We’re moving from Mississippi, so
we are looking for something more
progressive, and this definitely seems
like a few steps back.”
The abortion legislation is far from
the only contentious new law passed
in Texas recently. During the most
recent legislative session alone, the
state moved to restrict voting rights,
allow residents to carry handguns in
public without a license, ban homeless
camps, and limit the teaching of criti-
YOUNGER GENERATIONS EXPECT COMPANIES TO TAKE A STAND
OPINION ON THE IMPORTANCE OF TAKING A STANCE ON POLITICAL ISSUES WHEN IT COMES TO BUILDING
TRUST WITH CUSTOMERS AND EMPLOYEES
NOT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT
ALL ADULTS 32%
GEN Z 32%
MILLENNIALS 22%
GEN X 37%
BABY BOOMERS 49%
cal race theory in schools.
It’s all part of a grow-
ing partisan divide that
is spilling over from the
political realm and putting
large corporations in a
bind. States like Texas, Ari-
zona, Georgia, and Florida
have spent years wooing
Fortune 500 behemoths
with promises of lower
corporate tax rates, eco-
nomic incentive programs
that dole out cash or tax
breaks for relocating, and
a more affordable cost of
living for employees. Texas,
for example, welcomed
a number of California
refugees in recent years,
including the headquarters
56%
58%
68%
53%
38%
SOURCE: FORTUNE/MORNING CONSULT
THE BRIEF — POLITICS
of Charles Schwab, Hewlett
Packard Enterprise (HPE),
and Oracle; Tesla is also
building a gigafactory
there. Meanwhile, Airbnb
is planning to open a tech-
nical hub in Atlanta, while
Spotify opened a major
office in Miami.
Yet these same states
are simultaneously roll-
ing out laws that are an
automatic turnoff to many
young, liberal tech workers
and force companies into
damage-control mode with
socially conscious consum-
ers and ESG investors.
“You have a number of
companies recently that
have relocated to Texas
because it’s supposed to
be a friendlier climate for
business. And it’s suddenly
not as friendly as it was,”
says Anthony Johndrow,
cofounder and CEO of
consultancy Reputation
Economy Advisors.
Geographic cherry-
picking is actually a rela-
tively new phenomenon:
By and large, corporations
previously made location
decisions based on access to
their suppliers or proximity
to distribution locations,
says Brian Kropp, chief of
research in the HR practice
at Gartner, an advisory
firm. But in the past decade
or so, companies started to
make decisions based on
access to talent.
That meant several
Southern states started to
catch fire as corporations
grew tired of the high cost
of doing business on the
coasts. The Tax Founda-
tion rated California, for
example, as having the
second-worst business tax
climate in the country (New
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24 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 THE BRIEF — POLITICS

Jersey was first).
But moving into a
cultural war zone isn’t
exactly what many tech
workers had in mind.
When it comes to the
Texas antiabortion bill, a
recent survey of over 1,000
U.S. adults conducted
by PerryUndem for the
Tara Health Foundation
found roughly two-thirds
reported the bill would
discourage them from
working in the state. And
64% say they would not
apply for a job in any state
that passed a ban like
Texas’s.
Those are troublesome
stats for employers at a
time when nationwide la-
bor shortages are the norm
and the war for talent is
intensifying. So far, there’s
been no noticeable increase
or decrease in Texas hir-
ing trends yet from new
laws passing, according
to LinkedIn’s data team.
However, the team told
of four employees, or 74%,
expect their employers to
get involved in societal,
political, and cultural de-
bates, even if those issues
don’t have anything to do
with their business, ac-
cording to a recent survey
by Gartner. About 68% of
employees would consider
quitting their current job
for an opportunity with an
organization that took a
stronger stance on social
issues that were important
to them.
Gartner’s research shows
companies gain ground
when they not only have a
response but they actu-
ally take action. Gartner’s
Kropp says that if people
understand why a com-
pany is making the deci-
sion, it bolsters trust.
Swift moves by ride-
sharing companies Lyft
and Uber, which pledged
to cover drivers’ legal fees
if they are sued under
the Texas law for driv-
ing women to abortion
clinics, certainly fall into
this camp. Salesforce has
perhaps gone the furthest,
with CEO Marc Benioff
tweeting, “… if you want
to move we’ll help you exit
TX. Your choice.”
HPE—which relocated
its headquarters from San
Jose to Spring, Texas, in
December—is one com-
pany that’s holding firm.
“There are no plans to
reconsider the decision to
move to Houston, and we’ll
be opening a new campus
in Spring early next year,”
HPE spokesman Adam
Bauer tells Fortune. (He
adds that the move to
Texas was not compulsory
for employees.)
One factor limiting
companies’ options, say
experts, is that neighbor-
ing states may simply
corporations and younger
knowledge workers into
conservative states may
create some political
change from within. As
the Houston Chronicle re-
ports, during the last elec-
tion Democrats saw their
margin of victory grow in
21 counties along Texas’s
Interstate 35, which runs
through the more urban
and diverse Dallas, Waco,
and Austin.
Lauren Kalo, who
recently graduated and
moved to Austin about
three months ago for a
sales role at a major tech
company, tells Fortune
she’s staying put because
she wants to be part of the
resistance. “There have
to be people there that
are going to advocate and
make changes,” Kalo, 22,
says, adding that she has
already attended a Texas
rally for Beto O’Rourke,
who may enter the 2022
gubernatorial race.

66
Fortune that it’s possible
the impacts will emerge
over time.
Meanwhile about 50
companies from across the
country signed a statement
released Sept. 21 opposing
Texas’s new law, saying that
“restricting access to com-
prehensive reproductive
care, including abortion,
threatens the health, inde-
%
O F W O R K E R S S AY
THE ANTIABORTION
L AW D I S C O U R AG E S
T H E M F R O M TA K I N G
A JOB IN TEXAS
serve up a different array
of hot-button issues.
Challenges to abortion
laws have already been
filed in Texas, as well as
Ohio and Georgia, and
the Supreme Court is set
to hear oral arguments
in December on Missis-
sippi’s law banning most
abortions after 15 weeks.
There’s major outcry
In Texas, 62% of voters
ages 18 to 29 voted for
Joe Biden, versus 35% for
Donald Trump, according
to the Center for Informa-
tion and Research on Civic
Learning and Engagement.
Young voters in Florida,
Georgia, and North Caro-
lina also swung for Biden.
Transplants like Kalo will
demand a certain level of

68
pendence, and economic
stability of our workers and
customers.”
Starbucks and Microsoft
were among the companies
that declined to partici-
pate, according to the Wall
Street Journal. But “declin-
ing to participate” may not
be a viable strategy in the
long run. Nearly three out
%
O F E M P L OY E E S W O U L D
C H A N G E C O M PA N I E S
FOR ONE WITH
S T R O N G E R S TA N C E
ON SOCIAL ISSUES
SOURCES: PERRYUNDEM; GARTNER
over a highly restrictive
voting rights law that
Georgia passed in March;
meanwhile, 18 states have
already enacted laws as of
July that broadly restrict
residents’ voting access.
To that end, companies
sticking around could,
eventually, help stabilize
the situation. The influx of
local autonomy for cities,
or urban influence on state
policies, notes Stanford
political science professor
Jonathan Rodden.
Indeed, for conser-
vatives, corporations
leaving probably isn’t
what’s keeping them up
at night—it’s what might
happen if they stay.
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 CONTENT FROM AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL

Now they’re going further.

America’s leading plastic mak-
ers are helping build a circular
economy for plastics. The goal:
By 2040, 100% of U.S. plastic
packaging will be reused, re-
cycled, or recovered.
“The private sector is investing
billions of dollars—almost $6 billion
since 2017—to modernize plastics
recycling,” says Joshua Baca, vice
president, plastics division, for
the American Chemistry Council
(ACC), which represents leading
manufacturers of plastics. “These
technological developments are
not only important for the
planet—they are integral to our
business models going forward.”
Plastic makers are calling on
Congress to adopt a five-part
plan that would accelerate the
shift to a circular economy by
expanding our nation’s recycling
capacity and setting national
recycling standards.
“Private sector investments
To accelerate the circular economy,
America’s Plastic Makers® propose a are going to keep helping solve
modern regulatory system that will this problem of plastic waste,”
help eliminate plastic waste.
Baca says. “We also need to
make sure these investments are
supported by smart, pragmatic
policies that Congress can enact today.”

SUSTAINABLE First, Baca says, Congress needs to require that

all plastic packaging be composed of at least 30%
recycled plastic by 2030. Second, our regulatory

SOLUTIONS FOR A
system needs updating. Advanced recycling, which
breaks down plastic to its molecular components
for reuse in new products, needs to be appropriately
recognized from coast to coast, just as it already

CHANGING PLANET is in 14 states. Third, national recycling standards

The companies that make plastics are
accelerating circular solutions to keep materials
in use and out of our environment.
MAKERS OF PLASTIC HAVE BEEN MAKING
materials essential to products we rely on every
day—from lightweight, fuel-efficient cars to durable
pipes that deliver clean drinking water.
are needed to harmonize local approaches and help
optimize Americans’ recycling practices. Fourth,
the National Academy of Sciences should study
how materials used in product manufacturing stack
up in terms of environmental impacts. Results
will inform future public policy decisions. Fifth, an
American-designed producer responsibility system
would help fund consumer education and other key
initiatives, such as ensuring that collection and
sorting of recycled materials remain up to date.
“We need to realize that plastics are a resource
we can use over and over again,” Baca says. “That’s
a circular economy. That’s how we build sustainable
communities that are more resilient and ultimately
keep plastic waste out of the environment.” ■

M A R K E T IN G
Startups Still Vie to Be
King of the Billboard
A low-tech ad strategy is still luring even the
most technologically advanced companies.
BY LUCINDA SHEN
BACK IN 2019, a little-known
startup called Brex descended
on San Francisco. The fintech slath-
ered the city’s billboards and bus
stops with the message “This will
catch your interest” as it declared
itself the “first corporate card for
startups.” It spent about $300,000 to
snap up over 50% of the ad inventory
for three months in the area around
the city’s historic business district.
“It supercharged our growth,” CEO
Henrique Dubugras said of the cam-
paign, noting customers responded
more to the company’s sales pitches
after billboards went live. “Brands
that are real world have more trust
than those that are purely online.”
And though California is filled
with tech startups that are furiously
searching for the next big thing, old-
ILLUSTRATION BY
CHRIS GASH fashioned outdoor advertising has
proved surprisingly du-
rable. “For a lot of the tech
firms, they have made it
when they have a billboard
on the 101,” says Rob Shil-
ling, San Francisco general
manager for Outfront Me-
dia, referring to the iconic
artery that links that city
to Silicon Valley. Soaring
costs for digital advertising
plus a diminished ability
to track performance of
Facebook ads also seem to
be bolstering the so-called
out-of-home market.
After raising $115 mil-
lion in January, for
instance, news-app maker
News Break could be found
overhead by drivers zoom-
ing down the freeway. And
high above the streets of
downtown San Francisco,
Hive’s brand was visible
throughout the spring. In
April the cloud-based A.I.
startup secured an $85 mil-
lion funding round, a good
chunk of which went to
“increased investment in
THE BRIEF
sales and marketing.”
A prime piece of bill-
board real estate along the
101 currently runs about
$100,000 for a four-week
stint, per data at AdQuick.
That’s not nothing, but
insiders say that in the
go-go-go 1990s, it could
have cost many multiples
of that.
For most startups,
these ads are aimed at key
decision-makers travel-
ing to Silicon Valley or
the airport. Teampay and
ClickUp, for example,
have prominent billboard
ads between San Jose and
San Francisco.
Shilling has another
theory: The position-
ing is used strategically
to bolster dealmaking.
There have been several
instances, he says, when
startups bought ad space
just months before being
acquired by another com-
pany, or just before they
announced an IPO.
As companies face
hiring shortages, some
startups have also turned
to billboards as outright
recruiting tools, notes
AdQuick CEO Matthew
O’Conner. Vending ma-
chine car startup Carvana,
for instance, has used its
billboards to call for new
blood, noting “consistent
work, steady pay.”
Speaking of recruiting,
in February, early Uber
investor and evangelist for
Miami, Shervin Pishevar,
bought a pair of billboards
in San Francisco that
displayed a mock tweet
attributed to Miami Mayor
Francis Suarez. It read,
“Thinking about moving
to Miami? DM me.”
 Make
hybrid eyes

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space, welcome visitors, and ensure
everyone is safe — all from a single
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21-ENV-017-14-146293-2
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November 2021 issue of this publication. ©2021 Huntington Mark, LLC. Independently Owned and Operated. SAT and Advanced
18. Signature of editor, publisher, business manager, or owner: Melissa Goldman. Date: September 20, 2021. I certify that Placement (AP) are registered trademarks of the College Board. ACT is a registered
trademark of ACT, Inc. None of these entities were involved in the production of, and do
all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading
not endorse, this program. *Data are based on each company’s Franchise Disclosure
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The move to SASE solutions also
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TechRadar reports that nine in 10
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For example, according to VMware, those
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 THE BRIEF FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 41

AS THE DIXIE FIRE—California’s second- structive in the state, the

W IL D F IR ES
largest ever—burned through more than information has helped
960,000 acres of forest and brush this summer, keep it from spiraling fur-
firefighters mobilized with the same tools they ther out of control. “We’re
Tech’s have used for decades: water hoses, chain saws, having longer, hotter,
and airplanes carrying fire retardant. drier summers, and the
Fire Fight But this year they had an additional weapon end result is these mega
Startups are giving in their arsenal: high-tech maps showing where fires,” says Jon Heggie, a
firefighters new the fire would likely go next. The maps, acces- battalion chief with the
sible on computers and tablets, were based on California Department of
tools in their battle millions of climate and topographic data points, Forestry and Fire Protec-
against increasingly such as weather, wind patterns, and the type of tion, known as Cal Fire.
destructive blazes. vegetation in the area. “It’s great that we have a
But can tech make The idea is to help commanders leading the computer program that
much of a difference? battle make better decisions about where to can tell us how big the
deploy fire crews and whom to evacuate. While fire’s going to get,” he adds,
BY KEVIN T. DUGAN
this fire season has been unusually long and de- while cautioning that fire-
fighters must still do the
dirty work of extinguish-
ing the flames.
Over the past few years,
firefighters have increas-
ingly enlisted tech to
help them get an upper
hand against wildfires. In
addition to sophisticated
mapping, they are using
artificial intelligence to
spot new fires and drones
that start backfires to com-
bat raging infernos.
The tech push comes
after California, along with
much of the West, has
experienced a succession
of devastating fire sea-
sons. This year is already
California’s second worst,
with more than 2.2 million
acres burned.
Nearly real-time predic-
tions about fire behavior
are a big change from the
relatively ad hoc systems
used by firefighters in the
past. Joaquin Ramirez,
founder of Technosylva,
the startup that provides
C O U R T E S Y O F T E C H N O S Y LVA

Technosylva’s
maps show the mapping technology
where fires are used in California, was in
headed, helping his mid-twenties when he
firefighters
better prepare.
experienced his first wild-
land fire in 1994. He was
working for the Spanish
42 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 THE BRIEF — WILDFIRES

government coordinating footage from past infernos. combustible chemicals. ment, says Bilal Zuberi,
aerial resources to fight The technology also factors When the drones reach a partner at Lux Capital,
what was that country’s in other elements, like the their target area, the pilot which has invested in
worst fire ever. But the presence of cars or people, controlling them from makers of drones that are
tools he was given to to determine whether a fire afar presses a button so deployed after disasters.
predict the fire’s spread is a threat or something to that the aircraft drop their That amount is minus-
weren’t exactly up-to-date: be ignored, like a campfire. payloads and start small cule compared with the
“The maps that we used After deciding that action fires. Because wildfires are $300 billion that VCs
were the maps the U.S. Air is warranted, the system often in rugged terrain, invested last year globally,
Force made of Spain—in alerts authorities by email. using drones for the job according to accounting
1957,” Ramirez recalls. The company already oper- lets firefighters react more firm KPMG. The muted
Chooch AI, another ates in Turkey, where it quickly while minimiz- enthusiasm, Zuberi says,
startup, works to help spot monitors 15 locations with ing the risk of injury. The results in part from the low
wildfires more quickly so 380 cameras, and, as soon system is already being likelihood of a big payoff
that firefighters can be as October, will start pro- used by the Department from fire tech and an aver-
deployed while a fire is viding alerts to California’s of the Interior, the Bureau sion to the slow govern-
still tiny. It uses cam- National Guard. of Land Management, and ment contracting process.
eras affixed to drones and Controlled burns, used the U.S. Forest Service. It’s unclear whether tech
installed in existing fire as a preventive measure Despite the increased innovations will have more
lookout towers—the kind against fires and to stop attention to firefighting than a marginal effect on
that used to be manned much larger ones from ad- tech, investment in the managing fires and reduc-
by humans—to monitor vancing, are another tradi- sector remains relatively ing the destruction they
for smoke. tional firefighting strategy tiny. During the past few cause. A key problem is the
The live images are sent that tech is reinventing. years, venture capital- increasing construction of
via the Internet for analysis Drone Amplified sells ists plowed only about homes in dry, fire-prone
by Chooch’s systems, which drone attachments that $100 million to $200 mil- areas. Climate change,
have been trained to recog- carry as many as 400 Ping- lion into companies fo- which has contributed to
nize smoke based on video Pong–size balls filled with cused on wildfire manage- drought and hotter temper-
atures across much of the
West, is another. (For more
on the economic impact of
NEW TOOLS FOR TACKLING FIRE California’s wildfires, see
Firefighters and, to a lesser extent, homeowners can use recently page 134.)
developed technology to help protect life and property. Ultimately, successfully
dousing fires hinges on tra-
ditional firefighting tech-
PREDIC TIONS into A.I. that can potentially for ers avoid injury and niques and not whiz-bang
spot smoke. Fire months. Studies are control wildfires tech, says Michael Thomas,
Digital maps show- managers get an mixed, however, on faster. a professor with the fire
ing where fires will alert if the tech whether such retar-
likely go next help detects a potential dants are effective. HOME PROTEC TION
protection program at
firefighters better inferno. California State University,
plan their attack. C ONTROLLED FIRES Homeowners Los Angeles, and a former
The predictions are NE W FIRE seeking to bet- battalion chief with the Los
a product of A.I., RETARDANTS Instead of hiking ter fireproof their Angeles Fire Department.
which factors in into remote areas properties can
weather and topo- Fire retardants have to start controlled enlist Fire Maps, “By and large, the most
graphic data. long been used to burns, firefight- which uses drones effective fire suppression
stop fires that are al- ers can now send to create 3D im- agent is still water, par-
FIRE SP OT TING ready burning. Now a drone modified ages of houses and ticularly water hoses that
a new generation of by Drone Ampli- terrain to pinpoint
Companies like retardant has been fied. The drones vulnerabilities. The
are advanced by crews,” he
Chooch AI feed developed that is drop combustible company then con- says. “And then, of course,
video from cameras spread proactively “dragon balls” to nects homeowners water drop capabilities
installed on drones to prevent fires start fires. The idea with contractors to from the sky to hit the head
and lookout towers from even starting— is to help firefight- fix any problems. of the fire when it’s moving
aggressively.”
 C O NTENT FROM

How
global business
leaders are prioritizing
the planet

Sustainability, Inc., a new, limited series podcast from Boston Consulting Group,
delves into the innovative, inspiring missions of businesses across the globe that are
on the front lines of achieving real climate impact. With the stakes and opportunity
greater than ever, these stories will inspire leaders around the world to join the urgent
fight for true sustainability. This series is produced by FORTUNE Brand Studio.

Hosted by Gaia Vince Launching Fall 2021

SUBSCRIBE WHEREVER YOU LISTEN

Listen on

Sustainability, Inc., is a new limited series podcast from Boston Consulting Group, produced by FORTUNE Brand Studio.
The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of FORTUNE.
 CONTENT FROM CDW
HOW TO REDESIGN YOUR DATA
CENTER TO BE MORE RESILIENT
The cutting-edge tools and high-tech building
blocks organizations need to automate IT
infrastructures that meet the challenges of
an ever-changing business world.
TO KEEP UP WITH TODAY’S ACCELERATED PACE OF
change, companies are reinventing their data
centers to make better, faster decisions. As an
increasing number of IT infrastructures sup-
port hybrid and remote working models, these
advanced data centers will become even more
crucial.
“Now more than ever, IT solutions and
the core data center behind them are the
central nervous system of business,” says
Allen Clingerman, chief technology strategist,
PowerEdge+Workloads, NA Channels, for Dell
Technologies at leading IT solutions and services
provider CDW. “It’s important to maintain them
and grow their capabilities to be more agile, not
only to ensure business uptime and continuity
but also to leverage them as market
differentiators.”
Indeed, a radical high-tech
transformation is happening across
the business landscape. Virtual
desktop infrastructures (VDIs, or
user desktops that are accessible
remotely from distant servers
and storage systems via online
networks) are expected to become
a $25.5 billion business within
three years, per Market Research
Future. At the same time, more
than four in five company leaders
expect employees will continue to
work remotely at least part-time,
according to a survey from Gartner.
Due to these new collaboration
and connectivity needs, along with
technological advancements in
cloud storage and laptop hardware,
as well as a growing need to parse
massive amounts of data, the de-
mand for cutting-edge IT solutions
is increasing.
The data center of tomorrow
needs to provide supercharged
computing and storage capabilities,
while being able to fuel complex
analytical capabilities. But it won’t
just offer organizations heightened
power and performance—it will also
equip them with more flexibility and
room to maneuver, which will con-
vey a greater ability to future-proof
their business. To help companies
do just that, Dell Storage solutions
with IT Orchestration by CDW has
developed a modern platform that
can enable intelligent automation
for any enterprise through next-gen hardware
and software.
“Imagine a data center that intelligently
learns about and adapts to the workloads run-
ning on it—and automatically maximizes its
configuration without IT staff having to react,”
says Clingerman. “We remove the complexity
from IT operations so business leaders can shift
their focus away from managing platforms to
driving innovation.”
Most of today’s organizations exist in a world
of hybrid cloud environments, increasingly
complex applications, and growing network de-
mand. Likewise, they also operate in a business
environment where it’s necessary to maximize
IT investment without inadvertently pushing
 WE GET
INFRASTRUCTURE
THAT MANAGES ITSELF.

For powerful automation, trust Dell Technologies ™

and IT Orchestration by CDW.®
As the world around us continues to evolve, you need
a data center that can adapt without any hand-holding.
CDW experts will design, orchestrate and manage
a Dell Technologies™ storage solution that enables
autonomous, consistent operations to maximize
efficiencies. By integrating machine learning and
gathering actionable data insights, you’ll be able to
keep up with change without keeping your hands full.

CDW.com/DellTech

© 2021 CDW® , CDW•G ® and PEOPLE WHO GET IT® are registered trademarks of CDW LLC.
 CONTENT FROM CDW
“GIVEN THE
UNPARALLELED
GROWTH OF DATA
THESE DAYS, DATA
CENTER SCALE AND
FLEXIBILITY ARE
CRITICAL TO
FINDING BUSINESS
SUCCESS. WE’RE
REALLY CHARGING
INTO A FIFTH
INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
POWERED BY
INFORMATION technology resources to the brink. To success-
TECHNOLOGY.” fully meet these challenges, companies have
to make fundamental changes to data center
ALLEN CLINGERMAN
CHIEF T ECHNOL OG Y S T R AT EGIS T, operations. Getting a better handle on storage
POWEREDGE+WORK L OADS , assets is the first step in this process. Tools
N A CHA NNEL S , F OR DEL L
T ECHNOL OGIES AT CDW like Dell and CDW’s CloudIQ help by continually
assessing storage performance and providing
advanced feedback from a single dashboard.
Its predictive analytics help reduce risk by pin-
pointing potential performance concerns and
system deviations, allowing organizations to
speed up troubleshooting and issue resolution.
“Given the unparalleled growth of data these
days, data center scale and flexibility are critical
to finding business success,” Clingerman says.
“We’re really charging into a fifth industrial
revolution powered by IT.”
For one leading global scientific research
institute, this meant switching to Dell Power-
Store scalable all-flash storage solutions, to
effectively handle the enormity of its computing
tasks while maintaining the ability to store vast
amounts of data in a smaller physical/digital
footprint. For a leader in the medical analytics
space, it meant switching to similar solutions
to help hospital systems more flexibly scale up
their remote data-monitoring efforts. Doing so
helped its clients to more readily free up beds
amid the pandemic and provide patients with
quality care from any location. And those are
just a couple of examples that point to how this
game-changing technology will transform the
business world.
Data center infrastructure spending is now
set to grow 6% to more than $200 billion in
2021, according to research analysts at Gart-
ner, as enterprises increasingly look to consoli-
date their IT operations. Likewise, corporate
investments are only expected to rise in the
months ahead as more firms turn to these
high-tech command centers and online tech-
nologies as a means of kick-starting growth
and innovation. Unsurprisingly, the number of
servers being deployed at edge locations is also
anticipated to double within the next four years,
per findings from technology research and
consulting firm Omdia.
All of these shifts only serve to underscore
the growing premium that enterprises are plac-
ing on cloud technology and storage solutions.
In addition, they indicate the growing role that
connected storage and technology tools will
play as building blocks for the future’s most
promising business advancements.
Already, the world’s most successful compa-
nies are reimagining the shape of data centers,
as well as the role that they will play in helping
executive teams support digital transforma-
tions and build more resilient businesses. That
means having to rethink how these facilities
are designed, to allow them to support rapidly
compounding workloads and new technologies
that reside along a spectrum of core, cloud, and
edge capabilities.
“Tomorrow’s data center will look and
operate differently than those we see today,
with more devices operating at the far edge
of computing, and core data center equip-
ment seamlessly integrating with public cloud
resources,” explains Clingerman. “There’s also
been a shift to organizations asking for ‘as a
service’ models. It’s never been more critical to
provide simplicity, agility, and full control over IT
usage, costs, and security for companies look-
ing for the capability to react and scale to meet
any business challenge.” ■
 THE BRIEF
BEST LARGE
WORKPLACES
FOR WOMEN
01
H I LT O N W O R L D W I D E
HQ ............................. McLean, Va.
U.S. EMPLOYEES .............. 45,297
WOMEN EXECS ..................... N.A.*
02
AMERICAN EXPRESS
HQ ......................... New York City
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................... N.A.
WOMEN EXECS ....................... N.A.
03
BANK OF AMERICA
HQ .................................. Charlotte
U.S. EMPLOYEES .............. 171,651
WOMEN EXECS ....................... N.A.
04
NEW AMERICAN FUNDING
HQ ............................. Tustin, Calif.
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................. 4,761
WOMEN EXECS ...................... 45%
05
PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE
HQ ........ Mayfield Village, Ohio
U.S. EMPLOYEES ............. 43,023
WOMEN EXECS ...................... 34%
06
PINNACLE FINANCIAL
PARTNERS
HQ ................................... Nashville
U.S. EMPLOYEES ................. 2,574
WOMEN EXECS ....................... 18%
07
NOOM
HQ ......................... New York City
U.S. EMPLOYEES ................ 2,439
WOMEN EXECS ...................... 59%
08
PRIMELENDING,
A P L A I N S C A P I TA L C O M P A N Y
HQ .......................................... Dallas
U.S. EMPLOYEES ................ 2,543
WOMEN EXECS ...................... 39%
09
CISCO
HQ .................................... San Jose
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................... N.A.
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y S A M P E E T
WOMEN EXECS .......................... 25
10
H YAT T
HOTELS
HQ ..................................... Chicago
U.S. EMPLOYEES ............. 30,293
WOMEN EXECS ....................... N.A.
* N . A . I N D I C AT E S N O T AVA I L A B L E .
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 47
BEST WORKPL ACES
What Women Want—
From Their Employers
The 2021 Best Workplaces for Women
prioritize career growth, balance, and
security. BY LYDIA BELANGER
AS THE PANDEMIC pushed parents and caregivers
to the breaking point, which employers went
above and beyond to create spaces where women
could thrive? To determine the 100 Best Workplaces for
Women, Fortune research partner Great Place to Work
analyzed survey feedback from millions across the U.S.
to assess which companies support women most.
“I felt a great amount of stress in how I was going
to manage WFH and my family life,” one Cisco (No. 9
on the large companies list) employee says of the early
pandemic days. “But Cisco as a whole has made it
clear that their best interest is their employees.” Other
companies on the list found innovative ways to keep
women safe. Workers at Sheetz (No. 64 on the large list)
say the retailer assists employees who seek refuge from
domestic abuse, and it also has a zero-tolerance policy
on harassment, an anonymous hotline, and an HR team
that investigates worker complaints. You can learn more
about the world’s top employers at Fortune.com.
BEST SMALL
AND MEDIUM
WORKPLACES
FOR WOMEN
01
C H AT B O O K S
HQ ................................. Lehi, Utah
U.S. EMPLOYEES ..................... 155
WOMEN EXECS ...................... 60%
02
CUROLOGY
HQ ......................... San Francisco
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................... 584
WOMEN EXECS ....................... 67%
03
BITWISE INDUSTRIES
HQ ........................... Fresno, Calif.
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................... N.A.
WOMEN EXECS ....................... N.A.
04
EVERGREEN
HOME LOANS
HQ .................... Bellevue, Wash.
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................... 854
WOMEN EXECS ...................... 63%
05
GREENHOUSE
HQ ......................... New York City
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................... 332
WOMEN EXECS ....................... N.A.
06
NERDWA LLE T
HQ ......................... San Francisco
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................... 493
WOMEN EXECS ...................... 44%
07
R O T H S TA F F I N G
COMPANIES
HQ .......................... Orange, Calif.
U.S. EMPLOYEES ..................... 512
WOMEN EXECS ...................... 56%
08
HIGHSPOT
HQ ....................................... Seattle
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................... N.A.
WOMEN EXECS ....................... N.A.
09
ASANA
HQ ......................... San Francisco
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................... N.A.
WOMEN EXECS ....................... N.A.
10
ACTIVUS CONNECT
HQ ..................................... Orlando
U.S. EMPLOYEES .................... 850
WOMEN EXECS ...................... 80%
 CONTENT FROM DELOITTE
HOW DIVERSITY
CAN POWER THE
FUTURE OF A.I.
Diverse perspectives are critical for building
A.I. that can effectively solve problems for the
populations it serves. But companies need to
do more to retain women in the field.
THE LACK OF WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY-FOCUSED JOBS
is a long-standing problem. But their absence in
the field of artificial intelligence (A.I.) is especially
concerning. Diverse perspectives and experiences
are critical for ridding A.I. of unconscious bias;
Gartner predicts that through 2022, 85% of A.I.
projects will deliver erroneous outcomes due to bi-
ases in data, algorithms, or the teams responsible
for managing them. Still, only 12% of machine-
learning researchers are women, per WIRED and
Element AI.
According to Beena Ammanath, executive director
of the Deloitte AI Institute, a center that focuses
Platforms highlighting female A.I. pioneers are crucial for showing women
examples of how to rise professionally, as well as helping to deconstruct negative
cultural stereotypes about women not belonging in STEM.
BEENA AMMANATH, Executive Director, Deloitte AI Institute
About Deloitte: Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee (“DTTL”), its network of member firms, and their related entities
DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte
refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the “Deloitte” name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be
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on connecting all the different dimensions of the
A.I. ecosystem for enterprise companies, there
have been efforts in early education to inspire girls
to take an interest in STEM (science, technology,
engineering, and math), but deep-seated gender
biases and a lack of support and role models still
keep young women from pursuing jobs in the field.
Today, only 27% of STEM jobs are held by women,
according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Ammanath, who also founded the nonprofit
Humans for AI, wants to change that. “We need to
show women that working in STEM is not only pos-
sible but also cool,” she says. “If we don’t, we risk
young women not even approaching the field due
to preconceived notions.”
But the challenge isn’t just getting women into
the field—it’s also retaining them. Research by
Deloitte found that a higher percentage of women
than men leave tech roles before reaching leader-
ship ranks because of sexual or gender-based
stereotypes. And a survey by the company found
that 57% of women in A.I. had left a job due to
discrimination.
This data has spurred Ammanath and Deloitte
to double down to ensure that women in A.I. are
supported on their path to leadership. The com-
pany champions women through initiatives such as
internal A.I. training programs and enabling internal
communities and support groups. In March, Deloitte
launched “Leading Conversations in AI,” a monthly
series on A.I. featuring only women speakers.
“Platforms highlighting female A.I. pioneers are
crucial for showing women examples of how to rise
professionally, as well as helping to deconstruct
negative cultural stereotypes about women not
belonging in STEM,” says Ammanath.
But, according to Deloitte’s survey of women in
A.I., organizational initiatives alone won’t make the
space more equitable. Companies need to create a
lasting culture of gender equality to make A.I. more
viable for women.
“Organizations should emphasize a culture that
actively promotes gender diversity and inclusivity,
particularly at leadership levels, to help recruit and
retain more talented women,” says Ammanath. “This
will not only benefit the company but is also crucial
for the future of A.I.” ■
Diversity in AI for the good of AI
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THE BRIEF FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 51
ES G STO C KS
spreading “Oat-LIES.”
Shaky Foundations The report’s author,
for Eco-Investors New York–based invest-
ment firm Spruce Point
A controversy involving alt-milk Capital Management, ran
favorite Oatly raises an awkward readers through a litany
of critiques: allegations
question: How can shareholders tell of revenue inflation and
which companies are truly “green”? bad accounting, attacks
BY KATHERINE DUNN on Oatly’s leadership, and
questions about whether
Oatly could compete with
heavyweight rivals like
ON A WEDNESDAY IN JULY, less than Nestlé and Chobani in
two months after going public, the fast-growing oat-milk
the cult-favorite Swedish oat-milk market. But its most
maker Oatly reached a different mile- headline-grabbing attack
PHOTO stone: It got clobbered by a short- struck at the core of Oatly’s
ILLUSTRATION BY
ANDREW B. MYERS seller’s report, one that accused it of brand. Spruce Point al-
leged that Oatly “doesn’t
practice what it preaches”
when it comes to ESG—
environmental, social, and
governance measures—and
especially to sustainability.
The world’s hottest vegan
milk, it insinuated, just
isn’t that green.
In a world awash in
buzzy, venture capital–
backed companies pitching
themselves to young,
socially conscious custom-
ers, Oatly has distinguished
itself by building a quirky,
off-the-cuff brand that
puts its green mission front
and center—ceaselessly
52 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
reminding consumers that oat milk is
more earth-friendly than cow’s milk.
Oatly quantifies its carbon footprint
on its cartons and plasters merchan-
dise with slogans declaring the rise of
a “post-milk generation.” “We don’t
even look at ourselves as an oat-milk
maker,” CEO Toni Petersson told
Fortune in June. “We are a people and
sustainability company.”
The Spruce Point report sought to
tarnish that green aura. The company
had produced abnormally high levels
of wastewater at a New Jersey plant, it
alleged. And what about the envi-
ronmental impact of transportation?
Oatly, after all, had been shipping oat
milk halfway around the world—from
Sweden to China, most notably—in a
feverish grab for new customers.
Since July, Oatly has refused to
discuss Spruce Point’s allegations with
the media. In an August earnings call
with analysts, Petersson said an in-
vestigation had found the report was
“false and misleading.” (The company
declined to make anyone available
for an interview.) But at least some
SUSTAINABILITY SELLS
Investors in Europe in particular have flocked to
ESG funds over the past few years. But their popu-
larity has fueled fears that companies will fib about
their environmental records to lure investor dollars.
GLOBAL ASSETS IN REGIONAL
ESG FUNDS BREAKDOWN
$2.5 TRILLION
$2.24
EUROPE
80.8%
TRILLION
2.0
1.5
1.0
U.S.
0.5 12.6%
JAPAN
OTHER
2.9%
0 ASIA/
PACIFIC
Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 CANADA 2.5%
2020 2021 1.2%
SOURCE: MORNINGSTAR
YOU TAKE IN EVIDENCE, AND
THEN YOU MAKE A CALL. YOU NEVER
KNOW THE ULTIMATE TRUTH.
JULIAN KÖLBEL, ECONOMIST, UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH
on Wall Street have been
swayed. The stock has
fallen 21% since the report
was published; the short
position against it, as of late
September, had risen to
just over $300 million, or
3.3% of Oatly’s total float,
according to S3 Partners,
which tracks short-selling.
There are other reasons for
investors to be skeptical of
the company. Some claim
that oat milk is easy to
make, for example, so Oatly
doesn’t have a competitive
“moat.” Still, the claim that
Oatly is “greenwashing”—
marketing itself as greener
than it really is—has
struck a chord.
So how can investors
decide for themselves
whether Oatly—or any
company—is truly “green”?
That question, it turns out,
opens a messy can of free-
range organic worms. Even
as demand for sustainable
mutual funds and “ethi-
cal” stocks reaches record
heights, the available data
for judging companies is
wildly inconsistent—with
competing ratings firms of-
fering contradictory scores
based on opaque criteria.
“We don’t have a very good
way to measure ethical
behavior,” says Roberto
Rigobon, a professor at the
MIT Sloan School of Man-
agement and a member
of the Aggregate Confu-
sion Project, which tracks
THE BRIEF — ESG STOCKS
dissonance in ESG ratings.
Depending on which lens
observers use, and what
kind of “ethical” behavior
they prioritize, the same
company can look like a
hero or a villain.
The stakes are high, es-
pecially for green investors.
At the end of the second
quarter of 2021, assets in
“sustainability labeled”
funds reached $2.24 tril-
lion, 2.4 times the amount
three years earlier, accord-
ing to Morningstar; there
are now a record 4,929
funds in that category. As
money pours in, critics
warn that greenwashing is
becoming endemic, as com-
panies spin their behavior
to attract ESG investors’
dollars. Eyebrow-raising
corporate maneuvers have
helped fan the skepticism,
from a deep-sea mining
company rebranding itself
as “green” to French energy
giant TotalEnergies buying
carbon credits in Zimba-
bwe so it could call a tanker
of liquefied natural gas
“carbon neutral.”
But regulatory efforts
to define sustainability are
still in their infancy. The
European Union is entan-
gled in a yearslong effort
to set clearer standards;
in the U.S., the Securities
and Exchange Commission
has formed a task force
to investigate cases where
ESG definitions have been
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54 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
–17 7 –21.3% . %
O AT LY S T O C K
PERFORMANCE
SINCE ITS IPO
ON 5/21/21
SOURCE: BLOOMBERG
abused, but it’s far from
imposing uniform rules.
In the absence of such
guidance, investors are left
to consult a motley array
of ESG ratings agencies.
There are roughly 30
major providers around the
globe, according to KPMG,
among whose products
fund managers pick and
choose to help shape their
investment decisions. And
even the most conscien-
tious of those agencies are
grappling with an inconsis-
tent patchwork of disclo-
sures from companies.
In 2019, Rigobon and
two other researchers at
MIT released a paper that
found that agencies’ ratings
varied enormously depend-
ing on what was measured,
the weight of those mea-
surements, and how they
were measured in the first
place. As an example, Rigo-
bon describes ratings of
companies’ treatment of fe-
male employees. Depend-
ing on who was scoring,
that might be measured
by employee turnover, by
gender diversity in upper
management, or by official
labor complaints—all
with potentially different
results. Competing ratings
thus could show bizarre
divergences, with the same
PERFORMANCE
SINCE
PU B LI CATI O N O F
S H O RT- S E LLE R
RE P O RT O N 7/14/2 1
company getting a score
in the top 10% from one
agency, and the bottom
20% from another.
Adding to the confusion,
many agencies score com-
panies within industries,
rather than across sectors.
That’s one reason some
ratings bodies give BP,
one of the world’s biggest
producers of petroleum,
higher ESG scores than
Tesla, whose mission is to
make petroleum obsolete.
Julian Kölbel, one of
Rigobon’s coauthors and
now a postdoc at the Uni-
versity of Zurich, frames
the ratings conundrum a
different way. If an analyst
says that Tesla’s stock will
rise or fall, it will eventu-
ally become clear whether
that prediction was correct.
By contrast, “ESG ratings
are more in the nature of
a court proceeding, where
there’s a deliberation,
where you can take in vari-
ous forms of evidence, and
then you make a call,” he
says. “You never know the
ultimate truth.”
FOR OATLY, THERE AREN’T even
any scores to appeal to:
Because it only recently
went public, the company
doesn’t yet have published
ESG ratings from major
agencies. More so than for
better-established compa-
nies, its greenness is in the
eye of the beholder.
The company’s central
claim—that oat milk is less
emissions-intensive than
cow’s milk—isn’t in doubt.
Dairy is a tough industry
to decarbonize, in part
because cows emit—as in,
fart—methane, a green-
house gas many times
more potent than CO2. An
analysis created for the
BBC found that oat milk
ounce-for-ounce accounts
for around one-third as
many greenhouse gas
emissions as dairy milk.
“The more people we can
help make the switch from
cow’s dairy … the more we
can drive down greenhouse
gas emissions,” Oatly CEO
Petersson said in a written
statement to Fortune.
Even Ben Axler, the
founder and chief invest-
ment officer of Spruce
Point, admits that he
has no quibble with oat
milk. His critique focuses
on Oatly’s operations—
particularly on the
environmental strains of
shipping. Axler argues
that in rushing products
and ingredients around
the world to chase new
markets, Oatly has put the
pursuit of growth ahead
of its values: “Do I think
Oatly’s veered a little bit
from its mission while it’s
grown rapidly? I do.”
Another high-profile
critic of Oatly’s climate
impact: Oatly itself.
The company has been
transparent about the
downsides of growth—it
called its 2020 sustain-
ability report Confessions
THE BRIEF — ESG STOCKS
of an Oat Company. From
2019 to 2020, it says, its
carbon emissions jumped
111%, outstripping its 81%
increase in production over
the same period. Oatly at-
tributed the jump partly to
better carbon accounting,
but also to having to ship
oats from Europe to Asia;
it also struggled to source
renewable energy in some
new markets. Both those
problems will dissipate,
Oatly expects, as it builds
more regional factories,
including one opening in
China this year.
Oatly’s self-assessment
highlights an irony that
other ESG-minded compa-
nies may soon grapple with.
Some watchdogs and regu-
lators want to improve ESG
standards in part by urging
companies to be more
forthcoming with details
about their emissions and
supply chains. Oatly seems
to have done just that—in-
deed, doing so is part of its
ethical brand. But its can-
dor has given ammunition
to Spruce Point and other
critics (including plaintiffs’
attorneys: As often hap-
pens after a short-seller
report, multiple law firms
have filed class-action suits
against Oatly).
For now, the oat-milk
maker expects its rapid
growth to continue. By
2023, it plans to have nine
plants worldwide, more
than tripling its production
capacity. Its carbon foot-
print will presumably also
grow, at least in absolute
terms. Whether that makes
Oatly a success story or an
ESG cautionary tale may
depend on who’s keeping
score.
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PROFILE 2021 | BEST WORKPLACES IN MANUFACTURING & PRODUCTION
True Leadership
Invests in People
By investing in the success of its employees, Reynolds American Inc.
is unlocking opportunities for the entire company
SHAY MUSTAFA, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT,
BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS AND
SUSTAINABILITY (LEFT), AND ANNA
DOLGIKH, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT
AND CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES AND
INCLUSION OFFICER (RIGHT).
SPONSORED CONTENT FROM RE YNOLDS AMERICAN INC.
“We have expanded unconscious-
bias training throughout the organiza-
tion, facilitated diversity and inclusion
dialogue sessions, including with our
leadership team, and doubled our over-
all investment in diversity programs,
offering access to dedicated learning
and development programs for female
and underrepresented employees, as
well as newly recruited or promoted line
managers,” Dolgikh explains.
Supporting employee wellness is
TRANSFORMATION. COMMITMENT. ACCESS.
another high-priority for the organiza-
INNOVATION. For Reynolds American Inc. and
tion. Reynolds has made no-cost health
its subsidiaries (Reynolds), these are more than
coaching available, and offers a digital
principles, they are a road map. They
wellness platform that provides support
represent a forward-thinking investment in the
for employees dealing with stress, sleep
most critical ingredient of any organization’s
issues, and mental health concerns.
success: its people.
“We are also fortunate that our
“Whatever your passion is, you will find the
employee resource groups (ERGS)
opportunity to learn, grow and make a positive
have implemented support networks
impact here at Reynolds. The more diverse
and activities that focus on maintaining
our thinking, the bigger the difference we can
connection and fostering self-care,”
make,” says Anna Dolgikh, Reynolds’ senior
says Dolgikh.
vice president & chief human resources and
Reynolds navigates an evolving
inclusion officer.
business landscape by being proactive
Reynolds has prioritized the development of
in its approach. Playing a leading role
impactful strategies aimed at solidifying a work
in the transformation of the industry
culture in which skill-building, mentorship,
demands a standard of excellence
support, and inclusivity permeate the workplace.
that is impossible to meet without a
workforce that is empowered, included
and prepared.
By investing in the development and
success of its people, Reynolds has
created innumerable opportunities for
individuals and for the organization as a
whole to thrive on a global scale.
“Working at Reynolds means you
are working at the forefront of major
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dustry,” says Shay Mustafa, senior vice
president, business communications
and sustainability.
And what is the ultimate vision for
Reynolds’ work community?
Says Mustafa: “We aspire to a
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professional and personal ambitions,
where every person is empowered
and recognizes their ability to make an
impact as an agent of change.” ■
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 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 59

WRITTEN BY THERE’S STILL MUCH TO BE UNTANGLED about all the ways, big and
Kristen Bellstrom small, in which the pandemic has remade our lives. But here’s what
Emma Hinchliffe we do know: The past 18 months have radically altered the course of
Beth Kowitt
Megan Leonhardt
women’s careers. This year’s Most Powerful Women ranking illus-
Michal Lev-Ram trates that even those at the top of corporate America aren’t immune—an idea
Jessica Mathews that we explore in depth in this issue (page 94). Five of the women in our top 10
Sy Mukherjee became CEOs during the pandemic, thrown into the fire of leading in a period
Lucinda Shen
Anne Sraders
of extreme uncertainty. That includes our new No. 1, Karen Lynch, who took the
Shawn Tully helm of CVS Health in February. Rosalind Brewer became CEO of Walgreens
Jonathan Vanian Boots Alliance in March (see The Conversation on page 12) and Thasunda
Phil Wahba Brown Duckett moved into the corner office at TIAA in May—massive new jobs
Claire Zillman
that make them two of the four Black women to ever run Fortune 500 compa-
nies. For the first time, we have two women sharing a job and therefore a spot on
the list: Marianne Lake and Jennifer Piepszak of JPMorgan Chase are consid-
ered strong candidates to someday run the banking giant. Our 2021 ranking also
includes five newcomers, including Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman and Match
CEO Shar Dubey, who have flexed their power to tackle issues like diversity in
the boardroom and Texas’s regressive new abortion law.
If there’s one thing we can learn from the women in these pages, it’s that a
crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

HEADCOUNT BY INDUSTRY
11 10 7 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

TECH FINANCE RETAIL HEALTH CARE DEFENSE ENTERTAINMENT TRANSPORTATION FOOD PROFESSIONAL SERVICES TELECOM ENERGY INSURANCE MANUFACTURING SHIPPING
 1
Karen Lynch
CEO, 58 CVS Health

The leader of the

fourth-largest U.S.
company has a plan
to reshape health
care—and the
resources to pull it off.

2020 RANK 13

THE CEO WHO’S pledging
to reshape the way health
care is delivered in
America is unveiling her
biggest Big Idea yet.
On Feb. 1, Karen Lynch became
the chief at CVS Health, the fourth-
biggest company in the country—and
the largest in health care, America’s
biggest and in many ways most
backward industry. She started fast
with a daring gambit: putting CVS at
the heart of the pandemic response,
as a hub for COVID tests and vac-
cines. Tens of millions of people who
visited their nearby CVS saw for the
first time that they could also get a
cholesterol screening or full physical
inside those same four walls, without
waiting weeks to see a doctor in a
faraway office park.
Lynch’s second bold move is
the one she’s describing now. On
a late-summer Friday morning,
Lynch, fresh from her daily Peloton
workout, is on a Zoom call from her
home on Cape Cod, giving Fortune
an exclusive look at her new strategic
blueprint. It’s a plan to transform
CVS’s vast network of neighborhood
pharmacies into the new front door
for primary care.
At the heart of the strategy:
remaking hundreds of stores into
outlets 100% devoted to primary
care, capable of collectively serv-
ing tens of thousands of patients a
day—thus breaking through one of
the most stubborn bottlenecks in
medicine. “We’ll be far more than the
corner drugstore,” says Lynch. “We’re
pivoting to become more central to
America’s health care.”
Since CVS bought insurer Aetna
for $69 billion in 2018, it’s been
moving in this direction. The
company has already remodeled
roughly 1,000 of its 9,600 stores into
“HealthHUBs”—creating the na-
tion’s biggest network of urgent care
outlets. Those venues offer communi-
ties such vital preventive services as
glucose and retinopathy tests for dia-
ILLUSTRATIONS BY NHUNG LE
betes and blood-pressure screenings
for hypertension, along with flu shots
and an array of health care products.
Still, the clinic-only strategy is a
major shift. A typical CVS covers
8,000 to 13,000 square feet, two
to three times the size of the aver-
age stand-alone urgent care clinic.
Not long ago, Fortune toured a vast
HealthHUB near Houston that fea-
tured four examination suites and a
pharmacy consultation room, offering
physicals and an array of testing. Yet
snacks, beauty products, and other
drugstore fare still covered half the
square footage. Eliminating retail
from such stores would free up far
more space for testing, counseling,
and wellness.
“Think of our footprint as a series
of concentric circles,” Lynch says
on our call. The “inner circle,” she
explains, will be what we’ll call the
super-clinics: They’ll offer “all the
things HealthHUBs do now on a
bigger scale, plus lots of new services
such as mental health counseling.”
HealthHUBs will be the second
circle. Traditional drugstores, which
sell greeting cards and toothpaste
adjacent to pharmacies and tiny
MinuteClinics, will be the third, outer
circle—they will remain a core pres-
ence but their numbers won’t grow.
As big a leap as it is, Lynch’s plan
represents a logical strategic move
for a company that combines one of
the nation’s largest retail footprints
with the resources and patient data
of a giant insurer. It could also
unlock the biggest pot of untapped
savings in health care, by helping
prevent chronic conditions from
getting worse and more costly. Five
34 million
COVID-19 vaccine
doses administered to
date by CVS Health
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 61
long-lasting illnesses—diabetes, hy-
pertension, cardiac disease, asthma,
and depression—account for 80%
of the nation’s annual $3.8 trillion
medical costs. Half of adult Ameri-
cans suffer from one or more of those
conditions. CVS’s super-clinics could
help more of them get preventive
care. That in turn could create a
flywheel effect across the company,
as care at the clinics lowered costs for
Aetna and new patients filled their
prescriptions at CVS. “What Lynch
is doing is a big deal,” says Charles
Rhyee, a Cowen analyst who covers
CVS. “It moves the ball in the direc-
tion of proactive care, not reactive as
the system is today.” (For more about
Lynch’s strategy, see our feature on
Fortune.com.)
The super-clinics’ biggest focus
will be seniors—especially Medi-
care Advantage (MA) members, the
fastest-growing group in patient
services and one of the most lucrative.
Lynch grew CVS Health’s MA busi-
ness exponentially during her seven
years at Aetna. Today, Aetna covers
2.9 million MA members, 11% of the
total. Lynch sees the first-circle clinics
as a way to boost MA enrollment, and
she says their eventual locations are
“really going to be based on demo-
graphics,” pinpointing areas with a
high mix of seniors in general—imply-
ing a strong tilt toward Sunbelt states.
In the first phase of the conversion,
CVS will launch “several hundred”
super-clinics, Lynch says; it will
maintain the number of HealthHUBs
at around 1,000. Just as important:
Lynch intends to use only its exist-
ing locations for these health centers,
enabling them to go live faster. CVS
stores blanket the country—85% of
Americans live within 10 miles of
one—and Lynch is racing to convert
them to their highest and best use.
“One thing the pandemic taught us
is how quickly we can move to serve
customer needs,” Lynch says. “I don’t
think we can ever go too fast.”
—Shawn Tully
KEY NO CHANGE
2 3
Jane Fraser
CEO, 54, Citi
6 1
Fraser’s promotion in
March to CEO—the first
female chief among ma-
jor Wall Street banks—
was celebratory, but
also launched a cleanup
job. She has unified
Citi’s wealth manage-
ment business and plans
to sell underperforming
portions of its consumer
operations. Fraser ad-
dressed pandemic burn-
out with empathy,
adopting “Zoom-free”
Fridays and hybrid work
as competitors returned
to the office.
6 7
Rosalind Brewer
CEO, 59, Walgreens
Boots Alliance
27
WBA’s pandemic efforts
have been critical for
Brewer as she works to
turn around the global
drugstore giant with
nearly $140 billion in fis-
cal 2020 sales. The for-
mer Starbucks COO took
the CEO job in March—
three months after WBA
began administering
COVID-19 vaccines in the
U.S. Walgreens has deliv-
ered more than 30 mil-
lion jabs, with Brewer
making vaccine equity a
top priority. (For more on
Brewer, see page 12.)
MOVED UP MOVED DOWN
4 5
Julie Sweet
Chair and CEO, 53,
Carol Tomé
CEO, 64, UPS
Mary Barra
Chairman and CEO,
10
Accenture 59, General Motors
Thasunda
5 2 Brown
Duckett
Sweet, who in Septem- Shares of UPS are up This year, Barra unveiled President and CEO, 48,
T O P, F R O M L E F T: C O U R T E S Y O F C I T I G R O U P ; C O U R T E S Y O F A C C E N T U R E ; C O U R T E S Y O F U P S ; C O U R T E S Y O F J O H N F. M A R T I N / G M . S E C O N D R O W, F R O M L E F T: C O U R T E S Y O F J E N N I F E R P O T T H E I S E R ;
ber added chair to her 89% since Tomé took the plans to spend $35 bil- TIAA
title, has kept Accenture reins in June 2020, and lion to build a fleet of
humming during the all business segments more than 30 electric
pandemic. The firm delivered record profits and autonomous vehi-
brought in $50.5 billion in Q2. In August, the cles by 2025 and, in an 2020 RANK 30
in revenue in its fiscal company committed to announcement that
2021, up 14% over the using 25% renewable jolted the industry,
previous year, and con- electricity in its facilities vowed that GM would go Duckett’s move
tinues to pour resources and 40% alternative fuel all electric by 2035. But from JPMorgan
into new tech like 5G, in ground operations by the company has hit sev- Chase rising
C O U R T E S Y O F A N T H E M ; D AV I D PA U L M O R R I S — B L O O M B E R G / G E T T Y I M A G E S ; C O U R T E S Y O F A L P H A B E T. D U C K E T T: L E O N B E N N E T T— W I R E I M A G E / G E T T Y I M A G E S
blockchains, and edge 2025, as well as to cut- eral roadblocks in the star to TIAA CEO
computing. Accenture ting carbon dioxide lev- past year, including chip caught the eye of
has also turned its atten- els per package in half shortage-induced man- Wall Street. The
tion to the environmen- by 2035. UPS has also ufacturing lags and a re- finance leader
tal crisis, vowing to diversified its board, call of Chevrolet Bolt
achieve net zero by adding three women and EVs that could cost it up
known for her work
2025. two Black men. to $1.8 billion. on inclusion for
people of color
in the financial
system took over
8 9 from retiring chief
Roger Ferguson
Jr. in May in a rare
handoff between
two Black chief ex-
ecutives. Now one
Gail Boudreaux Abigail Johnson Ruth Porat of two Black female
President and CEO, 61, Chairman and CEO, SVP and CFO, 63, CEOs in the For-
Anthem 59, Fidelity Investments Google, Alphabet tune 500—and just
the fourth ever—
Duckett is tasked
with steering the
4 3 7 $41 billion financial
giant with $1.3 tril-
Boudreaux has over- Fidelity is growing, on Wall Street continues to
lion in assets under
seen a 49% spike in An- track to hire some admire Porat for helping management.
them’s market value in 16,000 employees by Alphabet focus on what
the past 12 months and a the end of the year. it’s good at as opposed
$17.7 billion increase in Johnson has her eye on to audacious so-called
2020 revenue com- the next generation of moonshot projects. Un-
pared with the previous investors, launching der her watch, the com-
year, driven by a grow- new accounts for teens pany is investing in prac-
ing pool of plan holders. and using sites like Red- tical areas likely to make
The health insurance dit to answer investor an immediate financial
giant is working on im- questions. Fidelity is all impact, like cloud com-
proving patient out- in on crypto; it’s one of puting and video stream-
comes to create a more the largest financial in- ing. That’s one reason
efficient medical sys- stitutions involved in Bit- shares have grown a
tem, and investing in coin custody. Mean- whopping 100%
digital health tools like while, the company hit year over year and the
the company’s Sydney a record $21 billion in company is valued at
app to cut costs. revenue in 2020. nearly $2 trillion.
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 63

11
Angela
Hwang
Group President,
Biopharmaceuticals,
55, Pfizer

2020 RANK 16

As the head of Pfizer’s

sprawling biopharma-
ceutical unit, Hwang
can take a hefty slice
of the credit for its
booming COVID-19
vaccine sales, which
the drugmaker pro-
jects will hit $33.5 bil-
lion in 2021. Leading a
team of some 26,000
people across seven
commercial drug divi-
sions that generated
$42 billion in 2020
sales, Hwang is often
mentioned as a strong
contender for the
company’s top perch.
Her influence within
Pfizer goes beyond
her P&L; Hwang has
been recognized by
outside organizations
for her efforts to pro-
mote diversity, equity,
and inclusion at the
pharma powerhouse.
She’s overseen dona-
tion efforts for groups
that support the Asian
American and Pacific
Islander community
and pushed for pas-
sage of the COVID-19
Hate Crimes Act to
combat the rise of
anti-Asian discrimina-
tion and violence seen
during the pandemic.
President Joe Biden
signed the legislation
into law in May.
 C O N T E N T F R O M B AY E R
BRINGING
SUSTAINABLE
INNOVATION
TO FARMERS
Bayer is developing climate-smart
solutions that help growers produce
crops in more environmentally
friendly and profitable ways.
With a focus on constant
evolution, third-generation
farmer Kassi Tom-Rowland
enrolled 400 acres of her
Indiana farm in Bayer’s
Carbon Program.
FARMERS ARE ONE OF THE GROUPS MOST IMPACTED
by the detrimental effects of climate change. They’re
also playing a key role in mitigating it through the
use of new technologies. Bayer, the globally recog-
nized pharmaceuticals and life sciences company,
is behind innovation that helps farmers make their
operations more sustainable.
“At Bayer, we’re working toward our vision of
health for all, hunger for none,” says Leo Bastos,
who leads Global Commercial Ecosystems for Bayer,
including its Carbon Initiative that promotes
climate-smart farming methods. “We are fulfilling
that vision by driving innovation to help farmers
grow more crops per acre, use fewer resources,
and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through
climate-smart growing practices.”
Bayer’s global teams of researchers specializing
in agricultural biology, biotechnology, crop protec-
tion, and data science implement this innovation
and assist farmers. Through the company’s digital
platform, Climate FieldView (the industry’s most
connected and widely used such platform, based
on total global subscribed acres), farmers can
collect and track data related to their climate-
smart practices and analyze the information to
inform future decisions.
The Bayer Carbon Initiative debuted last year
and is now deployed across thousands of farms in
the United States, Argentina, Brazil, the European
Union, and India. Combining years of internal re-
search, modeling development, and field trials, this
science-based approach incorporates agronomic
technology and digital tools to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. Bayer’s U.S. Carbon Program is
sequestering airborne carbon in the soil, which is
accomplished with low- or no-till techniques that
minimize soil disturbance and preserve beneficial
organisms. Another important technique is plant-
ing cover crops to lessen erosion and promote
fertility. Eventually, companies looking to mitigate
their environmental footprint will be able to pur-
chase the carbon credits generated through these
practices.
Third-generation Indiana farmer Kassi Tom-
Rowland is seeing the benefits of the U.S. program.
Last year, she enrolled 400 acres of Tom Farms,
the diversified row crop and beef operation her
grandparents started in 1952. She is planting
clovers and radishes between cash crops (corn
and soybeans) to enhance the organic matter in
the soil and sequester carbon. She also uses other
practices to make her operation more sustainable,
like high-yielding seed and digital tools that help
her do more with less. “It’s a constant evolution
to bring in the latest technologies and practices,”
says Tom-Rowland. “Bayer’s innovation and leader-
ship in this space are so important to us.”
That innovation and leadership includes Bayer’s
work toward building a scientific foundation for an
economically viable path for a successful carbon
economy. This includes the potential for voluntary
offset markets, scope 3 emissions reductions,
and low-carbon intensity crops.
“We want to make sure farmers are set up for
success in the fight against climate change,” says
Bastos. “It will take time, but we are working hard
to get there.” ■
 Climate focused.
Grower friendly.

Powered by the most connected digital ag platform in

*
the world%D\HU·V&DUERQ,QLWLDWLYHUHZDUGVIDUPHUV
for adopting climate-smart practices that can reduce
greenhouse gasses and capture carbon in the soil.

7RÀQGRXWPRUHDERXW%D\HU·VFOLPDWHIRFXVHG
VROXWLRQVYLVLWZZZFURSVFLHQFHED\HUFRP
*Based on global subscribed acres.
Bayer and Bayer Cross are registered trademarks of Bayer Group. ©2021 Bayer Group. All rights reserved.
12
13
Sheryl
Sandberg
COO, 52, Facebook

S A N D B E R G : D AV I D PA U L M O R R I S — B L O O M B E R G / G E T T Y I M A G E S . B O T T O M R O W, F R O M L E F T: C E L E S T E S L O M A N ; E R I C T H AY E R — B L O O M B E R G / G E T T Y I M A G E S ; D AV I D R Y D E R — B L O O M B E R G / G E T T Y I M A G E S
No amount of contro-
versy seems to hamper
Facebook’s growth. It
posted nearly $86 bil-
lion in revenue in fiscal
2020, up 22% from the
year before. But reports
say Sandberg no longer
wields the internal influ-
ence she once did (Face-
book has denied this
claim). Meanwhile, the
company faces a regula-
tory crackdown, contin-
ued issues with misin-
formation, and claims it
has downplayed infor-
mation about its flaws.

14 Corie Barry 15 16
CEO, 46, Best Buy

2020 RANK 9
Judith McKenna Safra Catz Amy Hood
President and CEO, CEO, 59, Oracle EVP and CFO, 50,
Walmart International, After steering Best Buy through the first year Microsoft
55, Walmart of the pandemic—and overseeing a compara-
ble sales jump of almost 10% in the process—
Barry has been trying to leverage the ways
10 shopper behavior has changed over the past 11 17
18 months. That has meant repurposing space
in the stores to add support for e-commerce,
McKenna is reshaping Catz has the challenging This year, Microsoft,
expanding what Best Buy sells online to
Walmart’s international job of repositioning the now valued at more than
portfolio, which last year
encompass products like e-bikes and grills, database company as a $2 trillion, added yet an-
generated more than and continuing to develop newer, promising titan amid fierce compe- other mega-purchase to
$121 billion in sales. The areas like health tech. So far in 2021, Best Buy’s tition from the likes of its software arsenal: Nu-
Brit has doubled down sales momentum has only gathered steam: AWS and Microsoft. ance Communications,
on the behemoth’s busi- Business is up 27% for the year. And Barry is While its cloud business a voice recognition
ness in Mexico, Canada, also making sure Best Buy ramps up its DEI is smaller than those ri- player it bought for
and India, while exiting efforts, which include setting the chain’s first vals’, Oracle has been nearly $20 billion. That
Argentina, shedding ever minimum wage at $15 and investing in spending more money means that Hood,
part of the business in building expensive data tasked with leading ac-
minority businesses and venture funds.
Japan, and selling off its centers to help power quisitions, has been
stake in Asda in the U.K. the fledging unit. Time busy as usual. And why
Insiders say she and will tell if the efforts pay wouldn’t she be: She’s
Sam’s Club CEO Kathryn off, but until then Oracle also in charge of ac-
McLay (No. 24) are both continues to cruise counting and reporting,
contenders to someday along in a rapidly chang- investor relations, and
lead the company. ing industry. business operations.
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 67
KEY NO CHANGE MOVED UP MOVED DOWN

17
Alicia
Boler
Davis
SVP Global Customer
Fulfillment, 52, Amazon

2020 RANK 12

It’s been a tumultu-

ous year and a half for
Amazon warehouse
workers—and for
Boler Davis, who over-
sees those employees
in her role running
the company’s vast
customer fulfillment
network. That has
meant contending
with reports of poor
working conditions
and warehouse inju-
ries, as well as a failed
unionization attempt
that put Amazon un-
der scrutiny for alleg-
edly discouraging the
effort. (Amazon says
it prioritizes a good
work environment
and that employees
are free to unionize
if they choose.) Her
response has included
investing $11.5 billion
in equipment and
safety measures in
2020 and providing
over $700 million
in pandemic pay in-
creases. Boler Davis’s
enormous purview ex-
panded in 2020, with
more than 400,000
new jobs added.
KEY NO CHANGE MOVED UP MOVED DOWN

18 19

Susan Wojcicki Ann-Marie

CEO, YouTube, Campbell
53, Google, Alphabet EVP of U.S. Stores and
International Operations,
56, Home Depot

O N E S T O WAT C H , C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T: C O U R T E S Y O F S P O T I F Y; C O U R T E S Y O F C V S H E A LT H ; J E R O D H A R R I S — G E T T Y I M A G E S ; C O U R T E S Y O F P & G ; C O U R T E S Y O F M O R G A N S TA N L E Y; C O U R T E S Y O F Z O OX
18 15

On one hand, Wojcicki Home Depot’s sales

is leading an incredibly
fast-growing online
video service that’s just
slightly smaller than
Netflix. The addition of a
live online TV subscrip-
tion service has only
added to YouTube’s rele-
vance. Yet the prolifera-
tion of misinformation
on YouTube continues to
haunt the company, es-
jumped 20% to $132 bil-
lion in the company’s
last fiscal year, as con-
sumers stuck at home
took to DIY, and the
stock has climbed 27%
year to date. Campbell
helped drive the deci-
sion to spend $2 billion
Clockwise from bottom left: Yeshaya, Ostroff, Montgomery,
on extra compensation
and benefits like mental
Pappas, Francisco, Evans
health counseling for

pecially amid the pan-
demic, when the spread
of anti-vaccine messag-
ing is contributing to a
public health crisis.
T O P, F R O M L E F T: J E S S I C A C H O U ; B E S S A D L E R — B L O O M B E R G / G E T T Y I M A G E S ; S E C O N D R O W, F R O M L E F T: B R I A N S N Y D E R — R E U T E R S ; S P E N C E R H E Y F R O N .
store employees. But
there are signs the pan-
demic surge is abating:
Ones to Watch
Sales growth slowed in What will the MPW list of the future look like? Here are some of the
the last quarter. names we expect to see a lot more of in the coming years.

Aicha Evans Fama Neela

20
Phebe
Novakovic
Chairman and CEO,
63, General Dynamics
14
Heading into 2021, ana-
lysts worried a Demo-
cratic administration
would mean a hit to GD’s
$38-billion-in-revenue
business. But the compa-
ny’s strengths have
turned out to be well
aligned with the Biden
White House’s military
priorities. Investors have
taken notice, sending the
stock up 44 % in the past
year. The company is
building the first Colum-
bia-class nuclear-pow-
ered ballistic missile sub-
marine for the U.S. Navy.
21
Tricia Griffith
President and CEO, 57,
Progressive
19
Progressive motored
along in 2020, with reve-
nue rising more than 9%
as the pandemic kept
drivers off the road. The
insurer also gained mar-
ket share, writing 8%
more net premiums last
year and expanding its
footprint in commercial
auto insurance with the
early 2021 acquisition of
Protective Insurance for
$338 million. Its stock
price, though, has had a
bumpy ride of late, and
profits fell in the second
quarter of 2021.
CEO, Zoox Francisco Montgomery
The first Black CEO, Baby, President, CVS
woman to run a Feminine, and Pharmacy, EVP,
self-driving–car Family Care, P&G CVS Health
company had a big The former MPW With a P&L of about
2020: She sold the international lister, $90 billion, her CVS
startup to Amazon who runs a $19 bil- business is bigger
and unveiled an
electric robotaxi.
lion operation, than that of many
moved to the U.S. Fortune 500s.
Dawn Ostroff Vanessa Patricia
Chief Content and Pappas Poppe
Ad Business Officer, COO, TikTok CEO, PG&E
Spotify After serving as Poppe joined in
The longtime TV interim CEO until January with a
exec is driving April, Pappas is challenging task
Spotify’s massive settling into her role ahead: Can she
bets on podcasts as COO and U.S.- bring the eternally
and other audio based face of the troubled utility
content. booming platform. back to the light?
Kim Posnett Fidji Simo Sharon
Global Head of CEO, Instacart
Yeshaya
Investment Banking The former CFO, Morgan
Services, Goldman Facebook app head Stanley
Sachs aims to help the hot After chief of staff to
The first woman to grocery-delivery CEO James Gorman
hold the title, she startup fight off and then head of
recently added a its post-pandemic investor relations,
top client services slump (see story in her latest move is
role to her CV. this issue). into the C-suite.

TWO YEARS AGO, Marianne Lake and Jen-
nifer Piepszak swapped jobs, trading off as
company CFO and a high-ranking CEO of
22
the consumer bank. It was a moment that re-
vealed to industry watchers just how serious
JPMorgan Chase was about giving each ex-
ecutive the experience she would need to one
day, perhaps, take over the entire operation.
This year, JPM upped the ante—and set up
our first ever MPW list tie—by placing the pair
Marianne in the same job at the same time: co-CEOs of
Lake consumer and community banking.
Neither woman is technically yet running a
Co-CEO of Chase Consumer Wall Street bank (that honor is still held only by
& Community Banking, 52,
Jane Fraser at Citi), but this shared job is close.
JPMorgan Chase
With $51 billion in net revenue and $8 billion
in net income, Chase is larger than Goldman
Sachs and would be the sixth-largest bank on
2020 RANK 22
Wall Street on its own.
The pair have complementary résumés.
Lake, 52, earned her stripes as a finance exec
Jennifer with a knack for numbers that analysts find
remarkable, while Piepszak, 51, rose through
Piepszak the ranks in corporate and investment bank-
Co-CEO of Chase Consumer ing positions.
& Community Banking, 51, In this co-CEO role, each is continuing to
JPMorgan Chase build experience in areas in which she doesn’t
yet have much. Lake, a British transplant
to New York, oversees payments, lending,
26 and commerce—divisions like auto finance
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 69
and card services—while Piepszak runs
consumer and business banking and wealth
management.
Some observers question why two women
have been placed in what seems to be a
face-off for the top job (the pair took over the
position from retiring exec Gordon Smith,
who ran the operation solo). Others are simply
skeptical that co-leadership roles at such a
high level can function successfully (although
job-sharing arrangements aren’t uncommon
in finance). “In the rare situations where it
works, it’s brilliant,” says Jane Stevenson, vice
chair of board and CEO services at leadership
advisory firm Korn Ferry. “But if you’ve got
competition between the two leaders, that
tends to create destructive or toxic elements.”
In public statements, Lake and Piepszak
have always emphasized their respect and
support for each other—and analysts say they
see both as prime contenders to succeed
Jamie Dimon (though likely not for a while,
given his new five-year, 1.5 million option
retention bonus). “You just look at them and
you’re impressed with how good they are,”
says Evercore analyst Glenn Schorr.
For those eager to see another woman run
a bank on Wall Street, an arrangement that
places two respected execs closer to the very
top is only good news. —Emma Hinchliffe
 CONTENT FROM PNC
BUILDING STRONGER
BOARDS THROUGH
GENDER PARITY
PNC Financial Services Group, Inc.
knows the value of creating
and sustaining diversity across
the company.
RESEARCH HAS FOUND THAT WHEN COMPANIES PUT WOMEN
in leadership positions, they are more profitable and more
socially responsible, among other benefits, according
to Harvard Business Review. Yet corporate boardrooms
continue to lack gender parity.
Deloitte’s Global Women in the Boardroom report
found that in 2020 women held just 16.9% of board seats.
Even though more companies are finally realizing gender
parity in the boardroom has benefits, progress has been
slow. Deloitte’s report also found that the number of
women in board seats has increased only 1.9% since 2017.
PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., has been working
to enhance the diversity of its board composition for
years. “As a company, we know that gender parity at
the most senior levels will result
in better decision-making,” says
Richard Bynum, chief corporate
responsibility officer at PNC. “Hav-
ing multiple points of view creates
better outcomes for our employees,
customers, and communities.”
With this in mind, the
Pittsburgh-based company ex-
panded its approach to ensure it
included candidates with different
demographics and perspectives.
For example, in 2019, they ac-
cessed a new pool of contenders
with a variety of backgrounds by
hiring an external firm to help
broaden the search to include
ethnic, gender, and cognitive
diversity.
Another critical shift is in what
is considered a valuable back-
ground for qualified candidates.
Case in point, one of PNC’s women
directors is a former member of the
military, bringing a different per-
spective than that of people from the private sector.
Assuming only individuals with significant
corporate experience are solid candidates is
limiting, says Bynum. “That’s a bad assumption,”
he says. “They may be academics, entrepreneurs,
investors, or military.”
PNC’s efforts to diversify are paying off. Today
the board has 13 members, with 12 serving as
independent directors. Of those 12, 33% are
women, and 25% are people of color. In 2019, in
recognition of its progress, PNC received the
Board Diversity Award from DirectWomen, a U.S.
nonprofit that works to increase the number of
women on corporate boards. PNC is also commit-
ted to developing its own employees, particularly
women, to serve as leaders not just within the
organization, but beyond.
“We have a very strong program that promotes
and advances leadership skills in women across
the company, from branch locations to wealth
teams and individual contributors,” says Bynum.
He believes initiatives like this will ultimately lead
to increased board diversity across corporate
America. “These women go on to make significant
contributions to our communities, many serving
on nonprofit boards, gaining valuable experience
that translates well to a corporate setting.”
Diversity, Bynum says, is integral to PNC’s
operations—from the board to the retail branches.
“There is strength in diversity. It is essential to
our success.” ■
 Opportunity
comes from
the top.

At PNC, we’ve committed to ensuring that our board better reflects the diversity of the communities
we serve. And we’ve proven that a more diverse board drives better ideas, decisions and outcomes
for our employees, our customers and the places we call home. From investments in equity
initiatives to actively recruiting diverse talent, we’re making a positive difference in expanding
opportunity for all.

©2021 The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
DI PDF 0821-097 Fortune Mag Ad
KEY NO CHANGE
23
Kathy Warden
Chairman, President,
and CEO, 50,
Northrop Grumman
20
Northrop’s brightest
spot is its fast-growing
space business, where
revenue climbed more
than 30% in two recent
quarters, a growth spurt
that the company is
crediting in part to an in-
ternal realignment of the
business executed by
Warden. So far analyst
concerns that a Demo-
cratic administration
would mean less fund-
ing for weapons like
Northrop’s missiles and
tanks have proved
overblown.
27
Deirdre O’Brien
SVP of Retail and People,
55, Apple
29
As Apple’s top HR offi-
cial as well as chief of its
$74 billion or so retail
business, O’Brien’s re-
sponsibilities touch
147,000 employees and
millions of consumers.
She helped formulate
Apple’s return-to-work
plans and is evolving its
physical store strategy,
including adding ex-
press counters where
shoppers can pick up
online orders and
launching an in-store
project to help mentor
young creatives.
MOVED UP MOVED DOWN
24
Kathryn McLay
President and CEO,
Sam’s Club, 47,
Walmart
31
McLay has turned Sam’s
into one of the retail win-
ners of the pandemic,
with revenue climbing
9% to $64 billion and op-
erating income up 16% in
its last fiscal year. Mem-
bership at Walmart’s
warehouse club division
has grown at a record
pace, too, hitting an all-
time high. The Aussie
has rolled out new ways
to shop: In July, Sam’s pi-
loted a service that lets
customers place direct-
to-home orders while
perusing the aisles.
28
Shari Redstone
Chair, 67, ViacomCBS
21
The post-merger con-
solidation at ViacomCBS
continues, complete
with management
shakeups and division
reorgs. Redstone is
leading the transforma-
tion, which includes go-
ing all in on streaming
service Paramount+,
which launched in
March. But it’s a
crowded space, and too
early to tell whether the
new offering will suc-
ceed. In the meantime,
pressure is mounting,
and revenue is falling.
25
Beth Ford
President and CEO, 57,
Land O’Lakes
28
Ford led the century-old
farmer-owned coopera-
tive to a record year in
2020, with profits up
29% as consumers
stocked up for home
cooking. The Iowa native
has led the push for
high-speed Internet ac-
cess in rural communi-
ties and is making
strides on the sustain-
ability front: In February,
Microsoft committed to
pay $20 per ton of car-
bon that Land O’Lakes
farmers sequester in
the soil.
29
Revathi
Advaithi
CEO, 54, Flex
36
Flex snuck back onto
the Global 500 in 2021
at No. 499, with Advaithi
again becoming one of
the few women of color
to run a Global 500 busi-
ness. Almost three years
into the job, she is guid-
ing the $24 billion manu-
facturing giant through
the supply-chain chal-
lenges of 2021 with tools
such as virtual factory
floor walk-throughs. The
producer of necessities
like masks is among the
largest independent
producers of ventilators.
26
Lynn Good
Chairman, President,
31
and CEO, 62,
Duke Energy
Lisa Su
President and CEO, 51,
23 AMD
Duke’s stock has out- 32
performed the overall
utilities sector over the
past year, and the com- Su has proved
pany continues to ramp AMD’s naysay-
T O P, F R O M L E F T: A N D R E W H A R N I K— A P I M A G E S ; C O U R T E S Y O F S A M ’ S C L U B ; J E S S I C A C H O U ; C O U R T E S Y O F D U K E E N E R G Y. S E C O N D R O W, F R O M L E F T: J C O L I V E R A — G E T T Y I M A G E S ;
up its clean energy pro- ers wrong. The
duction. But critics have semiconductor
disapproved of aspects
chief has shown
of its handling of the
pandemic, including dis-
the world that AMD
connecting the power of is still an industry
some unable to pay their leader, with its
bills. Duke says the graphics chips
charges are “without any powering the latest
merit,” adding that it video game con-
M A R T I N A A L B E R TA Z Z I — B L O O M B E R G / G E T T Y I M A G E S ; J E S S I C A C H O U ; PAT R I C K T. FA L L O N — B L O O M B E R G / G E T T Y I M A G E S . S U : C O U R T E S Y O F A M D
waived fees and offered soles from Sony
payment plans for strug- and Microsoft.
gling customers.
Although AMD,
like its rivals, has
been impacted by
the chip short-
30 age, its business
hasn’t flagged.
Sales are up 96%
over the past 12
months, and the
Leanne Caret company’s share
President and CEO of price climbed 79%
Defense, Space, and during the same
Security, 54, Boeing period as investors
continue to cheer
Su and her success
25 in turning the chip-
maker around.
Boeing’s defense busi-
ness has been overshad-
owed by the scandals
surrounding the compa-
ny’s aircraft division. But
the $34 billion in reve-
nue unit led by Caret has
remained a fierce com-
petitor to Lockheed
and Northrop, in part
through aggressive
pricing on contracts.
Caret achieved a major
milestone for autono-
mous flight in 2021 when
Boeing debuted the first
unmanned aircraft to
refuel another aircraft.
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 73

32
Apple pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030, which
Lisa means reducing 75% of emissions generated from its prod-
Jackson ucts and supply chain within the next decade. While critics
still contend Apple’s products directly result in environmental
VP of Environment, Policy, damage, under Jackson’s leadership the tech giant reported a
and Social Initiatives, 59,
10% drop in its carbon footprint from 2019 to the end of 2020.
Apple
Jackson took charge of a new $200 million Restore Fund in
Jennifer April, which aims to invest in forestry projects that remove at
least 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, while
Taubert 2020 RANK 35 earning a profit for investors. She also helped drive Apple’s
EVP and Worldwide ability to ship all newly released iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch-
Chairman, es, and MacBooks with 90% fiber packaging in fiscal year
Pharmaceuticals, 58,
Johnson & Johnson
2020 in an effort to close in on the company’s commitment
to eliminate all plastics from product packaging by 2025. As
part of Apple’s social impact initiatives, Jackson helped the
company create the Atlanta-based Propel Center, a first-of-
34

In a year of
shakeup in the J&J
33 its-kind physical and virtual campus that will serve as a hub for
historically Black colleges and universities.

C-suite—Joaquin
Duato will take
over from longtime
chief Alex Gorsky in
January—Taubert
has been a beacon
of stability (and a
focus of specula-
tion about future
CEO contenders).
As head of J&J’s
pharma unit, she
oversaw more than
half of the com-
pany’s $82.6 billion
in 2020 revenue.
She’s also been
leading the charge
on J&J’s COVID
vaccine, which,
though it stumbled
early on over safety
concerns, is now
expected to bring
in approximately
$2.5 billion in 2021
revenue. Taubert’s
division has also
been buoyed by
efforts to grow the
company’s footprint
in non-COVID treat-
ment spaces.
COURTESY OF J& J
KEY NO CHANGE MOVED UP MOVED DOWN

34 35 36 37

Penny
Pennington
Managing Partner, 57,
Edward Jones
33
As corporate America
turned introspective
over its lack of diversity,
Edward Jones, too,
looked inward. Under
Sonia Syngal
CEO, 51, Gap Inc.
Bela Bajaria
Head of Global TV,
50, Netflix
38 43
Syngal has been tweak- Since Bajaria joined
ing the iconic retailer, Netflix in 2016, her star
shrinking the struggling has risen—and so has
Gap and Banana Repub- Netflix’s impact across
lic chains and strength- the globe. The streamer
Kelly Grier
U.S. Chair and Managing
42
Partner and Americas
Managing Partner, 52,
EY Barbara
39 Whye
VP of Inclusion and
Diversity, 54, Apple
On Grier’s watch, reve-
nue at EY’s largest geo-
graphic unit climbed
17% to $20.2 billion in its 2020 RANK 40
fiscal 2021. Inside the

Pennington, one of the
largest U.S. brokerage
firms by headcount said
it planned to nearly dou-
ble its ranks of advisers
of color to 15% by 2025,
and increase the per-
centage who are women
from 21% to 30%. A tur-
T O P, F R O M L E F T: C O U R T E S Y O F E D WA R D J O N E S ; C AY C E C L I F F O R D ; R O D I N E C K E N R O T H — G E T T Y I M A G E S ; C O U R T E S Y O F E Y. S E C O N D R O W, F R O M L E F T: R I C H A R D D R E W — A P I M A G E S ;
ening the booming Old has now produced con- professional services
Navy and Athleta brands, tent in 40 countries and firm, Grier has contin-
whose sales last quarter offers subtitles in 37 lan- ued her focus on em-
Whye made a name
were, respectively, 21% guages. Even with this ployee well-being, roll- for herself as Intel’s
and 35% above pre- international expansion, ing out programs to help head of diversity
pandemic levels. She’s Netflix’s growth has workers cope with the and inclusion before
also ensuring the retailer slowed in recent pandemic. EY has upped getting poached by
evolves with the times: months—though the the number of free Apple earlier this
Old Navy recently said it company is still riding counseling sessions, year. She has a big

bocharged equity mar-
ket drove revenue up 7%
in 2020, and profits rose
$18% to $1.3 billion.
38
Michele Buck
Chairman, President,
and CEO, 60, Hershey
41
Since the start of the
pandemic, Buck has led
Hershey to its strongest
period of sales growth in
almost a decade with
profits up 11% and e-
commerce sales more
than doubling during the
company’s fiscal 2020.
Buck is tapping into the
health and wellness
boom, acquiring natural
and low-sugar chocolate
brand Lily’s in June, in-
vesting in R&D for sugar-
reduction technology,
and testing plant-based
products with retailers.
would sell more clothes high from its lockdown-
in larger sizes and stock fueled 2020, when “paid
plus-size merch through- net membership addi-
out its stores. tions” shot up 31%.
39 40
Mary Mack Mellody Hobson
Senior EVP, CEO of Co-CEO and
Consumer and Small- President, 52,
Business Banking, Ariel Investments
58, Wells Fargo
37 45
The eternally troubled A longtime advocate for
Wells Fargo has yet to closing the racial wealth
find its footing. In 2020, gap, Hobson is a key
the bank saw revenues leader and adviser of
decline 15%, while sales choice on race issues
for Mack’s business took at some of the For-
a 10% hit. One bright tune 500’s largest com-
spot: Under her supervi- panies. On the board of
sion, Wells Fargo ended JPMorgan Chase and
up lending nearly Starbucks, Hobson in De-
$14 billion in Paycheck cember had her position
Protection Program at the latter company el-
loans through 2021, with evated to nonexecutive
42% going to businesses chair. In February, Hob-
in low- to moderate- son cofounded Project
income neighborhoods. Black, an initiative invest-
ing in Black- and Latinx-
owned companies.
doubled backup child-
and adult-care days, and
added summer and fall
leave programs.
41
Gwynne
Shotwell
President and COO, 57,
SpaceX
48
Elon Musk may be the
public face of SpaceX,
but it’s Shotwell who
calls the shots day-to-
day. SpaceX has become
the most accomplished
player in a growing
world of commercial
rocket ventures; the
startup has already
launched cargo pay-
loads and astronauts
for NASA. Its valuation,
too, has skyrocketed:
SpaceX was recently val-
ued at $74 billion, mak-
ing it one of the world’s
most prized “unicorns.”
C O U R T E S Y O F W E L L S FA R G O ; M O N I C A S C H I P P E R — G E T T Y I M A G E S F O R T O R Y B U R C H F O U N D AT I O N ; C O U R T E S Y O F N A S A . W H Y E : C O U R T E S Y O F I N T E L
job ahead of her: De-
spite some improve-
ments, Apple’s
technical workforce
remains 76% male,
and its leadership is
86% white or Asian.
She’s focused on
building inclusion
and diversity into
every system within
the tech giant—and
tracking it. Over
the past year, 43%
of open leader-
ship positions and
29% of R&D roles
have been filled by
candidates from
underrepresented
communities.
Whye led Apple’s
partnership with the
Thurgood Marshall
College Fund as
well as HBCUs and
Hispanic-serving
institutions, to cre-
ate 100 new student
scholarships.
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 75

44

Nasdaq has long had influence far beyond its size; the
Adena company’s technology powers 130 global markets, and
Friedman revenue was up 32% to $5.6 billion in 2020. But in 2021, the
stock exchange became an even more powerful player when Anne Chow
President and CEO, 52, it won Securities and Exchange Commission approval for a CEO, AT&T Business,
Nasdaq
groundbreaking board diversity proposal. Championed by 55, AT&T
Friedman, a career Nasdaq exec who became CEO in 2017,
the new rules requiring gender and racial diversity board
NEW diversity at listed companies (with some allowances) have
the potential to reshape the last all-male, all-white board 44
holdouts of corporate America and beyond.
Chow is the first woman
of color to serve as a
CEO at AT&T, overseeing
its $35 billion unit that
works with businesses.

43 This year her division

committed to helping
Microsoft, Texas A&M,
and other organizations
cut one gigaton of
greenhouse emissions
by 2035. AT&T is also ad-
dressing the digital di-
vide, partnering with
OneWeb to launch satel-
lites to make its business
fiber network available
to more rural workers.

45

Heidi O’Neill
President of Consumer
and Marketplace, 56,
Nike

NEW

Nike has continued jog-

ging along through the
pandemic, with revenue
up 19% in its most recent
fiscal year, as it bol-
stered its own network
of stores, delivered top-
C O U R T E S Y O F AT &T; C O U R T E S Y O F N I K E

of-the-line e-commerce,
and pleased customers
with its popular apps.
O’Neill is pushing the
brand forward on sus-
tainability, challenging
the company to recycle,
refurbish, or donate
used or defective prod-
ucts and using wind to
power its Paris flagship.
KEY NO CHANGE MOVED UP MOVED DOWN

46 47

Tami Erwin Jennifer Salke

EVP and CEO of Verizon Head of Amazon
Business, 57, Verizon Studios,
57, Amazon

46 NEW

Erwin runs a $31 billion Everything is bigger at

unit and is overseeing Amazon, and Salke’s do-
the expansion of Veri- main is no exception:
zon’s private 5G platform She’s reportedly working
in Europe and Asia Pa- with a whopping $8 bil-
cific. Verizon Business lion content budget.

F R O M L E F T, T O P : C O U R T E S Y O F V E R I Z O N ; R I C H F U R Y— G E T T Y I M A G E S . F R O M L E F T: S E C O N D R O W : B U S I N E S S W I R E ; C I N D Y O R D — G E T T Y I M A G E S F O R G I R L B O S S R A L LY N Y C 2 0 1 8
bought BlueJeans in Salke green-lit 56 local
2020, and this year used originals in 11 countries
the videoconferencing in 2020, up from 26 the
technology to launch a year before, with plans
telehealth platform for for more than 100 origi-
clients. Erwin also co-led nals this year. Over
the launch of a mentor- 175 million Prime mem-
ship and training pro- bers have streamed
gram to help women Amazon content in the
navigate the pandemic past 12 months, with
economy. streaming hours up more
than 70% year over year.

48 49

Kathryn Farmer Stephanie Cohen Shar

50 Dubey
President and CEO, 51, Global Cohead of
BNSF Railway Consumer and
Wealth Management,44, CEO, 51, Match Group
Goldman Sachs
NEW
42 NEW

Farmer, in her first full In January Cohen be-

year as CEO of BNSF, is came the sole woman Shares of the Match Group are up more than 50% since the company
the first woman to run a leading a major revenue separated from IAC in July of last year—and recently got an extra boost
major U.S. railroad and a division of the storied from the news that the company would join the S&P 500 in September.
key voice in Warren Buf- Wall Street bank, co- The Tinder parent has continued to grow throughout the pandemic: In
fett’s Berkshire Hatha- leading Goldman’s
the first half of 2021, revenue surged 25% over the previous year. And
way universe. The growing consumer and
23,000-mile railroad—a wealth management Dubey got the country’s attention when she became one of the only
critical connector for business. That includes public company CEOs to take a stand in opposition to a regressive
the North American the consumer bank Mar- abortion law passed by Texas, Match’s home state. Dubey is personally
economy—experienced cus, which has 8-million- creating a fund that will provide aid to any Match employee who needs
a 7% decline in volume plus users. Cohen, who to seek abortion care outside state lines. Also notable: The company’s
of goods carried in 2020 is in charge of over board is approaching gender parity, with women holding 45% of seats.
amid COVID-19. But the $1 trillion in client as-
overall business stayed sets, is the youngest
steady, with $21 billion member of the manage-
in annual revenue and ment committee, Gold-
growing profit margins. man’s highest echelon.
 We’re a staffing company
dedicated to connecting people
with opportunities.
 CONTENT FROM SUSE
Melissa Di Donato
CEO, SUSE
THE OPEN-SOURCE
ADVANTAGE
Leveraging the power of open-source
technology can help businesses tackle
today’s most pressing challenges.
IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2021, TECHNOLOGY
jumped forward 10 years, according to researchers
at McKinsey, putting pressure on enterprises to
accelerate the pace at which they evolve. To keep
up, 99% of Fortune 500 companies and eight out of
10 information technology (IT) departments are
now embracing open-source software solutions,
according to Boston Consulting Group.
These solutions promote collaboration and
innovation at scale by making application source
code freely available for distribution and modification,
giving organizations greater speed and flexibility. As
the foundation behind many of today’s most inspired
high-tech efforts, they also serve as rocket fuel for
innovation by allowing contributors to add their best
ideas and solutions from anywhere.
“Open source provides a rich environment for
sharing, learning, and solving problems together,”
says Melissa Di Donato, CEO of SUSE, a global
independent leader in open-source software,
specializing in enterprise Linux, Kubernetes
management, and edge solutions. “It is critical for
solving the challenges modern organizations face.”
Open source’s value lies in collaboration and a
community-driven approach. The technology offers
freedom, choice, and flexibility for enterprises to mix
and match solutions to best fit their IT needs. It also
fosters transparency, which allows enterprises to
radically multiply the speed at which they can
innovate. “Open source accelerates adoption of core
and common infrastructure across industries,”
explains Mike Dolan, SVP and GM of Projects for the
Linux Foundation. “It’s the only way to stay competi-
tive in a digital business environment dominated by A.I.
and machine learning, among other technologies.”
“Collaboration lies at the heart of every suc-
cessful business strategy, particularly in the
technology sector, and this goes hand in hand with
openness,” seconds Di Donato. “Working in silos
presents ongoing challenges for businesses finan-
cially, and it ultimately hinders their ability to grow
and be adaptable as the world changes.”
True strength as a future-focused organization
lies in being able to leverage the power of many, she
adds. With more than 56 million contributors mak-
ing more than 1.9 billion open-source contributions
in 2020 alone, according to Boston Consulting
Group, the global open-source community consis-
tently offers access to the world’s brightest minds
and best ideas.
For example, Absa Bank, part of Global 2000, put
SUSE Rancher at the heart of its growth strategy
years ago and is now experimenting with Kubernetes
at the far network edge, connecting hundreds
of disparate communities with modern banking
experiences.
“The benefits of open source are truly limitless,”
says Di Donato. “If your priorities are to empower your
company to innovate faster, be more agile, and provide
more opportunities for your company to grow, then
this is the right channel for you to exceed those goals
and gain a competitive edge in your market.” Q
MOST 1 13 17

POWERFUL
WOMEN
1 8 15
INTERNATIONAL Emma Amanda Blanc Elizabeth
2021 Walmsley Group CEO, Aviva Gaines
CEO, GlaxoSmithKline U.K. CEO, Fortescue Metals
U.K. AUSTRALIA
IT’S BEEN a turbulent year
for women at the top of the
world’s largest businesses. 9
NEW
Whether navigating the 2 16
Helena
challenges of the ongoing Jessica Tan Helmersson Bianca Tetteroo
global pandemic, activist pressure
Co-CEO and Executive CEO, H&M Group Chair of Executive
campaigns, regulatory crackdowns, or Director, Ping An SWEDEN Board, Achmea
the many other urgent forces reshap- CHINA NETHERLANDS
ing the economy today, the leaders
who appear on Fortune’s Most Power-
10
ful Women International list this year 3 17
are very much in the thick of it. Martina Merz
And that’s a good thing. As we Ana Botín CEO, Thyssenkrupp Nicke
chronicle every year on this list, which Executive Chairman, GERMANY Widyawati
focuses on women business leaders Banco Santander President Director and
based outside the U.S., more and more SPAIN CEO, Pertamina
of them are leading the world’s most 11 INDONESIA
important and influential corporations
(not to mention, founding some of its 4 Isabel Ge Mahe
NEW
most successful and groundbreaking Vice President and 18
startups). With that comes enormous Shemara Managing Director,
responsibility and challenge, but also Wikramanayake Greater China, Apple Anna Borg

F R O M L E F T: K E V I N D I E T S C H — P O O L /A B A C A / R E U T E R S ; C O U R T E S Y O F A L I B A B A ; C O U R T E S Y O F P E R TA M I N A
the power to make massive and mean- CEO and Managing CHINA CEO and President,
ingful change in a world aching for it. Director, Macquarie Vattenfall SWEDEN
This year, GlaxoSmithKline CEO Group AUSTRALIA
Emma Walmsley and Ping An co-CEO 12
Jessica Tan return to the top spots. 19
They’ve both been tested recently: 5 Alison Rose
Walmsley faces an especially aggres- CEO, NatWest Group Michelle
sive activist; Tan the newly heightened
Catherine U.K. Scrimgeour
scrutiny of the Chinese government. MacGregor CEO, Legal &
But both continue to drive forward CEO, Engie General Investment
their organizations in uncertain times. FRANCE 13 Management U.K.
And like others on this list, they realize Maggie Wu
their leadership extends beyond bal- CFO, Alibaba
ance sheets and that when it comes to 6 20
CHINA
some of our most pressing global prob-
lems—whether it be climate change
Belén Garijo Wang Fengying
CEO and Chair of Executive Vice
or corrosive social inequalities—busi- 14
Executive Board, Chairman and General
ness decisions can make a difference. Merck KGaA GERMANY Manager, Great Wall
Read more about these leaders on Dominique Motor CHINA
Fortune.com. Senequier
7 President and Founder,
REPORTING BY
Ardian 21
Dong Mingzhu FRANCE
Maria Aspan, Katherine Dunn, Chairwoman and Joey Wat
Erika Fry, Yvonne Lau, Sophie Mellor, President, Gree Electric CEO, Yum China
and Claire Zillman Appliances CHINA CHINA
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 81

22 33 36 42 46

NEW NEW
22 28 35 41 46
Marie-France Sharon White Natascha Helen Wong Mpumi Madisa
Tschudin Chair, John Lewis Viljoen Group CEO, OCBC Group CEO, Bidvest
President, Partnership CEO, Anglo American SINGAPORE SOUTH AFRICA
Pharmaceuticals, U.K. Platinum
Novartis SOUTH AFRICA
NEW
SWITZERLAND
NEW
42 47
29
36
NEW Phuthi Julie Linn
23 Xiaojing Mahanyele- Teigland
Christina Zhu Barbara Dabengwa CEO, Europe, Middle
Hanneke Faber
F R O M L E F T: C O U R T E S Y O F N O VA R T I S ; C O U R T E S Y O F M O R G A N S TA N L E Y; P I E R R E - O L I V I E R / C A PA P I C T U R E S / L’ O R É A L ; C O U R T E S Y O F N A S P E R S ; C O U R T E S Y O F B I D V E S T

CEO and President, Lavernos CEO, South Africa, East, India, and Africa,
President, Foods and Walmart China CHINA Deputy CEO, L’Oréal Naspers SOUTH AFRICA EY
Refreshment, Unilever FRANCE GERMANY
NETHERLANDS

30 NEW
43
37 48
24 Han Sophie Brochu
Seong-Sook R. Alexandra CEO and President, Kelly Zhang
Hilde Merete CEO and President, (Alex) Keith Hydro-Québec CEO, China, ByteDance
Aasheim Naver CEO, Beauty, CANADA CHINA
CEO and President, SOUTH KOREA Procter & Gamble
Norsk Hydro SWITZERLAND
NORWAY NEW
44 49
31
Carina Cristina
38
25 Anne Rigail Akerstrom Junqueira
Helle
CEO, Air France, Ilham Kadri Group CEO and Cofounder,
Air France–KLM CEO and Chairwoman of President, Svenska Nubank
Østergaard FRANCE Executive Committee, Handelsbanken BRAZIL
Kristiansen Solvay SWEDEN
CEO, Danske BELGIUM
NEW
Commodities 32 50
DENMARK NEW
45
Jessica Uhl 39 Hanzade Doğan
CFO, Royal Dutch Shell Melanie Perkins Boyner
26
NEW NETHERLANDS Maki Akaida Cofounder and CEO, Founder and
CEO, Uniqlo Japan, Canva Chairwoman,
Vibha Padalkar Fast Retailing JAPAN AUSTRALIA Hepsiburada
CEO and Managing 33 TURKEY
Director, HDFC Life
INDIA Wei Sun 40
Christianson
Co-CEO, Asia-Pacific, Laura Cha The women on
27 and CEO, China,
Morgan Stanley
Chairman, Hong
Kong Exchanges and this year’s MPWI
Allison Kirkby
CEO and President,
CHINA Clearing HONG KONG
list hail from 21
Telia
SWEDEN 34 countries. Twelve
Anne Richards of the leaders are
CEO, Fidelity
International U.K. new to the list.
 CONTENT FROM NORTHROP GRUMMAN
Northrop Grumman’s
“inclusive innovation”
approach is key to
its success.
HELPING THE CAREERS
OF WOMEN IN STEM
TAKE FLIGHT
How Northrop Grumman built a culture that
embraces diversity and fuels innovation.
WHILE THE PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN WORKING
in science, technology, engineering, and math
(STEM) has nearly quadrupled over the past 50
years, they still comprise only 27% of employees
in the field, according to the U.S. Census. In the
aerospace and defense industry, there is a similar
disparity.
With this in mind, leaders at technology
company Northrop Grumman have prioritized
creating a workplace that supports and retains
women through employee training and devel-
opment, mentorships, resource groups, and a
commitment to pay equity. That support starts
at the top with CEO Kathy Warden, one of the few
female CEOs in the Fortune 500 and the first to
hold the position at Northrop Grumman, which
has 90,000 employees across 550 facilities that
span all 50 U.S. states and 25 countries around
the world.
“From our CEO on down, we are committed
to developing leaders that both embrace and
model inclusion,” says Nikki Kodama, a program
director who has worked at Northrop Grumman
for nearly 20 years. “I see the investments in
these programs as a focus not only on technol-
ogy and leadership but also on the culture of
the company.”
Among the female-focused initiatives at the
company are its WiSE (Women in Science and
Engineering) programs, aimed at helping women
in technical roles develop into leaders. Program
participants continue to expand on their techni-
cal knowledge base while also receiving access
to networking and skill building. Additionally, the
WEconnect program increases engagement and
retention among early-career female engineers
by establishing a sense of community and helping
them navigate a career in STEM. The company
also hosts an annual summit for its Women’s
International Network, an employee resource
group with more than 6,700 members.
Northrop Grumman’s pioneering technology
is, in part, a result of the varied backgrounds and
perspectives of its workforce, says Kodama. She
credits diversity with fueling the company’s spirit
of “inclusive innovation” and helping it solve the
toughest problems for its customers in national
security and human discovery.
“Inclusive innovation is about harnessing
the diversity within a team to see a problem in
a different light and coming up with a new and
novel way of solving it,” she explains. “That’s
something Northrop Grumman is known for.”
That innovation drives Northrop Grumman’s
achievements, from the construction of NASA’s
James Webb Space Telescope to developing and
manufacturing numerous first-of-their-kind
autonomous aircrafts.
“We want to create an environment where
people aren’t just finding a job with this company,
but finding a career,” Kodama says. “We want
to help our employees grow and see that their
contribution is making a real impact.” ■

Shopping
Outside
the Aisle
Instacart is betting
that its new CEO,
Fidji Simo, a former
Facebook executive
and retail newcomer,
can push its business
beyond grocery
delivery and toward
an IPO. The native of
France is used to
big-time pressure—
and feeling a bit out
of place.
By Maria
Aspan
PHOTOGRAPH BY KELSEY MCCLELLAN
WHEN SILICON VALLEY
went into lockdown in
March 2020, some tech
executives got pandemic
pets or expanded their Hawaiian
estates. Fidji Simo went looking for a
piece of home.
She found it in a $5 million
gated villa in Carmel Valley, Calif.,
complete with landscaped greens
and moss-covered roofs that seem
magicked over, wholesale, from
her native South of France. It’s a
90-minute drive south of the Menlo
Park headquarters of Facebook,
where Simo was a senior executive
until July, and even farther from
downtown San Francisco, home to
grocery-delivery startup Instacart,
where she’s the new CEO. But there’s
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 85
a certain brand awareness to this
pandemic splurge and its extensive
gardens. Simo walks visitors past
blackberry bushes, apple trees, and
even a plot of carrots, the vegetable
featured in her new company’s logo.
Simo—glamorously goth in a purple
and red dress, long black hair, and
elaborate eyeliner—laughs as she
waves at the patch: “They’re very ap-
propriate for Instacart, no?”
The business those vegetables
represent—Instacart’s fresh, fast
grocery delivery—is why Simo left
Facebook after a decade for a bigger
role at a smaller company. Insta-
cart, a third-party delivery service
that sends shoppers to buy grocer-
ies other people order, saw sales
volume quadruple and revenue hit
CHANGE IN GROCERY DELIVERY Facebook’s flagship app was named
SALES SINCE JANUARY 2018 Instacart’s CEO in July, replacing
1,000% founder Apoorva Mehta. At the same
time, Mehta was quietly pitching
INSTACART DoorDash on buying his company.
The gambit failed, and when it be-
came public knowledge, it called the
800 company’s prospects into question.
Meanwhile, consumers were shaking
705% off their pandemic anxiety and re-
turning to the grocery store, cooling
Instacart’s impressive growth streak.
600 Simo, once Facebook’s most
WALMART senior female product executive, has
GROCERIES
an ambitious strategy for getting the
company back on track. At its heart
An Instacart shopper
is a plan to expand Instacart’s busi- fills a grocery order
400
ness model, layering a Facebook-like at a Harris Teeter in
social and ad platform over the com- Washington, D.C., on
pany’s core grocery delivery service, April 6, 2020.
and creating new tech products for
SHIPT
retailers and other partners.
200
Now she just needs to build her
vision—and convince stakeholders
ranging from partner grocers to skep-
tical would-be investors that this is 8.5% of all venture-backed compa-
FRESHDIRECT
0
the path to a thriving post-pandemic nies that filed for IPOs between 2016
business. and 2020, according to PitchBook.
Instacart and its competitors “of- “We hate losing great leaders—but
fer a really high-cost solution—and seeing her go on to be CEO? That’s
PEAPOD
it’s not even proven that there’s pretty awesome,” says Facebook chief
-200 massive demand for it in the U.S., operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.
other than in the middle of a global Simo wears her outsider status
JAN. 2018 MARCH 2020 AUG. 2021 health crisis,” says Sucharita Kodali, proudly—and she’s used to wielding
NOTE: AMAZON IS NOT INCLUDED BECAUSE IT DOESN’T BREAK OUT an e-commerce analyst for Forrester. it to her advantage. Now Instacart’s
GROCERY TRANSACTIONS SOURCE: BLOOMBERG SECOND MEASURE
“These companies all think that board members, at least, are betting
they’re going to be the next Amazon. that she can do so again.
But really, they’re all positioned to be “She’s got a really strong under-
$1.5 billion in 2020 as COVID-19 the next Groupon.” standing of product innovation, a
made in-person shopping a safety Simo, 35, is not an obvious pick very disciplined business acumen,
hazard. Venture capital investors to lead the company through the and people want to work for her,”
including Andreessen Horowitz and fraught months ahead. To begin says Daniel Sundheim, an Instacart
Sequoia Capital have poured more with, she doesn’t have the retail board member and founder of hedge
than $2.8 billion into the company, background one might expect from fund D1 Capital Partners. “I deal
privately valuing it at $39 billion and the head of what is, essentially, an with plenty of CEOs—and I think
turning it into the third most valu- e-commerce business. she has the potential to be one of the
able U.S. startup, according to She’s also not Silicon Valley’s best CEOs of our generation.”
PitchBook. Now the company is default gender. In fact, Simo appears
preparing for an IPO. to be one of the few female CEOs MAYBE A GIRL from a
But despite the buzz and eye- whom the most powerful venture French fishing harbor
popping valuation, Instacart has had investors seem to trust to replace a who grew up dreaming
a messy 2021. Simo’s tenure got off male founder, and to take a unicorn of California was always
to a chaotic start: The former head of startup public. Women ran only destined to be slightly out of place.

The daughter of a fisherman and a
clothing-boutique owner, Simo was
born in the Mediterranean coastal
town of Sète, near Montpellier. She
met her now-husband, Remy Mi-
ralles, on her first day of high school.
The couple began dating two years
later. As Simo became the first in her
family to graduate high school and
attend college, Miralles followed her:
first to Paris, where Simo attended
the elite HEC business school, then
to California, where she attended
UCLA for her final year of busi-
ness school, and eventually to eBay,
before Simo joined Facebook.
E V E LY N H O C K S T E I N — WA S H I N G T O N P O S T/ G E T T Y I M A G E S
Now Miralles is a stay-at-home
father to their 6-year-old daughter,
Willow. And Simo credits his sup-
port with helping her break into the
male-dominated technical ranks of
Facebook, where only 24.8% of tech
employees are female. Simo started
at the company as a marketer in
2011 but soon wanted to move into
a product management role. At the
time, Facebook usually expected
product managers to have a com-
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 87
puter science degree, 82% of which
are earned by men. But Simo wrote
product requirement documents to
prove that she could “learn wicked
fast,” says Asha Sharma, a former
Facebook vice president of product,
who’s now Instacart’s chief operat-
ing officer.
The next hurdle came after she
started the job and ran headlong into
less official product mandates: ditch
her high heels and fit into tech-bro
hoodie drag. One senior product
manager pulled Simo aside with a
warning: “Engineers are not going
to react well to you,” he told her. “Tie
up your hair, remove your makeup—
that’s the way you’re going to fit in.”
She came to work the next day in
jeans and a bare face. “I felt hor-
rible inside of my own skin—and
I realized I wouldn’t be able to do
the job if I’m not me,” she says. “So
I’m sorry, but the heels and makeup
were going to come back.” Eventually
Simo even bent the monoculture to
embrace her style: Facebook’s annual
internal product-manager awards
Supermarket
Sweepstakes
With a valuation of $39 billion and
$1.5 billion in 2020 revenue, Insta-
cart is competing in an increasingly
crowded grocery-delivery field.
AMAZON $1.7  T. MARKET CAP
The original everything store
got big into groceries—and stole
Instacart’s then-major partner—
when it bought Whole Foods in
2017.
WALMART $399.2  B. MARKET CAP
The retail giant has its own de-
livery service, but it also partners
with third-party providers includ-
ing Instacart, which in August
announced a deal to deliver
Walmart groceries to parts of
New York City.
UBER $87.9  B. MARKET CAP
The ride-share company intro-
duced grocery-delivery ser-
vices in July 2020. This summer it
landed a deal to deliver for 1,200
Albertsons grocery stores.
DOORDASH $74.5  B. MARKET CAP
In Q2 of 2021, the onetime res-
taurant takeout specialist spent
more than $1.3 billion, which
included the costs of its grocery-
expansion efforts.
GOPUFF $15  B. PRIVATE VALUATION
The delivery startup backed
by SoftBank, Blackstone, and
Fidelity Management focuses on
speed by operating and stocking
mini-warehouses in 1,000 cities.
SHIPT $550  M. SALE PRICE (2017)
The Target-owned service oper-
ates as an independent subsid-
iary and also provides same-day
delivery for customers of CVS,
Costco, H-E-B, and other food and
convenience retailers.
ceremony turned into “Dress Like
Fidji Day”; formal attire optional.
It helped that Simo was mak-
ing Facebook money by leading the
product team in charge of building
a mobile ads platform. She also had
powerful internal sponsors, includ-
ing WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart
and, eventually, founder and CEO
Mark Zuckerberg, who both helped
Simo develop her internal voice and
her reputation for delivering blunt
criticism—sometimes to Facebook’s
most senior executives. During a
big day of sales meetings with some
of Facebook’s largest advertising
clients, her bosses started goofing
off, passing notes and ignoring the
clients. So Simo, then a junior prod-
uct manager, pulled aside Andrew
“Boz” Bosworth—Zuckerberg’s close
deputy—and told him to knock
the hijinks off. “He did not take it
the best way in the moment,” Simo
recalls, though Bosworth, soon to be
Facebook’s chief technology officer,
now jokes about the incident.
Simo also stood out at Facebook
for reasons beyond her control. At
times, she was working through acute
physical pain. As a teen, she devel-
oped symptoms of endometriosis, the
painful gynecological tissue disorder
that affects about 10% of U.S. women
and that often complicates their ef-
forts to have children. As she took on
greater responsibility at Facebook,
Simo endured a miscarriage and then
a difficult pregnancy with Willow,
Women’s health is
such a taboo. But if
I don’t talk about it,
with all the privilege
I have, then no one’s
going to talk about it.”
Fidji Simo
Instacart CEO
which required five months of bed
rest. After giving birth, a surgery to
treat her endometriosis triggered
a blood-circulation disorder called
POTS, or postural orthostatic tachy-
cardia syndrome, which also made it
hard for her to stand up.
With her health problems impos-
sible to hide—and, she says, against
her gut instinct to stay quiet about
common reproductive-health
problems in a male-dominated
workplace—Simo started speaking
publicly about them. She told her
colleagues why she had to take video
meetings from her bed; she wrote
external blog posts and gave inter-
views about her miscarriage, her
fraught pregnancy, and coping with
POTS. Doing so made her into a
better manager, Simo says, because
her candor encouraged her employ-
ees to open up. “Women’s health
is such a taboo,” she says. “But if
I don’t talk about it, with all the
privilege I have, then no one’s going
to talk about it.” (She’s doing more
than talking: Simo has cofounded a
new women’s health clinic, The Me-
trodora Institute, which is expected
to open next summer.)
Health problems didn’t derail
Simo’s ascent at Facebook, where
she became increasingly respon-
sible for helping the company make
money on mobile ads and embrace
video products. In 2020, the com-
pany posted $84 billion in revenue
from its ads business. Simo helped
figure out how to build ads into
Facebook’s news feed, and she had
a knack for spotting—and nurtur-
ing—opportunities to enhance user
engagement. During the summer
of 2014, millions of people par-
ticipated in the ALS “Ice Bucket
Challenge” by recording videos of
themselves dumping buckets of ice
on their heads and uploading them
to Facebook. Simo, whose team was
working on text-based products for
celebrities to interact with fans, saw
a seed of something stickier in the
clips and turned her efforts toward
video. A year later, she oversaw the
resulting launch of Facebook Live,
which lets users broadcast them-
selves on Facebook in real time and
which has now reached more than
10 billion broadcasts.
To get products off the ground at
Facebook, “it’s very important that
someone is that voice that fights for
something, so that it actually sees
the light of day,” says Deborah Liu,
CEO of Ancestry.com and the for-
mer head of Facebook Marketplace.
“She really puts herself out there.”
And during her tenure, Simo
worked to make it easier for other
women to follow her, including by
cofounding the Women in Product
nonprofit with Liu.
Simo also championed less suc-
cessful products, including Face-
book Watch, a struggling bid to
compete with YouTube and other
video-streaming services, and Face-
book’s campaign to woo publish-
ers and media companies onto its
video platform. But Facebook vastly
overestimated user viewership for
video, the company acknowledged
in 2016—to the detriment of many
news organizations that had over-
hauled their newsrooms to produce
more videos. In 2019 the company
agreed to pay $40 million to settle
an advertiser class-action lawsuit
over those inaccurate metrics. The
project’s storytelling “thesis” was
right, Simo says, but it lacked “the
monetization tools that would sup-
port this new media.”
A bigger problem for Simo was
Facebook’s mounting track record
of widely reported scandals and
congressional hearings about how
the company enables the spread
of misinformation online; how it
handles users’ privacy; and whether
it effectively polices how authoritar-
ian governments, violent extremists,
and other bad actors use its plat-
forms—including its app and live
videos. Once she became head of

433%
PA N D E M I C P O P Instacart’s revenues ballooned early in the pandemic
as COVID-19 turned grocery shopping into a safety hazard. Grocery
delivery became a must-have service for those who could afford to pay
someone else to assume the risks. In April 2020 alone, Instacart’s sales
surged 433% from the year prior.
Facebook’s flagship app in 2019, re-
porting directly to Zuckerberg until
June 2020, Simo publicly defended
the company’s policies and process.
Today, when asked about her role
in the scandals, Simo calls Face-
book’s decisions—and their some-
times grotesque consequences—a
result of poor planning rather than
the willful ignorance shown in inter-
nal documents reported by the Wall
Street Journal in September.
“When you connect so many
people, there are going to be abuses,
and preventing that was just not a
core skill set,” Simo says. “We could
have done a better job predicting the
ways in which things could go wrong.”
FOR MUCH of Instacart’s
nine-year history, things
have gone right.
The company was
founded in 2012 by Mehta, a former
Amazon engineer who until July was
also its chief executive. It acts as a
middleman between grocery compa-
nies, which pay Instacart to provide
delivery and other services, and con-
sumers, who pay either a delivery fee
or a subscription for someone else to
shop for and drop off their eggs and
ice cream. The company partners
with more than 600 retailers, in-
cluding some of the country’s largest
grocers and convenience stores—
Kroger, Walmart, Albertsons, CVS—
and offers delivery from more than
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 89
55,000 stores. Instacart generally
charges a $3.99 fee per order, plus
a service fee and tips. The company
has more than 500,000 gig-economy
shoppers who earn a minimum of $7
to $10 per “batch” of groceries—up
to three separate orders—plus tips.
(After a public outcry in 2019, In-
stacart stopped sometimes counting
tips toward a shopper’s guaranteed
base pay.)
For much of its existence, Instacart
stood out in the crowded on-demand
startup economy for its focus on
groceries, rather than the restaurant
takeout business that DoorDash
and Uber Eats initially served. Then
came the first few months of the
pandemic, which turned grocery
delivery from a nice-to-have luxury
into a risk-mitigation necessity—at
least for people who could afford
to pay someone else to brave the
supermarket for them. Sales on
Instacart’s platform soared; in
April 2020 alone, they grew 433%
year over year, according to Bloom-
berg Second Measure. Only about
13% of Americans order groceries
online, up from 2% before the pan-
demic by some estimates, leaving
plenty of room for growth.
But in 2021, Americans aren’t
afraid of going to grocery stores
anymore. Instacart’s year-over-year
sales have fallen in four of the past
five months, although they ticked
up 3.9% in August, according to
Bloomberg Second Measure data.
Meanwhile, foot traffic to grocery
stores has increased year over year in
each of the past five months, accord-
ing to data analytics firm Earnest
Research. With average margins
of 2%, grocers can’t afford to pay
the high labor and transportation
costs of external delivery services.
And, some analysts argue, there
isn’t enough demand for grocery
delivery to persuade consumers to
pay more for it at scale. U.S. grocery
stores are already large enough,
abundant enough, and open late
enough to easily serve most consum-
ers. Meanwhile, DoorDash, Uber,
Target-owned Shipt, and SoftBank-
backed Gopuff are crowding into the
grocery-delivery market, while some
retailers are building up their own
delivery operations.
By the end of last year, with Insta-
cart’s pandemic sales spurt slowing,
Mehta started courting Simo to
bring her product and advertising
expertise to Instacart’s board. (He
had previously tried—and failed—to
hire her as the company’s head of
product.) She joined Instacart as
a director in January—kicking off
an unusual round of CEO musical
chairs. Mehta initially approached
Simo this spring about becoming his
co-CEO, according to a person fa-
miliar with the matter. At the same
time, the Instacart founder was in
talks with DoorDash about purchas-
ing Instacart, according to people
familiar with the discussions (and as
first reported by tech-news site The
Information).
Simo agreed to replace Mehta as
CEO in early June and took over
the deal negotiations that eventu-
ally fell apart. Neither DoorDash
nor Instacart will officially comment
on the sale talks: “We are very, very
excited about running an indepen-
dent company for the long run, and
we have no intention to merge,” Simo
told Fortune in mid-September.
And Mehta, who remains executive
chairman, says he chose to step aside
because he recognized that Simo
“will be way better as a leader…with
product, with people, and with dif-
ferent types of challenges.” But the
turbulent transfer of power sparked
speculation that Mehta was forced
to step down; few venture-backed
founders voluntarily relinquish the
CEO title ahead of an IPO.
The company is now preparing to
go public, insiders say, and is relying
on Simo’s management experi-
ence and tech expertise to expand
its scope and product lineup. The
new CEO pitches a lofty future for
Instacart as a larger middleman up
and down the food supply chain; a
Shopify/Amazon/Facebook hybrid
that will sell tech, ads, and data
services to enterprise customers
while speeding up its consumer-
facing delivery options. She’s eyeing
international markets, including her
native Europe, and she’s considering
ways to make Instacart more like a
social media platform where users
can follow celebrities (or each other)
and shop for items that an influencer
or friend recommends.
But most immediately, Simo is
focused on adding tech capabili-
ties and shoring up existing part-
nerships. Instacart this summer
enlisted robotics provider Fabric to
build automated warehouses so the
company can fulfill delivery orders
faster. It also signed deals to provide
It becomes really
difficult when you’re
not able to control
the entire revenue
pie. The fear is that
retailers will be left on
the wayside.”
SYLVAIN PERRIER
Mercatus CEO
more delivery services to customers
of Kroger and Walmart.
Simo has sketched out an ambi-
tious expansion of Instacart’s adver-
tising business, which the company
says is “growing at triple-digit rates.”
Instacart sells ads to consumer-
product companies that pay to be
“featured” at the top of a category
or search result. She hired longtime
friend and former colleague Carolyn
Everson, Facebook’s former global
ads chief, as Instacart’s president.
The pair say their expansion will bet-
ter serve retailers that don’t have in-
ternal ad data and tech capabilities.
“Everything we do is in partnership
with a retailer. We don’t compete
with them,” says Simo.
Some in the grocery industry still
worry that Instacart’s growing ads
business will cannibalize the ads
retailers themselves sell to consumer
packaged goods companies. For gro-
cers, “it becomes really difficult when
you’re not able to control the entire
revenue pie,” says Sylvain Perrier,
CEO of digital grocery platform
Mercatus, which competes with some
Instacart services. “The fear is that
retailers will be left on the way-
side.” He and his industry peers also
grumble that Instacart’s advertising
push plays to the strengths of Simo
and Everson, but highlights the lack
of senior retail experience on their
leadership team. Simo says, “As long
as you have the open-mindedness to
realize what you don’t know, and to
ask questions and ask for input, you
can ramp up pretty fast.”
But some Instacart shoppers,
essential workers who showed up
in person through the worst of the
pandemic, say she’s not addressing
their needs fast enough. On Sept. 20,
a group of Instacart shoppers called
for a customer boycott of the com-
pany over dwindling pay and worsen-
ing working conditions. The griev-
ances of the Gig Workers Collective,
which represents contract workers at
Instacart and other companies in the
sector, predate Simo, but the group
hasn’t seen “meaningful actions”
from her so far, says Willy Solis of
Texas, an Instacart shopper and a
lead organizer with the collective.
Even considering she is a newcomer,
Simo’s answers “toe the line of what
Instacart has been doing for years,”
Solis says.
Last year, Instacart backed
California’s successful Prop 22 ballot
referendum that lets tech compa-
nies classify workers as independent
contractors rather than employees
with full benefits. Under Simo, the
company has supported a similar
ballot proposal in Massachusetts.
In an interview, Simo would not
address the collective’s complaints
directly but says, “There’s still a lot of
progress to make” to improve the ex-
perience of Instacart’s contract work-
ers. “This is a top priority for me.”
The boycott demonstrated that to
many of Instacart’s constituents, Simo
is already an insider. It also marked
the end of a summer spent working
from her Carmel home, where she
hosted meetings with grocery-store
executives and, for three days in early
September, eight members of her
senior leadership team.
With Willow headed to kinder-
garten, Simo and her family left
their dreamy pandemic retreat for
their other home in Silicon Val-
ley. But even as she returns to a
more pre-COVID routine and the
epicenter of tech, Simo is trying to
hold on to that outsider perspec-
tive. “I’ve built a lot of things in my
life, but I haven’t built a $40 billion
company,” she says. “I’m approach-
ing everything with curiosity and
humility, because I don’t have all the
answers.”
Fidji Simo is one of the rising star execs on
Fortune’s 2021 40 Under 40. For the full list,
see fortune.com/40-under-40.
 CONTENT FROM BOSTON SCIENTIFIC
At Boston Scientific, inclusion
plays a part in everything from
designing medical devices to
conducting research.
CREATING BETTER
PATIENT OUTCOMES
WITH DIVERSE TEAMS
How Boston Scientific built a corporate
culture of diversity and equity that
encourages collaboration and innovation.
WHILE BUSINESSES IN RECENT YEARS HAVE MADE
diversity a cornerstone of corporate initiatives, the
inequities highlighted by the coronavirus pandemic,
combined with mounting urgency in the fight
against systemic racism, has spurred a cultural
reckoning that requires building a more equitable
and inclusive corporate culture from the top down.
The health care field is following suit, with
many in the industry working to increase diversity,
equity, and inclusion to provide better quality of
care for patients. Medical device manufacturer
Boston Scientific is committed not only to building
diversity within its own workforce of 38,000 em-
ployees but also to listening to its physician
customers around the world to understand their
needs and offer innovative medical solutions.
“We have a responsibility to both reflect and
serve our diverse customer base: nurses, surgeons,
health care providers, and, ultimately, patients
of every race, gender, ability, sexual orientation,
and ethnicity,” says Meghan Scanlon, president
of urology and pelvic health at Boston Scientific,
one of the company’s top-performing businesses.
“Different points of view are what make us power-
ful. These insights allow us to better innovate and
address the complex challenges clinicians and
patients are facing.”
Diverse perspectives help inform the way the
Massachusetts-based company designs physi-
cians’ tools, for instance, ensuring that the devices
are intuitive and easy to use for people with hands
of various sizes. Boston Scientific also deploys
research teams to observe procedures around the
world to continuously gain insights to improve its
products. In 2020, the company invested more than
$1 billion in research and development to fuel its
pipeline, and in 2019, nearly 5,000 patients partici-
pated in global clinical trials for the company.
To support a diverse workforce and foster collab-
oration and a sense of community, Boston Scientific
has significantly grown its global employee resource
groups. It also requires unconscious bias training
throughout the organization and works to recruit
and retain diverse candidates.
In an effort to create the change it wants to see,
Boston Scientific supports the rights of women, the
LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, and
other groups by partnering with leading advocacy
organizations as well as identifying and pursuing
concrete internal goals. For example, the company
aims for representation of women at the supervisor
and managerial level of at least 43%, and multicul-
tural talent of at least 23%, by the end of 2022—and
will continue to report on its progress.
Ultimately, companies that hold what Scanlon
calls “courageous conversations,” and are
champions of diversity, equity, and inclusion, will
become healthier, more productive workplaces—
while outperforming their competition. “Teams
do better when they are diverse,” says Scanlon.
“Unique perspectives help us transform the lives
of patients worldwide.” Q
When we challenge,
we advance.
*SWXIVMRKERMRGPYWMZIGYPXYVIYRPSGOW
RI[[E]WXSWSPZITVSFPIQW

.GCTPOQTGCVYYYDQUVQPUEKGPVKEEQOECTGGTU
Are Women
on a
Collision
Course With
the COVID
Ceiling?
We know working
women—particularly
those in low-wage
jobs or with young
kids—are in crisis.
But for those taking
the long view, there’s
an urgent question
on the horizon: Will
the pandemic also
infect the pipeline to
the top of corporate
America?
By Beth Kowitt
ILLUSTRATION BY JANELLE BARONE
WHEN FORMER PEPSICO
CEO Indra Nooyi joined
the beverage and snack gi-
ant in 1994, she had never
worked with a more senior woman or
even had a close female colleague at
her level. The 15 top jobs in the com-
pany were all held by white American
men in blue or gray suits. The bylaws
of corporate America had been writ-
ten for men by men. Nooyi would go
on to change some of those rules, but
to get to the top, first she had to learn
them. “If you don’t understand what
happens in the corridors of power
by interacting with men, you end up
falling further behind,” she says.
Those corridors, like the rest of
our lives, have moved online over the
past 18 months, making it even more
challenging for women to elbow
their way into the spaces that have
long shut them out. In a survey of
members of Fortune’s Most Power-
ful Women community—a group
that primarily consists of CEOs and
other C-suite executives—55% said
they did not think they could have
advanced to their current role if they
had spent significant stretches of
their career working remotely. In a
virtual world, how do you know that
no one clued you in on the important
Zoom that is happening right now?
When you’re physically present, you
can walk past the conference room or
peer into your boss’s office. “At least
then you know you weren’t invited,”

Nooyi says with a laugh.
No matter the industry or title
or level of seniority, the economic
disruption caused by COVID-19 will
leave a scar on working women in
ways that other downturns have not.
Blue-collar women lost their jobs
and have yet to fully regain them.
Working mothers whose livelihoods
were saved by telework dropped out
at higher rates than women with-
out children and men. Those who
remained did so at a cost. “Mothers
who stayed in the labor force had
great stress, anxiety, and frustration,”
says Claudia Goldin, a professor of
economics at Harvard. “They were
working under tremendous strain.”
It’s acutely wrenching that the
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 95
pandemic arrived just as women
were reaching new milestones in
the labor market. In January 2020
they made up more of the workforce
than men for the first time in over a
decade. At the very top of corporate
America, women were starting to
not just receive invitations to those
closed-door meetings but actually run
them. In June, when the most recent
Fortune 500 list was published, a
record 41 women led some of the big-
gest companies in the U.S. Let’s pause
to acknowledge this is still a depress-
ingly low number—but it is progress.
Ten years ago, there were only 12.
Given the urgency of the crisis
hitting women in other segments of
the working world, it’s understand-
able that there hasn’t yet been much
attention paid to the pandemic’s
potential impact on women in the
C-suite. But whether the ranks of
female CEOs will continue to grow
in a post-COVID future has implica-
tions far beyond the corner office.
Women are graduating from college
at significantly higher rates than men
and are starting to get closer to parity
in the most competitive MBA pro-
grams. But the ratio flips inside U.S.
corporations, and the discrepancy
grows the closer you get to the top.
A recent report from McKinsey and
LeanIn.org found that women face a
“broken rung” at the step up to man-
ager. Last year, 89 white women and
85 women of color were promoted to
Powerful Perspective manager for every 100 men. “Think
In September, Fortune surveyed 115 members of this as an economist, not a femi-
of our Most Powerful Women community nist,” says Nooyi. “This is our single
about the impact of the pandemic and the
forces that have shaped their careers. biggest opportunity, and somehow
we’re suboptimizing that.”
COULD YOU HAVE ADVANCED TO One way to address corporate
YOUR ROLE IF YOU’D SPENT
SIGNIFICANT TIME WORKING America’s self-defeating failure to
REMOTELY? empower women is to put people
54.9% 23.9% devoted to improving diversity in
NO YES leadership roles. Those people tend to
be women, and particularly women
of color: The McKinsey/LeanIn.org
study found that female executives
were almost twice as likely to spend a
substantial amount of time on diver-
sity, equity, and inclusion outside of
21.2% their core jobs compared with men.
NOT SURE It’s a vicious or virtuous cycle, de-
pending on how you look at it: Lose
GOING FORWARD, WILL REMOTE
women at the top, and you lose the
WORK HELP OR HURT WOMEN’S engine driving change throughout
CAREERS? the company.
47.3% 48.2%
HURT HELP CURRENT AND FORMER
female Fortune 500 CEOs
say they are less con-
cerned about the out-
comes of the generation now poised
to enter the C-suite than women
further down the pipeline. It’s the
4.5%
NOT SURE senior directors and the VPs who are
at risk—the women who may still
have younger children at home, the
HAVE YOU EVER TAKEN A BREAK ones Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford
FROM THE WORKPLACE OF LONGER describes as “those who don’t know
THAN A YEAR FOR CARETAKING
RESPONSIBILITIES? what is yet possible for themselves.”
In our survey, 58% of respondents
90.3% 9.7%
NO YES who could identify a promotion or job
that had been a turning point in their
career said it came during the prime
child-rearing age range of 30 to 39.
For Ford, it wasn’t until she was in
AT WHAT AGE DID YOU GET THE JOB her forties that she realized she had
OR PROMOTION THAT WAS A
TURNING POINT IN YOUR CAREER? the potential to be a CEO. When the
Land O’Lakes board tapped her for
AGE 20 TO 29
the job in 2018, she had worked at
11.5%
seven companies across six indus-
AGE 30 TO 39
tries. Research by executive search
58.4%
firm Korn Ferry has shown that this
AGE 40 TO 49
kind of range is critical for female
26.6%
CEOs, who tend to work in more
AGE 50 OR OLDER sectors, organizations, and jobs over
3.5%
the course of their careers than male
chief executives. But some of that
movement has stalled over the past
year and a half. “When you’re on that
trajectory, you’re taking opportuni-
ties to move. You’re being seen by the
senior team; you’re understanding
what it’s like to be a leader,” Ford
says. “Some of those things are still
happening, but it’s happening totally
differently. There’s a delay, and it’s
causing some real problems in terms
of your vision for yourself, your aspi-
ration, your ambition.”
When Ursula Burns took the helm
at Xerox in 2009, she was the first
Black woman to ever run a For-
tune 500 company. Burns says she
had always been prepared, good at
what she did, but not any kind of “su-
per brain.” What made the difference
for her was she was known, seen, and
spoke up. The most senior execu-
tives took an interest in her success,
selecting her for special projects that
revealed the inner workings of the
company. But during this era of work-
ing from home, Burns says the risk of
“out of sight, out of mind” has been
more acute for women and people of
color. It has also made it even harder
to find a cohort of people who look
like you at work. “That was rare. And
now it’s literally gone,” she says. “It’s
more likely that you are isolated and
not recognized and not known.”
The pandemic has put at risk not
just employees’ own visibility but
also their ability to gain insight into
the companies they work for. Ellen
Kullman, CEO of 3D printing tech-
nology company Carbon, says she’s
concerned that it’s harder to assess a
work situation in a remote environ-
ment. She spent her formative years
at GE but left in 1988. “It was feeling
that I was potentially never going to
be allowed to compete at the highest
levels,” she says. “My experience there
was that it was different for me than
it was for some of my male counter-
parts. At some point, you just make
a choice.” She joined DuPont, which
she says had a more egalitarian

Ex-PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi says women are rethinking their career aspirations.
culture, and ran the company from
2009 to 2015.
THE PANDEMIC has thrown
work culture into a mind-
numbing chaos. But that
chaos has also challenged
the rigidity of corporate America,
which punished workers—especially
women—for asking for anything out-
side of its norms. “This is one of the
largest reorganizations of work for
E R I K TA N N E R — R E D U X
professionals that’s ever happened,”
says Marianne Cooper, a sociologist
at the Stanford VMware Women’s
Leadership Innovation Lab. While
the majority of our survey respon-
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 97
dents said working remotely would
have hurt their own trajectory, more
said that going forward remote work
would help women’s careers rather
than hurt them—a sign that change is
underway. “You can’t have a flexibility
stigma anymore if everyone is home,”
says Erin Reid, a professor at McMas-
ter University’s business school, who
studies gender in the workplace.
Jennifer Morgan left her job as
co-CEO of SAP last year and took
eight months off to spend some time
thinking about what she wanted to
do next. She is now the global head
of portfolio operations at Blackstone,
and the time she spent reassessing her
own career has made her think more
broadly about what work should and
can look like. “We talk about digital
disruption, we talk about business
model disruption,” she says, “yet we
all still have a very traditional notion
of talent.” As she’s been building her
team, more candidates have been ask-
ing for something different: part-time
work for a very senior role, a scaled-
back position for a woman returning
from maternity leave. She has said yes
to all of it—something she might not
have done in the past.
Some academics believe that
a radical change in how jobs are
organized could really make a differ-
ence for working parents. But there
are clearly limits to how far up the
chain this kind of restructuring can
go. Like many companies, Kullman’s
Carbon instituted a no-meetings
policy one day a month to free em-
ployees from the tyranny of Zoom.
Kullman says it reenergizes people
and opens up mental space to dig
into big issues or problems. The
one person who does have meetings
that day? The CEO. “There’s always
something that comes in,” Kullman
says. As Nooyi puts it, “There is no
flexibility at the very top.”
SHARE OF FORTUNE 500 CEOS
WHO ARE WOMEN
8.2%
8%
6
4
2
0
1998 2010 2021
 IN THE MIDST of so much
uncertainty, corporate
boards have become more
risk averse about under-
taking a CEO search. And those that
have gone ahead have been just as
risk averse in their selection. A study
by executive search firm Heidrick &
Struggles found that during the early
months of the pandemic, companies
prioritized candidates with previous
CEO experience. Because few women
already have those three critical
letters on their résumés, the rate of
female executives selected declined.
Some headhunters believe that the
next six months will turn all these
trends on their head—that the pent-
up demand for change at the top will
be a boon for women. There are two
big factors driving this prediction,
says Jana Rich, founder and CEO
of executive search firm Rich Talent
Group. The first is that the pandemic Land O’Lakes’ Beth Ford didn’t see her own CEO potential until her forties.
has put more value on qualities that,
rightly or wrongly, tend to be attrib-
uted to women, such as empathy and
authenticity. “EQ—this emotional THERE IS ONE LOOMING, asking, ‘Is this really worth it?’ It’s
quotient—has been more important existential question that just exhausting.”
in the last 18 months than certainly could make all this debate Still, that might not be as dire as
any time I’ve ever seen in my career,” moot: Do women still it sounds. Women who opt out of
says Best Buy CEO Corie Barry. want what corporate America is sell- traditional ladder climbing will end
The second is momentum. ing? “If everything is geared around up building their own pathways,
More than 60% of respondents in white male norms, then we shouldn’t says Nooyi. She believes this cohort
the Fortune survey said their senior be surprised that the product will create their own companies
management team had become doesn’t fit,” says Jane Stevenson, vice and measures of success that are
more diverse in the past year. “We chair of board and CEO services at different from those prescribed
are at a point where there’s so much Korn Ferry. by traditional corporate America,
visibility about the lack of diver- Rich could, off the top of her head, otherwise known as white men.
sity in the C-suite that going back name two women from the tech “They made the rules, they live by
is almost impossible,” says Burns, industry whose next jobs easily could the rules,” Nooyi says. “We need a
whose board work includes Teneo, have been as CEOs of high-growth critical mass of women to make our
Exxon Mobil, and Uber. But she’s companies. Instead, both walked own rules.”
concerned that the enormous pres- away. “There’s definitely a huge re- That’s a future some—including
sure senior leaders are under to evaluation happening,” she says. “The those who made it to the top the
make their companies less homo- question is, do they want these jobs? old way—are more than ready to
geneous will lead them to elevate They look at it and say, ‘You know see. “I want them to actually have
white women, the group most what, I’ve been awfully close to that the chance to articulate out loud, ‘I
familiar to those already in power, fire, and I don’t want it.’ ” don’t want to do this. Thank you for
and declare success when people of Nooyi, who’s been in the hot seat, offering,’ ” says Burns. “That’s true
JESSICA CHOU

color have made little progress. “It’s gets it. She says moving into your equity, that’s true equality—when you
a risky time from that perspective,” next job was the only thing her gen- get the chance to turn the goddamn
she says. eration knew. “A lot of women are thing down.”
“I’VE BEEN DOING THINGS
MY WAY FOR YEARS.
I’M GOING TO RETIRE
MY WAY TOO.”
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 C O N T E N T F R O M M I C R O N T E C H N O LO GY
PROFILE 2021 | BEST WORKPLACES IN MANUFACTURING AND PRODUCTION
Powered by Diversity
Micron Technology’s leading innovations are a result of the various
experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds of its global workforce.
THE MOST SUCCESSFUL COMPANIES
recognize the value of a diverse and
inclusive corporate culture, and that’s
particularly true at Micron Technology,
a supplier of computer memory and
storage solutions with more than 40,000
employees in 17 different countries.
“We prioritize diversity not because
it’s trendy, but because we see the value
it adds to our business,” says Manish
Bhatia, executive vice president of global
operations. “Our diverse talent brings
MICRON TECHNOLOGY’S COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, the best ideas from different back-
EQUITY, AND INCLUSION HAS HELPED POSITION THE grounds and geographies.”
COMPANY AS A LEADER IN THE MEMORY AND STORAGE
INDUSTRY, AS WELL AS ONE OF FORTUNE’S BEST
Last year the worldwide demand for
WORKPLACES IN MANUFACTURING AND PRODUCTION. social equality inspired the Boise,
Idaho–based company to develop a
comprehensive diversity, equality, and
inclusion (DEI) report that identified six
areas of commitment: increasing repre-
sentation of underrepresented groups,
engaging with minority-owned financial
institutions for cash management,
strengthening the company’s culture
of inclusion, advocating for racial and
LGBTQ+ equality, driving equitable pay
and benefits, and increasing diverse
supplier representations and spending.
“We wanted to transform the company
for the better, from manufacturing to
customer service,” says Bhatia. “We
are deeply committed to DEI and have
dedicated a tremendous amount of
effort to create a true culture of inclusion.”
The hard work has paid off. Today,
Micron leads the memory and storage
industry in both dynamic random-
access memory (main memory) and
random-access memory (flash storage)
process technology. The company also
made Fortune’s Best Workplaces in
Manufacturing and Production list for
the first time.
Micron does not have a one-size-
fits-all DEI plan; its leadership develops
customized initiatives on a country-by-
country basis. LGBTQ+ inclusivity, for in-
stance, is a particular focus in the United
States, while ethnic diversity among the
workforce in Japan is another. “We want
all of our employees to feel comfortable
and safe at work,” says Bhatia.
Micron’s leadership also ensures that
its vision to enrich life for all extends to
the communities in which its team mem-
bers live. In 2020, the Micron Foundation
provided $24 million in donations to sup-
port causes around the world. Micron
also committed $1 billion to reducing
its carbon footprint and increasing the
sustainability of its manufacturing opera-
tions over the next five to seven years.
“We want to be a good steward and
partner to every community in which we
operate,” says Bhatia. “Our success as a
company starts with our people and the
people we serve.” Q
Ladies
Who
Launch

While the billionaire

flyboys of space
tourism get all the
headlines, women
are powering
some of the most
exciting innovations
designed for the
final frontier. Meet
the private space
industry’s expanding
constellation of
female stars.

By Michal GALAXY BRAIN: Investor

and industry pioneer
Lev-Ram Candace Johnson in front of
a chamber designed to test
satellites in harsh conditions
that mimic space.
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 103
ASTRA WEEKS: Johnson, third from right in the front row, with her Astra-1A team in 1988. She says she didn’t think much of the group’s
gender split at the time, but she has since turned her attention to meeting, connecting, and promoting the growing ranks of women
working in the private space industry.
CANDACE JOHNSON is
showing me a photo
taken in Kourou, French
Guiana, on Dec. 12, 1988.
It’s a grainy, black-and-white picture.
But her recollection of that day is
crystal clear: The photo was taken on
the eve of the launch of the first Astra
satellite, made by European aero-
space company SES, which Johnson
cofounded. (Another visionary entre-
preneur, Rupert Murdoch, was her
very first customer, and he used that
inaugural satellite to launch his Sky
Television Network.)
The image, uploaded to John-
son’s computer and shared with
me over Zoom, depicts two rows of
people, the team behind the Astra-
1A launch. Some are standing and
some are crouching. Most of them
are wearing white button-down
shirts, khakis, and rectangular name
badges. But Johnson is easy to spot.
Out of the group of nearly 30, she’s
the only one in culottes—and the
only woman on the team.
“Had I not been there, none of
those men would have been there,”
says the entrepreneur, who pushed
and fundraised for years in order to
pull off the ambitious launch. “So it
didn’t really occur to me that I was
the only woman.”
Since that day in Kourou, Johnson
has helped put many more satel-
lites into orbit. (It’s earned her the
nickname “Satellady.”) She has also
found herself the only woman in
the picture—and the C-suite, and
the boardroom—countless more
times. Eventually that feeling started
to wear on her, and she decided
to do something about it: For the
past three decades, she has devoted
herself not only to innovating and
investing in space-based technologies
but also to connecting with and ex-
panding the constellation of women
who work in the field. “We’re always
helping each other,” says Johnson.
The fact that women like Johnson
have had to resort to setting up their
own networks in a field traditionally
dominated by men is not new. Since
the days of Sputnik and Explorer 1,
women in the space industry have
largely toiled away in the shadows
T H I S PA G E : C O U R T E S Y O F M A R C E L T O C K E R T/ P H O T O T H È Q U E D E L A V I L L E D E L U X E M B O U R G
of men. (And women of color? Even
more so—just watch Hidden Figures,
the film that chronicles the careers of
three Black, female mathematicians
who worked at NASA during the
Space Race days.) But here’s a new
wrinkle: Back when Johnson was
getting started, the commercial space
O P E N I N G S P R E A D : C O U R T E S Y O F T H A L E S A L E N I A S PA C E ;
sector was tiny. She was a rarity not
just because she was a woman but
also because she was an entrepre-
neur. Until the turn of the century,
nearly every project that aimed
beyond the Earth’s atmosphere was
the domain of government-run space
agencies, not commercial companies.
No longer. Today, private money is
flowing into a range of space-based
innovations at light speed. According
to BryceTech, a research firm that
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 105
INVESTMENTS IN STARTUP SPACE COMPANIES $7.6 B.
$7 BILLION
6
U.S. RECIPIENTS NON-U.S. RECIPIENTS
5 ate more than $1 trillion by 2040,
4 estimates. And if women—not to
3 and races and nationalities—aren’t
2 burgeoning field, then we are setting
1
0 to explore and even thrive in space are
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
SOURCE OF INVESTMENTS IN STARTUP SPACE COMPANIES
SEED, ACQUISITION PUBLIC DEBT
PRIZE 13% OFFERING FINANCING
OR GRANT 6% 2%
15%
VENTURE
CAPITAL
64%
SOURCE: BRYCETECH
tracks the sector, $36.7 billion was of space—and many people in the
invested in space startups over the industry say that’s an overall plus
past two decades—with a full 72% of for the sector. Their spectacular
that pot doled out since 2015. This launches are adding to the allure of
recent uptick in private funding is working in the field, and attracting
largely driven by venture capital firms more interest from investors.
that are betting space is quite literally But the adventures of the flyboy
the next big frontier. founders also cloud the reality of
It’s not just investors who are what’s happening in the industry. All
increasingly looking toward the three are emphasizing space tourism,
heavens, though. The private space which, while exciting, represents just
industry has also blasted its way into a fraction of the innovation hap-
the public consciousness recently, pening in the sector; the tourism
thanks to the high-flying theatrics— market accounts for $1.7 billion of
and yes, incredible innovations—of a the $366 billion “space economy,” ac-
trio of billionaires: Amazon founder cording to BryceTech. What’s more,
Jeff Bezos, Virgin Galactic’s Richard the headline-grabbing prominence
Branson, and Elon Musk of SpaceX. of Bezos et al. means that the private
These men and their companies space sector is at risk of repeating
are reshaping the way much of some of the missteps of our earlier,
the world thinks about the future public sector efforts, in which the es-
sential contributions of women were
minimized or overlooked.
What’s at stake here? For starters,
there’s a huge economic opportunity:
Morgan Stanley projects that the
global space industry could gener-
more than three times current annual
mention people of different ethnicities
adequately represented in this
ourselves up for yet another industry
with chronic inequality. This particu-
lar industry happens to matter a lot:
The prospects of actually being able
closer than ever. It may sound futuris-
tic, but that makes enlisting entrepre-
neurs from diverse backgrounds all
the more important. In pursuit of the
next frontier for humanity, shouldn’t
all humanity be represented?
Johnson is already hard at work
making sure the answer to that ques-
tion is an emphatic yes. She’s a build-
er—as are many of the women she’s
slowly but surely added over the years
to her now overflowing Rolodex—so
she’s not terribly concerned about be-
ing left out of the current structures
of power. “If you’re not a member of
the old boys’ club, you don’t have to
worry about being a member of the
old boys’ club,” she says.
In other words: You get to create
your own club. And that’s exactly
what the women powering the pri-
vate space industry are doing.
MANY OF MY conversations
with Johnson begin with
her telling me what to do.
Specifically, who I “must”
talk to—a list that eventually grows
to include more than two dozen
women, from a Saudi entrepreneur
trying to launch her own rocket, to a
British founder using nanosatellites
to track weather patterns.
Johnson’s network is not only
extensive, but also global, stretch-

Singapore-based Lynette Tan says her ultimate goal is to remove the “perceived
barrier to entry” in the space industry, for both women and men.
ing across continents. She herself
is American, but married a native
of Luxembourg and has spent most
of her life in Europe. (Johnson was
born into the space industry: Her
father worked on the first communi-
cations satellites for the U.S. govern-
ment in the ’50s and ’60s.) Early on,
she built her network one by one,
by going up to any other women she
ran into at industry conferences, and
sparking a conversation. In 1992, she
helped start a more formal organiza-
tion for those few women working
in the satellite telecommunications
field in particular (the group now has
around 2,000 members).
As the space industry grew to
include more and more applica-
tions—and more and more private
sector companies—Johnson also
began mentoring and investing in
female space entrepreneurs. One
investment led to another, and today
Johnson spends much of her time
in her role as partner at Seraphim
Capital, a London-based firm which
PHOTOGRAPH BY JULIANA TAN
calls itself the global leader in
“SpaceTech investment.” (Her other
primary gig is vice chair of the board
at NorthStar, a Canadian company
which tracks space debris.) At Sera-
phim, too, she’s tried to scout out fe-
male entrepreneurs specifically. And
along the path of her entire career,
she’s worked to create opportuni-
ties for her female peers to establish
themselves, and to stand out.
“There’s an unwritten rule [for
women in the industry],” she says. “If
someone asks you to do something,
like speak at a conference, and you
can’t do it, suggest another woman.”
One of the women on her “must”
list is Hélène Huby, a French-born
entrepreneur who lives in Germany,
and who met Johnson six years
ago at a space conference. The two
hit it off. Huby represents the next
generation of women in the sector—
a generation that is expanding the
horizons of space tech, fueled by the
boom in financing and the lowered
barrier to entry as the cost of launch-
ing satellites, capsules, and, yes,
humans into space falls. (A decade
ago a typical launch cost $20,000
per kilogram. Today, it’s $2,000.)
Huby, who cut her teeth in the
defense and space division of aircraft
manufacturer Airbus, runs the Ex-
ploration Company, a startup work-
ing on a transportation vehicle that
can stay in orbit up to six months,
gathering and processing data from
space for what she hopes will be a
variety of customers.
Decades ago only a government
program would have had a shot at
developing such technology. Then
came the big, billionaire-backed
startups pouring money into new
innovations; SpaceX, in particular,
has dramatically lowered the cost of
space flight with its advancements
in reusable rocket launch systems.
(Here’s where I should mention that
the highest-profile woman in the
industry, SpaceX president and COO
Gwynne Shotwell, declined to speak
to me for this story.)
For entrepreneurs like Huby, there’s
a new possibility to piggyback on all
this disruption and to take advantage
of all the cost reductions people like
Musk have brought to the sector.
Of course, getting a space vehicle
Space for all is a big
priority. Our Earth is
suffering a lot, and
the more we have
people understanding
this and how
important space is [to
our future], the more
we will have politicians
understanding this,
too.
Simonetta Di Pippo
Director, UN Office for
Outer Space Affairs

Atomos CEO Vanessa Clark is developing “tugboats for space” capable of repositioning satellites in orbit.
off the ground, so to speak, still takes
time and money. To get there, Huby
is trying to generate more immediate
revenue by licensing software she’s
developed for her own machines to
other companies developing space-
based operations.
In addition to running her own
startup, Huby, like Johnson, now
invests in other women’s companies.
She also helped start a nonprofit
organization called the Karman Proj-
ect, which runs a fellowship program
for space entrepreneurs; roughly half
of its fellows are female.
I can see why Huby and Johnson
get along so well: Huby, too, sends
me her “list,” and a furry of introduc-
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 107
tory emails soon flood my inbox.
There’s Neha Satak, the Banga-
lore-based cofounder and CEO of
Astrome Technologies, which Huby
invested in. It’s Satak’s third space
startup—she’s also worked on “as-
teroid deflection” technology, among
other projects. Astrome’s aim is
simple but ambitious: to utilize both
terrestrial and satellite communica-
tion to deliver more bandwidth at a
cheaper cost. Part of the secret sauce,
says Satak, involves a combination of
both hardware and software tweaks
to existing satellites. It’s deep tech,
involving a lot of engineering tal-
ent—which is why Satak, herself a
Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, has
been at it for more than six years. It’s
proved to be lonely work sometimes.
“I can tell you that in India specifi-
cally, I was probably the only entre-
preneur in the ‘New Space’ industry
who was female,” Satak says.
Next comes Barbara Belvisi, who is
building an inflatable “biopod” that
could someday sustain human life
on the Moon or even Mars. (Huby
is an investor, Johnson an adviser.)
The 60-square-meter, environmen-
tally controlled habitat designed for
raising crops is being developed in a
warehouse on the outskirts of Paris.
I also meet Lynette Tan, another
entrepreneur who runs an incuba-
tor for space startups, as well as a
PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID WILLIAMS
$366 BILLION
A VA S T U N I V E R S E All told, one recent estimate puts the size of the space industry at a boggling $366 billion in annual
revenue. The largest chunk of this figure belongs to the $271 billion satellite sector, which includes devices powering
navigation, television, and Internet connectivity, as well as all the technology to keep them humming. Space tourism,
while high profile, accounts for a relatively tiny $1.7 billion sliver of the galactic pie.
company focused on developing a
curriculum for space-based education,
in Singapore. And Vanessa Clark, the
Australian cofounder and CEO of At-
omos, which is developing an “orbital
transfer vehicle” that puts satellites
into position. (She calls it a “tugboat”
for space.) The tech has caught the
eye of the U.S. government; Clark has
a $2 million contract with NASA and
the Department of Defense.
As these women open their net-
works to me, I’m repeatedly struck by
their commonalities. They dream big
and bold. They think in decades, not
years—you have to, in the space sec-
tor. They are hungry for collabora-
tion, and they invest in one another.
Also: None of them are billionaires,
or financed by billionaires. And,
while they might love to blast off into
the great beyond, for the moment
they are focused on building their
companies right here, on Earth.
SIXTY PLUS years into
the Space Age, its a little
shocking to think that
only about 600 people
have actually left the Earth’s atmo-
sphere—and even more so to realize
that just 69 have been women.
Anousheh Ansari is among that
number. The entrepreneur and CEO
of the XPrize Foundation, a non-
profit that holds global competitions
that push for technological break-
throughs, became the first female
“space tourist” in 2006, when she
paid an undisclosed sum of money
for a seat aboard a trip to the Inter-
national Space Station. It was a pro-
found experience, says Ansari, and
one that made her realize how essen-
tial it is that the future of space flight
become more diverse: “If you make
access to space easy and efficient for
all, there are tons of businesses that
can be created in orbit,” she says. For
that boom to reach its full potential,
women and people of color must be
included, Ansari notes.
While it’s hard to credit space tour-
ism—which starts around $250,000
per person—with “democratizing” the
experience, it has increased the num-
ber of women who can add them-
selves to that tally. In mid-September,
SpaceX launched the world’s first
all-amateur astronaut crew into orbit.
The team successfully completed a
three-day voyage inside a Dragon
capsule, which hurtled around the
Earth at 17,000 miles per hour. The
undertaking was financed by yet
another male billionaire, payments
entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, but the
participants included two women,
geoscientist Sian Proctor and Hayley
Arceneaux, a 29-year-old cancer
survivor who became the youngest
American to go to space.
Government-run space programs
are taking steps toward prioritizing
more diverse astronauts—the U.S.,
for example, is leading the Artemis
Program, an effort to land the first
woman and first person of color on
the Moon by 2025. But their history
isn’t encouraging. In 2019, NASA
was forced to change plans for its
first all-female space walk after the
agency realized that it only had a
suitable space suit for one of the two
women astronauts involved (previ-
ous budget cuts had prompted the
agency to focus on space suits made
for male builds).
The space suit snafu didn’t come
as a surprise to Dava Newman,
director of the MIT Media Lab,
a former deputy administrator of
NASA—and yet another Johnson
connection. She’s known for devel-
oping the BioSuit, a lighter-weight,
“second skin” space suit that allows
astronauts greater range of mo-
tion. It’s also designed for people
shorter than 5 feet 5 inches (such
as Newman), who haven’t fit into
NASA’s previous models, and was
widely tested on women. Bringing a
broader range of people into the field
is essential when it comes to pushing
such innovations forward, she says.
“We have a long way to go—there’s
been little incremental change when
we look at who the workforce is.”
YOU’VE PROBABLY never heard
of Asteroid No. 21887. The
7.6-kilometer-wide hunk of
rock is one of millions float-
ing in the main asteroid belt, located
between Mars and Jupiter. It was
discovered by researchers in Arizona
back in 1999. About a decade later,

French entrepreneur Barbara Belvisi is developing “biopods” for crop cultivation.
it was bestowed with a much more
memorable name: “Dipippo.”
“After 35 years in the business,
someone decided that I deserved this,”
says Simonetta Di Pippo, director of
the United Nations Office for Outer
Space Affairs and namesake of the as-
teroid formerly known as No. 21887.
An astrophysicist by training, and
the ex-director of human space flight
at the European Space Agency, the
Italian-born Di Pippo has devoted her
life to the exploration—and democra-
tization—of space. She has also com-
mitted herself to growing the network
of women in her field, cofounding an
organization for European women in
aerospace in 2009.
Di Pippo’s current role at the UN
is to advance international collabo-
ration when it comes to all things
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 109
space. That means bringing countries
together to promote peaceful uses of
outer space, coordinating between
different parts of the world and the
public and private sectors throughout
the globe. It also means focusing on
diversity, or making sure that the peo-
ple driving our decisions in this next
frontier are representative of us all.
The latter is more important than
ever. We’ve all seen what happens
on Earth when some voices are
heard and others are silenced. And
innovation and access to space are
growing quickly: Di Pippo says that
this year alone, 2,000 satellites have
already been launched into orbit.
Just two years ago, that number was
600 annually. “Space for all is a big
priority,” says Di Pippo. “Our Earth is
suffering a lot, and the more we have
people understanding this and how
important space is [to our future],
the more we will have politicians
understanding this, too.”
Di Pippo’s work on this front is
certainly, in practical terms, a bigger
deal than getting her own asteroid.
But names matter as well. Last
March, NASA announced that it had
named 27 asteroids after “pioneer-
ing” astronauts—Black, Hispanic,
and Native American explorers,
some of them female. That includes
asteroid No. 103738, now known as
“Stephaniewilson.” It’s named after
Stephanie D. Wilson, an aerospace
engineer who has traveled to the
space station three times and logged
more than 42 days in space. Some-
day soon Wilson may break even
more ground: She is on NASA’s
Artemis team and could, perhaps,
become that first woman to set foot
on the Moon.
IN EARLY OCTOBER, the
UN celebrates World
Space Week. The global
event consists of speeches,
competitions, lectures, and camps for
kids, all aimed at increasing inter-
est in space. Each year, a theme is
picked. In 2020, it was “Satellites
Improve Life.” This year, for the first
time, it’s “Women in Space.”
Johnson, not surprisingly, is a
member of the advisory board. But
as excited as she about this year’s
theme, she confesses that, personally,
she has no desire to leave Earth. I’m
shocked—of the dozens of women I
spoke to for this story, she’s the only
one who doesn’t aspire to experience
space for herself. Why? “I’m happy
here,” she says, laughing. “I don’t have
the stomach for it.”
Even if Johnson herself doesn’t
dream of launching herself into orbit,
or landing on the surface of the Moon,
there are—and perhaps more impor-
tant, there will be—many who do.
Looking for them? She can probably
introduce you.
PHOTOGRAPH BY LAURA STEVENS
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112 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021

Welcome
to the
TikTok
Economy
The ultimate brain candy
buffet is reshaping
social media. Corporate
America—and creators
everywhere—are
scrambling to capitalize.

By Jeffrey M. O’Brien

By Joe Toreno
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 113

436.8K Tejas Hullur is fast emerging as the Tony Robbins for the creator set, complete with a thick
Followers shock of hair and megawatt smile. “People need to realize that the creator economy is one of the
fastest growing in the entire world,” he says on a TikTok teasing his tips for making great content.
4.7M “Whatever you want to do, there’s a place for it on social media, and there’s legitimately not a
Likes
better time than now to get started. Don’t miss out on this opportunity!” Hullur left his studies at
Age: 21 Indiana University last year and decamped for L.A. to seize the moment. Now he’s running with a
pack of A-list influencer friends and working with brands that share his interest in innovation and
@tejashullur wealth creation, like Venmo and Robinhood. Hullur is careful about sponsored ads. “Especially on
TikTok, viewers are ruthless,” he says. “The audience can smell bullshit right away.”
 THE TIKTOK ECONOMY

have a way of gluing users to their

phones for hours at a time. The algo-
rithm is damn good at what it does.
So much so that TikTok has been
the most downloaded app for the bet-
ter part of two years. And in late Sep-
tember, the company said that it now
has more than 1 billion monthly active
global users. According to a recent
report by the analytics firm App Annie,
Let’s warm up with a bit “TikTok has upended the streaming
and social landscape.” In the U.S. and
of word association. U.K., users spend more hours on Tik-
Tok, on average, than on YouTube.
Moreover, it has supercharged the
I say Facebook! so-called creator economy, a broad
swath of entrepreneurs, influencers,
You say…Boomer! and side hustlers trying to convert
their looks, humor, wisdom, connec-
Amirite? (Also acceptable: Disinformation!) tions, inhibition, insights, and dance
moves into riches and stardom. The
social media giants, including Face-
I say Twitter! book, Google, Snapchat, Twitch, and
even Pinterest, are all vying for their
You say…Doomscroll! share of a market now valued at north
of $104 billion, according to a recent
(Half a point for a dismissive eye roll.) report by Neo Ranch and Influencer
Marketing Hub. A raft of start-
ups—from Cameo and Clubhouse to
I say Instagram! Substack and Only Fans—are carving
out their own niches. And then there’s
You say…Poser! TikTok, which has weathered a politi-
cal firestorm, a federal investigation,
OK, one more? numerous lawsuits, a global pandem-
ic, and a couple near-acquisitions to

I say TikTok! find itself at the top of the heap.

The man charged with convert-
ing its position at the center of the
You say… zeitgeist into a revenue stream worthy
of Facebook and Google is TikTok’s
president of global business solutions,
Blake Chandlee. Chandlee has been
Now hold that thought for a moment. It’s trickier to find consensus on this with the company for most of its me-
one. To me, TikTok is a medley of weirdly transfixing water-balloon videos, mon- teoric rise. His previous gig was as VP
arch butterfly activists, air-fried ice cream sandwich recipes, and Bo Burnham of global partnerships at Facebook,
mashups. Come on, Jeffrey, you can do it./Pave the way, put your back into it! where he managed relationships with
But your TikTok is surely something radically different. Because that’s how brands and marketing agencies.
the algorithm wants it. “The algorithm.” You hear those two words a lot when Speaking from his palatial Austin
TikTok is the topic of conversation. It’s the mysterious, all-seeing recommen- home, Chandlee draws many com-
dation engine that powers the platform. It instantly digests every pause, click, parisons to his previous job, which
swipe, and share to serve up the ultimate brain candy buffet—unlimited help- he held for more than a dozen years.
ings of 15-second, 30-second, or, sometimes but rarely, three-minute videos that Joining TikTok in early 2019 was, he

Onetime Facebook
exec Blake Chandlee,
photographed at his
home in Austin, is
TikTok’s point person
for brand partnerships.
surmises, the equivalent of onboard-
ing at Facebook in 2007. However,
he declares TikTok to be in a funda-
mentally different business. Facebook
is a “social graph” company, built to
connect users and encourage them to
tune into mutual interests. Chandlee
believes the underlying business mod-
el of Facebook and its ilk—harnessing
vast amounts of user data to deliver
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARSHALL TIDRICK
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 115
personalized ads—is falling out of
favor, driven in part by the movement
to allow consumers to control their
data and manifested in, for instance,
Apple’s security settings and the
EU’s GDPR policies. (The fact that
Facebook’s market value has grown by
nearly $500 billion over the past two
years alone suggests that Wall Street
hasn’t yet caught up with his assess-
ment.) By contrast, Chandlee calls
TikTok a “content graph” company
whose primary goal is not to connect
but rather to entertain. Nevertheless,
TikTok is learning about you. It uses
data for ad personalization targeted
to personal interests and to serve both
interesting and novel videos. The
company professes concern over filter
bubbles, in which users are repeat-
 THE TIKTOK ECONOMY
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edly exposed to a singular viewpoint
or style of content. So it deliberately
mixes things up. “The algorithm is
watching my behavior, and occasion-
ally, it’s serving me something that I
hadn’t identified with,” he says. “And
I go, ‘Oh, that science experiment is
kind of clever, and now my interest in
science becomes part of my profile.’ ”
The TikTok algorithm’s proficiency
makes Facebook and Instagram seem
like social media 1.0 in compari-
son. On those platforms, user feeds
are largely linear and incremental.
YouTube, meanwhile, is more search-
oriented. Befitting Google’s outlook,
it offers recommendations, but users
mainly search for videos and choose
what to watch next. TikTok’s “For You”
feed tends to be more explosive. It’s
an auto-discovery engine serving up a
dopamine hit with every swipe.
In 2020, TikTok opened a virtual
Transparency and Accountability
Center to educate those curious about
its data practices and the inner-work-
ings of its algorithm. In a nutshell, it
serves new users a tranche of videos
2014 2015 2016 2017
and monitors user behavior, includ-
ing whether they watch to the end.
Machine learning technology analyzes
those actions to recommend subse-
quent videos from similar buckets,
and the process continues. Because
it’s rare to encounter a video with only
a handful or even a few dozen views,
speculation has it that every piece of
content is sent to a minimum number
of users, let’s say 100. If it performs
to certain benchmarks, the video is
promoted more broadly, to 1,000
TikTokers, and then 10,000, then
100,000, and so on. On the social
graph, engagement, whether that
means views, likes, or clicks, tends
to correspond to the size of a user’s
following. But a brand-new TikToker
can hit a million views on her first
video without having a single follow-
er. For content creators, this dynamic
makes every creation a lottery ticket:
It’s their shot at 15 minutes of fame
in exchange for perhaps 15 seconds of
ingenuity. Which makes them want to
make more, more, more.
Musical.ly, TikTok’s predeces-
NO. 1
TIKTOK
INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK
WHATSAPP
TELEGRAM
SNAPCHAT
FACEBOOK
MESSENGER
CAPCUT
MX TAKATAK
PICSART
2018 2019 2020 2021
SOURCE: APP ANNIE INTELLIGENCE
sor, was populated mainly by goofy
lip-sync videos. The platform has
evolved since being acquired by the
Chinese company ByteDance, but
music and dance still permeate.
Positivity, laughter, and of course
youth largely rule the day—making
for a nearly irresistible combination
to marketers. (And a challenge, when
content takes a wrong turn into
something darker.) TikTok says that
the number of companies running
ads on its platform jumped 500% in
2020, and that it’s currently working
with “hundreds of thousands” of ad-
vertisers. “If you look at the top 500
brands, 70% are on the platform,”
Chandlee says. “And when brands do
it right, it moves product.”
The surge in brand activity is tur-
bocharging TikTok’s sales. According
to the Wall Street Journal, TikTok
parent ByteDance, which is privately
held, grew its revenue more than
100% in its most recent fiscal year
and saw profits soar 93% to more
than $19 billion.
Brands show up on TikTok in a
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 117

1.3M Leo González hit rock bottom two years ago. His mother had a second stroke and
followers his friend was murdered. Depressed and unable to make rent, he moved into his car. Then his
camera equipment was stolen. It was the last straw. González moved from Hanford, Calif., to
42.2M Reno. And he decided to try making videos. Drawing on his background in news production,
likes he posted a parody on TikTok of a news anchor teeing up a field reporter and enduring an
Age: 26 awkward delay. “That video got me, like, 5,000 followers that night,” he says. He was on his
way. Now based in L.A., González uses his dry wit to create scenes featuring caricatures of, say,
@leogonzall overzealous fast-food workers or Walmart shoppers. He was recently named one of TikTok’s
2021 LatinX Trailblazers, and he’s done campaigns for Jack in the Box, Paramount, and Hulu.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE TORENO

 THE TIKTOK ECONOMY

number of ways. They create their

own ads, interspersed in a user’s
feed, or, for a premium, they can
appear when a user first opens the
app. They sponsor hashtag chal-
lenges and use various visual and
gamification techniques provided
by TikTok. Many brands have their
own accounts, which they use to an-
nounce products, recruit employees,
augment offline ads, or just to have
a bit of fun. And many work directly
with content creators, who often
have an innate sense for how to mix
entertainment and shill. TikTok is
actively fostering this community
through its TikTok Creator Fund,
which pays a stipend to users with
at least 10,000 followers and more
than 100,000 views in the last
month, and with its Creator Mar-
ketplace, which brokers relation-
ships between brands and creators
while also providing post-campaign
analytics tools.
Top creators can earn tens of
thousands of dollars for a single
sponsored post. For brands, it’s even
more lucrative. “For every million
dollars that brands spend on influ-
encer marketing on TikTok, they’re
seeing $7.2 million in sales over the
first 90 days,” says Seth Kean, CEO
of ROI Influencer, a New York City
company that measures engagement
and sell-through across social media
platforms. “That’s 24% better than
a combination of TikTok’s peers,
which includes Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube.” The next best per-
former, Instagram, drives $6.6 mil-
lion in sales for every million spent.
TikTok’s rivals aren’t conceding any-
thing, however. Dozens of “can’t-miss” to gain traction. But Instagram But for the moment, no other
social media companies have disap- parent Facebook will surely not go platform can match TikTok’s addic-
peared over the years—from Myspace, quietly. Then there’s YouTube Shorts. tive grip on its ever-more-massive
Friendster, and Google Plus, to Tum- In late spring, Alphabet-owned You- audience or its ability to mobilize
blr and Vine. Along with battling the Tube announced a $100 million fund consumers—sometimes in surprising
capriciousness of its own user base, to pay creators to make content on its ways. And that means companies of
TikTok finds itself lined up against would-be TikTok-killer. That’s a drop all sizes are looking for the answer
copycat offerings and enormous war in the bucket for the deep-pocketed to the same question: How do I get
chests. Instagram Reels has struggled tech giant. TikTok right?

Chipotle’s VP of digital
marketing Tressie Lieberman,
pictured in one of the chain’s
restaurants near Newport
Beach, Calif., says “the crazier,
the better” usually works best
on TikTok.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE TORENO
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 119
“For every million dollars that
brands spend on influencer
marketing on TikTok, they’re
seeing $7.2 million in sales
over the first 90 days.”
HANDLEE and his team
have a standing direc-
C tive for marketers.
“Don’t make ads. Make
TikToks.” Few brands
have proved better at following that
advice than Chipotle. The company’s
VP of digital marketing, Tressie
Lieberman, discovered the platform’s
power before most. Her team of
so-called culture hunters told her in
May 2019 that TikTok was starting
to pop. “We were seeing millions of
mentions of Chipotle, even in those
early days,” she recalls. “And so we
thought about how we could show
up in a way that would supercharge
our superfans, and that remains a big
part of our strategy.”
The @chipotle account has
more than 1.6 million followers and
30.6 million likes. Anything guaca-
mole-oriented scores. Same for recipe
rollouts with auto-tune voiceovers.
White rice: 9.1 million views. Corn
salsa: 6.2 million. There’s the 15-sec-
ond introduction of a new line of
quesadillas featuring a series of high-
pitched screams: 3.2 million views. “I
love that one,” Lieberman says, recall-
ing the creative presentation with her
staff and agency partners.
“As a 41-year-old, I’m not the
target audience for that piece of
content, but there’s a lot of trust with
the team,” she says. “We’re always
experimenting, and the crazier, the
better, because sometimes that’s
what attracts the algorithm to get
even more exposure. We’re trying to
find those viral moments.”
Chipotle has developed special
items inspired by creators and
announces them on TikTok along
with other menu hacks. Recently it
announced the inaugural Chipotle
Creator Class, a partnership program
featuring 14 founding members that it
designed to “redefine the traditionally
transactional relationship” between
brands and creators. The company
also held a contest to become the
15th member in which it encouraged
creative Chipotle-centric submissions.
The winning entry featured a young
burrito enthusiast named Wyatt Moss
eating Chipotle in all 50 states in 50
days. “We actually don’t have a Chi-
potle in Hawaii,” Lieberman says. “So
he took his Chipotle on the plane with
him to eat it there.”
Margaret Johnson believes a big
part of success on TikTok involves
overcoming the core demographic’s
aversion to traditional advertising.
The chief creative officer of San Fran-
cisco ad agency Goodby Silverstein
& Partners, Johnson employs a team
of “TikTok ninjas” to discover new
ways to use the platform. “One thing
we focus on a lot with brands is just
making sure that they’re relevant
to their audience,” she says. “With
Gen Z, they don’t, for the most part,
 THE TIKTOK ECONOMY
like advertising. They’re on their
phones a lot. And we’re finding that
they are really big into self expres-
sion. So TikTok is an awesome place
for marketers if they’re brave enough
to hand over their brand and let the
audience run with it. A lot of brands
are afraid to do that. But the ones
who are willing, they’re making a lot
of fans in Gen Z.”
As the agency of record for Chee-
tos, Doritos, and Tostitos, Goodby
has orchestrated many TikTok
campaigns. For Cheetos, the agency
approached TikTok about a 2020
Super Bowl ad it was developing
around MC Hammer’s 1990 hit
song, “Can’t Touch This.” In the TV
spot, the protagonist escapes various
undesirable chores because his hand
is perpetually covered in Cheetos
dust, a.k.a Cheetle. The TikTok team
helped Goodby make TikTokers feel
like they were part of the ad with a
homegrown AI effect that enabled
the agency to superimpose Cheetle
onto the hands of users and share the
personalized ads.
For megabrands, this type of
integration can greatly amplify a
campaign’s power, and it came from
AVERAGE TIME SPENT MONTHLY PER USER
24 HOURS
22
20
18
16
14
JAN. 2020 JUNE
the TikTok marketing team’s creativ-
ity and cooperation. “You’ve got older
people watching the Super Bowl, and
younger people maybe half-watching,
half on their phones,” Johnson says.
“So this is a way to extend the cam-
paign to reach a younger audience and
really broaden your reach as a brand.”
T WOULD BE A stretch
to say that Peter
I Thomas Roth had
never heard of TikTok
when it decimated his
supply chain in late August, but he
wasn’t exactly a regular user. He had
to go searching through his phone
for the app to see what in the world
was happening.
Roth is the founder and CEO of
his eponymous Manhattan skin-care
products company. He’s done a ton of
product marketing over the com-
pany’s 18-year life span. He has con-
ducted many before-and-after demos
on QVC and created countless glossy
print ads. The Kardashians have even
flaunted his wares. And he’s spent a
lot on Instagram, which he refers to
as the “pretty” platform. All of it pro-
vides a somewhat predictable boost.
YOUTUBE
JAN. 2021
SOURCE: APP ANNIE INTELLIGENCE, ANDROID PHONES ONLY
None of it has compared to the effect
of a TikTok created by Trinidad San-
doval, a 54-year-old hospital worker
in Missouri with 70 followers.
In an anodyne, three-minute
presentation, devoid of dazzling
effects or an underlying soundtrack,
Sandoval highlighted the seemingly
magic power of Roth’s FirmX Eye
Temporary Eye Tightener. In the
video, which has been viewed more
than 29 million times, received more
than 5 million likes, and gener-
ated nearly 130,000 comments, she
explains how a weight-loss surgery
caused significant under-eye bags.
She applies the cream under her left
eye and waves at the spot to acceler-
ate its effects. Soon the skin tightens,
providing a stark contrast to the right
eye. “I don’t know if we’re allowed
to do this on TikTok,” she says, “but
I wanted to share the secret with
you because I know for me, my bags
are…sometimes I cry when I look at
myself in the morning.”
TikTokers quickly amplified the
video’s reach, reposting thousands of
“duets” and “stitches” across social
media with annotations, voice-overs,
and gasps of amazement. Over the
next few days, viewers carpet-bombed
Roth’s website and all of his retailers.
“I think it was a Thursday morning,
9 a.m., and my IT person calls to say
we’re already sold out of FirmX Eye,”
TIKTOK
Roth recalls. “That afternoon, retail-
ers were sold out online, and it was
selling out everywhere in brick and
mortar.”
Roth and his team worked all week-
end to shore up any available product.
By Monday, it was entirely spoken
for—with no hope of meeting demand
anytime soon. The team ran out of
boxes, paper invoices, even printer
ink. Worse, there are no one-ounce
tubes available anywhere; they’re all
made to order. He’s hoping to restock
in October, and in the meanwhile is
maintaining his humor as customers
JUNE are undoubtedly looking at compet-
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 121

JoJo Siwa has spun YouTube fame into a pop empire. from engaging with her
young fans with dance
moves and vlogs on
YouTube.

LIL NAS X
Twitter
7.1M followers

Starting his hilarious

and provocative Twitter
account to “stan” Nicki
Minaj, Montero Lamar
Hill re-created himself as
rap superstar Lil Nas X. A
string of hit singles and
his unflinching openness
regarding his sexuality
have made him a vital pop
culture figure.

MAXIMILIAN DOOD
YouTube
1.42M

The prolific fighting game

streamer Maximilian

Meet the Creator 25 audience with her chic

but attainable styles
Dood has posted videos
to his YouTube account
Fortune’s editors have compiled a list of and her unflinching daily, putting his tally at
the TikTokers, Instagram influencers, honesty in navigating 5,761 and counting.
newsletter writers, and podcasters that pregnancy. Nordstrom
you need to know about. Read the full list took notice, and NICK QUAH
online at fortune.com/creator-25 Raad has frequently Podcast critic
collaborated with the
retailer on collections. Quah is the Internet’s
preeminent podcast
BEN THOMPSON reminding us that food is HUMPHREY YANG critic. His site HotPod
Newsletter author inherently political. TikTok was recently sold to
2.3M followers Vox Media, and he has
Readers pay $120 a year DADA EATS since taken his talents
to read Thompson’s Instagram After experimenting with to New York magazine’s
Stratechery Daily 215K followers YouTube, former Merrill Vulture.
Update newsletter. But Lynch adviser Yang found
it’s essential reading for Samah Dada has spun a willing audience on YOGA WITH ADRIENE
anyone in the business of her food blog, Instagram TikTok who latched onto YouTube
technology or media. account, and an NBC Page his entertaining style, 10.3M subscribers
Program placement into a snappy editing, and
BLACK FORAGER regular segment on NBC’s savvy financial tips. The online fitness world
TikTok Today, her own show is full of flash-in-the-
2.8M followers on streaming service JOJO SIWA pan influencers telling
Peacock, and a cookbook. YouTube you to grind and hustle.
Alexis Nikole Nelson is a 12.3M subscribers Adriene Mishler, however,
Columbus-based TikToker DEDE RAAD started her YouTube
whose gleeful foraging Instagram Pop star Siwa got her channel in 2012, and
content encourages 1.1M followers break on traditional through consistency and
viewers to pay closer television, but her rise reliability she has won
and kinder attention to Fashion blogger Dede to international stardom over fans with her kind
the natural world while Raad has built her sizable and arena tours came and gentle approach.

ILLUSTRATION BY MATT CHESSCO

 1.9M Aimee Alcime doesn’t have purple eyes, but @aimyoncee occasionally does, thanks
followers to TikTok’s Eye Color Switch Effect. And the hue just seems to work for her, complementing her
Haitian American complexion and broad smile. In one of her most popular videos (12.1 million
83.7M views), she spends 15 seconds performing the “Questions I get asked” hand routine that’s
likes ubiquitous on the platform. Typically, her creations are far more elaborate. It can take five hours
Age: 22 to create 15-second videos depicting, for example, the embarrassment her character feels
while introducing herself to her class (2.2 million views). Brands don’t often give her direction.
@aimyoncee They just tell her “make it funny,” and let her go. Among her hits: a red-carpet dog-walking scene
for Pop-Tarts (2.7 million views) and a spot for Fenty Skin eye gel-cream (4.8 million views).

PHOTOGRAPH BY ALFONSO DURAN

 THE TIKTOK ECONOMY
ing products. Roth has struck up a
relationship with Sandoval, who by
now has more than 159,000 followers
and has appeared on Good Morn-
ing America and Dr. Oz. The CEO is
considering ways to work with her to
promote the video after the organic
traffic wanes and trying to think about
how he might capture lightning again.
“If you have someone who’s doing
something on their own, being who
they are and genuinely showing the
way it is, the breakout successes can be
huge,” he says.
Countless other examples prove
the point. A series of feta cheese
recipes, stemming back to a video by
a Finnish chef, led to #fetapasta. At
last count, the hashtag has more than
1 billion views and has boosted feta
cheese sales around the world. The
recent #BamaRush phenomenon, in
which University of Alabama women
detailed their outfits during soror-
ity rush, bolstered sales for several
fashion brands. New visitor traffic and
weekly revenue for one oft-mentioned
clothing line, Kendra Scott, jumped
17% and 20%, respectively, according
to Advertising Age. At the Pants Store,
online orders were up 400%.
Last spring, TikToker Carly Joy
inspired a mad rush to her pre-
ferred shave cream. In a charming,
profanity-laden how-to, she demon-
strates the regimen she uses to groom
her lady parts and praises a product
from the brand Eos as the best route
to a “smooth-ass hooha.” The video
drove a 2,500% increase in orders and
45,000% increase in traffic, accord-
ing to the beauty industry publication
Glossy. It inspired Eos to sign Joy
as a partner and to create a limited-
edition “Bless your F#@%ING Cooch”
shave cream. “I know that there are
some brands who still view TikTok as
experimental,” Eos’s CMO Soyoung
Kang told Glossy. “We are way past
that. TikTok is table stakes.”
TikTok is working to help market-
ers track and harness such com-
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 123
TikTok says that the
number of companies
running ads on its platform
jumped 500% in 2020.
munity endorsements, lest they be
sideswiped by them. A portion of its
platform has been handed over to
the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt hashtag,
where users perform demos and gen-
erally fawn over products. It has more
than 5 billion views. More recently,
the company announced a strategic
partnership with global advertising
conglomerate Publicis to help brands
learn best practices for ad creation.
The company also recently an-
nounced an arrangement with Shopify
aimed at removing the friction from
TikTok commerce. Starting in the
U.S. and U.K., the initiative gives
merchants the ability to run video ads
through Shopify’s TikTok presence,
to tag products in organic posts, and
to create mini storefronts. One of the
earliest partners is Kylie Cosmetics.
“For merchants that don’t have mil-
lions of followers, TikTok is unique
in that they can post something that’s
exciting and make it shoppable—and
anyone can see it,” says Shopify’s
director of product Amir Kabbara.
“We’re trying to close the loop between
a TikTok user seeing something and
being able to buy it.”
OMEONE ONCE told
me the easiest way to
S determine a person’s age
is with an iPhone. Hand
one to a boomer on a
whale watch, for example, and he’ll
use it to scan the horizon and silently
record the tableau before focusing on
the action off the bow. A Gen Xer will
behave similarly, except add audio
commentary. “You might not be able
to tell, but that humpback is bigger
than our entire boat!” The millennial
will just snatch the phone from your
hand, quickly position himself in front
of the camera, and make the whole
scene about him.
It wasn’t until Gen Z came along
that it dawned on me: This reductive
observation is less a reflection of age
than of fluency. Each generation’s
manner of expression is developed by
the technologies of its youth. TikTok
is made possible not just by high-
quality cameras and microphones, but
also unfettered access to a bottom-
less library of music and video clips,
intuitive video editing software, A.I.,
and cloud computing. The people
born into this suite of capabilities—
who also happen to have a surfeit of
vitality, creativity, and spare time—
have naturally become the masters
of a platform built to cater to their
technical aptitude and fickle attention
spans. They are the TikTok genera-
tion, and they’re leading the rest of us
with them into what is fast becoming
a full-blown TikTok Economy.
A month of field research by this
reporter—a.k.a., spending way too
much time on TikTok—suggests that
one crucial aspect of the platform’s
appeal is the way it’s uniquely suited
to bringing users together to bond in
a joyful or celebratory way. That lent
TikTok extra resonance during the
 THE TIKTOK ECONOMY
$104 billion
Size of the creator economy, according
to a recent report by Neo Ranch and
Influencer Marketing Hub
dark days of the pandemic. And, for
now at least, the app’s rabbit holes
tend to be different from the typically
dark, anonymous, and cynical versions
that populate the Internet—though as
the volume of content on the plat-
form proliferates so do the odds of
objectionable behavior. It’s also true
that the company itself is hardly a
Pollyanna. At three years old, it’s like
a prodigiously talented teenager who’s
capable of effortlessly charming peers
and parents but can’t seem to stay out
of the principal’s office.
In 2019, while still known
as Musical.ly, TikTok was fined
$5.7 million by federal regulators for
illegally collecting information on
users under 13. Earlier this year it
paid $92 million to settle a class-
action suit over the theft of personal
data. TikTok tightened its rules this
summer around data harvesting for
users under 13 only to have report-
ers at the Wall Street Journal a few
months later create a series of bot
accounts to demonstrate how TikTok
pushes sexually suggestive content
to minors. The algorithm has also
been widely criticized for unfairly
promoting beauty and hampering
users’ ability to focus. Moreover, the
platform has often been criticized
for fanning the flames of dangerous
stunts, vandalism, criminal mischief,
and underage drinking.
If TikTok is going to keep expand-
ing its user base beyond Gen Z and
make brands feel more comfortable,
it’s got to get better at playing the
role of sheriff. A source at one of the
world’s biggest brands tells me that
the company put all TikTok market-
ing on hold in the wake of the Journal
story. “Our number one priority as
a company is to protect our users,
whether they’re young or not,” says
Chandlee. “We’ve gone from a handful
of advertisers to hundreds of thou-
sands, so it’s been an amazing journey,
but it hasn’t been easy. It’s been hard.”
Regarding the Journal article
specifically, he adds, “The behavior
of those bots does not reflect actual
human behavior, but we spent a lot
of time as a senior leadership group
looking at that and, you know what?
Yeah, we need to do even more. We’re
taking down millions of pieces of
content that might be inappropriate,
and we’ve spent a lot of time on this
concept of trust. Because at the end
of the day, the brands have to trust
us, our users have to trust us, and the
government bodies have to trust us.”
Chandlee doesn’t exactly cop to
mistakes. Rather, he professes to
be charting a course that avoids his
competitors’ sins. “I’m personally a big
believer in learning from history. And
there were mistakes that were made
by some big tech players around data
and privacy. I think we can learn from
that,” he says. “But I also think you
need to chart your own path. What
we’re building here is very different.
We’ve got our own culture, our own
product, and our own role that we
play in people’s lives.”
What that culture becomes is also
an open question. TikTok is avail-
able in more than 150 markets and
Chandlee says the company acts
independently from the Chinese par-
ent. (It’s not available in China and
it’s banned in India, making its user
numbers even more impressive.). But
if workplace reviews on Glassdoor are
to be believed, that’s not always the
case—and recruiting may become a
challenge. The benefits and pay don’t
compare to Google and Facebook,
there is little work/life balance, and
people say they’re often required to
hold meetings with Chinese counter-
parts at all hours of the night.
After discussing TikTok’s corpo-
rate identity and future trajectory, I
decide to challenge Chandlee to my
little game of word association. “I say
TikTok, you say…” It’s the first time in
our conversation that smooth TikTok
exec seems tongue-tied. “Wow, that’s
a really hard one,” he says. “We use
the word ‘authentic’ a lot. I think I’ll
go with that.” Maybe a bit focus-
grouped, but not bad.
TikTok is definitely a place where
people can go to be themselves, warts
(or eye bags) and all—and be made
to feel like they’re not alone. To dance
like nobody’s watching—and be
adored by millions. To develop their
unique qualities—and be compen-
sated for them. It’s not perfect by any
stretch. But I can’t help but wish it
existed when I was a teenager. And
after everything that’s happened over
the past two years, it makes sense that
a platform with such power to trans-
form every individual’s view of the
world around us would resonate so
deeply with so many. You say “TikTok.”
I say, “Right place. Right time.”
Jeffrey M. O’Brien (@jeffreyobrien) is
cofounder of the Bay Area storytelling
studio StoryTK.
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 CONTENT FROM NUCOR
PROFILE 2021 | BEST WORKPLACES IN MANUFACTURING AND PRODUCTION
A Powerful
Partnership Driving
Powerful Results
When it comes to safety, Nucor, North America’s
largest steel manufacturer, has set a bold goal:
to become the world’s safest steel company.
NUCOR’S TEAMMATE-FIRST CULTURE DRIVES RESULTS
EVEN IN THE MOST CHALLENGING TIMES.
HISTORICALLY, THE PERCEPTION OF
steelmaking has been that it’s an
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steel industry is changing things.
Nucor, North America’s largest
steel manufacturer, is at the forefront
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worked decreased more than 80% from
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“The greatest measure of our culture
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Leon J. Topalian, president and CEO
of Nucor.
While physical safety has long been
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“In the midst of the pandemic and the
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Nucor’s values of integrity, teamwork,
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BUILD A CAREER IN
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FRONTLINE
FIGHT
Firefighters
strive to save
homes in
Boulder Creek,
Calif., from
one of the
CZU Lightning
Complex fires.

D Y L A N B O U S C H E R — M E D I A N E W S G R O U P/
THE MERCURY NEWS/GET T Y IMAGES

BURNED
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 129

As California’s wildfires grow more intense, hundreds

of thousands of homeowners face soaring prices for
insurance. They’re confronting the costs of climate
change—and worrying that their property values could
go up in smoke. By Jeffrey Ball
WOODS CONSTRUCTION A thick canopy of trees, including an oak that grows through the center of the structure, make Liz Babb and
Angelo Aloisio’s Portola Valley home both distinctive and hard to insure.

SIX YEARS AGO, Liz Babb and her husband, Angelo
Aloisio, retired financial-services executives and new emp-
ty nesters, sold their place in San Francisco and moved to
the woods. They bought a 1970s house on a steep slope
in Portola Valley, an enclave of forested canyons minutes
from Silicon Valley’s center that boasts a bohemian history,
a reputation for moneyed discretion, and jaw-dropping
views. It was an iconic—if, by local standards, modest—
northern California dream home: wood construction,
picture windows, multiple decks, and, everywhere, trees.
Lush vegetation blanketed the property: oaks, red-
woods, and all manner of shrubs and bushes. They envel-
oped the house, but not only that. Soaring through the
center of the structure—rising from the dirt, through the
first-level floor, up three stories, and out the roof—stood
a massive oak, its trunk encased by interior glass and its
branches and leaves canopied over the house. “We were
ready for our rural adventure,” says Babb, an avid hiker.
When she first saw the shelter-magazine-worthy aerie, she
recalls, “I fell in love with it.”
In August 2020, love turned to fear. A lightning storm
struck hills stretching between Portola Valley and the Pacific
Ocean—hills, that, like much of California and the West,
are parched from years of drought. The bolts set the hills
aflame. By the time five weeks later that firefighters put out
what had come to be called the CZU Lightning Complex
fires, the inferno had scorched some 86,500 acres and de-
stroyed about 1,500 buildings. The blaze came within about

PHOTOGRAPHS BY WINNI WINTERMEYER


eight miles of Portola Valley, its smoke plume turning the
skies above the town a putrid, pallid orange. More perma-
nently, the fire altered Babb’s view of her world. The ecology
“has changed,” she says. “We’re a tinderbox here.”
Last November, fear turned to fatalism. Babb got a letter
from Safeco, the company that had insured her homes for
more than 15 years. Safeco informed her it was going to
drop her homeowners policy in January; it had concluded
her house in the trees was too severe a fire risk. For the next
several weeks, Babb searched for another insurer, but other
carriers, too, saw her house as a firetrap. Finally, days before
their policy was to expire, she signed up for the California
FAIR Plan, a last-resort fire-insurance pool that California
had established following urban riots in Los Angeles in the
1960s for people unable to get coverage through the regular
market. Still, she will pay $8,000 annually for her full
complement of homeowners insurance, about $7,000 of it
for fire. That’s four times what she paid a year ago.
Babb and Aloisio, like many of their neighbors, can
afford the expense. But even their rarefied zip code offers
a window into the economic fallout from wildfires—
recurring disasters that are intensifying in part owing to
climate change. Here as elsewhere in California and across
the American West, a surge of decisions by insurers not to
renew the policies of property owners in combustible loca-
tions is spurring political fights and stoking fears of sinking
property values. More consequentially, it is exacerbating
societal inequities in ways that foreshadow dilemmas that
will become more common in a warming world.
Over the past two years, insurance companies worried
about wildfires have ditched perhaps as many as 500 of
Portola Valley’s approximately 1,800 houses, estimates Jeff
Aalfs, a town council member. And that’s just the start, fig-
ures Jeremy Dennis, the town manager. “Over time, I would
expect the majority of people to have an issue,” Dennis tells
me one recent morning, as we sit at a picnic table outside
Portola Valley’s handsome, wood-sided, LEED Platinum–
certified town hall. Towering over us is a circle of 100-foot-
tall redwoods, known as a fairy ring. Nearby, a group of
locals is preparing for an outdoor chair-yoga class.
A wider degree of uninsurability would make Portola
Valley even more exclusive. Because mortgage lenders
typically require fire insurance, the only people with the
wherewithal to live in what insurers deem a fire-prone
no-go zone would be those affluent enough to pay cash for
their houses and to shoulder the risk of watching that in-
vestment flame out. What dislocates Portola Valley, more-
over, is likely to threaten the very viability of less affluent
California communities, where the average homeowner
has much less in the bank. “The state is suddenly going to
have millions more houses that can’t get insurance,” says
Dennis, who himself recently lost his fire coverage for a
cabin he owns in Arnold, a mountainous town between
San Francisco and Lake Tahoe. “We’re just one city among
hundreds that has this issue.”
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 131
“The state is going
to have millions
more houses that
can’t get insurance,”
warns one town
official.
THIS YEAR will be remembered as the one when
climate-induced disasters—floods in China and Germany,
hurricanes in New York and Louisiana, wildfires in Greece
and across the American West—reset the global outlook.
Millions of people who either didn’t grasp the intensifying
risk of climate-induced catastrophe or ignored it are con-
fronting a new reality—one not just psychological but also,
and more immediately, economic. Policymakers in Wash-
ington and other global capitals continue to dither about
whether to impose a serious price on carbon emissions—a
seemingly endless debate that in November will top the
agenda of yet another United Nations climate conference,
in Glasgow. But industries from automakers to oil produc-
ers to consumer products manufacturers to insurance
firms are concluding that they no longer have the luxury to
wait. Indeed, in responding to climate change, the capital-
ists are leading the politicians.
No sector feels more keenly than insurance the im-
perative to integrate climate risk into its economics. As
vast tracts of the planet flood and burn, it has billions of
dollars at stake. Consulting firm Milliman, relying on data
from the National Association of Insurance Commission-
ers, has reported that from 2016 to 2019, insurers forked
over $37 billion for wildfire losses in California alone, a
sum that exceeded the $32 billion in premiums they had
taken in. Payouts for 2020 and 2021, years of even bigger
wildfires, could well end up higher.
California is the unquestioned epicenter of the fire-
insurance crisis. The state is currently in the fifth year of
a stretch of historically destructive conflagrations: The
eight biggest wildfires in California history, in terms of
acreage burned, have taken place since 2017, according
to Cal Fire, the state’s wildfire-fighting agency. As devel-
opment has pushed more people into former wilderness,
and as severe drought and higher winds—both linked
to global warming—have extended wildfire’s reach, the
stakes in lives and property have soared. California
wildfires have consumed at least 11,000 homes and other
structures in the past five years—impacting homeowners
from hardscrabble towns in the Sierra Nevada moun-
FIGHTING FUTURE FIRES A fire protection crew in Portola Valley removes trees and brush to reduce risk of a roadside blaze.
tains to exurbs ringing Los Angeles, from vineyards in
the Napa and Sonoma valleys to ski resorts overlooking
Lake Tahoe, from beach towns to hilly enclaves such as
Portola Valley.
Facing this onslaught, the insurance industry is start-
ing to change what it sells and to whom. In the process,
it is emerging as perhaps the world’s most aggressive
force pushing society to confront the costs of a chang-
ing climate. Insurers are racing to modernize the models
they use to assess wildfire danger—models that, in the
era before runaway climate change, had lagged behind
those they use to predict hurricanes and earthquakes.
They are pressing homeowners to “harden” their homes
against fire—to replace wood roofs with ones made of fire-
resistant materials, to slash vegetation bordering exterior
walls, even to add expensive yard-sprinkler systems that
can be turned on, like a Tesla, from afar by phone. When
all else fails, insurers are jettisoning clients like Babb and
Aloisio—people whose homes, the companies have con-
cluded, now are too likely to go up in smoke. Businesses,
too, are facing insurance pullbacks.
The attempts by insurers to recalibrate for a warmer
world are spurring a furious backlash from property own-
ers. In California, both the push and the pushback are
playing out on two fronts. One comprises the communi-
ties whose homeowners and businesspeople are losing
their policies. In 2019, the most recent year for which
data is available, insurers declined to renew the home-
owners policies of 235,274 Californians, according to the
California Department of Insurance. Though that’s only
about 3% of the 8.6 million Californians who had such
policies, it represented a 31% jump in nonrenewals from
2018, with most of the increase coming from areas of
high wildfire threat. The fire-insurance fallout, moreover,
is compounding a statewide housing shortage; in many
pockets of the state the difficulty of obtaining coverage is
constraining new construction, a further climate-induced
economic squeeze.
The other front is Sacramento, where a battle is
unfolding with important implications for other regions

Portola
Valley has
banned the
planting
of a
handful of
common
tree species
dubbed
“the
flammable
five.”
struggling to adapt to climate-related disasters. Cali-
fornia long has typified two quintessentially American
tensions: the one between populism and profit, and the
one between idolizing nature and building on it. These
long-simmering conflicts are boiling over in a fight over
how much regulators will let the insurance industry jack
up the rates it charges some property owners. Insurance
carriers argue that the state’s regulatory regime doesn’t
reflect economic reality in an era of rising wildfire risk.
In the decade prior to 2018, the average California home-
owner’s total yearly premium—including fire and other
protections—increased just 16%, compared with 42%
nationwide, according to Property Insurance Report, a
trade publication. California’s average homeowner’s pre-
mium in 2018, $1,073, placed California 40th among the
states in premium as a percentage of household income.
Those numbers suggest California consumers have been
shielded from global warming’s economic blows—and
that aligning price with risk could mean jarring price
increases.
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 133
WHAT’S ESPECIALLY TELLING about Califor-
nia’s conundrum is that the Golden State long has been
singularly supportive of charging fees to protect the planet.
State legislators years ago imposed an electric-vehicle
mandate and a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse-
gas emissions that amounts to a tax on carbon—both
examples that other states and nations have followed. The
intensity of today’s fight over wildfire-insurance rates sug-
gests that dinging corporate polluters is, politically speak-
ing, an easier strategy than docking millions of voters.
California’s long tradition of consumer activism makes
it particularly difficult for insurers to raise rates. For one
thing, state law requires insurers to get approval for any
increase from the state insurance commissioner—who,
unlike the chief insurance regulator in most other states, is
elected rather than appointed, rendering the commissioner
particularly attuned to voters’ dissatisfactions. For another,
California law allows anyone to file a legal challenge if an
insurer requests a price increase that averages 7% or more.
But the biggest barrier is a stipulation that the com-
missioner may approve only rate increases that fall within
a price band determined by averaging an insurer’s prior
20 years of fire-related losses. In theory, the backward-
averaging method prevents anomalously light or heavy fire
seasons from whipsawing premiums. But it assumes that
future fire trends will look pretty much like past ones—an
assumption that, as the planet warms, looks increasingly
incorrect. In retrospect, the methodology has perpetu-
ated a false sense that the economics of fire insurance in
California are sound, says Nancy Watkins, a principal and
consulting actuary at Milliman. “Looking behind you says
everything is flat,” she says. “What’s ahead of us is the new
normal of climate change, where the risk is a lot higher.”
How much higher became clear after the one-two punch
of the 2017 and 2018 fire seasons. Starting in earnest in
early 2019, insurers shed clumps of customers whose
properties they deemed unreasonable risks. The nonrenew-
als have been most pronounced in the region stretching
from south of Lake Tahoe to the Oregon border, where from
2018 to 2019 they more than doubled, to 25,508, according
to insurance-department data. But the numbers have risen
across the state. The nonrenewals have enraged homeown-
ers and sparked an outcry from the current insurance com-
missioner, Ricardo Lara. He has issued a series of one-year
moratoriums against nonrenewals for residents of a grow-
ing string of zip codes that California Gov. Gavin Newsom
has declared wildfire disaster areas.
The upshot is evident in the crunch now facing the state’s
last-resort fire-insurance pool, the California FAIR Plan.
Despite its downsides—including its priciness and the fact
that its coverage is limited to $3 million, which is less than
the value of not a few California homes—the FAIR Plan has
grown rapidly both in the number of Californians forced to
use it and in the portion of them who live in high-wildfire-
risk areas. In 2019, the number of policies in the FAIR Plan
134 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021

A STATE AFLAME
The eight biggest wildfires in California history, and 10 of the top 14, have taken place since 2017.
Bigger, faster-moving fires have also drawn closer to the state’s largest population centers.

OREGON

CRESCENT CITY

CARR
MT. SHASTA JULY 2018
229,651 ACRES
EUREKA
REDDING
AUGUST COMPLEX DIXIE
AUGUST 2020 JULY 2021
1,032,648 ACRES 963,276 ACRES
CHICO
NORTH COMPLEX
MENDOCINO AUGUST 2020
COMPLEX MENDOCINO
RENO 318,935 ACRES
JULY 2018
459,123 ACRES YUBA CITY
UKIAH
CALDOR
AUGUST 2021
LNU LIGHTNING 220,877 ACRES
COMPLEX SACRAMENTO
SANTA ROSA
AUGUST 2020
363,220 ACRES CREEK
SEPTEMBER 2020
SAN FRANCISCO 379,895 ACRES
SCU LIGHTNING
COMPLEX PORTOLA VALLEY BISHOP
AUGUST 2020
396,624 ACRES N E VA DA
SANTA CRUZ
FRESNO
LAS VEGAS
VISALIA

CALIFORNIA
WILDFIRES IN THOMAS
DECEMBER 2017 BAKERSFIELD
281,893 ACRES
CALIFORNIA
SINCE 2017 SANTA BARBARA
FIRES LABELED ON THE MAP ARE PALM SPRINGS
THE TOP 10 LARGEST BY AREA BURNED LOS ANGELES

TOTAL AREA BURNED, 2017-2021

SAN DIEGO
100 MILES
SOURCES: CAL FIRE; NATIONAL INTERAGENCY FIRE CENTER

shot up 36%, to 190,196 people. More recent figures aren’t
yet available, but FAIR Plan documents suggest the burden
continues to rise. In 2014, the portion of the pool’s insured
properties that sit in “wildfire-exposed” areas was 25%. By
2020, it was 65%. In August the plan, citing a huge increase
in wildfire exposure, filed a request with the insurance de-
partment for an average 48.8% increase in its already-high
fire coverage premiums, arguing that the system’s “overall
rate inadequacy has grown.”
The insurance lobby has launched short- and long-term
campaigns in Sacramento for rates that better reflect cli-
mate-related risks. The immediate bid is for permission to
charge more. A large number of carriers have recently asked
Lara to grant them rate hikes just below the 7% threshold
that permits legal challenges. These asks have come to be
known by the just-under-the-wire increase they request:
“6.9s.” Other insurers are, like the FAIR Plan, risking bolder
action, requesting double-digit average rate hikes.
More lastingly, insurers are pushing to replace Cali-
fornia’s 20-year-backward-averaging methodology. They

want the state to let them use models to substantiate their
requests for fire-insurance price hikes, much as other
states do, and much as California does for earthquakes.
They contend that the freedom to use models would let
them more accurately—and, of course, more profitably—
assess wildfire risk and apportion premiums. Rather than
toss Californians off their books, they say, they’d be able
to insure them—at higher prices than many of those con-
sumers have been paying, but at lower rates than the FAIR
Plan would impose. Insurers say modeling also would trim
premiums for some homeowners who are penalized by the
backward-averaging rules.
But in California, a state whose tech giants have spawned
algorithms humanity loves to hate, the notion of com-
puter models setting prices raises hackles. Politicians and
consumer groups deride the idea as just the latest corporate
feint to gouge the public. Lara in 2020 lambasted a bill that
sought to allow the practice, saying it would harm consum-
ers by deploying “secret, confidential catastrophe models
cloaked from public transparency.” Nevertheless, this July a
state task force recommended public hearings on the pros-
pect of using modeling, with an emphasis on openness.
TRANSPARENCY, at least in the physical sense, is a
rarity in Portola Valley. Redwoods and oaks—along with no-
toriously flammable invasive species such as eucalyptus and
acacia—grow prolifically, prized in part for their provision
of privacy. The town was born in 1964 primarily to protect
the landscape; locals incorporated to block the proposed
development of a vast tract. (They won; it’s now an open-
space preserve.) In 1966, a young band called the Grateful
Dead played the annual Christmas dance of a local school.
As nearby Silicon Valley took shape and prospered,
Portola Valley changed too, gradually morping into a high-
priced bedroom community. Today, it brims with technol-
ogy titans and tree-huggers; often they’re the same people.
Porsches and Teslas share its sylvan, serpentine roads
with high-end racing bicycles. The town has a popula-
tion of about 4,600 and a median household income of
$250,000; the median value of its homes, many of which
enjoy stunning views of plunging canyons or of San Fran-
cisco Bay, is $2 million.
Portola Valley’s angst about wildfire insurance dates at
least to 2007. That year it, like communities up and down
California’s hillsides, was served with a new Cal Fire map
flagging about 10% of the town’s acreage as a “very-high-
fire-hazard-severity zone.” The map incensed many locals.
They worried the documents would saddle them with
higher insurance rates. Because the state requires that the
designation be disclosed to prospective homebuyers, they
fretted it would jeopardize their property values, too.
The opposite fear dogged Denise Enea, then the fire
marshal of the Woodside Fire Protection District, which
includes Portola Valley: that the maps underestimated the
town’s areas of greatest combustibility, leaving unwitting
FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 135
residents in harm’s way. She recalls contentious discussions
with town officials, after which they agreed to hire a private
consultant to assess local vegetation. When the consultant,
Ray Moritz, began putting together his own map and re-
port, town leaders were floored to discover he had identi-
fied more of the town than Cal Fire had as of very high con-
cern. In a vitriolic 2008 town council meeting, speaker after
speaker fumed that the Moritz map would hit their homes’
insurability and values. One council member, according to
the official minutes, declared the body “should do whatever
it could to get the State to adopt its original map.”
That opposition infuriated Enea, who saw it as valuing
money over life. “I was blown away,” she recalls. “My job
was to protect them and they didn’t want any part of it.”
Portola Valley did adopt a slate of tougher state building
rules designed to improve the fire resistance of structures.
And it inserted in its overall planning document refer-
ences to Moritz’s map and report. But the town council
declined to formally adopt either the Cal Fire map or the
Moritz one. Dennis, the current town manager, agrees
that residents and leaders back then were leery of any-
thing they thought would raise insurance rates and lower
property values. That’s a reluctance he ventures would
not prevail today. “There would be many more voices in
that conversation, because of climate change,” he tells me.
“We’ve got new information. New times.”
That new information hit the town in the form of
California’s disastrous 2017 and 2018 fire seasons. It has
prompted Portola Valley to start reckoning with some hard
choices. In 2019, just as insurers began gunning to update
state policy governing fire-insurance pricing, the town
council created a committee to recommend ways to reduce
wildfire danger. The 2020 CZU fire further fanned local
concern, says John Richards, a soft-spoken architect who
has served on the town council since 2009. “That woke
people up. There was a massive plume over there,” he tells
me, gesturing westward as we sit at the town-hall picnic
table. One wrenching realization this arboreal retreat is
confronting, he says, is that it should no longer allow the
unchecked growth of trees. “The idea that we could let
nature take its course,” he says, “is no longer an option.”
Work crews in the town are scrambling to clear away
brush, but the task is “monumental,” Don Bullard, the
current fire marshal, tells me as we drive around town one
recent morning in his official SUV. “Those are all assets
at risk,” he says, pointing at a line of high-end houses on
a ridge. “A torch,” he adds a bit later, pointing to a dying,
and thus particularly flammable, redwood tree.
The town council has, on the suggestion of the fire-safety
committee, banned the planting of a handful of highly com-
bustible trees: acacia, cypress, eucalyptus, juniper, and pine,
which officials dub the “flammable five.” Another of the
committee’s suggestions is under consideration: prohibit-
ing wood-shake roofs and wood siding, and decreeing that
wood decks and wood fences, basically matches to flames,
136 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021

may not be connected to houses, so as not to ignite them.

Some town officials expect a fight but predict passage.
More battles are brewing. A group of worried residents
recently hired Moritz to produce an updated report. He
believes the town in 2008 “buried” his findings, and he
says his new research finds that the fire hazard in Portola
Valley has since only worsened: Not only has wildfire
activity in the vicinity intensified, but vegetation—what
firefighters call, simply, “fuel”—has thickened on the slopes
of the town’s many so-called box canyons. Those V-shaped
ravines form the backyards of many Portola Valley houses;
in the event of fire, they act as chimneys, speeding the
uphill spread of flames. Moritz says the situation brings to
mind an aphorism that’s a firefighter favorite: “If you stick
your head in the sand, you’re going to get your ass burned.”
Heads are poking up over new fears about uninsurability.
Another round of updated Cal Fire fire-risk maps is due
out starting later this year, and those maps are expected to
label as very-high-fire-hazard-severity zones a much greater
portion of California. Because of the money riding on the
maps, discussion around them has been “lively,” notes
Daniel Berlant, chief of Cal Fire’s wildfire planning and
engineering division. But he says the maps, in the works
for about five years, will be based on science—specifically
a new Cal Fire model designed to better reflect increased
fire danger, largely from climate-linked increases in wind.
The specter of that model prompted Dennis, Richards,
and another Portola Valley council member to write state
officials in August declaring themselves “very concerned”
the updated maps will put the town in a vice grip yet again.
HIGH ALERT Fire marshal Don Bullard refers to many Portola
One of their worries is that the maps will make it harder Valley homes as “assets at risk”; a dying tree can be “a torch.”
to comply with another Sacramento requirement: that
California localities add a specified number of new housing
units—in Portola Valley’s case, 253—to help ease the state’s power to destroy: In 2008, a blaze ignited by a short circuit
housing crunch. “If insurance nonrenewals continue,” they in old wiring destroyed the 106-year-old, wood-shingled
wrote, “it may prove impossible for newly constructed house in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights neighborhood
homes to be insured, let alone existing properties.” in which she then lived; luckily, no one was home. Today,
Babb, the Portola Valley homeowner now relegated to Aloisio and Babb blame themselves for having bought a
the FAIR Plan pool, knows that threat firsthand. When I wooden house encasing a massive tree on a wooded hill-
drive up to her house one recent morning, she points to side near worsening wildfires. “I think we were ignorant,”
the tree jutting out of her roof and deadpans a greeting: Aloisio says. (A spokesman for Liberty Mutual Insurance,
“There’s the candlewick.” which owns Safeco, says the company has “taken the dif-
After she and Aloisio give me a tour of the place, we take ficult but necessary step to reduce our overall exposure to
seats on soft outdoor furniture on a second-story deck— wildfires” but continues to sell California policies that it
made, naturally, of wood. As blue jays chirp, Babb recounts thinks don’t “present an unacceptable wildfire exposure.”)
how summers seem to have gotten hotter in the six years After a while, Babb and I stroll up her street, a wind-
she and Aloisio have lived in the house, how recent wild- ing, one-lane affair that, she notes, would be hellish to
fires north of San Francisco have destroyed the homes of drive down if everyone in the neighborhood were fleeing
not one but two families who are their friends, and what oncoming flames. We pass house after wooden house
the heavens over Portola Valley looked like as the sum- perched on steep terrain and fringed with vegetation. At
mer 2020 CZU fire approached. “The sky was orange,” she the crest of the hill, we come upon a ranch gate. Beyond it
recalls. It evoked “a nuclear winter.” stretches one of the many stunning trails that Babb loves
Babb and Aloisio decided to flee that fire, driving to a to hike. But the trailhead, she notes, has a second purpose.
hotel near relatives in Los Angeles, where they stayed until In the event of wildfire, the gate is to be flung wide open
the smoke subsided. Babb needed no education about fire’s and the path used as an evacuation route.
 THE PANDEMIC EFFECT ON THE

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 CONTENT FROM PGA TOUR
FORWARD MARCH
A year in, the PGA TOUR’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts
have advanced the ball well down the fairway.
LAST SEPTEMBER AT THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP,
the PGA TOUR’s annual season finale at East
Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Commissioner Jay
Monahan pledged that the organization would
make a deeper commitment to addressing racial
and social justice issues. First and foremost, its
leadership would do so by listening and learning,
in order to do better as an organization. The
TOUR pledged not only to reflect upon its role in
helping to end inequality and injustice but also
launched its endeavor with a 10-year, $100 million
commitment to support racial equality and
inclusion efforts.
A lot can happen in a year. In the case of the
PGA TOUR, its scorecard to date tells an encour-
aging story.
The TOUR expanded its relationship with the
Advocates Pro Golf Association (APGA) Tour, a
nonprofit organization founded in 2008 with the
goal of preparing minority golfers for careers in
the golf industry, either as players or business
leaders. Progress has already come in the form
of players like APGA star Willie Mack III. Mack
competed on the PGA TOUR and saw some early
success, as he made the cut in his two most
recent TOUR starts. After winning the Master-
card APGA Tour Championship, Mack received a
full scholarship to the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying
School. The Korn Ferry Tour is the PGA TOUR’s
top-tier development tour and a gateway to the
PGA TOUR itself.
Mack is an early standout, and the TOUR hopes
that his success is an indicator of what’s to come.
“We’re identifying, preparing, and transitioning
top African American collegiate golfers into
professional golf,” Monahan says. “We’re providing
stipends and scholarships for the top five players
in the APGA Collegiate Ranking to participate in
APGA events, and to receive an exemption into
the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament.”
Corporate Support
Another main point of emphasis for the TOUR
since last year was to expand its collaboration
with historically Black colleges and universities,
or HBCUs. That initiative received a significant
boost when the TOUR, in conjunction with one of
its corporate partners, United Airlines, announced
that every one of the 51 current men’s and wom-
en’s HBCU golf programs in the U.S. will receive a
$10,000 grant for their upcoming season.
“Our HBCU task force surveyed these programs
at length and, repeatedly, we heard that engag-
ing the TOUR’s vast and diverse partner network
“WE ARE WORKING to offset the financial burdens many HBCU golf
programs face was the priority,” says Monahan.
ACROSS OUR TOURS
“We’re thankful to United Airlines for taking the
AND WITH OUR initiative and supporting the HBCU grant program.”
TOURNAMENTS, Among other things, the grants will allow
SPONSORS, AND these teams to travel farther afield for competi-
tions, gaining valuable experience, both as it
PARTNERS TO relates to golf and the world beyond the fairways.
IDENTIFY WAYS TO That’s exciting news for players like A.J. Ford, a
HAVE A POSITIVE freshman at North Carolina A&T who is a state
IMPACT SOCIALLY champion with Drew Charter School in Atlanta
and a graduate of First Tee – Metro Atlanta.
AND ENVIRONMEN- It’s even exciting for his already well-traveled
TALLY IN THE teammate, two-time NBA champion J.R. Smith,
COMMUNITIES a former first-round NBA draft pick who came
straight out of high school and is now enrolled
WHERE WE PLAY.” at North Carolina A&T, following his own golf and
MARSHA OLIVER
scholastic dreams.
VICE PRESIDENT,
COMMUNITY AND
INCLUSION, Internal Improvements
PGA TOUR At its headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.,
the PGA TOUR is also working to bolster its internal
diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts. It
recently announced the creation of the Office of
Social Responsibility and Inclusion, led by Neera
Shetty, the TOUR’s executive vice president and
deputy general counsel. Already an instrumental
voice as chair of the TOUR’s Inclusion Leadership
Council, Shetty will report through the Office of
the Commissioner in this new role.
“The creation of an Office of Social Responsi-
bility and Inclusion is the next step on our diversity,
equity, and inclusion journey,” says Marsha Oliver,
vice president, community and inclusion. “We are

working across our tours and with our tournaments,
sponsors, and partners to identify ways to have a
positive impact socially and environmentally in the
communities where we play.”
Oliver herself will continue to lead the TOUR’s
$100 million commitment to racial equity and
inclusion causes over the next decade, now
reporting to Shetty. Elsewhere, Kenyatta
Ramsey has taken on the position of senior
director, player development, where he will
focus on efforts and resources designed to
improve opportunities for Black players and
others with diverse backgrounds to compete at
the highest levels of professional golf. Ramsey’s
CONTENT FROM PGA TOUR
TOP LEFT: WITH HIS VICTORY AT THE MASTERCARD
APGA TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP, THREE-TIME APGA TOUR
PLAYER OF THE YEAR WILLIE MACK III RECEIVES A FULL
SCHOLARSHIP INTO THE KORN FERRY TOUR QUALIFYING
SCHOOL. TOP RIGHT: SOLOMON DOBBS AND A.J. FORD—
BOTH GRADUATES OF FIRST TEE— METRO ATLANTA
AND MEMBERS OF THE DREW CHARTER TEAM THAT
WON A HISTORIC 2019 GEORGIA STATE HIGH SCHOOL
TITLE—ARE NOW CONTINUING THEIR PLAYING CAREERS
AT HBCUS MOREHOUSE AND NORTH CAROLINA A&T,
RESPECTIVELY.
collaboration with the APGA Tour has already BOTTOM LEFT: TIM O’NEAL WON
THE JOHN SHIPPEN, A TOURNAMENT
proven to be key a contributor to the TOUR’s FEATURING THE NATION’S TOP BLACK
progress in the player diversity space. MEN AND WOMEN COLLEGIATE AND
PROFESSIONAL GOLFERS, TO EARN
Golfers have a saying: “There are no pictures AN EXEMPTION INTO THE PGA TOUR’S
on the scorecard.” That is, never mind what your ROCKET MORTGAGE CLASSIC.
BOTTOM RIGHT: THE PGA TOUR AND
swing and the shots it produces look like—all THE NNPA/BLACK PRESS OF AMERICA,
that matters is the result. Are you getting the job THE ASSOCIATION FOR 230 BLACK-
done or not? Period, full stop. Ramsey and Oliver, OWNED NEWSPAPERS ACROSS THE
U.S., ENTERED INTO A STRATEGIC
Shetty, Monahan, and everyone else at the PGA PARTNERSHIP IN 2021. IN AUGUST,
TOUR supporting these initiatives know one thing PGA TOUR COMMISSIONER
JAY MONAHAN BECAME THE FIRST
for certain: There are no pictures on the TOUR’s COMMISSIONER FROM ONE OF
DE&I scorecard either. It’s all about getting the AMERICA’S MAJOR PROFESSIONAL
SPORTS TO AGREE TO AN EXCLUSIVE
job done, and results are precisely what the ONE-ON-ONE INTERVIEW WITH
organization is focused on. —EVAN ROTHMAN THE BLACK PRESS.
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 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 141

Fortune’s Change the World list honors companies that use the creative tools of capitalism—including
the profit motive—to address society’s unmet needs. The 2021 list, our seventh, is also the second
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y M E LV I N G A L A P O N

compiled in the shadow of COVID-19, which has exposed how sorely our society has neglected some
of those needs. Many of this year’s honorees are battling to reverse that neglect, investing in the long-
term health of their businesses by supporting those on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder—
whether by bolstering pay and benefits for frontline workers (see entry No. 3); serving small farmers
(No. 36); or most urgent of all, distributing COVID vaccines in low- and middle-income nations (No. 1).
As always, our partner in selecting the honorees is Shared Value Initiative, a consultancy that helps
companies apply business skills to social problems. For more on our methodology, see page 143.
142 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021
The Vaccine Makers Still, that success has
GLOBAL been accompanied by
an unignorable asterisk.
The vaccines’ rollout has
been deeply inequitable,
with poorer countries left
lagging far behind richer
counterparts that bought
up most of the supply. In
the words of the author
William Gibson, the future
is here but unevenly dis-
tributed. Such is usually
the way with great innova-
tions. But in the case of
COVID vaccines, scientists
and ethicists agree that
unevenness is not good
enough. Not only do inad-
equately vaccinated popu-
lations suffer more harm,
they also risk becoming
breeding grounds for fast-
moving new variants of
the virus that might evolve
to be vaccine-resistant.
Although today’s vac-
cines stand up against it
Fighting the COVID-19 Fight, relatively well, the Delta
variant—and the intense
Worldwide economic uncertainty sur-
The race to create coronavirus vaccines was rounding it—has provided
an unwelcome glimpse of
only the beginning. These companies are striving to
that potential future.
make sure low-income nations don’t get left out. That’s the thinking
BY DAVID MEYER behind our No. 1 entry for
the Change the World list.
In the ceaseless tide of worry over the pandemic, While last year’s list hon-
it’s easy to forget how far we’ve come. It is noth- ored the pharma industry’s
ing short of remarkable how quickly the pharma- unprecedented collabora-
ceutical industry developed not one but several tion on beating the virus,
this year Fortune is high-
COVID-19 vaccines, and that those lifesaving
lighting companies that
doses were introduced to the arms of the public are racing to expand access
just a few months later. Not even a year after the to vaccines, especially in
first regulatory approvals, more than 30% of the the Global South.
global populace has been fully vaccinated against That list begins with
COVID-19—a historic and humbling achievement. AstraZeneca and Johnson
61.5% of people in the world’s highest-income countries have received at least one COVID vaccine dose
AS OF SEPT. 22, 2021. SOURCE: UNDP
& Johnson. The tradi-
tional vaccine technolo-
gies on which they have
relied, while potent, have
been slightly less effec-
tive than the messenger
RNA (mRNA) technique
employed by Moderna
and BioNTech/Pfizer.
But significantly, both
AstraZeneca and J&J have
been selling their doses at
cost. That has made them
pivotal to the efforts of the
COVAX initiative, which
has so far distributed more
than 300 million World
Health Organization–
approved vaccine doses
to the developing world.
The COVAX program also
includes Pfizer/BioNTech
and Moderna’s vaccines,
and those made by China’s
Sinopharm and Sinovac,
which have helped fill the
gap created by Western
firms’ production limita-
tions. (The Chinese vac-
cines’ efficacy also appears
to be lower than that of
mRNA vaccines.)
Many vaccine-equity
advocates, including the
WHO, argue that produc-
tion would be best expand-
ed and made sustainable
by forcing manufacturers
to share their intellectual
property and technical
know-how. One way of
doing so—activating the
waiver provision in TRIPS,
the global intellectual-
property-rights agree-
ment—has been resolutely
opposed by Big Pharma
and the European Union.
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 143

But the EU’s preferred HEADQUARTERS OF THIS YEAR’S CHANGE THE WORLD COMPANIES
alternative, of voluntarily ADOBE, AIRBNB, COSTCO EXPERIAN, AON KUAISHOU
getting other manufactur- ATHLETA, CHECKR,
HP, ILLUMINA,
ers on board, is gaining LEVI STRAUSS,
traction. Africa’s largest PAYPAL, THREDUP PRUDENTIAL UK
pharmaceutical company, ENVISION GROUP,
TEMPUS, THE CHANGE PINDUODUO
Aspen Pharmacare, has a ADM COMPANY
contract to “fill and fin- VESTAS, LEGO RENEW ENERGY
ish” J&J vaccine doses in GLOBAL
South Africa. Pfizer and YARA
BioNTech have similar AMPCONTROL
pacts with the Biovac Insti- ELANCO
ANIMAL
tute—also based in South WALMART HEALTH SVENSKA
Africa—and with Eurofarma INDEED HANDELSBANKEN
STRYKER
Laboratórios in Brazil. EASTMAN
South Africa’s Numolux MAERSK
Group has also signed a SHOPIFY GEMINI
Sinovac fill-and-finish pact. INTERFACE BUTTERFLY
None of these deals NETWORK,
FLAGSHIP DAIMLER
yet takes the extra step PIONEERING,
of allowing a licensee to GENPACT
produce the active vaccine VIATRIS NESTLÉ ARAB BANK
substance itself. The model
for that kind of cooperation BANK OF
AMERICA
was set by AstraZeneca and
the Serum Institute of India.
That contract held great
promise for global supply
until a terrible pandemic
SUNCOLOMBIA
wave in India forced SII
to divert exports to its
AURECON
domestic market. Still, the
pact could prove vital in the CARRIER,
future. SII has also signed NEXTERA ENERGY
up to make Russia’s Sput-
nik V vaccine, as have firms
L’ORÉAL, MTN, HELLO TRACTOR,
in countries from Brazil to BANCO SANTANDER SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC MULTICHOICE GROUP KCB GROUP
Belarus, though that vac-
cine’s inclusion in COVAX
remains uncertain.
HOW WE CHOOSE 1. MEASURABLE 2. BUSINESS 3. DEGREE OF
Step by step, we’re THE COMPANIES SOCIAL IMPACT RESULTS INNOVATION
getting to worldwide im- The Change the World list We consider the We consider the We consider how
munization. And get there recognizes companies that reach, nature, and benefit the socially innovative the
have had a positive social durability of the impactful work brings company’s effort is
we must. In our globalized impact through activities company’s impact on to the company. Prof- relative to that of
context, this pandemic de- that are part of their core one or more specific itability and contribu- others in its industry
mands change around the business strategy. As we societal problems. tion to shareholder and whether other
assess nominees, among value outweigh ben- companies have fol-
world for any part of it to the factors that matter efits to the company’s lowed its example or
become truly safe again. most are: reputation. partnered with it.

3.3% of people in the world’s lowest-income countries have received at least one dose
 C O N T E N T F R O M S I LV E R A D O S E N I O R L I V I N G
PROFILE 2021 | BEST WORKPLACES IN AGING SERVICES
A Commitment
to Caring
How Silverado is changing lives by leaning into
its compassionate, purpose-driven culture.
SILVERADO COFOUNDER, CEO, PRESIDENT, AND
CHAIRMAN LOREN SHOOK AND ASSOCIATES CELEBRATE
BEING NAMED TO FORTUNE’S BEST WORKPLACES IN
AGING SERVICES LIST.
FOR PEOPLE WITH A MEMORY-IMPAIRING
disease, the type of care they receive
can directly impact their quality of life.
Silverado Senior Living, an Irvine, Calif.–
based memory care assisted-living
provider that operates 23 memory care
centers and eight hospice programs
across seven states, was founded 25
years ago on a model that prioritizes
love, respect, and restoring purpose.
Since then, Silverado has been able to
improve not only the lives of its residents
but also its associates.
“We make sure our staff is getting
back more than they give so they can
continue to change lives,” says Loren
Shook, Silverado’s cofounder, CEO,
president, and chairman.
To support its nearly 2,500 associ-
ates—who serve 1,200 residents and
1,000 hospice patients each day—
Silverado invests in opportunities for
growth and advancement through lead-
ership training programs and continuing
education assistance.
Silverado’s unwavering commitment
to its staff, residents, and patients is
driven by its core operating philosophy:
Love is greater than fear. At no time was
this demonstrated more powerfully than
during the COVID-19 crisis, when its
associates continued to care for one of
society’s most vulnerable populations.
“Our team members on the front
lines are absolute heroes,” says Shook.
“It’s unbelievable what they were able
to accomplish.”
In response to the staff’s high
pandemic-related stress levels, Silverado
implemented companywide counseling
and expanded benefits, such as additional
paid sick time and paid vacation time.
“Only 11 people took a leave of
absence,” says Shook, “which is an
incredible number, given everyone was
saying 30% of health care workers would
quit due to the heightened pressure of
the pandemic.”
Its associates’ dedication reflects
the compassion-driven environment
Silverado has created. A 2021 Great
Place to Work® survey found that 90%
of Silverado associates feel they are
making a difference, and the company
is constantly looking for new ways to
improve quality of life across its operations.
Its five-pillar Nexus program, which
offers nonpharmaceutical therapies like
exercise and social activities for seniors
with early-stage dementia, has been
found to improve cognition by 60%,
more than any drug on the market.
“It’s an honor for me to serve with our
associates and be able to do what we’re
doing,” says Shook. “This group of people
is changing the world.” Q
CHANGING LIVES
TOGETHER
FOR 25 YEARS
Silverado was founded on the idea of a better way
to care for those living with dementia. Through an
innovative dual focus on clinical excellence and
compassionate care, this idea proved not only
feasible, but so successful it changed the world.
Our dedicated associates work tirelessly to
change residents’ and patients’ lives, providing
individualized care with offerings like Nexus®
at Silverado, our internationally recognized,
evidence-based brain health program, and our
Hospice Essential Oils program.
This shared purpose that binds Silverado
associates together has earned numerous
accolades, including multiple years on the
Fortune Best Workplaces in Aging Services and
the Great Place to Work lists.
On our 25th anniversary, Silverado would like
to thank all of those who have been part of the
countless lives we’ve touched over the years, and
because of the foundation you laid, we will enrich
many more lives in the years to come.

For stories and the latest

Silverado news visit
silverado.com/enriched-living
146 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021

THE LIST
2–6
HEAD WRITERS NO. 2 NO. 4

Matt Heimer Envision Group Banco San-

Erika Fry Helping China and the tech tander (Brasil)
world set a green course. Weaning a nation
CONTRIBUTORS SHANGHAI from fossil fuels.
SÃO PAU LO
Maria Aspan
Eamon Barrett
Katherine Dunn
As China aims for net-zero
emissions by 2060, Envision
Santander Brasil
is green energy’s
6.3%
is playing a key role. It was the financial engine ELECTRIC AND
Sheryl Estrada
world’s fourth-largest supplier in the world’s PLUG-IN HYBRID
Robert Hackett of wind turbines in 2020. It also sixth-largest na- VEHICLES’ SHARE OF
provides energy management tion by popula- GLOBAL NEW-CAR
Declan Harty
tion. It has been SALES, FIRST HALF
services to more than 360
Emma Hinchliffe involved in about OF 2021
customers, including tech gi-
$11 billion worth
Beth Kowitt ants Microsoft, Accenture, and of green-power
Yvonne Lau Amazon Web Services. In De-
cember, Envision joined other
deals since 2012,
having financed or
100%
Megan Leonhardt SHARE OF NEW
energy producers in an R&D structured roughly
Michal Lev-Ram initiative to push the cost of a third of Brazil’s MERCEDES-BENZ
producing “green” hydrogen— wind-power proj- CARS THAT THE
Rey Mashayekhi NO.
hydrogen fuel made using ects. Santander has COMPANY HOPES

Jessica Mathews renewable energy—to below
David Meyer $2 per kilogram, the point at
which the clean-burning fuel
Sy Mukherjee
can become a viable fossil-fuel
Biman Mukherji alternative. Envision estimates
Marco Quiroz- it can get there in three years.
Gutierrez
Anne Sraders
Jonathan Vanian NO. 3
Phil Wahba Costco Wholesale
Bernhard Warner A stronger safety net
Claire Zillman for the retail workforce.
I S S A Q U A H , WA S H .
In the war for retail talent
during the pandemic, Costco
Wholesale put its money
where its mouth is. Already a
leader in incentives like paid
sick days, Costco in February
raised the internal minimum
wage for its 200,000-plus–
person workforce to $16,
keeping the pressure on
competitors to pay their own
workers more. Not long after-
ward, Amazon and Walmart
each gave raises to hundreds
of thousands of their work-
ers. Costco’s reward for its
efforts: double-digit percent-
age increases in sales—long
after pandemic panic-buying
eased—and customers as
loyal as ever.
6
also made its solar- WILL BE ALL-
panel lending more ELECTRIC BY 2030
generous, with
longer payment
terms and up to
100% financing, to
66%
foster more users. INCREASE IN THE
PRICE OF COBALT,
A KEY EV BATTERY
COMPONENT, SINCE
JAN. 1, 2021
NO. 5 Daimler
Viatris
Expanding
Tackling
access to a vital
HIV drug.
Clean Cars’
C A N O N S B U R G, PA . Dirty Secret
An automaker aims to
Viatris, formed take child labor out of the
by the merger of EV battery supply chain.
Mylan and Pfizer’s S T U T T G A R T, G E R M A N Y
Upjohn unit, has
transformed HIV
treatment for mil- Geologists say the fate of
lions living with the
the world’s low-carbon fu-
virus in low- and
middle-income ture rests with six metals.
nations. In 2017 it Of those, cobalt may be
introduced the first the most precious and the
low-cost antiretro-
viral drug with do- most controversial.
lutegravir, a crucial The heat-resistant
first-line HIV treat- metal has a melting point
ment; it’s priced at
$75 a year. Viatris
of 1,493˚ C, making it an
also formulated the ideal material to ensure
drug for kids, as lithium-ion batteries—the
easier-to-swallow,
dissolvable
kind found in laptops,
strawberry-flavored mobile phones, and, most
tablets. important for the climate,

electric vehicles—don’t
catch fire when we power
them on. Cobalt’s value is
reflected on commodities
markets: It topped $51,500
per ton in September, a
32-month high.
Sixty percent of the
world’s refined cobalt
comes from one place:
the copper-and-cobalt
belt in the south of the
Democratic Republic of
the Congo. If there’s a
ground zero for cobalt, it’s
the mining city of Kolwezi,
a place buzzing with gold-
rush vitality. But Kolwezi
is rarely mentioned in EV
COURTESY OF DAIMLER AG
automakers’ “battery day”
presentations. There’s a
reason for that. For the
past decade, mining in
Kolwezi and the DRC has
been synonymous with hu-
man rights abuses. The co-
balt boom there coincided
with the forced eviction of
Congolese communities
from resource-rich lands.
Artisanal miners were
detained unlawfully, often
violently. And then there’s
the staggering number
of children toiling in the
region’s open-pit cobalt
mines.
“While technologies
like electric vehicles are
essential for shifting away
from fossil fuels, the battery
revolution carries its own
risks for human rights and
the planet,” Mark Dum-
mett, director of Amnesty
International’s Global Is-
sues Program, said in
February, challenging busi-
ness to create supply chains
that contain only ethically
extracted minerals.
One company stepping
up is Mercedes-Benz par-
ent company Daimler. The
German auto giant made
headlines this summer for
its €40 billion ($47 billion)
pledge to go all-electric
by 2030. For a luxury-car
brand that sells more than
2 million vehicles per year,
that’s a lot of cobalt.
But as it ramped up its
EV ambitions, Daimler also
set out to map all the places
on the planet—from mines
to smelters—that handle
cobalt for its batteries. As of
March 31, it had identified
183. It has sent teams of as-
sessors to one-third of the
locations, aiming to certify
that each supplier meets its
strict standards—including
no kids in the mines and no
BATTERY FOR A BENZ
The Daimler unit has pledged to
sell only electric cars by 2030.
contaminants spewed into
the water or air. The plan
is to extend the audits to
battery components lithium
and nickel too. Suppliers
who don’t comply will get
the boot, Daimler says.
NGOs have pushed the
corporate world into this
action: In 2017, when Am-
nesty put out a report card
on companies’ handling
of child labor in the cobalt
belt, most carmakers,
including Daimler, got poor
grades. Much has hap-
pened since then, including
the formation of the Global
Battery Alliance, a consor-
tium of over 60 companies,
NGOs, and monitoring
groups, aiming to ensure
the creation of a sustain-
able, ethically sourced
cobalt supply chain.
Ethical procurement
isn’t a panacea, notes Mathy
Stanislaus, director of
public policy and engage-
ment for the alliance. “You
have to invest in the root
cause,” he says. “This is a
poverty issue.” With that in
mind, since 2019 Daimler
has also been investing in
Kolwezi. It has earmarked
€1 million for a program
that has so far moved
nearly 5,000 children out
of the mines and into class-
rooms. The same initiative
trains women and girls to
be farmers, seamstresses,
and business owners. Many
of the women and children
vow: They’re not going
back to the mines.
—Bernhard Warner
148 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021

THE LIST
7–14
NO. 7 NO. 8 NO. 9 NO. 11 NO. 12

PayPal KCB Group Bank of America The Change Flagship

A bet on Black Steering bor- Investing in Company Pioneering
and Latinx long- rowers through better pay and Expanding U.S. An incubator of
term wealth. choppy waters. employee loyalty. homeownership. essential drugs.
SAN JOSE NAIROBI CHARLOTTE IRVINE, CAMBRIDGE,
C A L I F. MASS.

Since George
Floyd’s murder,
KCB is East Africa’s
second-biggest
Even as the U.S.
minimum wage 32 Millions of finan-
cially stable Ameri-
This biotech firm
funds and fosters
PayPal has de- homegrown languishes at $7.25 MILLION cans look like risky creators of novel
ployed $510 million bank, with more per hour, Bank of NUMBER OF borrowers on pa- drugs, having
toward closing the than 22 million America is raising UNDERBANKED per—because they helped launch
racial wealth gap, customers across the bar: In 2020 it HOUSEHOLDS are freelancers, for more than 100
mostly by making countries such as upped its minimum IN THE U.S. example, or have companies that
deposits in Black- Kenya, Rwanda, hourly wage to multiple jobs. The now total more
and Latinx-owned and Burundi. Job $20, and this May Change Company than $180 billion
financial institu-
tions and backing
No. 1 is helping
those customers
it promised to
hike it to $25 by
$67,000 provides fairly
priced mortgages
in market value.
It’s no household
early-stage VC rebound from the 2025. BofA has also ADDITIONAL to this under- name, but one of
funds led by Black pandemic: The spent $425 million EXPENSE THAT THE served group. In its progeny is: Flag-
and Latinx manag- bank has restruc- on pandemic- AVERAGE BLACK 2020 it originated ship birthed Mod-
ers. The goal is giv- tured more than era caregiving FAMILY FACES $7 billion in loans erna, maker of the
ing communities of $1 billion in loans reimbursements OVER THE LIFE to some 30,000 vital RNA-driven
color more capital to accommodate for employees. The OF A MORTGAGE, customers, 70% of COVID vaccine.
to support entre- COVID-distressed return on these COMPARED WITH A whom identify as Another Flagship
preneurship, which borrowers. KCB investments: lower WHITE FAMILY WITH Black, Latinx, or startup, Laronde,
creates wealth—for also funds voca- turnover, as more low-income. It also is now aiming to
THE SAME LOAN
the entrepreneurs tional scholarships staffers see BofA notched its third leverage “endless
and their backers for up to 10,000 as an “employer of SOURCES: FDIC, MIT straight year of RNA” tech to fight
alike. youths a year. choice.” operating profits. other diseases.

NO. 10 NO. 13

ReNew Energy Global Prudential UK

A foothold for solar and wind An app steps up
power in a fast-growing when health care
energy market. is hard to find.
GURUGRAM, INDIA LONDON

As India's largest renewable- In 2019 this Asia-

energy firm, ReNew has the and Africa-focused
daunting task of building an insurer launched
alternative to fossil fuels in Pulse, a free health
the nation that is the world’s app that uses A.I.,
gamification, and
third-largest oil importer and
other phone fea-
one of its fastest-growing tures to promote
energy consumers. ReNew
COURTESY OF RENE W P OWER ; C OURTESY OF LEGO

provides solar and wind power
in nine Indian states, reaching
around 400,000 people, but
it’s poised for greater growth
thanks to recent fundraising.
ReNew has brought in $1.4 bil-
lion through multiple tranches
of “green” bonds since
October 2020, and in August it
raised more than $1 billion on
the Nasdaq via a merger with
a special purpose acquisition
company (SPAC).
health engagement
in places where re-
sources to manage
chronic disease are
limited. (Offerings
include a symptom
tracker and a
health-assessing
selfie tool.) Down-
loaded 30 million
times in 17 nations,
Pulse has boosted
sales: In 2020 it
CLEARING THE AIR A ReNew wind farm in Uttar Pradesh state, India. ReNew is the generated $211 mil-
biggest renewables producer in a nation eager to wean itself from fossil fuels. lion in revenue.
NO.
14
Lego Over the past six years,
a team of more than
Building a 150 employees at Lego’s
Greener headquarters have tested
hundreds of different plas-
Brick tic formulations as they
worked toward the holy
A toymaker could
grail: a Lego brick made
soon turn discarded from recycled or renewable
plastic into a staple materials. In July, Lego an-
of kids’ playrooms. nounced a breakthrough,
B I L LU N D, D E N M A R K
unveiling a prototype
made from recycled PET
plastic sourced from dis-
carded bottles. Research-
ers ground the plastic
into flakes and combined
them with additives to
strengthen the material so
it had the “clutch power”
that Lego pieces are
known for (see the photo
above). The company still
has testing to do—like
figuring out how to get the
bricks the right color—but
hopes to have them on
the market within 18 to
24 months. The implica-
tions are massive for Lego,
which last year generated
nearly $7 billion in rev-
enue. The company uses
more than 100,000 tons
of plastic in the 100 bil-
lion Lego “elements” (from
bricks to little plastic
people) it produces annu-
ally, and a single one-liter
bottle can produce 10
two-by-four stud Lego
pieces. The efforts are part
of a broader commitment:
Lego said in 2020 it would
invest $400 million over
three years in sustainabil-
ity efforts. Single-use plas-
tic bags are being phased
out from its packaging,
and flexible pieces are
now made from a plastic
derived from sustainably
sourced sugarcane.
—Beth Kowitt
1 5 0 FO RT U N E O CTO B E R /N OV E M B E R 2 0 2 1

THE LIST
15–22
NO. 15 NO. 17 NO. 18 NO. 19

Walmart Checkr Vestas Elanco Animal Health

Raising the bar Offering a fair A wind power Helping small farmers
on lower tuition. chance to join giant finds new in East Africa keep their
BENTONVILLE, the workforce. ways to scale up. livestock alive.
ARK.
SAN FRANCISCO AARHUS, DENMARK G R E E N F I E L D, I N D.

As the world’s larg- This HR tech com- In 1979, the Danish manufac- In East Africa, small farmers
est company, with pany aims to help 5 turer sold and installed its first produce an estimated 70% of
2.3 million employ- people with crimi- MILLION turbine. It has since grown poultry and 80% of dairy prod-
ees, when Walmart nal records build NUMBER OF NON- into the world’s largest wind ucts. Yet between diseases,
makes a big move a more equitable INCARCERATED energy company by installed misinformation about fake
it often influences future. Checkr uses AMERICANS WHO products, and misdiagnoses,
capacity, with substantial
other businesses. A.I., “story mod- HAVE SERVED PRISON sales in the U.S., China, and livestock farmers there face
Sure enough, when ules,” and human
TIME Germany. In 2020, revenue hefty challenges. In 2017,
the retail giant analysis to help
announced a debt- employers such rose for the third consecu- Elanco (then a unit of Eli Lilly)
tive year, climbing 22% to set up the East Africa Growth
free education
initiative this sum-
as Lyft and Netflix
determine whether 27% €14.8 billion ($16.9 billion), Accelerator with the help of a
mer—offering free an applicant’s ar- UNEMPLOYMENT though shipping delays and grant from the Bill & Melinda
college tuition and rest or conviction RATE AMONG supply-chain snarls have Gates Foundation. Its mission:
books to 1.5 million history is relevant THE FORMERLY pushed up costs amid the to create a steady supply
associates (since to his or her job INCARCERATED pandemic. Vestas has kept the of affordable veterinarian
2018, it had offered qualifications.
momentum going with new products (as well as accurate
both for $1 a day)— (Often, it isn’t.)
In 2020, Checkr
technical advances, including information) for farmers across
Target, and then
Amazon, 1 million helped “unblock” announcing the largest-ever Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda.
eligible employees 1.5 million applica- turbine and technology that Four years and a spinoff from
SOURCE:
between them, tions; this year, the PRISON POLICY INITIATIVE allows its mammoth blades to Eli Lilly later, Elanco is on track
soon followed suit. goal is 3 million. be recycled. to help nearly 240,000 farm-
ers treat millions of chickens
and cows through EAGA by
2022. The initiative has been
NO. 16 both sustainable and profit-
able, so much so that Elanco
Airbnb incorporated EAGA into its
A global host net- business operations at the
work makes room start of 2021.
for refugees.
SAN FRANCISCO

Since Hurricane
Sandy struck in
2012, Airbnb has
helped organize
temporary housing
for refugees, asy-
lum seekers, and
people displaced
by disaster; it has
served 75,000
people so far. In
August, as Af-
C O U R T E S Y O F E L A N C O A N I M A L H E A LT H

ghanistan fell to the

Taliban, Airbnb’s
nonprofit arm said
it would pay for
hosts to house
20,000 Afghans. In
September, Airbnb
said that support
from the host com-
munity had helped
exceed that goal. COOP COOPERATION Sylviah Achieng, an Elanco veterinarian, does a health check at a chicken farm in Uganda.
 NO. 20

Illumina
A med-tech pioneer puts
COVID-19 in its sights.
SAN DIEGO

Long at the forefront of gene-

sequencing and -therapy
technology, Illumina is picking
up steam thanks to the pro-
liferation of DNA sequencing
across a variety of medical
applications—including track-
ing infectious diseases like
COVID-19. Illumina says there
are now some 70 countries
using its tech to monitor and
analyze samples of the coro-
navirus, hoping to track how it
could mutate into variants. Just
as Illumina has helped sharply
reduce the cost of genetic
sequencing, it aims to do the
same for cancer diagnostics via
its acquisition of biotech Grail
(though the deal faces scrutiny
from antitrust regulators).

NO.

22
NO. 21

Eastman Chemical
Deploying new technology
to address the planet’s
plastic problem.
K I N G S P O R T, T E N N .

Levi Strauss
In 2019, Eastman began up-
dating some plants to accept
A Rare Plea to Consumers: Please Buy Less
plastic waste, in processes it Urging shoppers to choose durability over of-the-moment fashion.
calls “carbon renewal technol- SAN FRANCISCO
ogy” and “polyester renewal
technology," through which
feedstocks are broken down Roughly 150 billion pieces of clothing are produced globally each year, but more than 60% are
to the molecular level and thrown away within a few years of being made. The global appetite for fast, throwaway fashion
used to make products that has serious environmental consequences, something that Levi Strauss is attempting to change
G A B B Y J O N E S —T H E N E W Y O R K T I M E S / R E D U X

can theoretically be infinitely
recycled, and waste polyester
is made back into raw material.
Some 25 brands and compa-
nies, including fashion retailer
H&M, now sell products made
with Eastman materials
derived from plastic waste—in-
cluding packaging and carpet
fibers. Eastman aims to recycle
500 million pounds of plastic a
year by 2030.
with the “Buy Better, Wear Longer” campaign it launched in April. The denim-maker is en-
couraging consumers to be more thoughtful about the clothes they purchase, urging them to
wear their jeans and other apparel for a longer period and buy new items less frequently—thus
potentially producing less waste in the long run. (The campaign also gives Levi’s the chance to
tout its own apparel’s durability and in-store tailor services, factors
for which the company hopes buyers pay a premium.) In addition
STAYING POWER
to its environmental push, Levi’s has focused on supporting and
Levi Strauss jeans
(featuring the company’s
retaining its workforce by rolling out an eight-week paid family
19th-century-inspired
logo) on a store shelf leave policy for its retail workers—an unusually generous benefit in
in San Francisco. an industry that’s often stingy.
152 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021

THE LIST
23–28
NO. 23 NO. 25 NO. 27 ent company sup-
plying global food
Indeed.com Interface ADM brands, it may be
Leveling the playing field Tackling a climate- Making protein the biggest plant-
based protein
for a fast-growing generation change problem that’s with a smaller producer you’ve
of job-seekers. literally underfoot. carbon footprint. never heard of. Its
AUSTIN AT L A N TA CHICAGO 10 joint ventures
and investments in
the category range
Indeed is one of the world’s Carpeting accounts for 60%
largest hiring platforms—and of the U.S. flooring market, 35 kg ADM has been on a
quest to turn plants
from growing meat
from animal cells
as the Great Resignation and most of it has been AVERAGE AMOUNT into meat substi- to creating protein
has kicked in, it has focused treated with toxic chemicals OF CO2 EQUIVALENTS tutes since the through fermenta-
on scrubbing bias out of or additives and made out EMITTED TO PRODUCE 1950s, and claims tion to building
the job-hunting process. In of carbon-intensive, unrecy- 100 GRAMS OF the title of inventor the world’s largest
March, Indeed launched a clable plastics. Interface is a PROTEIN FROM BEEF of the soy veggie insect protein
virtual hiring platform that has notable exception: Two years patty. Today, as a production facility
$64 billion ingredi- (it’s designed to
helped more than 2.6 million ago the company achieved
people schedule interviews. Its carbon-neutral status, and 0.4 kg
screening tech offers all can- in 2020 it began selling AVERAGE AMOUNT
didates who meet a recruiter’s carbon-negative tiles that EMITTED TO PRODUCE
criteria the option to remotely store carbon, removing it from 100 GRAMS OF
interview—helping sidestep the atmosphere. Interface PROTEIN FROM PEAS
potential biases based on balances out emissions from
name, race, or education. For the rest of its carpeting by
job-seekers, Indeed’s Work investing in carbon-reduction-
Happiness Score grades
companies based on survey
related efforts in Africa and
Latin America.
850
MILLION
data on issues like flexibility,
ANNUAL USERS OF
compensation, and inclusion.
THE PINDUODUO
GROCERY APP

NO. 24 NO. 26

MultiChoice Group Pinduoduo

Nurturing homegrown Building a stronger
television programming farm-to-customer
in 14 African countries. food chain in China.
J O H A N N E S B U RG, SO U T H A F R I CA SHANGHAI

MultiChoice is Africa’s leading Pinduoduo, an online-grocery

pay-TV provider, with its DStv
and GOtv platforms reaching
20.9 million households across
50 countries. To help it main-
tain that position, MultiChoice
invests heavily in the produc-
tion of African programming,
made locally for local con-
sumption. Its Innovation Fund
has disbursed $17.8 million
to small businesses, while its
Talent Factory academies have
trained over 200 storytellers
(including filmmakers, writers,
and editors) in 14 countries.
In its last financial year, the
company produced 19% more
local content, while tallying
year-on-year organic revenue
growth of 4%, to $3.28 billion.
giant, recorded its first
quarterly profit of $374 mil-
lion (on $3.6 billion in sales)
in the three months ended in
June. In August the company
pledged to invest it all—and
more—into agriculture-related
philanthropy, announcing a
$1.5 billion fund to provide
tech and business training
to farmers, improve logistics
infrastructure, and support
agri-tech research and devel-
opment. Pinduoduo expects PLANT-BASED
that it will benefit from this PLANNERS
generosity, since the funding Technicians at
a production
will improve its supply chain
SOURCES: facility for Harvest
and its relationship with farm- OUR WORLD IN DATA; Gourmet, one of
ers—12 million of whom sell PINDUODUO
Nestlé’s plant-based
their produce via the PDD app. protein brands.
 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 153

28
convert flies into NO
animal feed).
Nestlé
These deals are
key to ADM’s effort
The ‘Plant-Based Party’ Scales Up
to remake itself A global food and beverage empire throws its weight behind
into more than an
agri-giant proces- meat and dairy alternatives.
sor of commodity V E V E Y, S W I T Z E R L A N D
crops. ADM ex-
pects the $10 bil-
lion plant-protein Nestlé was late to the plant-based party that turned the likes of
sector to triple in Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat into industry darlings. But now
size over the next
decade as con- the food and beverage titan is making up for lost time, aggressively
sumers become launching products across its vast portfolio that have the potential
more concerned to improve both consumers’ health and the planet’s: vegan KitKats;
about the impact
of their diets on
pea-based alternatives to tuna and milk; Purina pet food made with
the environment. insects and fava beans. The Swiss multinational has about 10% of
its R&D employees working on plant-based goods, which are now
approaching $1 billion in revenue annually for the company. Nestlé’s
massive scale and distribution network is not only driving double-
digit sales growth of meat and dairy alternatives for the company,
but also helping mainstream the entire category worldwide.

COURTESY OF NESTLÉ
 C O N T E N T F R O M T H E C H A N G E C O M PA N Y
PROFILE 2021 | CHANGE THE WORLD
Bringing Equal
Access to the
American Dream
The Change Company is working to end
racial and societal inequities in financial services.
BY SERVING PRIME BORROWERS TRADITIONALLY
LOCKED OUT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES, THE CHANGE
COMPANY IS WORKING TO “BANK THE UNDERBANKED.”
OWNING A HOME HAS ALWAYS BEEN
the cornerstone of the American dream,
providing stability and a gateway to
financial security and wealth. But for
many, especially those in underserved
communities, the dream is out of
reach due to wealth inequality and a
lack of access to capital. The Change
Company, a community development
financial institution (CDFI) that promotes
capital and local economic growth
in Black, Latinx, and low-income
communities, is working to fix that.
“Our mission is to bank the
unbanked, fairly and responsibly,”
says Steven Sugarman, founder of
the Change Company. “We do this
by providing digital-first solutions
to the resolution of social and racial
inequities in lending and banking.
Homeownership is key to breaking
the intergenerational poverty resulting
from a legacy of unequal access to
lending and other structural racial
inequities caused by the financial
services industry.”
The Change Company, headquar-
tered in Irvine, Calif., operates five
divisions that encompass everything
from mortgage lending to appraisal
management services—all geared
toward empowering underserved
homeowners, small businesses,
and consumers.
“Change does what traditional
lenders can’t or won’t do,” Sugarman
says. “Traditional banks don’t believe
all Americans deserve their best
technology, their best programs, and
their best loans. We do.”
Still, tackling existing social and
racial inequities in banking is no
small feat. According to the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation, 33%
of African Americans and Latinos do
not have access to any mainstream
credit products, including credit cards,
personal loans, auto loans, student
loans, or home loans. That compares
to only 14% of whites.
The Change Company has funded
about $25 billion in loans and more
than $7 billion in 2020 alone. In addi-
tion, since its CDFI certification in 2018,
it has not had a single foreclosure on a
loan, demonstrating that doing good
can be good business.
To further expand Black home-
ownership in America, the Change
Company and its home loan subsid-
iary recently partnered with Netflix.
The streaming services company
invested $10 million as part of its own
initial $100 million overall initiative to
support Black communities.
“Strong, socially responsible capital
partners are critical to our ability to
expand homeownership for minority
and other underserved borrowers,”
says Sugarman. “Our partnership with
Netflix allows us to do just that. We
are excited to empower real, positive
change in America’s communities.” ■
 The Change Company serves
prime borrowers
others don't. The Change Company brings fair and
responsible lending to the people and
communities that traditional banks have
left behind. As America’s Community
Development Financial Institution we serve
prime borrowers others don't and provide
equal access to the American dream.

LENDING AMC

For lending partners, banks and mortgage companies, visit ChangeWholesale.com.

For consumers, visit ChangeFi.com.

Change Lending is a state-licensed mortgage lender, NMLS ID #1839. To verify licenses, visit www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Headquartered at 16845 Von Karman Avenue, Suite 200,
Irvine, California 92606. AZ: Arizona Mortgage Banker License #0925326; CA: Licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage
Lending Act and California Financing Law; CO: Regulated by the Division of Real Estate; GA: Georgia Residential Mortgage Licensee #48010; MN: This is not an offer to enter into an
agreement and an offer may only be made pursuant to Minn. Stat. §47.206 (3) & (4); OH: Licensed by the Ohio Department of Commerce, Division of Financial Institutions, Ohio Residential
Mortgage Lending Certificate of Registration #RM.804654.000. For other states, visit www.ChangeMTG.com. All loans are subject to credit approval and acceptable collateral. Additional
terms and conditions apply. Programs, rates, terms and conditions may change without notice. Not all programs are available in all states. There is no guarantee that all borrowers will
qualify. Restrictions may apply. This is not a commitment to lend. Change Lending, LLC and its loan products are not sponsored or endorsed or being offered by the U.S. Treasury
Department or any other Government Agency. © 2021. Change Lending, LLC. All rights reserved.
156 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021

THE LIST
29–38
NO. 29 NO. 30 NO. 31

Yara Shopify Svenska

International Offsetting the climate Handelsbanken
Fertilizer and impact of e-commerce. Tackling the gen-
advice where they O T TA WA der wealth gap.
are needed most. STOCKHOLM
OSLO

In June 2020, on
the heels of the
At a time when e-commerce
is being heavily scrutinized
Just as the gender pay gap
has proved incredibly stub- 137
United Nations re- for its environmental impact, born, so too has the wealth MILLION
leasing a devastat- Shopify is helping its merchant gap. Among people over E-COMMERCE
ing warning that customers reduce their car- 65 in OECD countries, men ORDERS HANDLED BY
265 million people SHOPIFY’S SHOP PAY
bon footprint. Shopify has de- have accumulated 26% more
worldwide were at PLATFORM IN 2020
risk of starvation signed its Shop Pay checkout pension or retirement savings
by the end of the service, which operates both than women. In Sweden, the
on its own platform and for gap is nearly 30%. Svenska
year, Yara Interna-
tional jumped into merchants who sell via Google Handelsbanken, Sweden’s 630,000
the fray. Under and Facebook, to automati- biggest bank, has retrained BAGS OF FERTILIZER
a plan called cally make contributions to 500 financial advisers to help SHIPPED TO SMALL
Action Africa, it programs that offset the car- women match men in amass- FARMERS AS PART
quickly shipped bon generated by each order. ing wealth. It’s drawing atten- OF YARA’S ACTION
out 40,000 metric AFRICA PROGRAM
Many of those payments are tion to the long-term financial
tons of fertilizer
going to a program to plant impact of different career
to Africa, which
the company 4.6 million mangrove trees by choices, teaching employees
estimated would 2022 in Senegal—enough to to better promote savings for
help triple the offset the shipping emissions clients who have worked part-
region’s maize of all orders paid for on Shop time, taken parental leave, or
production and Pay in 2021 and 2022. worked as freelancers.
end up feeding
1 million people for
one year. In total,
250,000 small-
holder farmers NO. 32
were supported by
the donation. The Aon
gift was more than A new pipeline for
just philanthropy, the underserved.
however: It was DUBLIN
also an effort to
support a growing
customer base.
Action Africa has In 2017, the Anglo-
created a new American financial
digital platform giant launched the
as well to provide Chicago Appren-
farmers with free tice Network, one
advice through- of the first major
out the growing efforts to bring
season. Launched people without col-
in July 2020, it al- lege degrees into
ready has 2 million the corporate train-
participating farm- ing pipeline. Reten-
ers, and it’s help- tion rates among
ing Yara generate the first graduates,
A L L A N G I C H I G I / C O U R T E S Y O F YA R A

a growing stream 75% of whom iden-

of revenues from tify as minorities,
rural African com- have been sky-
munities. high; about 100
employers have
LIFESAVING SACKS since joined the
Farmers in Kenya program, which
obtain fertilizer as now includes 1,000
part of Yara’s Action apprentices in
Africa initiative. seven U.S. cities.
 NO. 38

Aurecon/
Ampcontrol
Cleaning water in
parched lands.
MELBOURNE/
TO M AG O, AU ST R A L I A

There is ground-
water in Austra-
lia’s desiccated
outback, but its
high salinity and
mineral content
often make it un-
drinkable. And for
the region’s many
tiny communities,
water treatment
facilities are pro-
hibitively expensive
to build. Aurecon
and Ampcontrol,
an engineering
WATERWORKS and design firm
The Gilghi portable and an electronics
water-treatment manufacturer, re-
system in Australia’s spectively, teamed
Northern Territory. up to devise a solu-
tion called Gilghi
(“place of water”
in Australia’s Bar-
kindji indigenous
language). Gilghi
is a solar-powered
NO. 33 NO. 34 NO. 35 NO. 36 NO. 37 treatment system
that filtrates water
Butterfly MTN NextEra Energy Hello Tractor Experian through reverse
Network Vaccines and Making a The “Uber for Helping con- osmosis; it’s
Portable insights information on crucial bet on tractors” makes sumers become lightweight and
simple enough
for doctors. COVID’s front line. solar storage. vital connections. better borrowers. to fit in a single
G U I L F O R D, C O N N . R A N D B U RG, JUNO BEACH, FLA. NAIROBI DUBLIN
SOUTH AFRICA shipping container,
can be installed in
At a time when The world’s biggest Hello Tractor In 2019, the credit- just two days, and
You’ve probably
rich countries had utility company connects farmers reporting company can process up to
encountered this
bought up most of by market cap has without equipment launched Experian 250,000 liters of
company’s medical
the global supply invested some to those who own Boost, a free tool water a day. The
imaging device, of COVID vaccines, $100 billion in some and want that helps consum- first Gilghi system,
the iQ+ ultrasound telecom giant MTN clean energy infra- to rent out their ers with poor credit in the Northern
wand, now used paid $25 million structure over the services. It oper- improve their credit Territory hamlet
in most major U.S. to secure 7 million past decade, in- ates in 17 countries, scores. Users can of Gillen Bore, has
health care sys- doses for countries cluding more than in regions plagued report on-time pay- now been running
tems. The device such as Malawi, $14 billion in 2020. by low rates of ments on recurring successfully for two
and its A.I. cloud Ghana, Nigeria, In Florida, its home farm machinery bills like utilities years with virtually
platform help and South Sudan— state, NextEra ownership (and and streaming ser- no downtime. Its
doctors conduct helping provide es- has closed its last often by low crop vices, thus building creators aim to re-
full-body imaging sential protection coal-fired plant; it yields). During stronger credit create the system
right in the exam for health workers. began work this the pandemic, the histories—crucial in other drought-
room—which, by MTN has also year on what will “Uber for tractors” for qualifying for stricken areas, in
COURTESY OF AURECON

nixing the need partnered with the be the world’s larg- provided equip- mortgages and regions with con-
for clunky, fragile Africa CDC to send est solar-powered ment to 160,000 larger loans. Over taminated ground-
legacy imaging SMS messages to battery facility, farmers in Africa, 7 million people water, and in island
machines, saves spread the word capable of storing and to date it has have used Boost, communities (since
significant money about anti-COVID enough energy to facilitated rentals Experian says, and Gilghi can convert
and time for hospi- measures to far- run Disney World for more than 70% have upped seawater into fresh
tals and patients. flung communities. for seven hours. 500,000 in all. their credit scores. water).
1 5 8 FO RT U N E O CTO B E R /N OV E M B E R 2 0 2 1
NO. 39
Kuaishou
Linking farmers
to markets,
via video.
BEIJING
This TikTok-like
video app caters
primarily to content
creators in rural
China. And while
most use the app
for fun, for some
it’s an economic
lifeline. Kuaishou’s
livestream e-
commerce function
offers farmers a
direct-sales plat-
form to reach over
1 billion active users.
In 2020, the app’s
sellers shipped
$50 billion worth
of goods—most of
it agricultural pro-
duce. Kuaishou’s
commission: less
than 1%.
NO. 40
Schneider
Electric
Going net zero
offers net gains.
RUEIL-MALMAISON,
FRANCE
Schneider aims to
be carbon neutral
across its value
chain by 2050,
meaning it wants
suppliers to negate
their emissions
too. Fortunately,
Schneider special-
izes in energy
management—so
it can earn revenue
by meeting its
pledge. Its Climate
Change Advisory
Services package
offers monitoring
tools, consulting,
and clean-energy
gear—and over
900 of its most-
polluting suppliers COUNTING CARBON Emissions-testing facilities, like this one in Grenoble, France,
are paid clients. help Schneider Electric and its clients shrink their carbon footprints.
THE LIST
39–49
NO. 41 NO. 42 NO. 43
SunColombia Adobe Athleta
Bringing green Helping public servants Reimagining sports
power to remote amplify their digital reach. sponsorships to
hinterlands. SAN JOSE empower women.
B O G O TÁ SAN FRANCISCO
SunColombia is It may be best known for When gymnastics superstar
electrifying the far 500% Photoshop, but Adobe has also Simone Biles dropped out
reaches of the Am- GROWTH IN GROSS built a sizable digital analytics of competition at the Tokyo
azon using renew- E-COMMERCE SALES business—one that became Olympics, citing her mental
able energy. The ON KUAISHOU FROM vital to government agencies and physical health, she had
B Corp develops 2019 TO 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. a supporter in her corner:
self-contained so-
The Centers for Disease Control her sponsor Athleta, the
lar power systems
and Prevention, for example, women’s activewear brand
suited for homes,
public spaces, and 53.5% used Adobe software to with $340 million in sales in
water purifica- SHARE OF U.S. understand what citizens were its most recent quarter. “We
tion hubs. Its prod- HOUSEHOLDS THAT searching for on its website, never hesitated about our
ucts, distributed RESPONDED TO 2020 enabling it to disseminate more continued support,” Athleta
with help from CENSUS SURVEYS VIA timely and relevant vaccine CEO Mary Beth Laughton tells
bigger energy THE INTERNET information. Adobe also helped Fortune. “It was so clear how
companies, are the Census Bureau modernize we were going to support her
now in more than
its antiquated site and launch as a brand.”
3,000 homes and
more than 1,000 the first-ever online census for That kind of empathy isn’t
schools in rural 2020—enabling millions of peo- typical among sports sponsors.
areas, brightening SOURCES: KUAISHOU; ple to send in surveys at a time But it’s something that Athleta
over 100,000 lives U.S. CENSUS BUREAU when many shunned public has cultivated since 2019, when
in all. spaces like the post office. the Gap Inc. brand entered the
sponsorship arena by signing
track star Allyson Felix. Since
then, the label has redefined
the athlete-sponsor relationship,
working with athletes as “holis-
tic people” rather than valuing
only their championships. That
approach has included helping
Biles reach her fan base of
young girls and working with
Felix to provide $200,000 in
childcare grants to Olympic and
Paralympic athlete moms.
Athleta has also opened up
a new kind of opportunity for
female athletes, often given
short shrift compared with the
deals on the table for male
competitors. (Both Biles and
Felix left contracts with Nike
before coming to Gap Inc.)
Indeed, the brand decided to
sponsor its first two athletes
J E F F PA C H O U D — A F P/ G E T T Y I M A G E S
after identifying a gap between
rising viewership of women’s
sports and lagging corporate
support.
The strategy appears to
be paying off. Athleta’s brand
awareness was up six points
this year, and first-quarter sales
were up 56% compared with
those in 2019.
NO. 44

Gemini Corp.
Salvaging plastic
from the landfill TRASH TO TREASURE
wasteland. Scrap dealers use a baling
A N T W E R P, machine to package plastic
BELGIUM for resale and recycling.
Each year, consum-
ers and corpora-
tions use about
300 million tons NO. 45 NO. 46 NO. 47 NO. 48 NO. 49
of plastic, most of
which ends up in Genpact Maersk ThredUp L’Oréal Carrier
landfills. Gemini, Helping business Seeking a green Curbing clothing Stripping CO2 out Clearing the air
which special- solve the COVID- route for cargo waste with a of the cosmetics amid pandemic
izes in sourcing test conundrum. shipping. vintage approach. supply chain. anxiety.
and distributing N E W YO R K C I T Y COPENHAGEN, OAKLAND C L I C H Y, F R A N C E PA L M B E AC H
recycled goods, is DENMARK GARDENS, FLA.
working on fishing
more plastic out of Providing COVID Oceangoing ships As consumers grow From 2005 to When COVID-19
landfills. In 2020, it testing to enable rely on particularly more concerned 2020, the cosmet- sparked demand
began partnering workplaces to dirty fuels—which about the sustain- ics giant reduced for better air filtra-
with scrap dealers reopen has been a makes Maersk, ability of fashion, CO2 emissions tion, Carrier was
in India, providing logistical headache the world’s largest “re-commerce” in its factories poised to help.
them with equip- for businesses, es- container-shipping vendors that sell and distribution Healthy-building
ment and training pecially small ones. company, a key vintage clothing centers by 81%, tech is a central
to help them safely In January, con- player in the race to have proliferated. with the help of focus for the HVAC-
separate recy- sultancy Genpact net zero. By 2024, ThredUp, one of the on-site solar panels systems maker.
clables from trash. launched a Rapid Maersk will launch biggest, works with and better energy Among the prod-
The project proved Action Consortium eight ships that rely retailers like Gap, efficiency. L’Oréal ucts it introduced:
profitable within to help companies in part on biofuels, Abercrombie & is now setting a far Portable equipment
three months of in- in Canada set up putting them on Fitch, and Walmart higher bar: It says designed to con-
ception, and Gem- testing regimes and track for carbon to involve them in that by 2025, it will tain and remove
ini says its teams pool resources to neutrality. Maersk the secondhand produce only reus- air potentially con-
COURTESY OF GEMINI CORP

have recycled more keep costs down. is also advising 200 market, as sellers able, recyclable, or taminated by viral
than 4,000 tons of Genpact expanded of its customers, or gatherers of compostable plas- particles—giving
plastic waste from the approach to the including high- used apparel. The tic packaging—and health care provid-
sites within about U.S. in April; it has volume shippers result: Recycled that by then, far ers the means to
30 miles of India’s helped more than like Amazon and clothes reach the sooner than most turn any space
coast, reducing 500 employers Levi Strauss, on re- market faster and companies have into an infectious
plastic leakage into administer some ducing their carbon gain wider accep- pledged, it will be disease isolation
the oceans. 650,000 tests. footprints. tance. carbon neutral. room.
 CONTENT FROM CARECENTRIX
PROFILE 2021 | BEST WORKPLACES IN AGING SERVICES
Bringing Exceptional
Health Care Home
At CareCentrix, a leading health at home solutions company,
empowering care begins with wide-ranging support
of its team members.
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS
underscored the incredible importance
of great health services. But the leaders
at CareCentrix, a company that helps pa-
tients age or heal in the home, understand
that to deliver exceptional service, their
employees need the same great care they
provide their 26 million patients.
“Our mission is to heal,” says John
Driscoll, CEO of CareCentrix. “And if our
team members are going to heal and
help our patients and providers, we’ve
got to support them first.”
Through advanced analytics and
tech-enabled care, the Hartford-based
company improves patients’ experiences
“Our mission is
to heal. And if our
team members
are going to heal
and help our
patients and
providers, we’ve
got to support
them first.”
JOHN DRISCOLL
CEO, CareCentrix
with home health solutions, like telehealth
visits and at-home monitoring, which can
help produce better health outcomes and
reduce overall costs of care.
When Driscoll took the helm at
CareCentrix in 2013, he began making
radical changes, including freezing
executive team wages and doubling the
hourly wage of frontline workers. Decisions
such as these have improved the lives of
CareCentrix’s team members and helped
decrease employee turnover by half.
Beyond fair pay and affordable
benefits, the company invests in unique
programs that support employee
well-being. The CareCentrix Cares
Fund, which is funded by employees
for employees, delivers financial assis-
tance to team members experiencing
hardships and has distributed more
than $650,000 to more than 350 staff
members since 2015. The company’s
Voice of the Employee team, a cross-
departmental, hundred-member unit,
develops programs to help its work-
force stay healthy, have fun, give back
to local communities, and encourage
professional and personal develop-
ment. And CareCentrix made sure to
prioritize these programs even after
employees began working remotely
as a result of the pandemic, by hosting
online exercise classes and virtual
desktop garden parties, as well as
community service events.
“COVID has taught us how much
more innovative our programs can be,”
says Driscoll. “We don’t want to just
make things virtual—we want to make
them better.”
And these improvements are paying
off. According to a recent employee
engagement survey, 78.5% of CareCentrix
team members felt that the company cul-
ture supported their health and well-being,
a 20% increase since 2017.
“Building a great culture is like building
a cathedral—you’re never really done,”
says Driscoll. “We’re just getting started
making CareCentrix an even better
place to work.” ■
1 6 2 FO RT U N E O CTO B E R /N OV E M B E R 2 0 2 1
NO. 50
Stryker
Helping hospitals
eliminate
accidents.
KALAMAZOO
Sometimes terri-
ble errors happen
in medicine—a
patient gets sur-
gery on the wrong
body part, or
stitched up with
a foreign object
still inside them
(an estimated
4,500 to 6,000
times a year in the
U.S. alone). Other
times, mundane
accidents lead
to fatal results.
Stryker, the
medical-device
maker, partners
with hospitals
to prevent such
“never events”
and make the pa-
tient experience
safer. Its $6.4 bil-
lion medical and
surgical divisions
sell products like
the SurgiCount
Safety-Sponge
System (to ensure
no sponges are
left behind in a
patient’s body),
ProCuity beds (to
protect against
falls, a million-
time-per-year
accident), and re-
positioning prod-
ucts designed to
prevent pressure
injuries, which
affect more than
2.5 million pa-
tients a year, and
can lead to infec-
tion and death. To
encourage proper
training and
better outcomes,
Stryker makes
risk-sharing
agreements, of-
fering customers
reimbursements
if they don’t see a
reduction in such
events.
THE LIST
50–53
NO. 51 NO. 52 NO. 53
Tempus HP Arab Bank
Shortening the Lightening the planetary Financing green energy in
journey for break- footprint of printers, the heartland of fossil fuels.
through drugs. paper, and laptops. AMMAN, JORDAN
CHICAGO P A L O A LT O
The personal computer and The 91-year-old bank is a ma-
Critical as they are,
clinical trials are 2,799 printing giant relies on plastics jor financier of green projects
often bottlenecks GIGAWATTS for many of its products—and and renewable energy in the
for medical break- TOTAL GLOBAL an ever-growing share of those Middle East, especially in its
throughs. While RENEWABLE-ENERGY plastics is recycled. In 2019 HP home base, Jordan—a nation
70% of people GENERATION released the Elite Dragonfly rich in green-power potential
say they would CAPACITY laptop and a carbon neutral– but still heavily dependent on
participate in such YEAR-END 2020 certified printer, both built fossil-fuel energy imports. To
trials, few who
could benefit do using ocean-bound plastics; help move that needle, the
it also opened a recycling
so, because enroll-
ment is logistically
82% facility for such plastics in Haiti
bank has provided $267 mil-
lion in loans and other
complicated and RENEWABLES’ SHARE that will help source materials financing to support green
geographically lim- OF NEW GENERATION for its products. HP has also infrastructure since 2012.
ited. Such hurdles CAPACITY IN 2020 met its goal of ensuring that Arab Bank has backed major
help explain why its branded printing paper, wind and solar projects in
just 3% of adult of which it sells thousands of Jordan and Egypt, as well as
cancer patients
tons per year, comes only from Jordan’s As-Samra Wastewater
get an investiga-
zero-deforestation sources; Treatment Plant—a crucial
tional therapy, and
why drug trials end the company planted 1 million resource in one of the most
SOURCE: IRENA
up taking so long trees in 2020 as part of that water-scarce countries in the
and becoming so effort. world. Arab Bank calculates
expensive. that it has helped the region
To tackle this avoid 905,000 tons of green-
unfortunate inef- house gas emissions annually,
ficiency, Tempus, LIQUID LIFELINE
while helping add more than
a precision medi- Jordan’s As-Samra
plant, funded in part 1,350 megawatts of annual
cine company,
unleashed its big- by Arab Bank, treats renewable energy capacity to
data tools to create wastewater for use Jordan’s power grid.
the TIME trial in crop irrigation—an
program, which essential service in a
quickly connects very dry region.
patients, provid-
ers, and pharma
companies, and
facilitates clinical
trial initiation in
new locations
(that is, close to a
patient’s home).
Since 2019, Tem-
pus has identified
more than 5,000
patients for trials—
and it activates
those patients’ trial
sites in roughly 10
days, compared
with the industry’s
20-week average.
COURTESY OF AR AB BANK
That’s precious
time for drug com-
panies, who pay
to participate in
Tempus’s network,
and for cancer
patients alike.

Sarah Whipps Kenda
Financial Advisor, Partner
Sarah is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary®. She is one of four
partners at FSRP, and together they lead a team of 14 professionals.
With 20 years of industry experience, she enjoys learning about her
clients’ goals so a thoughtful plan can be developed for their journey
2
YEAR
forward. Sarah is a registered representative and investment adviser
WINNER
representative with Commonwealth Financial Network®. WINNER
3 Executive Park Drive, Suite 205 • Bedford, NH 03110
Phone: 603-627-1463
sarah@fsrp.net • www.fsrp.net
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
FIVE STAR PROFESSIONAL
Women in
WEALTH
Kim C. Luu-Tu
CFP®, CRPC®, Private Wealth Advisor
Kim C. Luu-Tu is the chief executive officer of Generations Wealth
Management with over 24 years of experience in the industry. Kim
specializes in comprehensive financial planning and investment
management. Her mission is as simple as the ABCs. She advocates for
6
YEAR
her clients and helps create balance with current and future financial
plans while providing confidence in all their decision making.
301 Maple Avenue W, Suite 520 • Vienna, VA 22180
Phone: 703-766-2025
kim.c.luu-tu@ampf.com • kimluu-tu.com
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
 Ethel J. Davis
CEO, Portfolio Manager
Women are managing their money on their own and on their
terms. Define success on your terms, achieve it by your own rules
and build a life you are proud to live. Ethel J. Davis is the CEO and
portfolio manager of VZD Capital Management LLC, located in
7 8
YEAR Overland Park, Kansas. She is the first African American woman
WINNER
to own 100% of a Registered Investment Advisory firm in the
A True Influencer Midwest and only a few within the United States.
6721 W 138th Terrace, Suite 1711 • Overland Park, KS 66223
Phone: 816-726-7066
ethel@vzdcap.com • wwww.vzdcap.com
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Laura Steinbeck
CFP®, ChFC®,CDFA®, Founder, Financial Advisor, Lic. 4468338
111 Deerwood Rd., Ste. 175 • San Ramon, CA 94583
Phone: 925-660-6044 • laura@pacwealthplan.com
www.pacwealthplan.com
9 integrates behavioral finance and consultation to allow her
YEAR
WINNER Plan Today, Secure Tomorrow
For nearly 20 years, Laura has been providing solutions and assisting her clients in achieving
their financial dreams. Focused on financial planning, divorce planning, tax strategies and
investment management, Laura serves as the trusted resource for all aspects of her clients’
financial lives and treasures the lasting relationships that are built through that trust.
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Marah Fineberg-Kuck
CFP®, CRPC®, First Vice President – Investment Officer
As a CFP® professional, I’m all about risk comfort zones and consider
current catalysts, future opportunities and dangers in an effort to meet my
clients’ needs. With over 19 years’ experience, I look forward to providing
holistic wealth management investment strategies to help you. Expanding
awareness in the diversity and inclusion areas, I’m Founding President of
YEAR
WINNER Women’s Symposium of Southern California (WSSC), improving the quality
Embrace of life and financial independence of women through comprehensive
interactive events and programs. Learn more at www.wssocal.org.
Tomorrow
3020 Old Ranch Parkway, Suite 190 • Seal Beach, CA 90740
Office: 562-493-7604 • marah.fineberg@wfa.com
home.wellsfargoadvisors.com/marah.fineberg
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Tish Gray
CRPC®
Tish has been in the financial services industry for over 18 years
and is the founder and president of TEG Wealth Advisors. Tish
uses a unique, comprehensive financial planning process that
clients to experience the process of financial planning while also
discussing the emotional aspects of finance.
5057 Keller Springs Road, Suite 100 • Addison, TX 75001
Phone: 972-764-5290 • tish@tegwealthadvisors.com
tegwealthadvisors.com/team/tish-gray
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Lisa Roccaforte
Senior Vice President, CFP®
• 2017 – 2020 Five Star Wealth Manager
• CFP® professional
Lisa is passionate about helping families achieve both their short-
4 term and long-term financial goals. No matter where they are on
YEAR
WINNER their financial journey, Lisa is there to assist every step of the way.
4510 Cox Road, Suite 102 • Glen Allen, VA 23060
The Main Street Phone: 804-270-4470
Group lroccaforte@themainstreetgroup.com
www.themainstreetgroup.com
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
 Laura K. Schilling Ivy Pierson
Esquire, CPA, CSA, CFP®, CFF® President, CEO

Laura K. Schilling is the principal and the founder of Financial • 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
Innovations, LLC. Clients benefit from Laura’s professional and 2021 Five Star Wealth Manager
background as an attorney, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, Bringing confidence to individuals and families with regards to their
a Certified Financial Fiduciary®, a Certified Senior Advisor and a finances is the most rewarding feeling in my professional life. I’ve
8
YEAR Certified Public Accountant. Financial Innovations, LLC is a full-
9
YEAR had the opportunity to see my clients and their families flourish and
WINNER WINNER
service, fee-based financial planning and wealth management evolve over the years.
firm. Laura’s passion is helping others to achieve their goals.
28368 Constellation Road, Suite 396 • Santa Clarita, CA 91355
Phone: 661-297-7566
6111 Peachtree Dunwoody Road, Suite F101 info@piersonwealthmanagement.com
Atlanta, GA 30328 • Phone: 404-458-0065 piersonwealthmanagement.com
laura@financialinnovations.biz • www.financialinnovations.biz

FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER

Mary Naber
MBA, CFP®, BFA™, Private Wealth Advisor President, Founder

• CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner

• Behavioral Financial Advisor™
Putting the needs of clients first is the approach I believe in. As a
financial advisor, I work with you to find the right financial solutions
10
YEAR to help you plan for your unique goals. I am a 2012 – 2021 Five Star
WINNER
Wealth Manager.
WINNER
3515 Plymouth Boulevard, Suite 204 • Plymouth, MN 55447
Phone: 763-543-5183 • wendy.l.gillespie@ampf.com
ameripriseadvisors.com/wendy.l.gillespie
Mary Naber is the author of “Catholic Investing: The Effects of
Screens on Financial Returns“ in the Journal of Investing, the first
published empirical research to integrate faith and investments.
6
YEAR
Her leading-edge research has been cited in 14 other published
academic studies. Mary’s expertise in the field of ethical investing
Sage Stone Wealth is highlighted in six books and multiple magazines.
Management
7946 Ivanhoe Avenue, Suite 316 • La Jolla, CA 92037
Office: 858-412-6404
info@sagestonewealth.com • sagestonewealth.com

FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER

Myra Lynn Slaybaugh Kathy E. Schneider

President CFP®, CDFA®, Private Wealth Advisor

Kathy E. Schneider, CFP®, CDFA®, is a 2012, 2014 – 2017 and 2021 winner
We seek to help women navigate the financial services landscape of the Five Star Wealth Manager award. Kathy specializes in helping
by enhancing their knowledge, providing personalized coaching clients transition during a divorce and the loss of a loved one. She has
and empowering them while they pursue their financial goals. over 33 years of industry experience. Kathy treasures the opportunity
4
YEAR
6
YEAR to assist clients in achieving their lifelong aspirations by developing
WINNER WINNER
financial plans and investment strategies that secure their goals.
Phoenix Wealth 4606 Park Springs Boulevard, Suite 140 • Arlington, TX 76017
Phone: 817-969-5405 8400 Normandale Lake Boulevard, Suite 920
Partners myra@plan2rise.com • www.phoenixwealthpartners.com Bloomington, MN 55347
Phone: 952-921-2161 • kathy.e.schneider@ampf.com
www.ameriprise\kathyeschneider.com

FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
 Cathleen N. Stevens
Senior Vice President, Financial Advisor, CFP®
Cathy has been a financial representative for 30 years. She always
puts the client’s best interest first, talks to people in real words and
takes time to explain and answer questions. Her relationships with
her clients are built on trust and loyalty — many of them have been
7
YEAR clients for 20 to 30 years. Cathy is a 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016,
WINNER
2020 and 2021 Five Star Wealth Manager.
603 Macy Drive • Roswell, GA 30076
Phone: 770-685-1926
cathy.stevens@ihtwm.com • ihtwealthmanagement.com
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Margaret E. McLurg
CRPC®, APMA®, Financial Advisor, Business Financial Advisor
Our process starts with foundational planning advice centered on
your primary financial goal. We then recommend strategies and
investments tailored to help you reach your financial goal. Tracking
your progress allows us to update your strategies and adjust your
9 financial investments as needed to meet life’s challenges. Margaret is a
YEAR
WINNER 2013 – 2021 Five Star Wealth Manager award winner.
6265 Emerald Parkway, Suite 150 • Dublin, OH 43016
Office: 614-389-5017 • margaret.e.mclurg@ampf.com
ameripriseadvisors.com/margaret.e.mclurg
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Brenda Ramsey
Wealth Manager, Partner
Integrity, Trust, Experience
Brenda provides highly personalized and comprehensive wealth
management services. She helps families and small-business
6 owners define what is most important to them and then
YEAR
WINNER formulates strategies to help them achieve their life goals in a
tax-efficient manner. For 17 years, Brenda’s clients have benefited
from a relationship that is built on mutual trust and integrity.
500 E Ohio Street, Suite 200 • Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 317-238-6582 • brenda.r@brunetteandassociates.com
www.brunetteandassociates.com
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Patty Quiñónez
CRPC®, ADPA®, Financial Advisor
I have specialized in serving the needs of physicians and women
for 24 years. What separates me from others are my one-on-one
relationships with my clients and my belief that financial planning
is about the peace of mind of having a plan in place.
9
YEAR
WINNER
Quiñónez & Associates
A financial advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
4600 Rockside Road, Suite 200 • Independence, OH 4413
Office: 216-373-2700
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Vieng Bounnam
Financial Advisor, CFP®, APMA®
I believe success should be measured not just by your financial well-being
but by how confident you feel about your future. My purpose is to help you
reach your financial goals through a relationship based on personalized
advice. I am supported by a team of professionals to ensure you receive a
7 high-level client experience with consistent communication. I am a 2013
YEAR
WINNER – 2018 and 2021 Five Star Wealth Manager award winner.
4380 SW Macadam Avenue, Suite 180 • Portland, OR 97239
Phone: 503-546-2243 • vieng.x.bounnam@ampf.com
www.ameripriseadvisors.com/vieng.x.bounnam
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Shellee Pietras
CFP®
Shellee Pietras has a broad base of training in retirement planning,
investments and life insurance. Thanks to her extensive financial
coursework, she serves her clients with a wide range of financial
knowledge and adheres to a strict code of ethics. Shellee is grateful for
4 her loyal customers, who have allowed her business to grow through
YEAR
WINNER referrals. With her experience and commitment to her clients, Shellee
can help you with your financial goals.
Promise 622 N Madison Avenue, Suite 10 • Greenwood, IN 46142
Office: 317-887-1212 • shellee.pietras@ceterawealth.com
Advisory Group www.promiseadvisorygroup.com
P
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
 Joan M. Valenti
CFP®
Joan Valenti, president and founder of Valenti Wealth
Management, LLC, has been providing financial guidance for
experienced investors since 1982. She leads an experienced team
that specializes in helping clients pursue their retirement goals
9 and distribute their assets in a tax-efficient manner. The team
YEAR
WINNER focuses on wealth accumulation and preservation from generation
to generation.
3 Forest Park Drive • Farmington, CT 06032
Phone: 860-677-7790
joan.valenti@valentiwealthmanagement.com
www.valentiwealthmanagement.com
F
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Sherrie Lynn Deveau
Financial Advisor
Whether your goals are growing your assets, preparing for retirement,
protecting your wealth or planning your estate, Sherrie and her team
work with you to craft personalized plans and strategies designed
to meet your goals and comfort levels. We invite you to call for your
9 complimentary initial consultation and let us help you identify new
YEAR
WINNER strategies and opportunities to help get you and keep you on track.
111 Founders Plaza, Suite 1503 • East Hartford, CT 06108
Phone: 860-270-0714
sherrie.l.deveau@ampf.com • www.deveauandassociates.com
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Carrie B. Ryan
Managing Principal, CFP®, Lic. 1335627
Head and Shoulders Carrie provides comprehensive wealth management services utilizing
photo 1.5” wide by 2” Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network’s vast resources and drawing on
high at 300 dpi a deep understanding of what’s most important to her clients. They enjoy
an intimate personal advisory relationship built on mutual trust, integrity
9 9
YEAR
and over 35 years of unwavering commitment to serve their best interests.
WINNER She is a 2012 – 2018 and 2020 – 2021 Five Star Wealth Manager.
9100 Keystone Crossing, Suite 625 • Indianapolis, IN 46240
Phone: 317-846-1999 • carrie.ryan@wfafinet.com
fa.wellsfargoadvisors.com/carrie-ryan
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Jamie Sue Botts
First Vice President — Investments
Head and Shoulders 2014 and 2021 Five Star Wealth Manager
photo 1.5” wide by 2” With three decades of experience in financial services, Jamie is
high at 300 dpi dedicated to helping clients build, manage, preserve and transition
their wealth. Jamie is fortunate to work with her mother, Neta Jeffus, a
2 senior vice president – investment officer and her son, Brandon Botts, a
YEAR
WINNER
financial advisor. Jamie helps clients through all life’s phases.
7400 W 130th Street, Suite 400 • Overland Park, KS 66213
Phone: 913-402-5163
jamie.botts@wellsfargoadvisors.com
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
CRPC®, Financial Advisor
• An Ameriprise Platinum Financial Services® Advisor
• Chartered Retirement Planning CounselorSM
I am passionate about working with my clients and helping them
experience financial confidence now and in retirement. I focus on
9
YEAR building new relationships and designing plans that suit my clients’
WINNER
unique needs. I am a 2013 – 2021 Five Star Wealth Manager.
8455 S Saginaw Street, Suite 101 • Grand Blanc, MI 48439
Phone: 810-579-2838 • dawn.l.hausch-cooper@ampf.com
www.ameripriseadvisors.com/dawn.l.hausch-cooper
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
Carolynn Vasel
Financial Advisor, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner
Carolynn is a 2012 – 2015 and 2017 – 2021 Five Star Wealth
Manager award winner. She has over 30 years of experience as a
financial advisor. By working together, Carolynn and her team can
help you achieve your financial goals today and tomorrow.
YEAR
WINNER
SVW Wealth Management
A financial advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC
8711 Watson Road, Suite 105C • St. Louis, MO 63119
Phone: 314-849-7601 • carolynn.x.vasel@ampf.com
www.ameripriseadvisors.com/carolynn.x.vasel
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
 Laura A. Biermann Michelle Ann May
CFP®, Vice President, Principal Owner Financial Advisor

I am fortunate to work with an incredible group of clients who

Laura strives to provide clarity and guidance, considering your
unique needs, lifestyle and vision. With over 10 years of experience
in the industry, Laura has worked with individuals and families at
different stages of life and through various transitions. Legacy’s
priority is to help you navigate life’s changes and bring you peace of
2021 Five Star mind through open communication, honesty and integrity.
Wealth Manager
3500 American Blvd. W, Ste. 675 • Bloomington, MN 55431
Phone: 952-893-5555
lbiermann@lfamn.com • www.lfamn.com
value my holistic approach to financial planning. I strive to deliver
them thoughtful advice with alacrity and transparency. At its core,
financial planning is very much about life transitions. I find it an
9
YEAR
honor and a privilege to be able to help my clients navigate and
WINNER plan for those transitions.
I am a 2013 – 2021 Five Star Wealth Manager.
50 Division Street, Suite 501 • Somerville, NJ 08876
Phone: 908-575-1550 • michelle.a.may@ampf.com
www.ameripriseadvisors.com/michelle.a.may

P
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER

Cynthia L. Kordys Tammi L. Boyd

CTFA, Investment Advisor Representative Senior Vice President – Investments, CA Insurance Lic. 0F02335
The mission of The Boyd Financial Group of Wells Fargo Advisors
is to ensure that our clients have sufficient financial resources
I am firmly committed to long-term relationships and strive to throughout their lifetime and the lifetimes of those they care
deliver exceptional client service. I listen carefully to clients’ goals, about. We focus on the financial events that are planned for the
2
YEAR
values, aspirations and concerns. Based on this input, I then work 7
YEAR
future while staying prepared for events that are a surprise.
WINNER WINNER
attentively to help them in achieving their financial objectives. Tammi L. Boyd is a 2015 – 2021 Five Star Wealth Manager.
Visionary for the
Long Horizon 27201 Puerta Real, Suite 220 • Mission Viejo, CA 92691
Phone: 949-282-2652 • tammi.boyd@wfadvisors.com
235 Eaton Road • Swanzey, NH 03446 www.wellsfargoadvisors.com
Centaurus Phone: 603-903-0324
Financial Inc. ckordys@cfiemail.com • www.cynthiakordys.com

FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER

Amy Elizabeth Roberts Sara Enos

Assistant Vice President, Lic. 3235547 Financial Planner, CASL®, WMCP®

Amy is a 2015 – 2017 and 2019 – 2021 Five Star Wealth Manager. As • Goal-focused
a financial advisor for 20 years, Amy’s mission to build a successful • Customized solutions
career centered on inspiring clients, reducing the stress around
With 19 years of investment advisory experience, my goal is
financial matters and delivering value by helping clients balance
6
YEAR their financial lives. She advises clients on retirement income and 6
YEAR
to become a lifelong, trusted advisor to my clients. Superior
WINNER WINNER customer service and an educational approach set me apart from
planning strategies, estate planning strategies, charitable giving,
Financial my competition. Contact me for realistic guidance and expert
family finances and education savings.
Resilience Is Key advice during these highly uncertain times.

303 International Circle, Suite 300 • Hunt Valley, MD 21030 20 Congress Street • Marshfield, MA 02050
Phone: 443-589-5803 • amy.roberts@seventy2capital.com Baystate Financial Phone: 781-319-1499 • senos1@baystatefinancial.com
www.seventy2capital.com/amy-roberts

FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
 Ida “ Chun Mei ” Zhu
Rubino & Skedsvold MBA, CRPC®, CFP® LPL Financial Advisor
A private wealth advisory practice of Ameriprise
Financial Services, LLC. I have had over 11 years of accounting experience in international and
domestic businesses between 1988 and 2004. I have affiliated with
We work with you to educate you about Waddell & Reed as an independent financial advisor from October 2004
your finances so that you feel confident, to May 2020. In a little over 16 years, I received numerous awards every
10 connected and in control of your financial
YEAR
WINNER
year as one of the top three financial advisors to deliver financial plans
life. Through planning, we help you prepare to my clients in the firm for multiple years. I have affiliated with LPL
Left to right: Ten-year winner Kari J. Skedsvold, Private
for the certainty that life is uncertain and Financial as an independent financial advisor since May 2020. I have
Wealth Advisor, CPA, CRPC®; Ten-year winner Judy A. Rubino,
Private Wealth Advisor, CFP® to give you more options. Kari and Judy are been a Million Round Table member since 2017.
2012 – 2021 Five Star Wealth Managers.
Investors should conduct their own evaluation 1412 NE 143rd Avenue • Bellevue, WA
of a financial professional as working with a Phone: 206-366-9290
financial advisor is not a guarantee of future ida.zhu@lpl.com • www.cmzwealthstrategies.com
financial success. Ameriprise Financial Services,
975 SE Sandy Blvd., Ste. 210 • Portland, OR 97214 LLC. Member FINRA and SIPC. Not FDIC Insured
Phone: 503-450-0550 • kari.j.skedsvold@ampf.com | No Financial Institution Guarantee | May
judy.a.rubino@ampf.com Lose Value
FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER FIVE STAR WEALTH MANAGER AWARD WINNER
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Pole
Position
The Polestar 2 is a Swedish-designed, Chinese-made
EV that deserves your attention. BY DANIEL BENTLEY
is a
  “WHAT IS THAT?”
question Polestar 2
owners will hear count-
less times in dozens of
parking lots. And “What
is a Polestar?” is a very
fair question—thanks to
both Polestar’s novelty and
its confusing corporate
history.
Originally a moniker giv-
en to Volvo’s performance
division—similar to BMW’s
M subsidiary—Polestar
was spun off by Volvo and
Chinese parent company
Geely in 2017, and set free
to develop electric vehicles
unconstrained by the
customer expectations
that go with the company’s
Scandinavian heritage.
Its first vehicle, Pole-
star 1, was a two-door,
plug-in hybrid sports
coupe. It lived up to the
performance credentials
of the Polestar name, but
at a price of $156,000 and
with the brand commit-
ting to just 1,500 produc-
C O U R T E S Y O F P O L E S TA R
Made in China
The Polestar 2 is made at Geely
and Volvo’s “super factory” in
Luqiao, China, along with the Volvo
XC40 and the Lynk & Co 01.
tion cars, it was intended
to make a statement more
than a market impact.
The fully electric Pole-
star 2, however, is squarely
aimed at the upper-middle
masses, with a $59,900
price tag for the dual-
motor Launch Edition.
(A cheaper, single-motor
version is coming in 2022.)
And it sets itself directly
against the market-leading
Tesla Model 3.
Which should you buy?
It’s the natural question to
ask, but not a straightfor-
ward one to answer. If you
want the fully integrated
EV experience—the lon-
gest range, access to Tesla’s
vast Supercharger net-
work—and like the cut of
Elon Musk’s jib, the Tesla
might be calling you. For
those who always preferred
the Rolling Stones to the
Beatles, Chuck Taylors to
Nike Air Max, or DC to
Marvel, the Polestar 2 is
worth a closer look.
Designed by the
company’s German CEO,
Thomas Ingenlath, and
manufactured at a Geely
plant in Zhejiang prov-
ince, China, the Polestar 2
nevertheless retains a
174 FORTUNE OCTOBER /NOVEMBER 202 1
To say the infotainment is one of the car’s standout features is not to
throw shade at the rest of the vehicle, but a recognition of how important
software is to the overall ownership experience.
2 3
strong Swedish identity.
Its boxy lines and “Thor’s
hammer” headlights are a
subtle nod to its forebears.
But it has enough unique
touches, such as its distinct
fastback rear hatch and
muscular wheel arches, as
to not be confused with the
Volvo XC40, with which it
shares a platform.
Inside, the Polestar 2
is minimal without being
spartan: all of what you
need, nothing you don’t.
“Premium” is overused
when describing car inte-
riors, but it’s appropriate
here. Doors clunk reassur-
ingly, trim panels are neatly
finished, plastics are soft to
the touch, and the central
drive shifter feels great in
the hand. Put any hang-
ups about a Chinese-built
car firmly out of mind.
To say the Polestar 2’s
infotainment operating
system is one of the car’s
standout features is not to
throw shade at the rest of
the vehicle, but a recogni-
tion of how important
software is to the overall
ownership experience of
a modern vehicle, espe-
cially an EV. The system
is the first deployment of
Google’s Android Automo-
tive OS in a production
car, and it’s both slick and
reliable. Touch inputs on
the centrally mounted tab-
let are precise and respon-
sive. The interface is clear
and driver friendly, requir-
1 The system pairs with
Details
[1] Bold, boxy lines
give Polestar 2 serious
road presence. [2]
The interior is driver
focused. Infotainment
is useful without being
distracting. [3] No gas
engine means extra
storage in front.
ing just brief glances to
find the options one needs.
Safer still, the Google
Assistant voice control
can handle a lot more
beyond changing music
playlists and navigation
commands: “OK Google,
heat the driver’s seat.”
And because it’s based on
Android, you get Google
Maps built in, as well as
the Google Play app store.
PASSIONS — AUTO
both Android and iPhone
devices, and full Apple
CarPlay is coming soon
via a software update. Let
this be a humbling lesson
to all carmakers—leave the
software to the software
people.
The parts left to the car
people are just as impres-
sive. The Polestar 2 has
impeccable road manners
and a commanding pres-
ence in traffic. Accelera-
tion is immediate, thanks
to its front and rear mo-
tors, and the battery range
of 233 miles is acceptable
without being class-
leading (the Model 3 tops
out at 353 miles). Suspen-
sion damping is perhaps a
tad too firm for New York’s
less-than-stellar roads, but
that’s a worthy tradeoff
for exceptionally precise
handling. At highway
speeds everything smooths
out, and Polestar’s host of
driver assistance, such as
C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P : C O U R T E S Y O F P O L E S TA R ( 2 ) ; D A M O N C A S A R E Z— R E D U X
radar adaptive cruise con-
trol and lane assist, keep
things pleasant for longer
journeys.
The premium EV seg-
ment is not a zero-sum
game, and the Polestar 2
is not a Tesla Model 3
“killer.” It is, however, a
welcome competitor that
more than holds its own
and is worth the seri-
ous consideration of any
battery vehicle shopper.
We suspect the question
“What is that?” won’t be
asked for much longer.
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 176 FORTUNE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 THE CARTOGRAPHER

LOCATION OF COMPANIES THAT HAVE ACHIEVED UNICORN STATUS

STRIPE INTERNET SOFTWARE & SERVICES, E-COMMERCE & DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER,
$95 B. FINTECH CYBERSECURITY CONSUMER & RETAIL, TRAVEL
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CANVA
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SUPPLY CHAIN, LOGISTICS, & DELIVERY OTHER NUMBER OF UNICORNS

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600

400

200

1
0
2007 2021

RIDING THE ‘UNICORN’ BOOM

BACK IN 2015, FORTUNE PUBLISHED A COVER STORY on the soaring number of “unicorns,” or pre-IPO startups, valued at $1 billion or
more. At the time, there were more than 80 such private companies. That figure seems quaint today. According to the latest data from
startup-tracker CB Insights, there are now 832 unicorns globally, including 416 in the U.S. And the pace of unicorn creation has been
accelerating as flush venture capital investors compete for stakes in the most innovative companies: A total of 136 startups achieved uni-
corn status in Q2 of 2021 alone, more than in all of 2020. Are we reaching bubble territory? “There will be some companies that are over-
valued,” acknowledges Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights. But for now, the magical appeal of unicorns endures. —JESSICA MATHEWS

INFOGRAPHIC BY NICOLAS RAPP SOURCE: CB INSIGHTS

WHAT
DO
YOU
SEE?
WE SEE YOUR NEXT INVESTMENT.
75% of venture capital firms strongly agree that you can invest
in women and multicultural entrepreneurs while maximizing
returns, a 55% increase from just two years ago.1 And the evidence
supports them, showing above-market returns on investments
in these companies. Venture capital firms are realizing they have
an instrumental role to play in addressing inequality, and by
boosting diversity in their portfolios, they’ll access returns from
an underleveraged pool of talented entrepreneurs.

morganstanley.com/funding-equality

1
Morgan Stanley, “Can VCs Turn New Focus on Race and Inequality Into Long-Term Impact?” November 19, 2020.
Past performance is not indicative of nor a guarantee of future results. Diversification does not guarantee a profit
or protect against loss in a declining financial market.
© 2021 Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC. Member SIPC. CRC 3589016 05/21
DA N I E L L E B R OW N

Chief Information Officer, Whirlpool Corporation