Julie Castro Abrams

Julie Castro Abrams is a gender and racial justice activist who has spent her career working at the intersection of women’s leadership, entrepreneurship, and economic equity. As founder and CEO of How Women Lead, she has built a network of 25,000 top executive women who come together to learn, break barriers, get on boards, and make an impact. Under her leadership, How Women Lead championed California’s groundbreaking Senate Bill 826, requiring public companies to have women on their boards, and has helped thousands of women secure corporate board seats.

In 2020, she launched How Women Invest, an early-stage venture firm focused on high-growth, women-founded companies, to disrupt a venture landscape where only 2% of capital flows to women-led startups. The firm operates on a conviction backed by data: women-founded companies yield 35% higher returns for investors. As a General Partner in two venture funds dedicated to women founders, she is putting that conviction into action.

Before founding How Women Lead, Julie spent 11 years as CEO of Women’s Initiative for Self Employment, where she helped launch over 6,000 women-owned businesses, 70% of which were still operating five years later. She is an advisor to Nia Impact Capital and an IFB Pathfinder whose belief in women’s economic power has been central to IFB’s community from the beginning.

We are honored to celebrate her here.