Sallie Krawcheck

Sallie Krawcheck was one of the most powerful women on Wall Street. CEO of Merrill Lynch. CEO of Smith Barney. CFO of Citigroup. She had reached the top of an industry that was not designed to put her there, and she walked away to build something it told her did not need to exist.

In 2014, she co-founded Ellevest, the first investment platform built specifically around the financial realities of women’s lives: longer lifespans, earlier salary peaks, career interruptions for caregiving, a gender pay gap that compounds over decades. Wall Street had spent years trying to get women to adapt to a male-centric financial system. Sallie turned that problem on its head and built a different system entirely.

The industry doubted her. She received criticism from former colleagues. She kept going. Ellevest launched publicly in 2016, grew to over $1 billion in assets under management, was named to CNBC’s top 50 Disruptors list, and helped hundreds of thousands of women start investing for the first time. Forbes named her one of the seven most powerful women in the world. Fortune called her “the last honest analyst.”

In December 2024, she stepped down as CEO to focus on her health, transitioning to a board role and passing leadership to the next generation of women she had built the firm to serve. Even in that decision, she modeled something important: that how you lead matters as much as what you build.

Her conviction has never wavered: nothing bad happens when women have more money. We are honored to celebrate her here.