The phrase “empowered women in business” gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually look like in real life? It looks like women building the company, taking the risk, trusting their gut, making hard decisions, and creating careers entirely on their own terms. More women are doing exactly that right now: founding companies, leading teams, and reshaping entire industries.
Lauryn and Michael Bossticks know that path firsthand. Lauryn started the Skinny Confidential as a blog in 2011 and has since built it into a full-blown media, beauty, and wellness brand. Likewise, Michael is the founder and CEO of Dear Media, one of the leading podcast networks for female voices. Together, they’ve spent years sitting down with some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, figuring out how they did it.
And some of their most memorable conversations have been with women who built something completely on their own.
Below, we’re sharing empowered women in business who have joined Lauryn and Michael on The Bossticks. These are the women that heard “no” and kept going anyway, and turned a passion into a powerhouse. You can watch the full conversations on their YouTube channel below. But for now, we’re hitting the high points:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheSkinnyConfidential
6 Empowered Women in Business Worth Studying
So what actually makes someone an empowered woman in business? It’s not a job title, and it isn’t a follower count. It comes down to a handful of traits that show up again and again in the women Lauryn and Michael admire.
Confidence to back their own judgment. Leadership that lifts the people around them. Resilience when things fall apart, because they always do at some point. Sharp decision-making under pressure. And the entrepreneurial drive to build rather than wait.
Maybe most importantly, there’s a commitment to creating opportunities for other women coming up behind them. Empowerment isn’t just about personal success. It’s about widening the door once you’re through it. That last trait is what separates a successful founder from a genuinely empowering one.
What Does Empowered Women Mean?
At its core, empowerment means having the confidence, resources, and freedom to make your own choices and act on them. For women, that has historically meant fighting for things that weren’t always guaranteed, from access to education to equal footing in the workplace to the capital needed to build a company.
Applied to business, empowerment is what lets a woman navigate professional growth on her own terms. It shows up in three places especially: entrepreneurship, leadership, and business ownership. It’s the difference between waiting for permission and simply deciding to lead.
The rise of women entrepreneurs over the last decade is empowerment in action. Women looked at industries that, traditionally, weren’t built for them, and they built their own thing anyway. That is the throughline in every story below.
How to Be an Empowered Woman in Business
Empowerment isn’t something you’re born with. It’s built, one decision at a time. If you’re a total beginner staring at a goal that feels too big, that’s normal, and it’s the right place to start. Here’s where to begin.
Building Confidence and Trusting Your Decisions
Confidence is a muscle, and it grows every time you make a call and stand behind it. You won’t always feel ready, and you won’t have every answer.
Make the best decision you can with the information you have, learn from how it plays out, and do it again. The women who seem fearless are usually just women who got comfortable being uncomfortable. Emma Grede put it plainly on the show, saying “You’ve got to start with yourself.” Hustle and passion matter more than a perfect resume.
Creating Strong Professional Networks
Nobody builds anything meaningful alone. Surround yourself with people who are further along than you, peers who understand the grind, and mentors who will tell you the truth.
Your network is where opportunities, advice, and honest feedback come from, so treat building it like part of the job. (Because, honestly, it is!) Access to education matters here too. Every book, course, and conversation you seek out is you widening your own door. If you need a headstart here, check out Lauryn’s Goodreads; she has plenty of excellent, women-empowering recommendations.
Developing Leadership Skills
Leadership is a skill set, not a personality type. Learn to communicate clearly, delegate without micromanaging, and make decisions that serve the bigger vision. The best leaders Lauryn and Michael have interviewed all share one thing. They make the people around them better, and that’s something anyone can learn to do with practice.
6 Empowered Businesswomen Who Built Real Companies
Here are six empowered women in business who have actually done it, each of whom has sat down with Lauryn and Michael on the show. Their stories cover fashion, tech, consumer goods, coaching, fitness, and lifestyle, so there’s actionable advice and inspiration here no matter what you’re building.
Emma Grede
Emma Grede is a masterclass in building brands with cultural impact. She’s the co-founder and CEO of Good American, the size-inclusive denim brand, and a founding partner in Kim Kardashian’s shapewear line Skims. When launching Good American with Khloé Kardashian in 2016, the company made $1 million in sales just on the first day.
Then she made history.
For the first time in the 12-year history of Shark Tank, a Black woman sat in one of the investment chairs. She’s also chairwoman of the Fifteen Percent Pledge and a co-founder of Kris Jenner’s cleaning brand Safely. When she came on the show, she cut straight through the noise about what it really takes to succeed on your own terms.
Listen to the full Emma Grede podcast episode on The Bossticks here.
Whitney Wolfe Herd
Whitney Wolfe Herd built a company around a mission for women. She founded Bumble, the dating app designed to put women in control of the first move, after co-founding Tinder earlier in her career. When Bumble went public, the payoff was historic; and we don’t just mean monetarily.
Wolfe Herd became the youngest female self-made billionaire at age 31. She was also the youngest female CEO ever to take a company public in the U.S. However, she brought up an extremely important point while on the show. Whitney told Lauryn and Michael: “If they’re a strong business woman, they’re a strong business woman, and that’s the only side you’re ever going to see… We’re made up of a lot of parts, all of us are. We’re multifaceted.”
Whitney Wolfe Herd is proof that building around a genuine mission and building a category-defining business are not mutually exclusive. Also, you can still have many other successful, empowering roles outside of business.
Listen to the full Whitney Wolfe Herd episode on The Bossticks here.
Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba turned a personal frustration into a consumer-goods empire. In 2008, Jessica was inspired by the birth of her first child and her own history of childhood illness. She wanted to create a company that provided a cleaner alternative to the baby products that used ingredients like petrochemicals and synthetic fragrances.
That idea became The Honest Company.
Alba, known for her roles in the film Fantastic Four and TV series Dark Angel, co-founded Honest in 2011, which touts its baby products as a safer alternative to those that use synthetic chemicals.
In 2021, the company went public. Honest Co. surged 44% in its trading debut on the Nasdaq and, eventually, the company grew to a market value of around $2.1 billion. Jessica Alba’s story is one of the clearest examples of a founder solving her own problem and building an entire company around the solution.
Listen to the full Jessica Alba episode on The Bossticks here.
Elena Cardone
Elena Cardone is an entrepreneur, author of Build an Empire, and a coach devoted to female empowerment. Alongside her business ventures, she teaches women to build both a thriving business and a life they actually want, without shrinking themselves to do it.
One of the most inspiring things Elena said on the show? “It takes as much energy to think small as it does to think big.” She continues to talk to Michael and Lauryn about themes across overcoming financial challenges, the role of sacrifice in success, and dealing with pushback and resistance.
Her whole message is about women recognizing their own potential and refusing to play small. It’s a mindset every one of the women on this list shares, and Elena Cardone has turned teaching it into her life’s work.
Listen to the full Elena Cardone episode with The Bossticks here.
Jillian Michaels
Best known from her years on The Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels turned her expertise and unmistakable point of view into a lasting wellness and fitness business. Between her app, her books, and her programs, she built a brand that has endured for years. That kind of longevity is its own business achievement in a fast-moving industry.
On her episode, Jillian and her business partner, Giancarlo Chersich, bring up an incredibly interesting point. Together, they said: “Anytime you start these businesses, you’ve got to make a decision and say: I want to be the hockey stick. I want to be the J-curve where you literally launch and it dips a little bit, and then it just takes off.”
Jillian Michaels is a reminder that empowerment sometimes looks like refusing to fade out when the trend that made you famous moves on.
Listen to the full Jillian Michaels episode with The Bossticks here.
Paige Lorenze
Paige Lorenze is the founder and creative director of the lifestyle brand Dairy Boy, which she grew from a viral idea into a fast-scaling company. The founder has built her now-coveted into a fully scaling business, reporting a year-over-year performance of 160% from 2024 to 2025.
She earned a Forbes 30 Under 30 nod for it, too. The founder says she didn’t have investors, industry connections, or even a business plan. Instead, she says, “Every single year, I’ve learned to build a better team. And I just, slowly over time, found the right people.”
She even traded New York City for Connecticut to build it back in her New England roots. Paige is proof that when you have a dream, a goal, and a plan, nothing can stand in your way.
Watch the full Paige Lorenze episode with The Bossticks here.
Get Inspired by more women in business by listening to The Bossticks.
The list doesn’t stop at six. Over the years, Lauryn and Michael have been lucky to sit down with so many women building lives and businesses entirely on their own terms, and every conversation leaves listeners with something to apply that same week.
If you want more, watch the Sarah Shahi episode on reinvention and building a second act, or read our article: who is Alyssa Lynch. Both are proof that there’s no single blueprint for an empowered woman in business.
Then subscribe to The Bossticks YouTube channel for more unfiltered conversations with the women, and the people, who are actually building the future.
Lauryn and Michael are entrepreneurs and hosts, not licensed financial or career advisors. Everything here reflects what they’ve learned building their own companies and what these guests shared on the show, offered to inspire rather than to serve as professional business, legal, or financial advice. Do what’s right for your own situation.