8 Female CEOs Leading Top Fortune 500 companies

Karen Lynch started her career after attaining a bachelor's Accounting degree and gaining a Certified Public Accountant certification. She got her degree from Boston College and stayed in the area with her first financial job at the Boston office of Ernst & Young. After several years in insurance, she went to graduate school and got her MBA. Then, in 2004, Lynch became president of Cigna Dental. In 2009, she quit Cigna when she was named president of Magellan Health Services. She quit one final time to join Aetna as executive vice president, where she later led the integration of Coventry Health Care. This integration was a massive healthcare acquisition, and she kept her job when CVS Health acquired Aetna in 2018. Karen Lynch was promoted to president and CEO of CVS Health in 2021. She led CVS during the COVID-19 pandemic and became the highest-ranking female CEO on the Fortune 400 list at number 4.

Wikipedia: Karen S. Lynch

Another woman who recently rose to CEO status in 2021, Rosalind Brewer was appointed to this position at Walgreens in March 2021. With this appointment, she joined Thasunda Duckett as one of the two Black women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. She is also the group president and COO of Starbucks and the CEO of Sam's Club, which is absolutely insane. Brewer was born in Detroit, Michigan, as the youngest of five. She was also among the first generation in her family to attend college and wanted to become a physician. She achieved a bachelor's degree in chemistry at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and pivoted from medicine to work at Kimberly-Clark as a research technician. She later went to the Director's College at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business/Stanford Law School and the Advanced Management Program from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Wikipedia: Rosalind Brewer

Before becoming CEO, Gail Boudreaux was recognized as a very gifted athlete. She went to Chicopee Comprehensive High School in Chicopee, Massachusetts, where her girls' basketball team won the state championship two times. Then, in college, she became Dartmouth's all-time leading scorer and rebounder and was named Ivy League Player of the Year three times a row. She was recognized for both her academic and athletic achievements multiple times in college, graduating cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1982. After her undergraduate, she went to Columbia University to attend business school there and graduated with high honors. In her professional career, she served many companies in an executive capacity. These are all big companies like Aetna, BlueCross Blue Shield of Illinois, and UnitedHealth Group. She stepped down as CEO of United Healthcare to focus on forming her own company. Then, in 2017, she became CEO of Elevance Health Inc, which is an extremely large company.

Wikipedia: Gail Koziara Boudreaux

Born in 1961, Mary Barra has served as the chair and CEO of General Motors since 2014. Especially for the time, this was a massive achievement, and she became the first female CEO of the three top automobile companies. Before being named CEO, Barra worked as executive vice president of global product development, purchasing, and supply chain. She grew up in Royal Oak, Michigan, to Finnish parents and her grandparents were immigrants. Barra was long involved in the General Motors industry and actually got her bachelor's degree from General Motors Institute. This college is now named Kettering University. She got a degree in Electrical Engineering and was part of several honors societies. After her undergraduate, she went to Stanford for graduate school and got a Master of Business Administration degree in 1990.

Wikipedia: Mary Barra

While Priscilla Almodovar recently ascended to CEO of Fannie Mae in 2022, she has a longer and more interesting journey with Enterprise Community Partners. She was named its president and CEO in 2019. After this achievement, Fortune included her in their list as one of the "50 Most Powerful Latinas." She has been involved in several charitable funds, such as Enterprise's Equitable Path Forward, which is designed to invest in affordable housing providers of color across the country. Under her tenure as CEO, Enterprise also cooperated with Morgan Stanley to create the Disaster Recovery Accelerator Fund. This fund is designed to help owners of multifamily affordable rental properties after natural disasters. She left Enterprise in 2022 to work for Fannie Mae, which is also called the Federal National Mortgage Association.

Wikipedia: Priscilla Almodovar

United Parcel Serve, more commonly known as UPS, has had Carol Tomé as CEO for just a few years. Tomé started as CEO on June 1st, 2020. She grew up in Jackson, Wyoming, to a family who really emphasized living off the land. However, her father was also a community banker, and Tomé adopted her interest in marketing, banking, and finance from him. She graduated from business school at the University of Denver and worked as a commercial lender at the United Bank of Denver. The United Bank of Denver is now known as Wells Fargo. Over the years, she served as an executive at several companies. During her time at The Home Depot, she was promoted to CFO in 2001, and The Home Depot grew significantly during her time. For a very short time, she went into retirement and then broke it to become CEO Elect of UPS. In 2020, she became CEO of UPS. She is a prominent figure in the business world and has served on several other executive boards for several other companies.

Wikipedia: Carol Tomé

Appointed CEO of Citigroup on February 26th, 2021, Jane Fraser is a British-American banking executive. She was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, and went to Girton College, Cambridge. She graduated with a BA in economics and was promoted to an MA, which was standard for their tradition. After her undergraduate, she worked at Goldman Sachs in London and then for Asesores Bursátiles. Both are finance companies. Then, in 1992, she went back to school and got her MBA from Harvard. She has a long history of working at Citigroup. She worked as Head of Client Strategy in Citigroup's investment and global banking division in 2004 and was promoted to Global Head of Strategy and Mergers and Acquisitions three years later. She worked there for two more years. After that, she worked as CEO for CitiMortgage in 2013 and Citigroup Latin America in 2015. Then, in 2019, Fraser became President of Citigroup and Head of Global Consumer Banking. This position gave her power over all of Citi's Consumer businesses in nineteen different markets. Finally, in 2020, Citigroup's CEO Michael Corbat retired, and Fraser became the first female CEO of an elite Wall Street Investment Bank.

Wikipedia: Jane Fraser (executive)

Susan Griffith has been making Fortune's list of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies for a while, as she was appointed on July 1st, 2016. She completed her undergraduate degree at Illinois State University and went on to enroll in the advanced management program at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business. When she was named president and CEO of The Progressive Corporation in 2016, she became the first woman ever to be CEO and president of the company. Before this, she worked as Progressive's Personal Lines COO and oversaw their Personal Lines, Claims, and Customer Relationship Management groups. Griffith truly worked her way from the bottom to the top for years. She first worked at Progressive as a Claims Representative in 1988 and advanced to more and more leadership positions. Under her role as Chief Human Resources Officer, Griffith created Progressive's first diversity program.

Wikipedia: Tricia Griffith