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Fortune
Fortune
Lily Mae Lazarus, Nina Ajemian

Just one woman has ever founded and led a Fortune 500 company

Marion O. Sandler and Herbert M. Sandler (Credit: Denver Post via Getty Images)


– Another glass ceiling. While 11% of the Fortune 500 is now led by female CEOs, there’s another barrier that has proven near-impossible to break for women: founding and scaling a company to the list of America’s largest businesses by revenue.

Only one female founder-CEO in the 70-year history of the Fortune 500 has ever started and led a company that makes the list. Meanwhile, 24 male founder-CEOs run Fortune 500 giants—from Mark Zuckerberg at Meta to Jensen Huang at Nvidia.

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