linktree women of 2020

Linktree’s Women of 2020

Words By Katie Smith7 mins

Do you ever sit back and really take stock of the incredible women in your life? It’s unfortunate that for so many, it takes an International Women’s Day, or Mother’s Day to do so.

Because there are so many utterly amazing women in the Linktree community, who inspire us every single day, we wanted to honour an entire year’s worth of excellent female humans.

linktree women of 2020

These are our Women of 2020. They’re the individuals with bold ideas, the women-led business, organisations and initiatives who are truly committed to shifting the ways our communities think about things. They’re also why we get up and go to work at Linktree each day.

Rebel Girls

The Rebel Girls business was built out of two books ‘Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls’, which feature 100 stories of real women who are role models for modern girls. From there, the empire has built out a successful podcast and large digital communities.

For Women’s History Month, they’re celebrating the ‘rebel girls’ of the world and asking their audience to post a video of a rebel girl and explain why she’s amazing, using the #iamarebelgirl. The launch vid alone for this campaign, featuring a diverse range of rebel girls is inspiring stuff. We can’t wait to see how it unfolds.

Wolf+Friends

Carissa Tozzi and Gena Mann are the ex-editorial staffers who combined brains to launch Wolf+Friends, a community-led app for mothers of children with special needs. Their app not only connects families with one another, but also has a directory of top-gun specialists across a full array of needs and content that aims to ease the isolation of parenting a child with special needs. On top of this, the app also connects its community to shop-able toys, games and lifestyle items that will help with their children’s learning and development, but without compromising on style! We chatted to Carissa and Gena about building out their brand. Read more here.

Business Chicks

They had us at the tagline, ‘We help women live bigger lives’. Business Chicks is Australia’s largest community for women, founded by Emma Isaacs. Today, with over 250,000 members, the community runs more than 100 events a year aimed at up-skilling women professionally. Upcoming events include leadership courses, a fireside chat with Eat, Love, Pray author Elizabeth Gilbert and a study tour behind the scenes with executives at Los Angeles enterprises.

In 2016, Emma moved her family stateside to launch Business Chicks’ US presence and events programme.

Turia Pitt

Turia Pitt has to be one of the most inspiring and energized women on this list. She’s a true multi-hyphenate: she’s an advocate, author, athlete, philanthropist, business coach, mother and mentor. All of this she has accomplished while defying a life-changing event. While running an ultramarathon in the Australian outback in 2011, she encountered a devastating grass fire. Trapped by the flames, she encountered burns on 65% of her body and consequently has had more than 200 operations.

Turia has also launched her own alternative business school – the B-School Roadtrip, where she offers online coaching to help people reach their goals. She’s also written an inspiring piece on how she’s set her business up to run while she’s on maternity leave.

Proclaim

Proclaim is a US-based underwear brand founded by Shobha Philips. Shobha is on a mission – to represent greater skin tone diversity in women’s underwear – and she wants to do so with ethical, sustainable products. The result is Proclaim, a label which really speaks directly to all women, unlike much of the lingerie industry.

Shobha manufactures the garments in Los Angeles, where she’s based and though she hosts occasional pop-ups, she’s grown almost entirely through Instagram. We chatted with Shobha, and we’ll be sharing her story real soon!

1 Million Women

The 1 Million Women community has a strong mission: to build a global movement of women that empowers them to act on climate change through the way we live. Founded by Natalia Isaacs, they’re doing this through campaigns around renewable energy, rallying against coal mining and practices we can all incorporate into daily life, like their #leaveitontheshelf campaign which calls out excessive plastic packaging in supermarkets. There is even an app so that community members can keep track on the scale of their impact. So far, 900,000 women have pledged to support the causes.

 

Elizabeth Warren

She may be out of the race for Democratic nomination to run for 2020 presidency, but Elizabeth Warren is a leading voice in US politics committed to grassroots campaigning. She is passionate about universal healthcare, reforming student debt, introducing wealth tax, reducing the racial wealth gap and breaking up big tech. She is a great voice for LGBTQI rights, and the African American, Muslim, Jewish and Latinx women who are marginalised by society.

In our closing remarks from the 2020 race, Elizabeth summed it up best herself: “We have shown that a woman can stand up, hold her ground, and stay true to herself — no matter what.”

Melissa Hemsley

Melissa Hemsley is a UK-based cook, author, columnist and advocate for Fair Trade and waste-free eating. Sometimes she creates content, like their television show and two cookbooks, with her sister Jasmine, under the name ‘Hemsley + Hemsley’, but currently Melissa is focusing on the launch and tour of her second solo cookbook, Eat Green and hosting sustainability events. Melissa’s wonderfully honest and approachable tone of social media has earned her a really passionate and interactive audience.

We had a great time chatting with Melissa on the phone, and will be sharing our conversation later this month!

Lunch Lady Magazine

Lunch Lady is an Australian-founded independent food and family magazine, run by Creative Director (and mom of 2) Lara Burke, and Editorial Director (and mom of 3) Louise Bannister. We love the magazine because it doesn’t sugarcoat parenthood, but instead builds community around it. The mag is also beautiful to look at – artistic, colourful and energetic, much like family life! Packed with easy dinner ideas, crafting inspiration and stories from parents-in-the-field, this magazine is like the friendly family from your street.

 

Bozoma Saint John

Bozoma (or Boz) Saint John is a music marketing legend, having transformed the marketing efforts of brands and businesses like PepsiCo, Beats, Apple Music and Uber. She’s currently Chief Marketing Officer at William Morris Endeavour, which represents artists across the music, entertainment and sport. It also represents the NFL, NHL and UFC. The platforms Boz is working across are enormous. Billboard Magazine has named her one of the most influential women in music, and Fast Company listed her as one of their 100 Most Creative people. If that wasn’t cred enough, Boz also made Beyonce’s 2020 list of 50 people who define Black History.

Her Network

The Her Network is a global inspiration and lifestyle platform for women, founded in Nigeria by Nkem Onwudiwe who wants to encourage all women to stand in their greatness and live their truth. The network has a newsletter, a magazine, and YouTube channel and hosts events for female entrepreneurs, alongside its very active social channels. The team also hosts the Her Network Women of the Year Awards, which honours Black women across industries.

We’re really honoured to count such inspiring women amongst our community – and we know there are many many more out there. We encourage you this month to make space on your Linktree for a woman in your community, or on your radar, who is doing incredible thing. Help your audience discover them and shine some light on the work they do. Tell us who you’re honouring over on Twitter or Facebook!

Credits

Words By Katie Smith

7 mins

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We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which our office stands, The Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Linktree Pty Ltd (ABN 68 608 721 562), 1-9 Sackville st, Collingwood VIC 3066