Meet The Achievers: 10 Groundbreakers At The Top Of Their Fields

The Achievers honors women with proven excellence at the top of their fields.

These are women whose results are already on the record. They have run major companies and led institutions that changed their industries.

We included this category because achievement deserves to be named while a woman is still doing the work. Her Agenda’s readers are working toward the top, and these ten women show what it takes to get there and stay there. 

Chairman Emeritus, BET Networks

Debra joined BET in 1986 as Vice President and General Counsel and rose to Chairman and CEO over more than three decades. Under her leadership, the network produced programs including “Being Mary Jane” and the BET Awards. She launched Centric in 2009 and later rebranded it as the first network designed for Black women.

Her record has been recognized across the industry. Debra was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame, and in 2017 she became the first woman honored as an Icon at the Grammy Salute to Industry Icons. President Obama also appointed her to the White House Management Advisory Board. Her career is a case study in reaching the top of a company and staying there.

Founder, DVF & Philanthropist

Diane created the wrap dress and built a global fashion brand around it. The design came to represent freedom for generations of women, and it made her one of the most recognizable names in fashion.

She has used that standing to invest in other women. In 2010, Diane established the DVF Awards with the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation to honor women leaders and support their work with grants. She serves on the boards of Vital Voices and the CFDA, and she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2019. She also served as president of the CFDA from 2006 to 2019, helping guide American fashion through the growth of online retail and social media.

President and CEO, Sam’s Club (Walmart)

Latriece is President and CEO of Sam’s Club, a role she reached after nearly thirty years at Walmart. Her career has covered real estate, merchandising, people operations, and store operations, which gives her an end-to-end view of the business.

Before she took the top job at Sam’s Club, Latriece was Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer for Walmart U.S., where she oversaw the teams behind the company’s everyday low price assortments. She holds a political science degree from Spelman College and a law degree from the University of Arkansas, and she sits on the board of Live Nation. Her rise shows what it takes to move from one function to the leadership of an entire company.

Founder, Pivotal

Melinda has spent more than 25 years working toward a healthier and more equal future. She co-chaired the Gates Foundation for more than two decades and set the priorities of the world’s largest philanthropy. She began her career at Microsoft, where she spent a decade developing multimedia products.

Today she leads Pivotal, the group of organizations she founded to accelerate progress for women and young people in the United States and around the world. Melinda is also the author of “The Moment of Lift” and “The Next Day,” and she created the imprint Moment of Lift Books. Her standing gives the issues she champions a level of attention few advocates can command.

CEO and Co-Founder, Miss Jessie’s

Miko co-founded Miss Jessie’s with her late sister, Titi Branch, and named it for their grandmother, Jessie Mae Branch. The brand pioneered products for curly and textured hair and brought them to mainstream store shelves.

The company is still setting the pace. Its Pillow Soft Curls won Marie Claire’s 2025 Skin & Hair Award and remains a top seller at national retailers like Target and Walmart. Miko told the story of building the business in her best-selling memoir.

“While my sister, Titi Branch, and I are regarded as trailblazers, we are so delighted that our hair care products remain a part of so many lives,” she says.

CEO and Founder, Mielle Organics

Monique founded Mielle and grew it into one of the fastest-growing Black-founded beauty brands, serving textured hair consumers in more than 90 countries and over 100,000 U.S. retail locations. A nine-figure investment from Berkshire Partners came in 2021, followed by a landmark partnership with P&G Beauty in 2023. Mielle is also the NFL’s first official textured hair care partner.

Monique directs her success back toward other people. In 2026, she committed $2 million to birthFUND to expand access to midwifery-led maternal care, including a scholarship program for aspiring Black and Brown midwives in Chicago that honors her late son. She and her husband, Melvin, also founded WIND ATHLTX, a wellness and performance destination. Her motto is “Trust God, not the process.”

Monique calls the recognition “a meaningful reminder that leading with faith, purpose, and perseverance can break barriers, create opportunities, and inspire the next generation of women to pursue their dreams without limits.”

US Head of Wealth, Premier and Global Private Banking, HSBC

Racquel oversees HSBC‘s wealth management, global private banking, and retail businesses in the United States. She began her career in equity trading at Morgan Stanley and built it across the biggest names in finance, with a decade at UBS and senior roles at Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase. At Merrill Lynch, she ran the firm’s flagship Fifth Avenue market in New York.

She brings the same commitment to institutions outside banking. Racquel chairs the board of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and serves on the boards of the Apollo Theater and Prep for Prep. Her career shows a rare range, from the trading floor to the leadership of a national business.

Founder and President of the Harnisch Foundation

Ruth Ann spent the first part of her career in broadcast and print journalism. Then she started funding other people’s storytelling. Her name is in the credits of around 400 films, and projects she supported have earned Emmy Awards and a shared Best Documentary Oscar for Icarus. She was also Tony-nominated as a co-producer of the Broadway musical SUFFS.

She founded the Harnisch Foundation in 1998, and it has supported thousands of grantees since. Her investment in journalism includes backing The Sunday Long Read and supporting hundreds of independent journalists through their newsletters and communities. She says it is an honor just to be “EGOT-adjacent.”

Chief Program Officer, Skoll Foundation

Salah has built her career around financial inclusion. She spent more than a decade at Mastercard as a Senior Vice President, where she led the Mastercard Lab for Financial Inclusion in Nairobi and contributed to multiple patents. Earlier, she worked on mobile financial services at the Gates Foundation and established the Open Society Foundation’s West Africa regional office in Dakar.

She now serves at the Skoll Foundation, where she oversees grants and investments along with the Skoll World Forum. In 2019, the World Economic Forum and the Schwab Foundation named Salah as the Outstanding Corporate Social Intrapreneur of the Year. She has reached the top in business and in philanthropy, and she has used both to widen access to the financial system.

Founder, Fair Fight Action

Stacey served eleven years in the Georgia House of Representatives, seven of them as minority leader. She then became the first Black woman to win a major party’s nomination for governor. A tax attorney by training, she holds degrees from Spelman College, the University of Texas, and Yale Law School.

Her organizing helped reshape Georgia’s political landscape. Through voter registration, outreach, and the fight against voter suppression, Stacey helped expand the electorate and build a strategy for reaching voters long overlooked by statewide campaigns. That work helped lay the groundwork for historic victories, including Keisha Lance Bottoms’ election as the nation’s first Black woman governor in 2026.

Stacey also founded organizations including Fair Fight Action and Fair Count, and has co-founded companies in financial services and energy. She is a New York Times bestselling author, and her documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy was shortlisted for the Academy Awards.

Click here to meet all 50 inaugural Groundbreakers and learn more about the December 1 Gala.