For International Women’s Day, we want to celebrate all the female category designers out there. These legendary category designers have successfully implemented their category strategies and created their own unique space in the market, leaving their competition behind and owning the economics of the category.

Successful female category designers are an inspiration to all aspiring female entrepreneurs. There have been many throughout history, from Muriel Siebert, who took Siebert Financial public in 1967, to women including Diane Greene of VMware, Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe, and Catarina Fake of Flickr. 

Here are some women category designers we admire who created categories FOR women:

Whitney Wolfe Herd, CEO and founder of Bumble: Bumble is a dating app that solved the age-old problem of how to find love for the millions of women just waiting around for men. So she turned traditional dating norms upside down, creating an app launched by women and guided by women that defied age-old gender norms by letting the woman make the first move. Whitney is the youngest female CEO to take a company public, and even established the Bumble Fund, which invests in early-stage companies founded and led by women of color and those from underrepresented groups.

Sara Blakely, CEO and founder of Spanx: Spanx, as many people know, is a shapewear company that revolutionized the undergarment industry. Blakely came up with the idea for Spanx in 1998 when she was frustrated with the lack of comfortable and flattering undergarments available to women. Shapewear was typically uncomfortable and made from materials that did not breathe well. Blakely recognized the opportunity to create a more comfortable and flattering product that would appeal to women of all shapes and sizes. Identifying a problem that people don’t know there is a solution for is a key tenant to category design. Blakely used her own savings to launch the company and started by selling the products out of her apartment. In 2021, Blakely sold a majority stake in Spanx to Blackstone at a valuation of $1.2 billion.

Reshma Saujan is the CEO and founder of Girls Who Code: This organization is on a mission to close the gender gap in tech. Girls Who Code has created a new category in the education industry by offering girls a safe and supportive space to learn and explore technology. Since its inception, Girls Who Code has become one of the fastest growing educators, helping more than 500 million girls to pursue careers in tech and engineering. We predict that many of these Girls Who Code alumnae will become our future category designers.

At CDA, we give a shout out to all the incredible women Category Design Advisors has worked with over the years – those that have embraced category design and worked with us to set their category flag on the hill. So many to list after working with over 50 companies and loads of venture portfolio companies, but we salute you all! Keep that category thinking front of mind and own your category!