For more than 20 years, Jan Mercer Dahms held top-level positions at organizations like Teach for America, the Girl Scouts, and Planned Parenthood. But the 47-year-old entrepreneur left all that three years ago to strike out on her own. She wouldn’t go on to start one business—she is running two of them at the same […]

Growing up in the “small farming town” of Red Hook, New York, Bob Fox enjoyed going on hikes with his dog. Fox says he was “fascinated by nature,” always wondering how things worked and why they looked the way they did. His curiosity eventually led to a career as a globally renowned architect and one […]

“I absolutely love being a mom,” says Wendy Clifford. “I mean, I love my two daughters to the ends of the earth. But I always had the feeling it wasn’t the only thing I was meant to do.” So after eight years as a stay-at-home mom, Clifford decided to go back to work. She had […]

“I’m a little older than the average startup founder,” admits Mike Nguyen, who didn’t launch his first company until he was in his forties. But he and his business partner Allen Lee made up for lost time by selling it a few years later. At Syllabus Software, their second startup, they’re developing a platform that […]

Coming from a small town in South Dakota “where the only fashionable thing was overalls,” Julie Hutton’s big break in fashion came when she moved to New York and landed her first job as a graphic designer at Macy’s. She was fired the same day, but she didn’t give up. “A guy I knew said, […]

It’s not like Mike Hanson was looking for a new job. He had already spent 23 years working at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory and “could easily have worked there for another 20 years.” But then a chance meeting with one of the founders of Elysium Industries—a young company dedicated to building nuclear power plants that […]

Just from looking at her, you wouldn’t have any inkling about what Liz Ngonzi calls her “super powers”—a distinct knack for listening to others and the ability to recall even the smallest details. These traits have made her a powerful force in the nonprofit community. “Having a photographic memory enables me to connect the dots […]

When Chris Remus studied electrical engineering in college, he thought his only option was working for a large corporation for the rest of his life. But he wanted something different. “The desire to be my own boss was revolting against the desire to just follow people and be thankful for my job,” says Remus. So […]