#10 Heather Payne

Founder, Ladies Learning Code and HackerYou

Age: 26

Heather Payne is the founder of Ladies Learning Code, a Toronto-based not-for-profit startup that runs wildly popular workshops for women (and men) who want to learn computer programming and other technical skills in a social and collaborative way. Recently, she founded HackerYou as a way to bring more learning experiences around technology, startups and entrepreneurship to Toronto. She’s also working on a project for the Mozilla Foundation: her job is to build a community of people and organizations in Toronto who care about raising youth as creators – not just consumers – of technology and the web. She was an early investor in ShopLocket, and in a former life, Heather helped startups like Pinpoint Social and Shopcastr to acquire their first users.

What people are saying about her: Heather is "a true force for inspiring women in technology and trying to bring coding into schools."

#9 Kathryn Minshew, Alex Cavoulacos, Melissa McCreery

Co-Founders and CEO, The Muse 

Age: 28, 27, 27

Alexandra Cavoulacos, Melissa McCreery and Minshew started The Daily Muse to serve young professional women building strong careers.

Kathryn is The Daily Muse’s number one swashbuckler. Prior to founding the company, Kathryn worked on vaccine introduction in Rwanda and Malawi with the Clinton Health Access Initiative and previously worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Alex makes things work at The Daily Muse. From operations to product, she’s our #1 list maker. Prior to founding The Daily Muse, Alex was a management consultant, solving critical strategic and operational questions for top firms worldwide.

Melissa was recently named to INC’s 15 Women to Watch in Tech. She was an Executive Editor of The Harvard Crimson, where she graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Physics.She was also a management consultant for McKinsey & Company, where she learned the ins and outs of the business world.

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