20 Women Leaders in Finance to Watch in 2024

Women have long been underrepresented among leaders in the finance industry and that continues to be the case today. However, with 63 people who identify as women leading 2023 Fortune 500 organizations, and women accounting for 16 percent of all CFOs in the U.S. (nearly doubling over the past decade), it’s clear that strides are being made in the pursuit of gender equity within the finance department.

In recognition of International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating the remarkable achievements of some of these CFOs. These are highly impactful, hands-on leaders with incredible career accomplishments at some of the most powerful brands in the world. If you’re not already following these women on social media, we highly recommend connecting to be inspired with best practices, technology recommendations, career advice and more.

Carolina Dybeck Happe (SVP and CFO - General Electric)

Carolina is a high-impact, global CFO with a superior record partnering with CEOs to create value in both growth and transformation situations at industry-leading companies GE, Maersk, and ASSA ABLOY. Highly regarded for her strategic skills and capital allocation disciplines in organic growth, M&A, and portfolio optimization and possesses equally strong operating capabilities.

Read this: Meet Carolina Dybeck Happe, Architect CFO Behind GE’s Transformation - Forbes

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Amy Hood (EVP and CFO - Microsoft)

Amy is responsible for leading Microsoft’s worldwide finance organization, including acquisitions, treasury activities, tax planning, accounting and reporting, internal audit and investor relations.

Read this: Get Smart: How AI is Making a Difference - The Smart Investor

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Tracey Joubert (Global CFO - Molson Coors Beverage Company)

Prior to her current role, Tracey served as the Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of MillerCoors from 2012 to November 2016. She served previously as Vice President of Finance, planning and analysis, and controller since the formation of MillerCoors in 2008.

Read this: Tracey Joubert, Molson Coors — CFO of the Year

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Jenny Kray (CFO - Ashling Partners)

Jenny is a proven change agent enabling fast-paced companies to gather and understand real-time data to accelerate revenue growth and scale while supporting a strong positive culture to achieve planned results.

Hear this: The Race for Real-Time Data – CFOThoughtLeader Podcast

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Colette Kress (EVP and CFO - NVIDIA)

Colette has helped the company expand from their core business of gaming PCs to making chips for education, healthcare, finance, and AI deep learning applications. The company is currently one of the most highly valuated organizations in the world.

Read this: Trillion dollar woman

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Susan Li (CFO - Meta)

Susan became Meta’s CFO in 2022, when she was 36 years old. The promotion made her one of the industry’s youngest Chief Financial Officers. She first joined the company in 2008, when it was still called Facebook. She rose through its ranks and was most recently a Finance Vice President before becoming CFO.

Read this: American Dreamers: How Meta’s New CFO, Susan Li, Embraced Being Different

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Caroline Litchfield (CFO - Merck)

Caroline is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Merck, responsible for the company’s finance, procurement, and real estate operations. Prior to this role, she served as the company’s treasurer, a position that included responsibility for treasury, tax, and investor relations. From 2014 to 2018, Caroline led finance for Human Health, the company’s largest business, overseeing financial operations and reporting in approximately 100 markets.

Read this: Merck Names 30-Year Company Veteran as CFO

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Kathryn Mikells (SVP and CFO - ExxonMobil)

Prior to her role at ExxonMobile, Kathryn served as CFO for an impressive list of brands including Diageo, United Airlines, Nalco, ADT, and Xerox.

Read this: Lessons from the CFO of Exxon Mobil

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Monica Vorn Mijaleski (CFO - Yahoo)

Monica is a Finance Executive and CPA offering extensive hands-on experience in all areas of finance and accounting. She’s an excellent leader with a business and entrepreneurial mindset and proven track record of contributions leading to heightened productivity, improved financial performance, and value add.

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Jamie Miller (EVP and CFO - PayPal)

Jamie has worked across many industries and guided both public and private companies through dynamic environments and meaningful transformation. Prior to joining PayPal, she served as Global CFO at EY, having joined to lead the separation and IPO of its strategy, tax, and consulting business.

Read this: For new CFOs, these are the critical steps to take in the first six months

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Marie Myers (CFO - Hewlett Packard Enterprise)

Marie joined Hewlett Packard Enterprise as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in January 2024 - a strategic and visionary CFO known for making financial decisions that fuel innovation and performance. She most recently served as CFO of HP Inc. since 2021, where she led the company’s finance organization and was responsible for all aspects of financial operations.

Read this: Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s new finance chief has two ‘modern CFO’ traits big companies desperately need, says a recruiting expert

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Katrina O’Connell (EVP and CFO - Gap Inc.)

Katrina is a driver of financial performance across Gap Inc’s portfolio of iconic brands, with extensive experience in managing a large real estate footprint, scaled e-commerce platform, scaled global supply chain and technology backbone.

Read this: The Top 25 CFOs in Consumer Products for 2023

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Leeny Oberg (CFO and EVP - Marriot International)

Previously, Leeny was Chief Financial Officer for The Ritz-Carlton since 2013, where she contributed significantly to the brand’s performance, growth, and organizational effectiveness. Prior to that role, she served in a range of financial leadership positions with Marriott, including Senior Vice President, Corporate and Development Finance and Senior Vice President, International Project Finance and Asset Management for Europe and the Middle East and Africa.

Read this: ‘Be Yourself Throughout’: Marriott CFO Leeny Oberg On Leading In A Storm

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Devina Rankin (EVP and CFO - Waste Management)

In 2002, Devina joined Waste Management as a relatively junior member of the company’s financial team. Now, more than 16 years later, Rankin is the CFO of the largest waste solutions company in North America.

Read this: Women Leaders in Waste: Devina Rankin of Waste Management

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Rachel Ruggeri (EVP and CFO - Starbucks)

Rachel is an experienced leader skilled in Managerial Finance, Retail, Accounting, Financial Planning, and Business Process Improvement.

Read this: The Rise of Starbucks’ New CFO: Rachel Ruggeri

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Ana Sirbu (CFO - LeanTaaS)

Prior to joining LeanTaaS, Ana was the Chief Financial Officer of Nitro Software and BlueVine. Her previous roles include three years at Google Capital and working as a technology investor at Silver Lake, with a focus on making investments in leading Enterprise SaaS and Fintech businesses.

Hear this: Specific and Time-bound, Aggressive Yet Realistic

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Kelly Steckelberg (CFO - Zoom)

Kelly has extensive leadership and finance experience holding various roles including CFO of Zoom Video Communications, CEO, COO and CFO of Zoosk, divisional CFO positions for the Consumer Segment and WebEx. She joined Cisco through the WebEx acquisition as Controller, Chief Accounting Officer (CAO). She began career at KPMG in both tax and audit in 1991.

Watch this: Zoom CFO explains how the company serves remote and in-person workers

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Kathy Svetina (Fractional CFO – NewCastle Finance)

Founder of NewCastle Finance, a company offering Fractional CFO services to women-owned small businesses. For nearly 14 years, Kathy did senior-level financial planning and analysis for Fortune 500 companies, seeing firsthand how big companies use financial information to drive their companies forward. She started NewCastle Finance because she wanted to offer that same powerful financial insight to women-owned businesses.

Hear this: Taking the Mystery Out of Your Financial Future with Kathy Svetina – Do More by Doing Less Podcast

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Julie Swinney (CFO – Zendesk)

Julie is an accomplished executive with more than 25 years of finance, operations, mergers & acquisitions, and global business scale experience across software and hardware. Currently CFO at Zendesk (former NYSE: ZEN, now private), prior roles include Vice President of Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Corporate Strategy, Planning and Reporting, Chief Audit Executive responsible for facilitating the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors, and Vice President and CFO of the $18B Cloud and Enterprise Data Center business.

Hear this: The Opportunity That Everyone Must See

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Tracey Travis (EVP and CFO - The Estee Lauder Companies Inc.)

Tracey began her career as an engineer at General Motors, shifting to finance and management roles as she progressed. She worked for PepsiCo and Ralph Lauren before joining Estee Lauder in 2012. She also serves as a mentor within the organization, helping nurture the next generation of talent.

Read this: Estée Lauder’s CFO Tracey Travis highlights the pivotal moments in her career—and offers 3 pieces of advice

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