Modern ladies need successful women with leadership skills to serve as role models when the going gets tough. Here are five females whose leadership skills are worthy of your admiration.

Who we read, surround ourselves with, and follow is so often who we become. Having strong captivating women role as models reminds us that we all have leadership skills, and that with confidence, we can achieve our dreams in an age where women still face unequal pay and representation.

1. Anne-Marie Slaughter

Anne-Marie Slaughter is currently the President and CEO of the New America Foundation. She’s also a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. From 2009-2011 she was the Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State and prior to that, she was Dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Slaughter is famous for her article Why Women Still Can’t Have it All, published in the Atlantic. It was the most popular article ever written for the publication and it drastically changed the conversation around the female struggle for work/life balance. The article discussed how women need more flexibility in the workplace and that expectations for successful women must be redefined to include time for parenting. According to Slaughter, women with leadership skills currently do not have the same options with regard to family and career that men have.

2. Caterina Fake

She’s the founder of Flickr, the largest website devoted to sharing photos. Most recently, Fake founded Hunch.com along with Chris Dixon, a site which allows users to acquire recommendations on books, tech gadgets, restaurants, and much more based on predictions gathered from various sources. Hunch.com was bought by Ebay for $80 million.

3. Marion Nestle

Marion Nestle is a professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. She’s also a professor of Sociology at New York University and a visiting professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. Nestle has been a formidable voice in the arena of public health, food safety, and food politics through a number of best selling books and her website Food Politics. Her leadership skills can be seen in her stance on issues like school nutrition, the soda tax, and healthcare. She has brought these important issues to the mainstream, making them less complicated and easier to digest (excuse the pun!).

4. Janet Hanson

Janet Hanson graduated from Columbia Business School before becoming the first women sales manager at Goldman Sachs. Her leadership skills were instrumental in the founding of 85 Broads a networking site that connects highly motivated, successful, educated women with career and mentoring opportunities. It was founded by a group of former Goldman Sachs female executives and named for the address of the Goldman Sachs headquarters, located at 85 Broad Street.

5. Gwen Ifill

Gwen Ifill is the moderator and managing editor of Washington Week. And she’s part of the first women team to co-anchor a nightly news program. She co-anchors the PBS News Hour with Judy Woodruff. Her thoughtful, impartial, and deliberate reporting are a breath of fresh air in an often sensational and opinionated news media. She also wrote the best selling book The Break Through: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

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Women Fueling the Clean Tech Industry
10 Women Who Inspire Us to Succeed
The 20 Most Influential Women in Green

Images: Bill Ebbessen, cseeman, Janet Hanson, Marion Nestle, Joi, Anne-Marie Slaughter

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