500 Reasons to Feel Really Excited About the Future

Powerlifting has a way of stripping everything back to raw data: nutrition, performance, and muscle growth. But as I’ve gone deeper into the weeds of performance science, I noticed a frustrating trend. Every platform, every tracking bot, and almost every “definitive” study seemed to assume I was a man. At one point I was even starting to get advertisements for hair removal products on my back!

Historically, healthcare and fitness research has treated the male body as the “default.” For those of us training for PRs, that’s not just annoying, it’s a data gap that holds us back.

That’s why seeing the Inc. Female Founders 500 list this year felt like a victory lap. We are finally seeing a surge of female-led brands that don’t just “shrink and pink” products, but build them from the ground up using research centered on us. So I wanted to shout out a few of my favorites from the list from industries that are close to my heart.

Health & Wellness

In our office, we’re fueled by founders who get it. We keep Create on hand (and we’re always debating which flavor is our favorite), so shout out to Sienna McCormick for building a brand that treats creatine and performance nutrition with the scientific rigor it deserves.

Then there’s the clinical side of the house. I’ve been following the work of our friends at Evvy, co-founded by Priyanka Jain and Laine Bruzek. They are doing the hard work of closing the gender health gap by leveraging the vaginal microbiome, a dataset that has been ignored for far too long.

I’m in awe of Claire Tomkins at Future Family who is expanding access to IVF by providing financing access for fertility treatments.

And when it comes to the “food as medicine” movement, Ashley Nickelsen of B.T.R. Nation is a total inspiration. She turned a personal family tragedy into a mission to fix our broken food system, creating “bold, tenacious, and resilient” snacks that actually support performance without the sugar crashes.

Deep-Tech

While I love seeing the health and wellness space evolve, I’ve also found myself wishing for more women in the “heavy” sectors: aerospace, manufacturing, and climate tech. Only about 1% of women on the 2026 list were leaders in this space. And whether that’s because of the lack of nominations or lack of female founders in this space, these industries are the backbone of our future. So it’s absolutely worth shouting out the women who are at the helm of the companies that move the world.

Laureen Meroueh is a name you need to know in the manufacturing and steel world. As the founder of Hertha Metals (formerly ALMA Reliability), she is the first female in history to invent a new steelmaking technology and build a company around it. She’s taking on an industry that hasn’t changed since the 1850s to make it cleaner and cheaper. Absolutely insane.

Another space (pun intended) that hasn’t seen much innovation in decades: rocket engines. Sassie Duggleby, the CEO of Venus Aerospace, is building a high-efficiency rocket engine that could completely redefine high-speed travel.

Then there is my friend Tiya Gordon who is smashing barriers with It’s Electric. They are revolutionizing urban EV charging by using a “behind the meter” approach that makes it possible for city dwellers to actually own and charge electric cars without a private garage.

Shely Aronov from InnerPlant is doing something that sounds like science fiction: she’s built a sensor for plants that allows them to “communicate” their needs. By letting farmers take proactive measures before a crop even looks sick, she’s helping to massively increase yields and fix our food systems from the soil up.

There are so many powerhouses on this list that I’m in awe of—quite literally 491 more. I’m so honored to be listed among women who are actually changing the world. We all know we need more female leaders, but looking at this list, it’s clear the momentum is real. Congrats to the winners! You inspire the heck out of me!