Time Magazine’s 11 Influential Women You Ought to Know

The Time Magazine list of 11 Influential Women who are already making our world better.

“A new era of leading women persist in the face of the Global Movement for Gender Equality and Equal Representation. There are two types of stories women are trying to tell – the First is We want Gender Equality and the other is, We need Gender Equality” said Lilian O. Ajayi, Founder and Executive Director of Global Connections for Women Foundation (GC4W).

These women are courageous and are breaking new barriers amidst the momentum for Gender Equality and Equal Representation – and their decision to take action is one of paramount measures. It is no wonder why Time Magazine 100 wants us to get to know who they are.

1. Chai Jing: a Chinese journalist whose environmentalist’s documentary, Under the Dome was viewed over 200 million times. The popularity and the reaction to the film provided additional hope for environmentalists who believes that the country need to enforce greener policies.

2-3. Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier: These two outstanding “geneticists” developed a gene-altering technique that are deemed to help scientists fight a number of deadly diseases such as HIV, sickle-cell anemia or other forms of cancer. YOU GO LADIES!

4. Obiageli Ezekwesili: After the disappearance of over 200 girls from a Chibok school in Nigeria, Ezekwesili helped organize a global campaign to demand their immediate return through the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. Prior to this campaign, Ezekwesili founded an Anti-corruption group Transparency International, served as Nigeria’s Minister of Education in 2006 and the Vice President of World Bank‘s Africa division from 2007-2012.

5. Aura Elena Farfán: With a commitment to get justice after a personal experience – Farfán dedicated her life to advocating for justice for those who share in her grief. She founded FAMDEGUA, an NGO that helps relatives get justice for victims of army violence during the war. Her courage is one that is admired by both the people of her country and the rest of the world.

6. Rula Ghani: She’s a Lebanese Christian, a Columbia University graduate, an American citizen and now, the new First Lady of Afghanistan. “I would like to give women out there the courage and the possibility to do something about improving their lives,” she told the BBC last year. “If I’ve achieved a higher respect for women and for their role in society then I would be very happy. That would really be my greatest wish.” As the wife of the newly elected Afghan – President Ashraf Ghani, she hopes to endeavor on a new chapter of changing an old perception of what being a woman was once like in Afghanistan.

7. Mellody Hobson: is the President of Ariel Investment funds and one of the top African-American Women in the Financial sector with an outstanding resume that includes the Chairman of the Board of Dreamworks Animation and Member of the Board of Directors for the Estée Lauder Companies Inc, Starbucks and Groupon. Her spirit and confidence is one that inspired Sheryl Sandberg to write Lean In. According to her Mellody Hobson “said she wanted to be unapologetically black and unapologetically a woman.”

8. Chanda Kochhar: Kochhar is the Managing Director and CEO of ICICI, the largest bank in India’s private sector (and the second-largest in the whole country). According for Forbes reports, in 2014, Kochhar was instrumental at helping the bank recover from a severe financial crisis in 2008. She increased the bank’s profit by 18% and over oversaw nearly $125 billion in assets. She is considered one of India’s most powerful women, who continues to advocate for expanding mobile banking to rural Indian communities.

9. Joanne Liu: As the International President of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) and soon before her promotion to the International President in 2013, Liu led the global fight against the Ebola outbreak last year with her quick and effective response. The CDC Director, Dr. Tom Frieden stated that Liu and her team “repeatedly got it right,” which helped to contain the deadly spread of the Ebola virus.

10. Kira Orange-Jones: As the Executive Director of Teach for America in New Orleans since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Orange-Jones revolutionized the city’s education system, by helping to dismiss the difference between public and charter schools and, under her pristine leadership there was an uptick in on-time graduation from 50% to 75% and college graduation rates also saw doubled digit growth.

11. Pardis Sabeti: Pardis is the woman who led a group of Geneticists from Harvard and MIT to performed real-time DNA sequencing of the Ebola virus that proved that the virus was spreading from human-2-human contact, and not through animals. This conclusive finding is what ultimately helped doctors and communities reduce the vicious spread of the Ebola virus. “We need as many minds working on this important problem as we can have. We will only beat this virus together” she explained when she received the TIME’s People of the Year in 2014.