00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis. I'm one of the anchors here with Forbes TV. I am lucky enough to
00:08be joined by my Forbes colleague, senior editor Maggie McGrath. Maggie, thanks so much for coming
00:14in and a big congrats to you. Thank you so much, Brittany. The Forbes 50 over 50 list just launched
00:20for 2025 and you're saying that these women on the list define innovation, drive, and hope. So
00:27to start off the conversation, talk to us about the list. This is our fifth annual list of women
00:32over the age of 50 who are creating their greatest professional impact after the age of 50. We first
00:39launched this list in partnership with Mika Brzezinski and her Know Your Value initiative in
00:422021. That year, we immediately went global. We have a global version of the list and it's a bit of a
00:51misnomer. There are actually 200 women on the list across four broad categories, impact, investment,
00:56innovation, and lifestyle. And you and I talk about this list when it launches every year and I think
01:03that it perhaps, I know Forbes says a lot of lists, but to me it's the most inspiring because it shows
01:09that, hey, you can have your second act, third act, fourth act, and age is just a number. So talk to us
01:15a little bit about the inspiration behind the list. So I think it all goes back to a conversation between
01:19Mika Brzezinski and our chief content officer, Randall Lane. I think Mika felt that she was hitting her
01:2450s and just getting started. She felt like she had, as she always says, a very long runway to create
01:30impact. And I think we see that across the entrepreneurs and the CEOs on this list year after
01:36year after year. We have folks who only just quit their day jobs to start a business in their late
01:4240s. And at 50 or 55 or 53 or 65, the company that they founded is on the shelves of Walmart or Target
01:50or Whole Foods. I'm thinking of Goodles as I'm talking about that, right? So you see, I think,
01:56a lot of women who defy societal expectations. There's a stereotype that when you get older,
02:01you're done. And a lot of these women are feeling more invigorated. They may have pivoted. They may
02:06have taken some time off to raise families. They may have overcome significant personal loss and taken
02:12time to recover from that. And then on the other side are building something that brings joy to the
02:16world. I think one of my favorite parts of this list and this story particular is that you write
02:22that these women have heard, no, don't, you can't, more times than they can count. And yet they're
02:28still on this list. They're still persisting. They still pivoted. So what are some of your favorite
02:32stories on this list? It is really hard to narrow down. The team and I were talking about this last
02:37night. I mentioned Goodles, right? That is a better for you noodle company that has taken off.
02:44Jen is the founder of that company and CEO. And they ran out of the microwavable cups. There's a
02:50waiting list for that now, which is insane to me. I think about Kim Vaccarella. We have a story on
02:54Bogbag. I don't know if you've been to the beach and seen these totes that look like Crocs.
02:59They're really, really popular. The company's on track to do $170 million in revenue this year.
03:06And Kim is one of those folks who had been terrified to quit her day job to go all in on
03:11her entrepreneurial dream. And here it's a genuine phenomenon. We have Suma Krishnan. Our colleague
03:17Amy Feldman wrote a profile going live on July 31st about Suma. Suma also is someone who worked in
03:23biotech. She was creating innovations and inventions for other people for most of her career. But then
03:28she made a few breakthroughs in gene therapy. And now she has a $4 billion company, give or take,
03:34depending on what the market is doing on a day to day basis. And so I think what I really
03:38appreciate are those stories of folks who are kind of on this path. And then they have an idea. And
03:44then suddenly they're the founder CEO of something really making a difference in the world.
03:49And you mentioned at the top of this conversation that the title is almost a misnomer because there's
03:53200 women. And they're divided into four categories, 50 per category. And they are impact,
03:59innovation, investment, and lifestyle. So can you talk to us a little bit about these separate
04:03buckets? I will say that everyone on the list checks multiple buckets. But the way we think
04:08about it is this. Innovation are your STEM folks, your scientists, your healthcare CEOs and founders,
04:14your astronauts. We do have Suni Williams, who folks may remember got stuck in space for a while.
04:19She holds multiple records with NASA for her time in space. She's on this year's list.
04:24That's our innovation category. Our lifestyle category looks at art, media, entertainment,
04:33retail, design. Basically, think about the people who are shaping culture. On this category,
04:39the face this year is Halle Berry. I sat down with her in LA to talk about the menopause company that
04:44she is building. And they just launched a telehealth service. It's called ReSpin. And folks know her from
04:50the Oscars. Folks know her from her acting. But she says that being an entrepreneur is her greatest act
04:55yet. That's the face of lifestyle. We have our impact category. That's typically our nonprofit,
05:01foundation, law, education, policy type folks. Maria Shriver is the face of that this year. She
05:07founded the women's Alzheimer's movement many years ago, because she saw through her dad's journey with
05:14Alzheimer's that women were so often left out of the conversation about brain disease. And yet women are
05:19diagnosed at higher rates than men. And then finally, we have our investment category. That's
05:23what you would think of as your Wall Street, private equity, venture capital type folks,
05:27some cryptocurrency in there. Frida Caper Klein is our face of that this year.
05:31And I want to read a quote that stuck out for me from the piece introducing the list.
05:36And while the founders and CEOs on the list might differ in their subject matter expertise,
05:40they are united more than ever before in the call to address what Martin Luther King Jr.
05:45first called the fierce urgency of now. So this really reads as though you're sounding the alarm
05:51here for the time that we're in. And these women are really meeting the moment. So talk to us a
05:56little bit about that. As I was looking at this year's list, I saw folks who have expanded Medicare
06:02access or gotten drug prices dropped. I'm thinking of Christina Ritter. I'm thinking of
06:08Meals on Wheels CEO, Ellie Hollander. We've seen how this relatively bipartisan supported
06:15nonprofit, which feeds the elderly in America has gotten, I would say, a little targeted and hurt
06:23by cuts to the federal budget. I highlighted in that announcement piece, Karen Clark, she has a
06:29disaster modeling company. If you think about the disasters, the natural disasters that we have seen
06:35with increasing severity in the United States due to climate change, that is a company that is even
06:40more valuable than ever before. Also in that climate change category are people who are important in
06:45this moment for that. Ada Monzon, she is the first female meteorologist in Puerto Rico, and she is a
06:50lifeline to Puerto Rico's three million residents when hurricanes brew in the Caribbean. So as I was
06:57looking at these different issues, right, you have nonprofits, we have Alexis Miguel Johnson, the head of
07:02Planned Parenthood. We have people working in finance. The CEO of TIAA, Tashunda Brown Duquette,
07:11she talks so openly about the need to save based on her own father's experience. He didn't contribute
07:18to his 401k. He missed out on three decades of a company match because there wasn't enough financial
07:23education. If you look at wealth inequality in America, if you look at home ownership inequality,
07:27we have other folks on the investment list who are actively working to help people buy homes and get
07:34more financial security. As I think about everything that we talk about with our guests on the political
07:40side for Forbes TV, right, you have income inequality, you have climate change, you have health. These are
07:46some crucial issues right now. And if you look at this list, we have women working in all of those
07:52buckets. So that's why I say throughout the package that the work of the women on the 50 over 50 touch
07:58touches every corner of America, whether you realize it or not. And I think when you're looking at Forbes
08:05as a brand in general, you just see entrepreneurs of all ages of all backgrounds. And I think it really
08:12embodies this American dream that you can have your dream at any age, whether it be under 30,
08:18whether it be over 50. So what do you think that this list particularly is doing to inspire
08:24entrepreneurs maybe who are a little younger? I actually heard from one of my friends who's not
08:28an entrepreneur, though I think she could be. And she said, this list every year reminds me to slow the F
08:34down, right? Because you can see that some people maybe weren't a CEO at 35. Maybe they weren't even a
08:41founder at 35. But they're a founder at 65. And so I think it reminds us all that life and careers
08:49have so many chapters. And your book is not over because you haven't reached that CEO chapter or
08:56that founder chapter by the age of 40. And I ask you this every year, but if you could describe
09:01this year's list in one word, what would it be? And spoiler alert, last year, you did use the word
09:07defiant. I'm glad you remember that. Can I give an explanation? Because I knew you were going to ask
09:13this. We ask everyone on the list for their advice for their younger selves. And you would not believe
09:19the number of people who said don't have fear, just go for it. And Halle Berry and I talked about
09:25how folks told her don't speak out about menopause. People had told her don't do Monsters Ball, the film
09:30that got her an Oscar. And she said, I'm not afraid. So I was thinking about this. And I think the word
09:35that encapsulates everyone is fearless. Maggie McGrath, I'm excited that the list is out. A big
09:40congrats to you. Everyone can find it on Forbes.com as well in the next magazine.
