New Delhi: The year 2021 has been full of ups and downs, but they failed to deter many people from achieving success. This was a year that saw several women making it big.


 


Here is a list of some women who shattered glass ceilings and made a mark across different walks of life. 


 


Kamala Harris




Kamala Harris caught the attention of the world when she entered the election fray in the United States of America, vying for the Vice President position. And she won, becoming the first woman and the first person of colour to hold this position. 


 


Gita Gopinath




Gita Gopinath served as the first woman chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and will now serve as its first Deputy Managing Director. A Professor at Harvard, Gita Gopinath has held various positions of responsibility.


 


Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala




 


Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala recently became the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). She is the first woman and the first African to lead the WTO. A Harvard and MIT graduate, the “economics rockstar” has also been the finance minister of Nigeria twice and worked at the World Bank for 25 years.


Maria Ressa




Maria Ressa, a journalist from the Philippines, won the Nobel Peace Prize 2021 for efforts to “safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace". She shared the prize with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. Ressa, 58, is the chief executive and co-founder of the online news platform Rappler, who is credited with exposing abuses of power and authoritarianism under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. She faces charges that could lead to nearly 100 years in jail. She could attend the award ceremony only after the Philippine court of appeals granted her permission, ruling that she was not a flight risk.


 


Jane Fraser




Jane Fraser became the first woman CEO of Citigroup and also the first woman to lead a major Wall Street bank. Fraser had also served as the president of Citigroup and CEO of Global Consumer Banking. Amid the pandemic, she hit the headlines for revolutionising the work-life balance to remove the workplace horrors. 


 


Tsai Ing-Wen




The first female President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-Wen also happens to be the first unmarried president of the country. She was hailed for managing to keep Taiwan free of a single locally acquired Covid for 200 days in early stages of the pandemic. Her leadership during Covid and her insistence on Taiwan’s independence from China makes her one of the most influential women of 2021.


Simone Biles




A US gymnast with 32 Olympic and World Championship medals, Simone Biles is known as one of the most dominant athletes in the world. At the US Classic in May this year, she successfully performed the challenging Yurchenko double pike, a very complex and dangerous move that no woman had ever tried in any competition before, and took home the gold medal. 


 


She became an even more inspiring figure later when she withdrew from five finals in the Tokyo Olympics this year to prioritise her mental health, sending a message that any mental health issue should not be ignored. At the age of 24, Simone also became the youngest athlete to be honoured with the BBC SPOTY Lifetime Achievement Award. 


 


Wally Funk




Wally Funk joined Jeff Bezos on his Blue Origin rocket on July 20 and became the oldest person to fly to space. When NASA trained female astronauts in the 1960s as part of its Mercury 13 program, she was one of them. The program, however, did not take off. Funk finally got her chance to travel to space when Bezos’s New Shepard rocket had its first passenger flight. The 82-year-old broke the record of NASA astronaut John Glenn, who had completed his last mission at the age of 77.


 


Leena Nair




A British National born and educated in India, Leena Nair would take up the position of Global Chief Executive of the French fashion brand, Chanel. Leena would join the big names of Indian origin CEOs. Previously, she has been the first female and youngest-ever chief human resources officer at Unilever. She is being hailed as a "serial glass-ceiling breaker", setting pathways for women. 


 


Falguni Nayar




Falguni has become the path-breaking role model for women in business as India’s richest self-made billionaire at 58. She started Nykaa, the online beauty store in 2012 and it became the first women-led startup to go public this year. Nayar joined six other women billionaires in India Bloomberg Billionaires Index with her achievement.