Finding women who are respectable experts in their field has become a favorite past-time of ours at She Is Fierce!  It is amazing to witness women who are so driven, passionate, and most notably, humble. Without a doubt, the following four women have been inspirations for over the past five years, both for personal and professional growth. Here’s a brief snippet of their careers and achievements.

Peggy Brill

Maybe you’ve seen her on Dr. Oz or even seen her offices in Times Square, but regardless – you need to know about physical therapist Peggy Brill. Brill has one of the fiercest energies in her field, and she’s wildly enthusiastic about honing in on your own individual femininity and independence. Her extensive background in physical therapy and unique character has led her to often host segments on the well-known Dr. Oz show, passing along her knowledge so that the public improve the physical quality of their lives.

Ertharin Cousin

Executive Director to the World Food Programme

Growing up in inner-city Chicago, Cousin’s journey to the World Food Programme is a testament to the will-power women must have in today’s working world. She independently mothered her son as moved up in the ranks in Chicago’s political scene, the White House, the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, and finally the World Food Programme. Just as her parents had dreamed, there was no limit to what she could achieve. Though at the beginning of her career she was warned by her law professor to keep her femininity at bay so that she could appropriately represent her clients, she quickly kicked that ‘advice’ to the curb and now owns her self and her strong skill-set.  Heck, she deserves to — she’s the leader of the world’s largest humanitarian organization!

Maggie Chan Jones

Chief Marketing Officer, SAP

After seven years at the Microsoft Corporation, Jones moved forward to the enterprise application software company, SAP. One of the contributing factors for her joining the team was the diversity in the company’s leadership — a whopping 50% of leadership is female and 42% of that are ethnic minorities. Jones began her career as a junior buyer at a data storage company, later going receive her MBA from Cornell. With her willful drive, she then went on to leadership roles at Level 3 Communications and Microsoft. She has repeatedly been recognized for being one of the most powerful women and one of top females in her brand marketing.

Michelle Alexander

Author and Ohio State University Professor

Civil rights writer, lawyer, and advocate, Michelle Alexander is most notably known for her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (a MUST read, by the way). After graduating from Vanderbilt University, she served as the director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California. It was during her time here that she was exposed to the complex, flawed reality of the American incarceration system, pushing her to work for its reform. She later returned to academia and finished her law degree at Stanford. Her career has been predominantly focused around reforming the criminal justice system and acting out against racial discrimination in society and law. Over the years, she has made her way in and out of the non-profit sphere and also private law firms fighting for justice, but she now devotes most of her time for advocacy consulting and public speaking.