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June is Pride Month and it is time to celebrate the gains made by the LGBTQ+ community, the sacrifices made by those throughout history and the leading examples of strides the LGBTQ+ community has made in recent years.

Fortune's 500 is the list of the largest companies in the United States by revenue and is a great barometer to figure out which US based companies are the most successful. If you were to take a look list for 2021 you will notice something that has been trending this way for the past several years, the largest amount of women that lead these companies. There are more companies lead by women CEOs on this list than ever before and it is showing the progress and strives women have made over the last several decades. While there is still work to be done in this area, we want to celebrate these women in order to encourage and inspire others to reach great heights. 

Today, March 8, marks the unofficial 110th celebration of International Women's Day. This day is not only a celebratory day, it's also a reminder of the work that's still left to do in gaining gender parity. While there are a million people and subjects we could've highlighted on this day, we decided to stay true to the Vanderbilt way of highlighting and celebrating the women entrepreneurs in our lives and the overall contribution they're making to our global economy. 

For the month of February, Vanderbilt Financial Group (VFG) honors Black History Month through sharing the stories of significant contributions made to the finance and banking industry. In true Vanderbilt fashion, we highlight individuals whose impact rippled out in service of others.

For our first in a four-part series, we’re slightly breaking with tradition to highlight a woman of color who is not an American, yet impacted the lives of many Americans with the financial concept she developed and pioneered on the continent of Africa. We are proud to highlight the contributions of Ghanaian social entrepreneur and an early innovator of micro-lending, Esther Afua Ocloo.

Justin Lafazan is an acclaimed entrepreneur, speaker, best-selling author and consultant with three companies under his belt at just 20 years old. The Founder of Next Gen Summit and best-selling author of What Wakes You Up?, has been featured in Forbes, USA Today,The Huffington Post, Inc. Magazine and more. Justin is on a mission to inspire the world’s young people to design the lives they want to live, through entrepreneurship.