4 Women-Run Company Stocks Building Durable Growth Stories

An updated edition of the Nov. 26, 2025 article.

Corporate leadership is seeing a clear structural shift as more women take on top roles at publicly traded companies. This trend is increasingly performance-driven, with women-led organizations demonstrating stronger innovation, greater operating agility and improving shareholder returns across sectors. These appointments are not symbolic. Many leaders are outperforming peers through disciplined execution, better capital allocation and a focus on long-term value creation, reinforcing investor confidence in more resilient and sustainable business models.

Automatic Data Processing, Inc. ADP is a fitting example. Under Maria Black’s leadership, Automatic Data Processing has advanced cloud-based HCM innovation, deepened client engagement and delivered steady revenue growth through disciplined execution and operational efficiency.

The Capstone Partners’ Women Entrepreneurs (WE) Study highlights how female founders are increasingly shaping the U.S. business landscape, both in creating new ventures and planning long-term growth and exits. According to Wells Fargo’s 2025 Impact of Women-Owned Businesses Report, highlighted in the WE study, the number of women-owned firms grew 44% faster than male-owned businesses between 2019 and 2024. Many are leveraging growth capital—20% accessed debt and 32% equity funding in the past year—to scale operations. This has translated into real momentum, with 56% of women entrepreneurs surveyed reporting higher revenues in 2025 compared to 2024, and 66% expecting growth in 2026 despite macroeconomic uncertainty.

Despite this progress, securing adequate funding remains a primary obstacle for women entrepreneurs. Research indicates that women-led startups receive only about 2% of venture capital funding in the United States and Europe. This disparity is partly due to biases in the investment community, where investors often pose "prevention-oriented" questions to female entrepreneurs, focusing on potential risks, whereas male entrepreneurs receive "promotion-oriented" questions that highlight opportunities.

Despite funding challenges, women-led companies continue to drive innovation and resilience, making them attractive investment opportunities. If you want to capitalize on it, our Women Run Companies Screen will help you spot high-potential stocks in this space. 

Investors looking to capitalize on this growing sector should consider The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. EL in the global prestige beauty and personal care industry, Commercial Metals Company CMC in the steel manufacturing and construction materials sector, Arista Networks, Inc. ANET in the cloud networking and data center infrastructure industry, and FuelCell Energy, Inc. FCEL in the clean energy and fuel cell power generation space. These companies exemplify strong leadership and strategic vision, which position them for long-term success.

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4 Women-Run Company Stocks to Buy Now

Estee Lauder Companies: Jane Hertzmark Hudis has been one of the most influential executives at The Estee Lauder Companies, or ELC, serving as Executive Vice President and Chief Brand Officer and, notably, as an Executive Group President — the first woman to hold that title at the company. In this capacity, she leads the enterprise-wide strategy for many of ELC’s most important and profitable brands, including Estee Lauder itself, La Mer, MAC, Clinique, Origins, Aveda and others. Her remit spans brand marketing, innovation, product development, global portfolio management and consumer engagement, making her central to how the company differentiates itself in the prestige beauty market and connects with diverse consumer segments worldwide.

Over her nearly four-decade tenure at ELC, Hudis has been credited with driving growth and modernizing the company’s flagship brands, particularly by elevating brand equity and pioneering creative campaigns that resonate across geographies and digital channels. She is widely viewed as a visionary brand-builder, instrumental in expanding the global footprint and performance of key categories such as skincare and makeup — areas that traditionally contribute a large share of the company’s revenues. Her leadership has also influenced internal culture, as she co-founded ELC’s Women’s Leadership Network to support female talent development, reflecting her influence beyond pure financial metrics into organizational capability and long-term people strategy.

These efforts have tangible financial relevance in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, where this Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) company reported net sales of $3.48 billion, up 4% year over year with organic growth of 3%, marking a return to positive growth early in the fiscal year — a strategic priority tied to Hudis’s brand and portfolio execution. Gross margin expanded to 73.4%, and adjusted earnings per share rose to 32 cents from 14 cents, substantially above the prior-year level and the Zacks Consensus Estimate. These results reflect improved operational execution and stronger consumer response to brand offerings, underscoring how brand leadership contributes to both top-line momentum and profitability improvements within a pivotal turnaround phase for the company. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Commercial Metals Company: Jody Absher has played a pivotal role at Commercial Metals Company or CMC as Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, anchoring the company’s governance, legal strategy and compliance framework. In her capacity as principal legal adviser to the board and executive team, Absher oversees all legal, regulatory, and risk management functions for one of the largest steel and metals producers in the United States. In an industry where regulatory, environmental and contract risks are material to operations and shareholder value, her leadership helps CMC navigate complex legal exposures while safeguarding corporate governance standards, supporting strategic initiatives from mergers and acquisitions to commercial contracting.

Absher’s contribution has been especially relevant during periods of significant financial and operational milestones for CMC. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, the company reported a strong rebound with net earnings of $177.3 million and adjusted earnings of $206.2 million on net sales of about $2.1 billion, a marked improvement from a net loss in the prior-year period. This performance was driven by higher margins and disciplined execution across key segments, even as the company recorded after-tax charges of $28.9 million related to acquisition expenses and unrealized commodity hedge losses — areas that involve extensive legal oversight and disclosure compliance. Absher’s legal stewardship ensures that such charges, litigation interests and acquisition integrations are managed within robust legal frameworks that protect shareholder interests and align with financial reporting standards.

Beyond risk mitigation, Absher’s role strengthens CMC’s commercial and strategic positioning as it pursues growth in both traditional and emerging markets. Her oversight of governance practices contributes to investor confidence at a time when CMC is expanding its footprint — for example, integrating precast concrete businesses — and capitalizing on favorable steel market dynamics. As this Zacks Rank #1 company continues to leverage its Transform, Advance, and Grow (TAG) initiatives and deliver improved margin performance, legal and governance leadership under Absher remains integral to sustaining operational momentum and ensuring that strategic actions are compliant, transparent, and value accretive for shareholders.

Arista: Jayshree V. Ullal’s contribution to Arista has been transformative, shaping the company from a promising startup into a leading force in cloud networking. Since being appointed President and CEO in 2008, Ullal has guided Arista through sustained innovation in high-performance networking hardware and software, focusing on scalable Ethernet switches and its Extensible Operating System (EOS), which together serve hyperscale data centers and cloud service providers around the world. Her leadership was pivotal in taking Arista public in 2014 and establishing its reputation for reliability and forward-leaning technology in an industry long dominated by entrenched incumbents.

This strategic focus under Ullal’s leadership was reflected in Arista’s third-quarter 2025 financial results, which showcased both growth and execution strength. For the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2025, Arista reported revenue of approximately $2.308 billion, up about 27.5% year over year, and non-GAAP net income of $962.3 million (about 75 cents per share), representing significant growth from the prior year’s 60 cents per share. GAAP net income also rose to $853 million, underscoring the company’s ability to scale profitably even amid evolving product mix dynamics. Ullal’s leadership in aligning the company’s offerings with accelerating demand for cloud and AI infrastructure helped sustain these double-digit top- and bottom-line expansions.

Beyond quarterly figures, Ullal’s stewardship has positioned Arista to capitalize on long-term secular trends. Her continued investments in AI networking capabilities and strategic partnerships — evident in product launches and ecosystem expansions — aim to drive future growth as data centers evolve and cloud service providers intensify capital deployment. Investors and analysts often cite this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company’s strong innovation pipeline and customer engagements as key pillars of confidence in its growth trajectory, another testament to Ullal’s role in shaping both the company’s strategic vision and its operational discipline.

FuelCell Energy: Since joining FuelCell Energy in August 2023 as Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Karen A. Farrell has played a strategic role in shaping the company’s human capital framework during a pivotal phase of commercial expansion and workforce optimization. Reporting directly to the CEO and serving on the executive leadership team, Farrell is responsible for aligning the company’s people agenda with broader corporate objectives, including talent acquisition, organizational effectiveness, and reward strategy — all critical components for scaling operations in the competitive clean energy sector. Her appointment underscores a deliberate shift toward strengthening internal capabilities to support FuelCell Energy’s growth trajectory and long-term sustainability.

Farrell brings extensive experience in talent management and compensation strategy from prior senior roles, notably at CWT, where she led global talent and total rewards initiatives, and over two decades at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals in strategic HR leadership roles. This background equips her to address the nuanced challenges of attracting and retaining specialized technical and operational talent — a key constraint in the clean energy technology industry. Under her stewardship, FuelCell Energy is better positioned to cultivate a performance-driven culture that fosters innovation, supports diversity, and enhances employee engagement — factors that can reduce turnover costs and bolster execution of complex projects across multiple regions.

Farrell’s contribution may not directly influence short-term financials, but it plays a material role in strengthening this Zacks Rank #2 company’s organizational backbone. Efficient human capital strategies can improve project delivery reliability, align workforce performance with strategic priorities, and indirectly support operational resilience — all of which are increasingly important as FuelCell Energy scales production, navigates supply chain headwinds, and competes for critical talent in a rapidly evolving energy transition market.

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