Kara Goldin | |
---|---|
Born | Kara Ellen Keenan 1967or1968(age 55–56) [1] Minneapolis, Minnesota, US |
Alma mater | Arizona State University |
Occupation | Businesswoman |
Known for | Founder and former CEO, Hint Water |
Spouse | Theo Goldin |
Children | 4 |
Kara Ellen Goldin (nee Keenan; born 1967/68) is an American businesswoman. She is the founder and former CEO of Hint Water, a flavored water brand founded in 2005. [2] [3] [4]
She was born Kara Ellen Keenan, a daughter of William and Kay Keenan of Tempe, Arizona. [5] Her father worked for Con-Agra, and then for Armour & Company in Phoenix, where he retired as the general manager for distribution, and her mother worked at a local department store. [5] [6] She is the youngest of five children. [7] Goldin grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona, after moving there from Minneapolis when she was three years of age. [7]
Goldin majored in communications and minored in finance at Arizona State University, graduating in 1989. [8]
After graduating in 1989 from ASU, she moved to New York City, after accepting her first job out of college at Time Inc. [9] Goldin worked in circulation at Time Inc. for three years. [10] She started out as an executive assistant and worked her way up to managing the airline circulation for the Time Inc. publications. [7] She then moved on to work in advertising sales at CNN. [3]
Following her move to San Francisco, Goldin began working for a start-up called 2Market, a spin-out of Apple pursuing a computer-based shopping idea that Steve Jobs developed. [10] She was given the position of National Sales Manager for two years until the company was bought out by AOL. [10] Goldin then began working in e-commerce for AOL as the Vice President of Shopping and E-commerce Partnerships while her husband worked for Netscape. [11] In this position she grew AOL’s e-commerce and shopping business to about a billion dollars in revenue. [12] When AOL acquired Netscape in 2001, Kara decided to take a step back from this field of work and focus on raising her family. [12] After having three children, Goldin realized that she wanted to spend her time creating and living a healthy lifestyle. [13] She had trouble losing the additional baby weight and came to the realization that her main problem was that she was addicted to diet-sweetened beverages, which were reinforcing her craving for high-calorie sugary foods. [14]
Goldin then took this idea and launched Hint in 2005 in San Francisco [15] as a healthy alternative to the sugary, diet-sweetened drinks she had been consuming. [16] Hint Water is flavored solely with natural fruit. [17] In the 12 years since its creation, Hint Water has become an asset of the break rooms of some of Silicon Valley’s highest-profile companies, including Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. [3] [18] Hint Fizz carbonated beverage was launched in 2011 and in 2017, Hint began to market sunscreen. [13] [19]
Following her work and creation of Hint, Goldin wanted to share her experiences as an entrepreneur with the world. She created The Kara Network as a place for fellow entrepreneurs to reach out and tell their stories as well as provide some helpful insight to those who were interested in following a similar path. [3] [20]
Kara’s first job was at age 14 working for a local toy store, Alphabet Toys in Scottsdale where after a few weeks, she was asked to help with buying for the entire store. [21] Kara credits this experience with launching her on the path to entrepreneurship.[ citation needed ]
Right before she began working with CNN, Goldin met her husband, Theo Goldin, who at the time was in law school at New York University. [22] They married in 1995 at the Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix, Arizona. [5]
They moved to San Francisco when Theo graduated and they were married shortly after. [22] They have four children together. [23]
Sheryl Kara Sandberg is an American technology executive, philanthropist, and writer. Sandberg served as chief operating officer (COO) of Meta Platforms, a position from which she stepped down in August 2022. She is also the founder of LeanIn.Org. In 2008, she was made COO at Facebook, becoming the company's second-highest ranking official. In June 2012, she was elected to Facebook's board of directors, becoming the first woman to serve on its board. As head of the company's advertising business, Sandberg was credited for making the company profitable. Prior to joining Facebook as its COO, Sandberg was vice president of global online sales and operations at Google and was involved in its philanthropic arm Google.org. Before that, Sandberg served as research assistant to Lawrence Summers at the World Bank, and subsequently as his chief of staff when he was Bill Clinton's United States Secretary of the Treasury.
Kara Anne Swisher is an American journalist. She has covered the business of the internet since 1994. As of 2023, Swisher was a contributing editor at New York Magazine, the host of the podcast On with Kara Swisher, and the co-host of the podcast Pivot.
Safra Ada Catz is an American billionaire banker and technology executive. She is the CEO of Oracle Corporation. She has been an executive at Oracle since April 1999, and a board member since 2001. In April 2011, she was named co-president and chief financial officer (CFO), reporting to founder Larry Ellison. In September 2014, Oracle announced that Ellison would step down as CEO and that Mark Hurd and Catz had been named as joint CEOs. In September 2019, Catz became the sole CEO after Hurd resigned due to health issues.
Diane B. Greene is an American technology entrepreneur and executive. Greene started her career as a naval architect before transitioning to the tech industry, where she was a founder and CEO of VMware from 1998 until 2008. She was a board director of Google and CEO of Google Cloud from 2015 until 2019. She was also the co-founder and CEO of two startups, Bebop and VXtreme, which were acquired by Google and Microsoft, for $380 million and $75 million.
Tory Burch is an American fashion designer, businesswoman, and philanthropist. She is the Executive Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of her own brand, Tory Burch LLC. She was listed as the 88th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2020.
Jayshree V. Ullal is a British-American billionaire businesswoman, president and CEO of Arista Networks, a cloud networking company responsible for the deployment of 10/25/40/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet networking in the data center.
Hint Water is an American beverage company based in San Francisco, California, as an alternative to soda and sugar beverages. It was started by former AOL employee Kara Goldin.
Kendra Scott is an American fashion designer. She is the executive chairwoman, designer, and former chief executive officer of Kendra Scott, LLC. In 2017, she was named Ernst & Young's National Entrepreneur of the Year.
Tina Sharkey is an American entrepreneur, advisor, and investor. Noted for "discovering ways to bring consumers and businesses together," she co-founded Brandless and iVillage; served as chair and global president of BabyCenter; led multiple business units at AOL, and served as president of the Sesame Street Digital Group. She is a member of the PBS Board of Directors.
Brittany "Brit" Morin is an American venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and technologist. She is the co-founder of and managing partner at Offline Ventures, an early stage venture fund and studio, founder and CEO of Brit + Co, a media and digital education company based in San Francisco, the founder of Selfmade, an education and community platform for female entrepreneurs, and the founder of BFF, an open-access community for women and nonbinary people in Web3.
Sophia Christina Amoruso is an American businesswoman. Amoruso founded Nasty Gal, a women's fashion retailer, which went on to be named one of "the fastest growing companies" by Inc. Magazine in 2012. In 2016, she was named one of the richest self-made women in the world by Forbes. However, Nasty Gal filed for bankruptcy. In 2017, Amoruso founded Girlboss Media, a company that creates content for women in the millennial generation to progress as people in their personal and professional life.
Elizabeth Anne Holmes is an American former biotechnology entrepreneur who was convicted of fraud in connection to her blood-testing company, Theranos. The company's valuation soared after it claimed to have revolutionized blood testing by developing methods that needed only very small volumes of blood, such as from a fingerprick. In 2015, Forbes had named Holmes the youngest and wealthiest self-made female billionaire in the United States on the basis of a $9-billion valuation of her company. In the following year, as revelations of potential fraud about Theranos's claims began to surface, Forbes revised its estimate of Holmes's net worth to zero, and Fortune named her in its feature article on "The World's 19 Most Disappointing Leaders".
Lisa Su is a Taiwanese-born American business executive and electrical engineer, who is the president, chief executive officer and chair of AMD. Early in her career, Su worked at Texas Instruments, IBM, and Freescale Semiconductor in engineering and management positions. She is known for her work developing silicon-on-insulator semiconductor manufacturing technologies and more efficient semiconductor chips during her time as vice president of IBM's Semiconductor Research and Development Center.
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is a technology executive and entrepreneur. Formerly the president of StubHub, she has worked at various tech and media companies including Google, Amazon and News Corp, Yodlee (YODL), and Polyvore. In 2011, she founded JOYUS, the video shopping platform for women, and served as CEO then Chairman until 2017. Singh Cassidy is also Founder of theBoardlist.
Aileen Lee is a U.S. venture capital angel investor and co-founder of Cowboy Ventures.
Vani Kola is an Indian venture capitalist. She is the founder and managing director of Kalaari Capital, an Indian early stage venture capital firm. She was listed as one of the most powerful women in Indian business by Fortune India in 2014.
Theresia Gouw is an entrepreneur and venture capital investor in the technology sector. She worked at Bain & Company, Release Software and Accel Partners before co-founding Aspect Ventures, a female-led venture capital firm, in 2014. Gouw was named one of the 40 most influential minds in tech by Time Magazine. and has been recognized seven times on the Forbes Midas List as one of the "world's smartest tech investors". According to Forbes, Gouw is the richest female venture capitalist, with a net worth of approximately $500 million, primarily due to her involvement with Accel (company)'s early investment in Facebook.
Katrina Lake is an American businesswoman who is the Founder and interim CEO of Stitch Fix, a fashion-based subscription service. Stitch Fix was established in 2011 in San Francisco and went public in 2017. In 2017, Lake became the youngest woman to take a company public at age 34 and was the only woman in 2017 to lead an initial public offering in technology. She was surpassed by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2021, who took Bumble public at age 31.
Julia Hartz is an American entrepreneur, investor, and the co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite, a global ticketing and event technology platform. She is known for her leadership of Eventbrite during the COVID-19 pandemic and empowering women in the technology industry. Hartz was selected as one of Fortune magazine's most powerful women entrepreneurs.
Erika Ayers is an American businesswoman and CEO of the digital media company Barstool Sports.