Back in 2020, Forbes ranked Mellody Hobson at No. 94 on its list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. Even though she’s no longer on the list, Hobson still holds powerful positions. She’s currently the president and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, a Chicago-based investment company that she’s been president of since 2000. She was appointed as co-CEO in 2019. She has also been the chairwoman of the Starbucks Corporation since 2021, making Hobson the first Black chairwoman of an S&P 500 company, according to the Chicago Defender.
Before becoming the chairwoman for the immensely popular coffee chain, Starbucks, Hobson was the chairwoman for DreamWorks Animation. She was also the first African American woman to lead The Economic Club of Chicago back in 2017.
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Writing for Lean In, Hobson shared that she interned at Ariel Investments back in college, leading to her majorly successful career in investment and business today. This is where founder and president (at the time) John W. Rogers told her that, even though she’d usually be surrounded by people with more experience and higher titles than her, she might still have better ideas than them, basically telling her not to shrink herself in these high-profile positions. “It’s one thing to be assertive but quite another to be abrasive. Similarly, there is a fine line between confidence and overconfidence,” she wrote. “With that in mind, I have had to learn to balance leaning in with humility.”
