Paul Slipper’s Self-Made Woman installation

What does it mean to be “self-made”? Forbes magazine has been receiving all sorts of opinions on the matter after featuring Kylie Jenner as the youngest “self-made billionaire” on its cover. Everyone from her sister, Kim Kardashian, to Webster’s Dictionary has chimed in with their thoughts on what it takes to be “self-made” means.  According to Wikipedia, the phrase was first coined in 1832 by US Senator Henry Clay to describe men in the manufacturing sector whose successes lay within the individuals themselves, and not from outside conditions. But by the mid-1950s, “self-made” generally implied “business success” regardless of how one came up. Regardless of how you think of “self-made,” according to the 2017 “World Ultra Wealth Report,” self-made individuals have been mainly men. Now there are a number of women making giant waves in finance, science, and in net worth.

I spoke with two self-made women turning the tables in their respective fields: Frida Polli is a Harvard + MIT trained neuroscientist turned CEO and co-founder of Pymetrics, which uses AI to help global clients match candidates with their ideal jobs, while removing bias from the hiring process. Dottie Herman was just listed as one of “America’s Richest Self-Made Women in Real Estate,” in Forbes. Dottie climbed to the pinnacle of the housing industry in only two decades as the CEO of Douglas Elliman. Today, Dottie is the most influential woman in real estate.

         Frida Polli

Dottie Herman

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