On a New Level: 14 Women Building the Future of Impact-Driven Business

Jordene Trueh of Backriver Blends

For some founders, impact begins with the everyday products that bring people together. At Uncharted Coffee, Jasmine Neveles is building a premium regenerative coffee company centered on people, the planet, the history of pioneering growers, and future generations. Tiana Jorman’s Grounded Cup takes a similarly personal approach to coffee, emphasizing the women behind the cup and using every purchase as an opportunity to create visibility and equity.

Jordene Trueh brings Jamaican-inspired flavors to the table with Backriver Blends, creating inspired sauces, marinades, and other gourmet products designed to make her culinary heritage part of everyday life. And at Ava’s Pet Palace, Ina Jones is making pampering our extended family more sustainable and ethical by creating better pet products designed with intention while also supporting a rescue pet program with part of the proceeds.

Each company offers different products to different customers across different industries. But each also creates an opportunity to connect people with culture, community, sustainability, or a more thoughtful way of meeting an everyday need.

Turning Perspective Into the Potential for Impact

For other founders, building a business means bringing experiences and perspectives that have historically been overlooked into industries where they can make a difference.

Parveen Sikder-Rahman’s Crescent Street Design creates fine recycled paper goods and thoughtful gifts through small-batch, responsibly made production and designs that pay tribute to both South Asian and Western heritages. At Adirelounge, Cynthia Asije is working to make heritage, plant-based textiles traceable, scalable, and climate-responsible while directly supporting craft-makers in Africa.

Puure founder Christina Phillips

Christina Phillips of Puure is rethinking an everyday essential through organic women’s intimate apparel made from natural, chemical-free fabrics designed with well-being in mind. And Pamela Frazier’s All In One Management & Services provides laundry and linen services to neighbors with an explicit focus on equity, dependable work, and strengthening under-resourced communities.

Their businesses remind us that innovation doesn’t always mean inventing something completely new. Sometimes, it means looking at something familiar and asking: who could this serve better? What could this process look like? And what values should be built into it from the beginning?

Changing the Systems Behind Business

Building a better economy also requires changing the systems that shape how businesses operate. The leaders behind this group of Level businesses make that work highly visible.

KenNesha Hart founded iScaleHR to provide scalable human resources solutions for growing companies, training and professional development for individuals, and support for women’s access to education and career opportunities.

bombilla founder Ivellisse Morales (center) surrounded by fellow team members

Ivellisse Morales’s bombilla focuses on strategic communications, reputation management, creative production, and branding for social impact organizations. And Brooke Williams of Creative Attitude helps purpose-driven businesses and non-profits find, express, and communicate their distinct identity to help change the world, “one attitude at a time.”

These businesses achieve impact that happens not only through their own work but also the ways they support their client companies find support, communicate their missions, and build relationships with their audiences. These are the essential systems behind organizations that shape people’s everyday experiences of work, opportunity, and belonging. Changing those systems is a key part of building the future of impact-driven business.

Creating New Ways to Experience the World

The same idea extends beyond traditional business categories. Mia McDonald’s Expats Traveling Group helps globally mobile professionals combine work, rest, and discovery through intentional and sustainable travel through a network of locally based, highly trusted partners.

Sasquatch Media Grounds founder and CEO Mary Williams presents at a SXSW event.

Mary Williams founded Sasquatch Media Grounds, a boutique media studio that trains, produces, and amplifies underrepresented creators in the Pacific Northwest. And at Blue Heron Farms and Agricultural Innovation and Training Center, Dr. Hillery Goodgame is advancing regenerative, diversified farming, climate-smart agriculture, and equitable access to local food systems.

Travel, media, and agriculture and three very different ways of engaging with the world and three examples of how business can create new pathways for people to experience it.

Whether the goal is helping introduce someone to a new place, giving an underrepresented creator the resources to tell their story, or building a more resilient local food system, these businesses are expanding what entrepreneurship can accomplish.

What This Year’s Level Cohort Members Have in Common

These founders have built businesses informed by their experiences, communities, and values. They bring new perspectives into industries that have not always reflected the full diversity of the people they serve. And they are demonstrating that impact can take many forms.

That diverse approach is an important part of the B Corp community. B Corp Certification provides a framework for companies to measure and manage their impact, but it doesn’t prescribe a single way to create change. The Level program, in turn, creates space for business leaders who identify as women of color to bring their own experiences and approaches into that broader movement.

Building a New Era of Business Together

Hand-carved print blocks used by Parveen Sikder-Rahman’s Crescent Street Design

The future of business won’t be built by a single industry, business model, or point of view. It will be built by people willing to question what we do now, imagine what could be better, and then do the difficult work of building something to make that change happen.

The 14 women in this year’s Level cohort are doing exactly that. They’re creating products that connect people to culture and community. They’re changing systems that influence how people work and communicate. They’re creating opportunities for underrepresented voices. They’re rethinking how we experience travel, media, food, and place.

And while their businesses may be at different stages and their paths may not look similar, each is contributing to a broader possibility of an economy shaped by more voices, more ideas, and more ways of defining success.

Join us as we uplift their capacity to make change and go on a journey to fully introduce and engage them with the greater B Corporation movement. You can look forward to more stories from our cohort in the month’s ahead as we get to know them, report on their progress, and show how they’re shaping the future of businesses, together.

Banner Image: Ivellisse Morales, founder of bombilla