Stiletto Network

Building a Human Pyramid

While Shauna Mei seems remarkable, she is not an outlier. Increasingly, behind aspiring women entrepreneurs stand older female mentors and investors. Many of these elders made it the old way—the hard way, the way with lots of battles—but they’re now secure in their positions. Now that there’s room for more women at the top, they don’t fear being displaced by the younger, newer model. They can breathe. And after forty years of women in the workforce, isn’t it easier, not to mention more fun, when “you or me” becomes “you and me”?

“It’s partly because the women in their fifties, having been the only women in the room for a lot of their lives, are exhausted,” says Abigail Disney. “The only woman in the room has to act like ...