Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Instacart is planning an IPO as soon as September, single women in China are defying gender norms by buying their own property, and a Danish CEO took three major risks on her way to success. Have a great Monday!
– Risk and reward. Mette Lykke got three of her most influential jobs in nontraditional ways.
First, the Danish executive quit her stable McKinsey position with plans to become a founder—but no set startup idea. Leaving her 9-5 behind was the motivation she and her cofounders needed to come up with an idea they thought would work—a GPS-enabled fitness app.
Then, Lykke became that startup’s CEO after her cofounder quit and Lykke, then chief marketing officer, realized the company couldn’t afford to hire the caliber of CEO it sought.
Today, Lykke is the CEO of Too Good To Go, the food platform that allows customers to pick up grabbags of food products that would otherwise be thrown out at the end of the day. Lykke got that job after learning of the new platform’s existence from a fellow passenger on a bus, who was an early angel investor.
My colleague Orianna Rosa Royle dives into Lykke’s career trajectory in a new piece for Fortune. Lykke’s first startup, the fitness app Endomondo, sold to Under Armour for $85 million in 2015. The company she leads today, Too Good To Go, has 80 million customers, 145,000 participating businesses, and 1,200 employees. Its mission is to stop food waste.
Lykke advocates for others to take leaps of faith the way she has. Quitting a job with plans to become a founder, but without a firm startup idea, might sound extreme. “If it’s going to cost $10,000 or even $100,000 to pursue your dream, I actually think that’s pretty cheap,” Lykke argues, although she acknowledges that giving notice in a decent job market with McKinsey on her resume made her risk a bit easier to stomach.
“At least you really had a go at it,” she adds.
Read Orianna’s full story here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Goal! Spain's women's soccer team won its first global title yesterday, defeating England 1-0 in the Women's World Cup. Spain and Germany are now the only countries to win both men's and women's titles. AP
- Opening up shop. Instacart, led by CEO Fidji Simo, is planning an IPO as soon as September, which is promising news for sluggish U.S. listings and for the company. The nation’s largest grocery delivery company originally had hoped for an IPO last year, but Simo blamed “extremely tumultuous” markets for the delay. Bloomberg
- A place of their own. As China’s housing market looks down a deep abyss, a historically underrepresented customer base is surging. Single women, who want the economic independence and gender equality that comes with owning a home, are packing into apartments and houses in a reversal of gender norms. New York Times
- Pressure for parity. Norway’s wealth fund is upping demands for more women on the boards of companies it invests in. Carine Smith Ihenacho, the chief governance and compliance officer of the fund, said that initial action on this pursuit could involve gender quotas, particularly in Japan. Reuters
- Speaking up. A new study found that for every female speaking part in last year's most popular movies—35% of all speaking roles—there were more than two male counterparts. This disparity hasn’t changed much in recent years, either: 34% of speaking roles were female in 2019 and 32.8% were female in 2008. AP
- In the driver's seat. It’s been nearly 10 years since Mary Barra became the first female CEO of General Motors, a company she joined as an intern. Now, with a decade of CEO experience under her belt, she sees a future where GM is more tech-heavy, cars are powered by A.I., and the sales process is better adapted to female customers. Cosmopolitan
ON MY RADAR
Can Quinta Brunson save broadcast TV? Does she want to? L.A. Times
Cher is saving the animals, one elephant at a time Hollywood Reporter
An open-source platform brings circular tools to designers in Africa Vogue Business
PARTING WORDS
"It's much more common than you think."
—Venture capitalist Jennifer Stojkovic on the harassment she received after rejecting a pitch from a male founder. Her husband, who rejected the same pitch, was instead thanked for his time.
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