Harvard Business School professor and author Rosabeth Moss Kanter is one of the most prominent business speakers and strategy consultants in the world. Her focus for more than twenty-five years is helping to guide organizations and their leadership through change.
Libby Riddles is the first woman to win the famous Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska.
Golfer Nancy Lopez is named player of the year and AP Athlete of the year and wins the Ladies Professional Golf Association championship.
Wilma Mankiller becomes the first woman principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. She remains in office until 1995, during which time she works to bring back balance and reinvigorate the Cherokee Nation through community-building projects. She helps to bring about improved health care, education, utilities management, and tribal government. Mankiller says: “A lot of young girls have looked to their career paths and have said they’d like to be chief. There’s been a change in the limits people see.”
Vinita Gupta founds the company Digital Link (now Quick Eagle Networks); the company becomes significant in the data telecommunications industry.
Astronaut Shannon Lucid begins the first of her five space flights. She holds the U.S. single-mission space flight endurance record (188 days) on the Russian space station Mir.
The New York Asian Women’s Center sponsors programs to combat violence against Asian women.
Multitalented Oprah Winfrey begins her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show. Actress, producer, director, talk show host, editorial director of O: The Oprah Magazine, and cofounder of women’s cable network Oxygen Media, she exerts much influence on the American TV viewing public. About her philanthropy and generosity with her time, energy, and money, she says, “My whole quest at this point in my life … is: How do I use my life, my whole life, that includes: my money, my resources, my access, my so-called perceived influence—How do I use my whole self in order to bring goodness and some light into the world?” In acknowledging the women who came before her, she says: “I have crossed over on the backs of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Madam C. J. Walker. Because of them I can live the dream. I am the seed of the free, and I know it. I intend to bear great fruit.”