"You've got to develop the courage of your convictions. I think you have to be willing to take some risks and some gambles, and to maybe take an unpopular position because you really think it's the right thing to do. I'm very willing to have open, frank conversations that other people just aren't willing to have. "

How do you take a brand and turn it from nothing to number two in less than five years? Zanna McFerson did just that with Truvia.

The tech boom is back and thriving -- there are still lots of uncharted territories, unclaimed stakes and rules that are still being figured out, but the crowd looks a little different. Women are more visible, and although there are still a ways to go, new female pioneers are becoming the norm.

Marie Moody, Founder and President of Stella & Chewy's, a multi-million dollar pet food company, reflected on her company's history as we were sitting in a café in New York City.

The bottom line is this: Stretching yourself too thin will not allow you to put your best foot forward and splitting your time between too many boards can prove to be very challenging (even for the most experienced board members).

Women may be chipping away at the glass ceiling, but when it comes to elbowing our way into the boardroom, progress is painfully slow.

What do women bring to the table that makes their companies more likely to thrive? Is it just about women, or particular kinds of women? Are women a sign of something bigger at work in a company's culture?

Pop quiz: What do IBM, Pepsi-Co, Dupont, Campbell Soup, Xerox and Kraft Foods have in common? They're all led by female CEOs. In fact, with the appointment of Marissa Mayer as CEO and President of Yahoo! in July, women have upped their game on the Fortune 500 list, with 20 female CEOs among the ranks.

Tena Clark had it all: a house on a golf course, a BMW and a fancy job at Sunburst Productions, a company that she founded which grew to become one of the largest booking agencies in the south. But she left it all and headed to Nashville to pursue her dreams.

Tena's passion, drive, creativity, chutzpah and refusal to buy in to popular notions of what women can -- and "cannot" -- do helped shape her life from Mississippi farm girl to CEO and founder of DMI Music & Media Solutions.

With last week's announcement of new Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, the balance tips in executive women's favor as another power female takes the reins in Silicon Valley.

Many men know how to easily bait you and press your buttons in a way that causes you to take the bait, go off balance, become submissive or defensive. When that happens it becomes very difficult to remain a lady.

In the U.S. women occupy fewer than 15% of the seats on corporate boards, and only 2.6% of chief executive offices of Fortune 500 companies. In Europe, the numbers are even worse. But for women to really get ahead in the boardroom, we need a quota on how much time men spend helping out at home.

Part 2 in a Calling All Women Executives Series (View Part 1) Q: What is one thing men and women in business have in common?A: They both distrust men...

Armed with enormous emotional strength and tightly honed emotional intelligence skills, women can, and will, shift the paradigm in the business and entrepreneurial world like never before.

Several studies suggest that women walk a tightrope, or face a "double bind," in that they must be perceived as both strong and sensitive in order to get ahead.

What solutions are working to increase numbers of women leading in corporations and how can those be amplified and accelerated? The World Economic Forum turned out to be the perfect place to begin a deep-dive inquiry.

Women simply must learn how to support other women across ALL ethnicities. This is THE way we WILL raise a collective voice of demand for eliminating the glass ceiling once and for all.

Like many successful women I've met, Sandra Peterson, CEO of Bayer CropScience, describes herself as a leader who tries to "inspire an organization to achieve a higher purpose than just making sales and profitability targets."

Sandra Peterson, 52 and a New York City native, has an impressive resume showcasing her wealth of experience running product lines, businesses and entire divisions for the likes of Whirlpool, Nabisco, Merck-Medco and, finally, Bayer.

Rather than fighting the system, Mary decided to play their game. She went to a large acting agency and combed through hundreds of headshots of men. She was looking for the seasoned "corporate" type who might be able to play the role of president of her company.