2026 OC50 Most Prominent Businesswomen in Orange County

One businesswoman has more than 300 patents to her name and successfully started two companies.

Another with six children successfully built a $1.5 billion hospital complex.

A third started a firm that manages more than $63 billion in assets.

Orange County has thousands of successful businesswomen.

We know because we often report on them.

Our task thus became difficult in choosing the 50 Most Prominent Businesswomen in Orange County. It’s the first time we’ve ever made such a list. In the past two years, we’ve highlighted 50 rising entrepreneurs and 50 prominent businesspeople in the nonprofit world.

Their industries reflect Orange County’s dynamic economy.

Eleven work in healthcare, followed by eight in tech and six in real estate. The list also includes six leaders in hospitality and tourism, five each in nonprofits and finance, and four attorneys.

Readers will find women who are leading large real estate empires, apparel companies, major hospitals and even the county’s biggest employer, Disneyland. These women have had major successes in their careers, from managing companies that generate upwards of billions in annual sales to overseeing trillions of dollars in assets on Wall Street. Several are founders.

On our front page, we are highlighting four women who readers might not have heard much about. The other honorees start on page 33. To cap it off, Annette Walker, president of the City of Hope Orange County, wrote a dynamic Leader Board that appears on page 83.

— Peter Brennan, Orange County Business Journal Editor-in-Chief

(Page numbers refer to print and digital edition)

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