Inc. names Laura Tierney of The Social Institute to its 2026 Female Founders 500 List
Inc.’s annual Female Founders list celebrates the nation’s most innovative women entrepreneurs, who collectively generated approximately $12.3 billion in 2025
Durham, NC, March 10, 2026 – The Social Institute is proud to announce that Founder and CEO Laura Tierney has been named to Inc.’s 2026 Female Founders 500, an annual list honoring the most dynamic women business leaders in the United States. The honor recognizes founders whose bold ideas, resilience, and execution are shaping the future of their industries.
The 2026 Female Founders honorees collectively generated approximately $12.3 billion in 2025 revenue and $12.2 billion in funding to date, underscoring the economic impact of women-led businesses across sectors.
Each year, Inc. editors evaluate applications through a rigorous, multi-round selection process. Founders are assessed on both quantitative performance metrics, including revenue growth, funding, sales, and audience size, as well as qualitative factors such as innovation, social impact, and brand momentum. The final list represents entrepreneurs who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and measurable progress over the past year. Previous honorees have included such game-changing leaders as Billie Jean King, Sallie Krawcheck, Serena Williams, and Emma Grede — all of whom have transformed their industries and broken barriers along the way.
“Being named to Inc.’s Female Founders 500 really belongs to the students, educators, and teammates who have believed in this mission alongside me,” said Tierney. “Ten years ago, we noticed a gap no one was filling: technology was shaping nearly every part of young people’s lives, yet students weren’t being equipped with the modern life skills they needed to navigate a tech-fueled world. Together, we built The Social Institute to change that. What started as an idea is now reaching more than a million students, and I’m incredibly grateful to the school communities and teammates who continue to make this work possible: empowering students every day with the skills they need to navigate the challenges that impact their learning and well-being.”
Honoree selection is also honed through the evaluation of the program’s advisory board, which includes Patty Arvielo, co-founder and CEO of New American Funding; Tiffany Dufu, president of the Tory Burch Foundation; Joy Mangano, co-founder and CEO of CleanBoss; Michelle Cordeiro Grant, founder and CEO of GORGIE; Sheila Lirio Marcelo, co-founder and CEO of Ohai.ai and founder of Care.com; and Melissa Mash, co-founder and CEO of Dagne Dover.
Under Tierney’s leadership, The Social Institute has seen strong momentum with public school districts, roughly doubling the proportion of new partnerships coming from the public sector. The company’s Annual Insights Report also recorded more than one million student responses, providing schools with one of the largest data sets available on how young people are navigating the tech and social media trends impacting their learning and well-being.
Additionally, Tierney has positioned The Social Institute at the forefront of one of K-12 education’s most urgent new challenges: artificial intelligence. In 2025, the company launched fully integrated A.I. Literacy programming across its entire offering for students, families, teachers, and administrators, while also rolling out skill-based offline lessons for students in Kindergarten through second grade.
“Each year, we are increasingly amazed by the extraordinary leaders on our Inc. Female Founders 500 list,” says Bonny Ghosh, editorial director at Inc. “The honorees on this year’s list include innovators in AI, beauty and wellness trendsetters winning devoted fans, and nonprofit leaders making a real impact in their communities. Together, they’re showing all of us what trailblazing female leadership looks like.”
Several honorees will be featured in Inc. magazine’s Spring print issue, on newsstands March 17, 2026. To see the complete list of honorees, please visit: https://www.inc.com/female-founders/2026.
About Inc.
Inc. is the leading media brand and playbook for the entrepreneurs and business leaders shaping our future. Through its journalism, Inc. aims to inform, educate, and elevate the profile of its community: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters who are creating the future of business. Inc. is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with fellow leading business publication Fast Company. For more information, visit www.inc.com.
The Social Institute (TSI) is the leader in equipping students to navigate learning & well-being in a tech-fueled world. Through #WinAtSocial, our interactive, peer-to-peer learning platform, we empower students, educators, and families to make high-character choices online and offline. #WinAtSocial Lessons teach essential skills while capturing student voice and actionable insights for educators. These insights help educators maintain a healthy school culture, foster high-impact teaching, and build meaningful relationships with families. Our unique, student-respected approach empowers and equips students authentically, enabling our solution to increase classroom participation and improve student-teacher relationships. Through our one-of-a-kind lesson development process, we create lessons for a variety of core and elective classes while incorporating timely topics like social media, A.I., screen time, misinformation, and current events to help schools stay proactive in how they support student health, happiness, and academic success.