Vassar Celebrates Women in Business and Tech
As we observe Women’s History Month, we pay tribute to a few Vassar alums who have made significant achievements in the business and tech fields.
Caterina Fake ’91
Fake was a co-founder of the photo management and sharing application Flickr, which she described as “an infinite National Geographic.” The site was purchased by Yahoo, where Fake served as leader of the company’s technology development group. In 2007, she co-founded the website Hunch, which advises users what products to buy based on their interests and background. The company was acquired by eBay in 2011. Fake was named one of the world’s most influential people by Time magazine in 2006, and she won the 2018 “Visionary Award” from the Silicon Valley Forum, which recognizes business leaders in the Silicon Valley.
Photo: Karl Rabe
Paula Williams Madison ’74
Madison is chair and CEO of Madison Media Management, LLC, a media consulting firm in Los Angeles. Previously, she served as vice president of diversity at NBCUniversal and vice president of the General Electric Company. During her time at NBC, Madison held several key leadership roles, including president and general manager of NBC4 Los Angeles and vice president and news director of NBC4 New York. In 2005 she was named one of the “75 Most Powerful Americans in Corporate America” by Black Enterprise magazine.
Photo: Karl Rabe
Elida Cruz ’95
Cruz is Vice President and Head of Small Business design at Capital One. Her team develops design strategies for Capitol One’s business partners. Prior to joining Capitol One, Cruz served as global strategic lead at Fjord, a clothing and athletic apparel firm. She has also worked for the design consulting firm Frog Design, and Draft FCB, a New York advertising agency. Cruz says, “I’m really interested in the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the acceleration of technology, and what that means for the financial services industry and its impacts in terms of regulations now that there are certain things that need to be interacted with in a more digital way.”
Photo: Courtesy of CapitalOne
Darys Estrella Mordan ’92
Estrella Mordan is a speaker, author, and international business consultant. When she was just 27, she was named Vice President in the Emerging Markets division of Deltec Asset Management. From 2002 to 2007 she was Vice President of the Fixed Income and Commodities division of Goldman Sachs. She then returned to her native Dominican Republic to become General Manager and CEO of the Dominican Republic Stock Exchange, and from 2008 to 2011 she was Secretary of BOLCEN, a consortium of seven stock exchanges in Central America and the Caribbean. From 2012 to 2017 she was Vice President of Business Sustainability at INICIA, a private asset management firm that operates in northern Latin America. In 2019, she was named “Outstanding Woman of the Decade in Finance and Leadership” by the Women Economic Forum in Cartagena, Colombia.
Photo: Courtesy of the Subject
Louise Barnell Yamada ’65
Yamada worked for more than 25 years as a market analyst at Smith Barney, where she warned investors to avoid tech stocks just before the crash of the tech bubble in 2000. From 2001 to 2004, she was consistently ranked as a leader in the Institutional Investor poll, which rates financial analysts. She is the author of the widely acclaimed book about the stock market, “Market Magic: Riding the Greatest Bull Market of the Century.” Yamada left Smith Barney in 2005 and founded a business consulting firm, Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors.
Photo: Courtesy of the Subject