Good morning, MPW Daily readers! I hope you enjoyed my colleagues’ contributions to the newsletter this week while I took some time away. Ellie Austin and Claire Zillman covered some diverse ground, from the Oscars to the battle for a tariff refund to what’s working—and not—in the dating app business these days.
Meanwhile, in the news today, we’re covering everything from Sanae Takaichi’s visit to the White House to the implosion of the upcoming Bachelorette season, a new challenge for Disney to weather.
Before we dive into the news, catching you up on some notable exec moves. Lots of movement in the sports world!
Major League Volleyball named its first commissioner: Jaime Weston, previously of USA Volleyball and the NFL. She says volleyball in the U.S. is “female-led and female-defined;” the league is in its third year of operation. The Los Angeles Angels promoted finance SVP Molly Jolly to club president, making her the first woman to hold the role at the MLB team.
Women’s sports consultancy Parity promoted Mandy Anderson to chief revenue officer and Alana Casner to chief operating and athlete officer. TrailRunner International hired Alden Mitchell, who was COO of Stanford Athletics, as president of TrailRunner Sports, its sports advisory business.
Melissa Ben-Ishay is transitioning from CEO to president of Baked by Melissa, the cupcake brand she founded. My colleague Eva Roytburg has more on why Ben-Ishay is “so freaking thrilled” to step down as CEO.
The International Planned Parenthood Federation has a new leader; Maria Antonieta Alcalde Castro is now its director general. IPPF is one of the largest global organizations working on sexual and reproductive health. Alcade is the first person from Latin America to lead the organization, and she’s tasked with battling what she calls the “anti-rights movement.”
Former MSNBC president Rashida Jones has a new role as CEO of Piers Morgan’s ‘Uncensored’ global operations.
Multi-family office Cresset is promoting Susie Cranston to CEO, effective April 15. On some lists, Cresset makes the top 10 RIAs in the U.S.—which makes Cranston the only woman to lead one of them.
Elizabeth Fowler, who was deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services until last year, joined the board of Humata Health, an AI prior authorizations business. The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation named Isobel Coleman CEO; she’s a former deputy administrator for USAID, among other roles.
Video network GSTV promoted Kristina Lutz to CMO. RedSail Technologies named Joy Neely chief growth officer. Palo Alto Networks hired Danielle Gonzalez as chief people officer; she’s an alum of TiVo and eBay.
Supergoop, the sunscreen brand, hired Alana Kwarta as its first chief human resources officer. Molly Sims’ skincare brand YSE Beauty has a new CEO: Doreen Arbel, a former Charlotte Tilbury exec. Vanessa Wallace, former CMO of Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty, is now CMO for the lifestyle jewelry brand GLD.
Engineering professional services firm WSP promoted Donna Estacio to managing director for government affairs and hired Avygail Sanchez as senior director, state and local government affairs for the West. Open source software business ActiveState appointed Abby Kearns as CEO. TextNow hired Bonnie Herche as VP of marketing.
SPB Hospitality has promoted operations leader Amanda Hyde to COO of Krystal, the Southeastern restaurant chain known for its sliders. Veronica Gauthier is joining Dreamday as SVP of growth. Ernesta, the custom rug company founded by Peloton’s John Foley, hired Alexandria Norton as CFO.
U.S. blended-wing aircraft manufacturer Natilus added Mylène Scholnick, former head of global fleet management at Amazon Air, to its advisory board.
Did you just get a big promotion or join a board? Share your career move with me over email and we’ll save it for our next roundup.
See you next week,
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
Sanae Takaichi’s White House visit went pretty well. The Japanese PM came through the meeting with President Trump “largely unscathed.” She flattered Trump and explained why Japan cannot join the U.S. war against Iran. Trump called her a “very popular, powerful woman” and said Japan is “stepping up to the plate.”
What does AI for women’s health look like? Maven is figuring it out. The women’s and family health business is rolling out a chatbot that is trained to take women’s health symptoms seriously. It’s built on OpenAI and Google LLMs as a HIPAA-compliant closed model that draws on the user’s history, benefits coverage, medical records, and wearable data rather than the entire internet.
Disney’s latest challenge. For those who don’t follow the world of reality TV, ABC just canceled the upcoming season of The Bachelorette, three days before it was scheduled to premiere. The titular bachelorette this season was Taylor Frankie Paul, already a reality TV star on Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. But new video surfaced of a 2023 domestic violence incident, in which she was seen throwing a bar stool at her ex; it hit her young daughter. The incident wasn’t a secret; it was a major plotline on the first season of TSLOMW. But the new video forced ABC to cancel the show, which had been its first attempt to bring a lead from another reality universe into the franchise. This all falls under Disney Entertainment, the TV division led by Dana Walden both before and after her recent promotion.
Female coaches are now a must for FIFA. New rules will require women’s teams in FIFA tournaments to have a woman head coach or assistant coach on the bench. At the 2023 World Cup, 12 of 32 head coaches were women.
ON MY RADAR
How Azzi Fudd became basketball’s princess Self
Olivia Rodrigo on yearning, ‘London Vibes,’ and her most experimental album yet British Vogue
Judy Blume: A Life and the problem of biography New Yorker
PARTING WORDS
“Audiences love seeing women act together on-screen, and we’re always looking for opportunities to create those environments on-screen.”
— Dakota Fanning on what she’s looking for when producing projects alongside her sister, Elle