Julianna Strout, 38

Julianna Strout felt lost last year, soon after she had her first baby, a girl named Vivian. Like many others, she went to social media for some support in navigating a new mom's life. She quickly found a network — but also discovered that network craved something else: in-person connections. 

Strout, with a career full of independent, counterintuitive moves, decided to hold a spa day, at her house, to create that in-person network from scratch. The response was so overwhelming, she moved the event from her house to The Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota, where vendors and nonprofits came to network and mingle with moms and women business owners.

Photo by Mark Wemple