In a city full of gifted, driven and visionary women, it speaks volumes that these leaders rise above the rest. While their missions span industries and communities, what unites them is a relentless commitment to action, collaboration and determination. Overnight success still doesn’t exist — progress is built day by day, choice by choice. Whether they are providing healthcare solutions for women, championing social justice, expanding access to education and career pathways for young New Orleanians, or leading boldly as innovative entrepreneurs, each of these women is shaping the future and redefining what leadership looks like. Congratulations to our Top Female Achievers 2026!
Kiki Baker Barnes, PhD
Author, founder, speaker
Commissioner, HBCU Athletic Conference
Kiki Baker Barnes went from playing high school basketball in Minden to serving as the first African American female commissioner in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) as well as both the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference and the HBCU Athletic Conference — and she’s only just beginning to make her mark. Baker Barnes said she owes her almost 30-year career to the power of sports, and she’s determined for other young women to experience the same opportunities. She discovered her love of working with young female athletes while serving as a graduate assistant coach for the women’s basketball team at University of Louisiana Lafayette, where she was earning a master’s degree. “The first time I heard, ‘Coach Kiki can I tell you something?’ it hit me — these young women trust me. They’re turning to me. I was given the opportunity to help young women and to walk alongside them in their journey as they discover their confidence.” Outside of serving in sports leadership positions and serving as a consultant, she founded a program called “So You Want a Career in Athletics,” where she and a team provide leadership education, mentorship and career guidance. She is also the author of “Blazing Your Own Trail: Faith, Focus and Forward Momentum in Leadership” and was named one of the 100 Influential Black Women in Sports by “Sports Illustrated” and EmpowerOnyx — just one of a long list of industry recognitions. Baker Barnes’ latest endeavor is happening close to home. On July 2, the now Louisiana State University New Orleans campus will host the first Her Girls Her Future Fest, an immersive full-day career festival targeting high school and college girls. “This is going to be so much more fun than your typical career day,” said Baker Barnes. “We’re going to have four experience zones: Spotlight, covering broadcasting media; Lab, focused on sports medicine, coaching and analytics; Front office, including management and sports law; and Emerging/Adaptive, focused on careers in Paralympics, Special Olympics. We’ll also have a mentor matchup, and I’m giving the keynote address.” Her ultimate goal, she said, is to create a kind of Girl Scouts of sports leadership. “In my career it was always me and a bunch of guys. I was the Smurfette,” she said. “There’s an anxiety that comes from feeling like you’re alone and you can’t make mistakes. There were many times when it would have been very helpful to have someone like me. Young women need to believe in themselves and trust their inner voice. I want to help them do that.” – KS
Olivia McCoy
Founder, WeHelp NOLA
New Orleans is no stranger to the support of community, but there’s something about the hospitality industry that creates family. No one knows that more than Olivia McCoy. Growing up in hospitality and a family of chefs and restaurateurs, McCoy had a front row seat to all the good, bad and ugly that can impact any industry. “I love the community,” said McCoy. “I love the family I built there, but I also saw firsthand the immense need for mental health support. I watched as my co-workers, and myself, struggled with stress, burnout, anxiety, substance use; all without the resources in place to support us.” It was this realization and passion that lead her to starting WeHelp NOLA. WeHelp is a New Orleans-based nonprofit with a mission to provide service industry workers with accessible, no-cost mental healthcare. “I just became so determined to break down the stigma surrounding mental health,” said McCoy. “To really illuminate that with the right care and support, you can thrive, excel and live your best life, and, hopefully, in the process, create a more sustainable industry.” WeHelp currently partners with venues and restaurants around the city to offer their services like therapy and staff training, or even with more specialized cases of care like in- and out-patient services and those needs specific to alcohol and substance abuse. Since its founding in 2019, McCoy and her team have provided over 8,000 free sessions to industry workers with no plans on slowing down. With their restaurant partners, McCoy and WeHelp offer an affordable monthly subscription, based on the site’s employee count, giving the entire staff access to all the resources WeHelp has to offer. “I’m immensely proud of the incredible chefs and owners around the city who provide these services to their team, who see the importance of the work that we’re doing, the importance of providing support to their staff members, and the importance of addressing very real issues within our industry,” said McCoy. “I’m always blown away by our hospitality community here in New Orleans, and the owners and operators that want to make a change. I am forever blown away by our hospitality community and the workers, period.” – KM
Ashley Webb
Co-Founder, Barcelo Gardens and 2026 Les Dames d’Escoffier Honoree
Ashley Webb and her husband, Andres Barcelo-Sanchez, did not set out to build a community institution when they started growing food on an empty lot. The couple, who moved from Los Angeles to New Orleans’ Upper 9th Ward in 2017 to be closer to family, gardened before in California. “The price was good, so we ended up buying a vacant lot of land so that we could create it to [become] our own space,” Webb said. Inspired in part by L.A. urban garden activist Ron Finley, known for transforming neglected spaces into community plots, Webb saw an idea. “His model was about planting where you are,” she said. “The spaces didn’t have to be ideal. You can take a space that has nothing on it and transform it into a food haven.” The garden quickly became a community growing space, shifting during the pandemic into a teaching garden and farmers market. Located at 2301 Gallier St., it is situated in the heart of one of the city’s most significant food deserts. “People are always quick to say, well, just go to Mid-City or just go to Metairie,” she said. “But if you don’t have transportation, it’s all buses and ride shares to get there. That hassle causes people to be less likely to get fresh produce regularly. If you can go around the corner and get it, it’s much easier to be and feel healthy.” Barcelo Gardens expanded even more when visitors kept asking the same question: “How do you cook these vegetables?” Webb responded with free cooking demonstrations alongside gardening classes. “By showing them different ways that produce can be used, they can buy it and be more confident that they will actually eat it,” she said. In 2026, Les Dames d’Escoffier New Orleans named Webb a Leading from the Heart Award honoree. The $2,500 grant will support farm infrastructure and expanded community distribution. Barcelo Gardens now has a small permanent storefront, a step toward the community gathering space Webb envisions. “I feel like, in a lot of ways, we reached that goal,” she said. “I would like to do more classes and events there. That space needs to be more developed so that it’s more of a community space, but we’re slowly working to get it there.” – MM
Thuy Pham
Founder, NOLA Nite Market and Gulf Coast Asian Arts & Culture
Thuy Pham was not in the restaurant business, the arts world or the events industry when she decided New Orleans needed a night market. She was a notary public. What she did have was a vision, a stubbornness about community and the memory of a California night market that stopped her in her tracks. On a birthday trip to California, Pham found herself surrounded by hundreds of vendors, traditional street food, neon drinks, handmade crafts and K-pop performances. Everything was unmistakably Asian, yet woven into the fabric of the local culture. “I remember thinking, ‘New Orleans has all the ingredients for this, so why don’t we?’” Pham said. “This city already understands food, nightlife and community at a bone-deep level. We have a strong Vietnamese community, especially in New Orleans East, with incredible culture that doesn’t always get the spotlight it deserves. I realized New Orleans wasn’t missing the capacity; it was missing the container.” On Oct. 19, 2019, she launched the first NOLA Nite Market at the Gretna Farmers Market. Getting there required months of one-on-one conversations with vendors who had never done anything like it. “Not mass emails; real talk,” she said. “I couldn’t promise huge profits that first night, but I could promise intention — that I would put everything into making this special.” The skeptical vendors were suddenly slammed with customers. Afterward, those same vendors started asking when the next market would take place. “That’s when it clicked,” Pham said. “It wasn’t just an idea anymore. It had proven itself.” The market has since grown into a recurring destination showcasing Asian cuisine, art and performance. Pham also founded Gulf Coast Asian Arts & Culture, a nonprofit that extends the market’s mission into film, visual art and education. She also serves on the executive board of the Vietnamese American Community in Louisiana and has been recognized with a 2024 Leading from the Heart Award from Les Dames d’Escoffier New Orleans. “At my root, I see myself as a cultural practitioner,” she said. “In New Orleans, where food is so defining, Asian contributions have often been present but rarely centered. This market is my way of saying, ‘We aren’t on the sidelines of this narrative — we’re part of what makes this city dynamic.’” Looking toward the future, her five-year vision is expansive. “I want the NOLA Nite Market to be a landmark,” she said. “A place where people immediately think, ‘This is where you go to experience the city’s Asian soul after dark.’” – MM
Tiffany Langlinais Graves
Founder, Head of Marketing, Freret Napoleon
Co-Founder, Chief Marketing Officer, King Cake Drive-Thru
If all the world’s a stage, New Orleans is the perfect backdrop for storytellers like Tiffany Langlinais Graves. In its truest form, marketing is a way for businesses to tell their story to the public. As the Head of Marketing for boutique agency Freret Napoleon, Graves uses storytelling across the industries her clients represent to help them reach the perfect audience. “We all love a good restaurant, a good place to get a nice cocktail in this city, but the main thing is being able to tell someone’s story,” said Graves. “I believe I really resonate with other individuals and how to reach them, and that’s the basis of my entire company.” It’s a position that has Graves in a part of every aspect of the city from tattoo parlors to fertility clinics. “I learn something new with every single client, and every initial consultation that I have,” said Graves. While helping others tell their story is at the forefront, Graves also wants to be a part of someone’s story — well, their Carnival story. Her seasonal venture, the King Cake Drive-Thru, is an accessible option for people on the go during Carnival time. Marketing the drive-thru, which she shares is geared around being able to bring joy, combines two of Graves’ passions as she uses the venture to promote New Orleans, it’s culture and small businesses to the world. Each year, the drive-thru helps up-and-coming bakers and many without brick-and-mortar locations get in front of New Orleanians they may not have reached otherwise. Graves has taken this venture to higher heights in the last seasons with extending the drive-thru to cities outside the metro area, including Bay St. Louis, Mississippi; Baton Rouge; Houston, Texas; and more on the horizon. Whether it’s through her companies, as a part of her Hogs for the Cause team Fleur de Que or a member of Les Bonnes Vivantes Mardi Gras krewe; Graves tells the tale of a city full of joy and community. – KM
Dominique Jones-Johnson
Founder & Executive Director, Daughters Beyond Incarceration
Dominque Jones-Johnson’s father has been incarcerated her entire life. Her mother was six months pregnant when he went to prison. She spent her childhood celebrations in Angola’s visiting rooms. “We built a life in 15-minute increments, shouting over the static of recorded phone lines,” she said. “I held on because he refused to let go.” In May 2018, Jones-Johnson co-founded Daughters Beyond Incarceration alongside her father, Charles Brown Jr., who is now serving his 43rd year of a life sentence. DBI is a New Orleans-based nonprofit that mentors Black girls ages 8 to 18 who have an incarcerated parent, providing support in mentorship, leadership development, policy advocacy and family reunification. Since its founding, DBI has mentored more than 70 girls in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Her focus on daughters is intentional. “Research shows that a father’s emotional presence…is a critical protective factor for a girl’s self-esteem and resilience,” she said. “When that bond is disrupted, girls are often left to manage complex, heavy emotions in total silence. DBI exists to break that silence.” Under her leadership, DBI has raised more than $1 million in grants since its founding and worked to help pass state legislation supporting children of incarcerated parents in Louisiana where one in seven children experiences parental incarceration. That’s four times the national average. During the past year, Jones-Johnson continued leading DBI while undergoing cancer treatment and raising four children. She eventually told her mentees about her diagnosis, and she turned that decision into a lesson. “People need to understand that for Black women, leadership is often carried alongside invisible labor,” she said. “We lead while caregiving, while healing and while advocating in systems that were never built for our sustainability. Too often, our sacrifice is celebrated but not resourced.” She is now focused on expanding DBI statewide. – MM
Dr. Sara Reardon, PT, DPT, WCS
Board-Certified Pelvic Health Therapist
Yes, there is such a thing as a “vagina whisperer” — and she’s right here in New Orleans. A NOLA native, Sara Reardon knew from a young age that she wanted to be a physical therapist. While on a clinical rotation on women’s health at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor she said she fell in love. “I just loved being able to help women with these really intimate, often embarrassing issues through pelvic floor therapy,” she said. While living and working in Dallas and pregnant with her second child, Reardon had another epiphany. “I had been working with women for a decade who were coming in with all sorts of issues from childbirth, and yet, because of what I know, I had had an unmedicated birth with no tearing and an incredible postpartum recovery,” she said. “I thought to myself, ‘Why do I feel like I’m just doing damage control when there’s so much we can do to prevent these issues?” Reardon started an Instagram account called The Vagina Whisperer in 2016 and began sharing pelvic floor exercises, postpartum recovery tips and pregnancy stretches. The account boasts over 739,000 followers. “I think it’s a testament to the need for this information,” she said. “It’s crazy that if you get knee surgery, for example, you get physical therapy before and after, but if you have a baby, they’re like, ‘Here’s an ice pack. See you in six weeks.” In 2017, Reardon moved back to New Orleans and started the first brick and mortar pelvic PT clinic in the city, NOLA Pelvic Health. Two years ago, she sold the clinic to write the national bestselling book “Floored: A Woman’s Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage.” She has also developed a pelvic floor workout app called The V-Hive, all to spread education. “Not only are we as women not educated about pelvic floor health, medical residents aren’t trained on evaluating it,” she said. “And yet these problems are so common in every season of our lives.” Next on her to-do list is to work with hospitals and employers to provide access to pelvic floor care just like they might provide gym memberships or mental health benefits. “More than 50% of women will be affected by pelvic floor issues, issues that can affect their ability to exercise, travel or work,” she said. “For too long we’ve thought of these problems as just part of getting older, or being a mom, but they don’t have to be. We need to be normalizing the conversations not the problems.” – KS
Amanda McFillen
Director of Audience Engagement, Historic New Orleans Collection
Amanda McFillen is a lifelong Louisianan and a lifelong lover of history. “From a really early age I loved going to museums,” she said, “I think there’s just something in how sharing objects and documents can bring history to life and create these powerful connections to our shared past.” While earning her undergraduate degree in history at Louisiana State University McFillen interned at the National Air and Space Museum. She then headed up to Canada to earn a master’s in museum studies at the University of Toronto before returning home in 2007 to serve as the associate director of museum studies at the Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC), which holds the distinction of caring for the largest collection of materials related to Louisiana and the Gulf South. “I started in research and was in exhibitions for a long time,” she said, noting, “I gravitated toward public programming, bringing in speakers, working with academics and culture bearers. In April 2024, McFillen was promoted to HNOC’s director of audience engagement, overseeing the museum’s largest workforce — including its education team, visitor services, group sales and private tours. It is her job to create opportunities for connection between HNOC’s treasures and the public. “We do this in so many ways,” she said, “from annual events like our history symposium, food forum and a partnership with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, to our quarterly magazine, to hosting field trips and teacher workshops. McFillen is constantly on the hunt for new ways to expand HNOC’s audience. Sometimes programs are created by HNOC, and sometimes they are found and brought in, as in the case of American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition, a traveling exhibition created by a French technology firm that premiered March 20 at 520 Royal Street. Using virtual reality on an iPad-like tablet called a “Histopad,” visitors can enjoy free, 3-D interactive experiences that take them into pivotal times in the country’s fight for independence, including an exploration of the role New Orleans and its communities played in the battles. The exhibition runs through January 2027. “The goal is always to offer a sense of community to folks interested in engaging with our rich and multilayered history,” said McFillen. “And there’s always new research being done, new topics to engage in that deserve recognition. It’s our job to create programs that provide meaning and engage and resonate with as many people as we can.” – KS
Gina Jagtiani
Entrepreneur and organizer, New Orleans Diwali and the New Orleans Holi Festival
When you think of someone that would make the perfect New Orleanian — who loves the city, its people and its culture so immensely their purpose is giving back in as many ways as they can — Gina Jagtiani is one of those people. “I genuinely believe that if you’re building something in a community, you have an obligation to pour back into it,” said Jagtiani. “New Orleans has given me so much — a platform, a purpose and people who show up for each other in extraordinary ways. Every event I produce, every hotel I help bring to life I want it to generate not just economic activity, but real human good.” Jagtiani brings influence from her global travels, as well as her birthplace in the Big Apple and upbringing in the Big Easy to hone her hospitality skills into boutique investments that are changing New Orleans neighborhoods for the better. In addition to her professional work in hospitality partnerships and marketing and events, Jagtiani has brought much-needed cultural influence to the city with the launch of both the New Orleans Diwali and the New Orleans Holi Festival. “I recognized a real gap in New Orleans’ cultural programming — a city so celebrated for its festivals and diversity, yet these rich traditions had no home here,” Jagtiani said. “That combination of personal love for the culture and an entrepreneur’s eye for what was missing made it feel not just like an opportunity, but a responsibility. New Orleans deserved these celebrations.” If her dedication to development in the city and cultural representation wasn’t enough, Jagtiani saw immense success as a 2025 American Cancer Society Shuck Cancer honoree where she used her platform to raise immense funds for an amazing cause. “I think what ties everything together for me is this: I don’t see hospitality, events, and community work as separate lanes — they’re all part of the same mission,” said Jagtiani. “I want to shape the next evolution of New Orleans hospitality in a way that’s authentic to its roots but energizing for its future. This city has an unmatched soul, and everything I build is in service of protecting and amplifying that.” – KM
