Women of Excellence

Too many women are living on autopilot. We believe we’re too old, too busy, or too inexperienced to go after what we really want. But none of that is true.

Shannon Watts knows this firsthand: Since starting Moms Demand Action, the nation’s largest grassroots organization against gun violence, Shannon has helped thousands of women step off the sidelines and into their power. And what she has learned is that there’s a formula for coming alive - for figuring out what lights you up and helping you create your own legacy, no matter how old (or young) you are. And in a world that wants women to make themselves smaller and smaller until they disappear, making a conscious choice to evade your obligations and embrace your desire is a radical act.

Shannon Watts is the founder of Moms Demand Action, the nation’s largest grassroots group fighting against gun violence. Known as the ‘summoner of women’s audacity,’ she spent more than a decade leading one of the world’s largest field experiments for mobilizing women. She has been named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, a Forbes 50 over 50 Changemaker, and a Glamour Woman of the Year.

The day after the Sandy Hook School mass shooting tragedy in 2012, she started a Facebook group to unite women against the gun lobby as Mothers Against Drunk Driving united mothers against the alcohol lobby in the 1980s. Under her leadership, Moms Demand Action became one of the largest grassroots movements in the country. With a chapter in every state and over 10 million supporters, the organization is twice as large as the National Rifle Association. Over the past decade, Moms Demand Action volunteers passed over 500 gun safety laws; stopped the gun industry’s agenda in statehouses 90 percent of
the time; elected thousands of gun sense candidates to office, including its own volunteers; and passed the first federal gun legislation in a generation.

After 11 years as the full-time volunteer leader of Moms Demand Action, Shannon stepped back in 2023 to focus on writing, speaking and organizing. She recently organized one of the largest Zoom gatherings in history, mobilizing over 200K voters and raising over $11 million in support of the 2024 Kamala Harris campaign, and has become one of the campaign’s largest fundraisers and most powerful surrogates for calling white women in. She now co-hosts the Women Wednesdays for Harris call with Indivisible, empowering thousands of women weekly with practical guidance on how to take action in the 2024 election.

Prior to founding Moms Demand Action, Watts – a mother of five – was a communications executive at public relations firms and Fortune 100 companies. She is an active board member of Emerge America, one of the nation’s leading organizations for recruiting and training women to run for office. Her first book, Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World, was released in 2019. Her next book is expected in 2025, and she writes regularly for Substack and outlets like The Washington Post, Elle, Time, The 19th, The Meteor and more. Her ideas on leadership help redefine what’s possible when audacious women unite to drive change.