Seattle Celebrates its Women Trailblazers

March 19, 2025

For Women’s History Month, Seattle is recognizing the women trailblazers who have shaped the city’s hospitality and cultural scene.

Back in 1926, Bertha Knight Landes made history as the first woman mayor of Seattle — and the first woman to lead a major American city. Today, women trailblazers continue to shape Seattle’s future in everything from arts and culture to hospitality, tourism and food and beverage.

So it’s not surprising that the city is celebrating Women’s History Month this year with a lineup of events and exhibitions to recognize the contributions of the women who have contributed so much. Among the women-centric events held this month was a new stand-up comedy act, “My Life on the PTSD List,” by Emmy and Grammy Award-winning Kathy Griffin at Seattle’s Moore Theater; the home-opener game of the Seattle Reign FC women’s soccer team at Lumen Field; and a chance to experience a live recording session at KEXP Studios in Seattle Center, featuring Hinds, a Spanish Indie rock band featuring Carlotta Cosials and Ana García Perrote.

Attendees at meetings and events in town during March also can eat and shop at the city’s more-than 1,000 women-owned businesses — Seattle has been ranked as the number-one city for women entrepreneurs for a reason. Several reasons, in fact, including that almost half of the city’s self-employed business owners are women, and while there is still an earnings gap between male and female business owners, that gap is just 6% in Seattle.

Their businesses are easy to find with a search through The Intentionalist, which in addition to listing local small businesses run by diverse owners, is offering special promotions people can win by supporting woman-owned businesses in the community. By the way, The Intentionalist was founded by female Seattle community leader and entrepreneur, Laura Clise.

Among the many Seattle women of note is Lendy Hensley, who founded City Catering, one of the city’s busiest food businesses for 21 years. Like most in the catering industry, the pandemic hit City Catering hard, and the loss of 98% of its business meant it had to lay off more than 100 of its employees. Within a month, Hensley had come up with a plan to keep the business afloat with a new service called Bite Society. This service, which offers gift baskets, cookies and snacks for delivery in packages created by tattoo artists, continues to thrive post-pandemic through an online shop and a stand at Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market.

Another female shining light is Stephanie Tranquille, who spun a career running flagship events for Amazon Web Services across the globe into a thriving speaker/coaching business called SpeakerStephSpeak. She draws from her international event management experience to help women face their challenges with confidence gained from emotional intelligence.

Among the city’s fierce women is Krista Daniel, Director of Event Services with the Seattle Convention Center. She has parlayed her more-than 25 years of experience in the hospitality industry into providing seamlessly executed events at the center.

To learn more about Seattle’s many notable women, check out Visit Seattle’s Sea for She website.