C200 is honored and thrilled to announce the recipients of our 2024 Luminary Awards!
We want to thank our members and the Luminary Awards Committee for an incredible nomination and voting process. We received a record number of nominations this year, all incredible individuals who have made significant impacts for businesswomen in their respective fields. We are proud of our record turnout this year and are excited to continue this wonderful tradition that celebrates and funds the advancement of businesswomen around the world.
This year, we have awards in three distinct categories: Entrepreneurial Champion, Corporate Innovator, and Lifetime Achievement. More information about the history of our Luminary Awards, how awardees are nominated and chosen, and detailed descriptions of each award category, can be found here.
Without further ado, here are the winners of each award:
Entrepreneurial Champion: Cordia Harrington | Crown Bakeries
Cordia Harrington is CEO and founder of Crown Bakeries, a highly-automated, high-speed baking company that makes over 15 million baked goods daily and employs more than 1,700 people, serving elite customers in the United States, South America and the Caribbean. As CEO, Ms. Harrington guides the executive team to successful planning, business development, sales and marketing, and brand management.
Ms. Harrington serves on the Ascent Global Logistics Board of Directors, the Global Crossing Airlines Board of Directors, and the Belmont University Board of Trustees. She is the immediate past Chair of the American Bakers Association Board of Directors and past Chair of the Chief Executives Organization Board of Directors.
Under Ms. Harrington’s leadership, Crown Bakeries have received many awards, including the 50 Fastest-Growing Women-Owned Businesses, Business with Purpose Award, and Nashville Business Journal’s Best in Business Award. Ms. Harrington was listed on Forbes magazine’s list of 100 wealthiest self-made women in 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. The University of Arkansas awarded her an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in 2020. Ms. Harrington was named Nashville Post’s 2020 CEO of the Year and was included on their list of “Most Powerful Women” in 2021. She was inducted into the American Society of Baking Hall of Fame in February 2018, and Directors & Boards magazine named her a “Director to Watch.” She received the Most Admired CEO Lifetime Achievement Award from the Nashville Business Journal in 2017 and has been recognized by numerous other organizations for her commitment to excellence and entrepreneurial spirit.
Ms. Harrington attended Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan; she graduated from the University of Arkansas with a Bachelor of Science degree. She currently resides in Franklin, Tennessee, with her husband Tom. Together they have five children and eleven grandchildren.
“I am deeply honored to be recognized by the members of C200 for the 2024 Entrepreneurial Champion Luminary Award. Throughout my career, I am proud that my professional endeavors have allowed me to create opportunities for working women. As the founder and CEO of Crown Bakeries, I believe our organization benefits greatly from female leadership, both in our bakeries and across our corporate landscape. Through C200’s mission to inspire, educate, and support women in business, we can make a difference together and impact the lives of other female entrepreneurs for years to come.”
Corporate Innovator: Alexandra Lebenthal | Rockefeller Capital Management
Alexandra Lebenthal is a Managing Director and Senior Banker at Rockefeller Capital Management where she leads Financial Sponsor Coverage. Prior to joining Rockefeller in October 2023, she was a Senior Advisor at Houlihan Lokey where she led an initiative focused on Women Led Companies within the Financial Sponsor Group. For the decade prior, she was the CEO of Lebenthal Holdings, a diversified financial services firm that included the nation’s largest woman-owned broker dealer. Coming from a storied Wall Street family, her grandparents, Louis and Sayra Lebenthal, founded Lebenthal & Co., Inc, a municipal bond specialist, in 1925. Her father, Jim Lebenthal, created a mass market for municipal bonds.
After starting her career at Kidder Peabody, Ms. Lebenthal joined Lebenthal in 1988 and became President and CEO in 1995 at the age of 31. She was also President of Lebenthal Funds, overseeing the firm’s mutual and money market funds. After successfully diversifying the firm beyond municipal bonds, Alexandra engineered its sale in 2001 to The Advest Group, remaining at the firm until it was subsequently sold to Merrill Lynch in 2005. During that time, in addition to managing Lebenthal, she also ran marketing and municipal capital markets for the parent company. She started anew in 2007, building Lebenthal Holdings into an asset management, wealth management and capital markets boutique. Lebenthal was the number one woman-owned firm in debt and equity capital markets from 2012-2016.
Ms. Lebenthal has had extensive board experience, including past roles at Broadridge Financial (NYSE-BR) and Care Investment Trust (NYSE-CRE). She was most recently a board member of Graf Acquisition Corp. IV (NYSE-GFOR). She is as a former board member and Treasurer of the Securities Industry Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). She is a member and the Northeast Regional Chair of C200, the leading organization for female businesswomen.
Ms. Lebenthal was named one of the top 50 Women in Wealth Management by Wealth Manager Magazine, as well as Private Asset Management. She has also been named to the Crain’s New York Top Women-Owned Businesses and the Crain’s Fastest 50 Growing Businesses in New York. More recently, she was named to Crain’s New York Business’ 2022 Notable Women on Wall Street, and to the 2023 Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A by Mergers & Acquisitions Magazine, as well as an Honorable Mention in 2022.
Ms. Lebenthal is the Co-founder of “The Women’s Executive Circle,” and “Women On Wall Street”, which cultivates high-profile Jewish women under the auspices of United Jewish Appeal. She is also a spokesperson for Insightec Targeted Ultrasound, a ground-breaking procedure for Essential Tremor she underwent in 2016.
Ms. Lebenthal’s first novel, “The Recessionistas,” a thriller set in Manhattan during the financial crisis, was published in August 2010.
A graduate of Princeton University with an A.B. in history, Ms. Lebenthal lives in New York City.
“I cannot tell you how much receiving the Corporate Innovator Award means to me. Every woman who is a member of C200 has achieved incredible success, so to be recognized by this amazing group of women makes it all the more special.”
Lifetime Achievement: Jewelle Bickford | Paradigm for Parity®
Jewelle Bickford is an investment banker who became the only woman in the United States named a global partner in the Rothschild Group. In 1994 she merged Bickford & Partners, Inc., her boutique securitization investment banking firm, into Rothschild Inc., in New York. Bickford & Partners had been consistently rated among the top five firms in the nation in the private placement of securitized assets. From 1994 to 2009, she was head of Debt Capital Markets at Rothschild Inc., where she specialized in the securitization and private placement of non-mortgage assets such as leases, credit cards, auto loans and other receivables. She was also a member of NM Rothschild’s Global Banking and Treasury Committee in London.
From 2009 to 2013 Mrs. Bickford developed GenSpring MultiFamily Office’s Women and Wealth program, and from 2013 until the end of 2020 she was a partner at Evercore Wealth Management creating the firm’s Private Wealth Education programs for families. Prior to founding Bickford & Partners, Inc. in 1998, Mrs. Bickford had spent eight years at Dillion, Read and Citibank’s municipal bond department. Before that, she had worked for three years for Mayor Edward Koch as the Director of the Mayor’s Community Board Assistance Office.
Mrs. Bickford is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the founder of its Women and Foreign Policy Program, the Council’s task force that analyzes how elevating the status of women and girls advances U.S. foreign policy objectives and seeks to inform policymakers and the public on issues relevant to gender equality and U.S. foreign policy. Mrs. Bickford is a member of the board of two SPACs, Athena and Hera, which seek to acquire Fintech companies and take them public. She also currently serves on the board of EL Education, Inc., a twenty-seven year old non-profit corporation that resulted from a collaboration between The Harvard Graduate School of Education and Outward Bound USA. EL Education created new and exciting classrooms and teaching methods that have now been adopted and are flourishing in the entire Detroit, Charlotte and Denver school systems and a host of individual schools from coast to coast.
Mrs. Bickford is founding member and Co-Chair of Paradigm for Parity®, a group of CEOs, senior executives, corporate board members and business academics committed to achieving gender and racial parity at senior levels for women by 2030.
She is a member of the Business Committee of the Metropolitan Museum and a member of the Committee of 200. She was formerly a member of the board of the Women’s Economic Forum, and a former trustee of Women for Women International, Women’s Media Center, and Randolph Macon Women’s College (now Randolph College). From 2003 to 2007, she served on the board of the SEC-registered Torrey Funds.
From 2003 to 2007, she was invited to attend Fortune’s Most Powerful Women’s Conferences and last year Crain’s New York Business named her one of the top 50 women in the wealth advisory profession.
Mrs. Bickford earned a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and is a graduate of Duke’s Fuqua Business School’s Leadership Program.
“I am honored to receive this Lifetime Achievement award from C200, a community and camaraderie of women of great achievement in the business world, and a community which I’m proud to be a member of myself. The quality and values of the C200 sisterhood are truly unparalleled, and I thank my fellow members for this recognition and their dedication to uplifting women in business.”
Join us in supporting our 2024 Luminary Awardees and C200’s mission to inspire, educate, support, and advance current and future women entrepreneurs and corporate-profit center leaders.
Congratulations to Cordia, Alexandra, and Jewelle for this remarkable achievement. We’re proud of the work you each have done over the course of your careers and the influence it has had for women in business worldwide.
Our award recipients will be honored and celebrated on the evening of Friday, September 27, 2024, at our Luminary Awards Ceremony during the Gala Dinner at our 2024 Annual Conference in New York City. Individual tickets, tables, and sponsorship opportunities for the Gala Dinner are available for purchase at our Conference website. Your support of our award recipients raises critical funds for C200’s larger mission and vision to advance businesswomen worldwide. Together, through the celebration of these incredible women, we can make a big impact in the business landscape by creating more opportunities, spaces, and time for women in business to connect with, inspire, and help one another succeed in male-dominated spheres and set examples for the next generation of women leaders.
Note: If you have registered for the 2024 C200 Annual Conference, your registration includes a ticket to our Gala Dinner.