Jenny Just

Company: Peak6Title: Co-founderIndustry: FinancialsNotable in 2024: Just's firm, which has more than twice as many female fund managers than the industry benchmark, launched a next-level investment platform to support major fintech firms including eToro, SoFi and Betterment. Peak6 also made an anchor investment in a new early-stage venture fund supporting early stage generative AI companies.

When it comes to OG "masculine energy" and a locker room-meets-boardroom mentality in the markets, there is no niche better (or we should say worse) than the world of financial trading. For decades, Jenny Just has been at work on changing this, and joining the ranks of American billionaires proves she's been pretty successful in her efforts.

The firm Just co-founded in 1997 with just $1.5 million in seed funding, Peak6 Investments, has evolved from its original focus on the options trading which she had learned working on the floor at the Chicago Board Options Exchange to a multi-faceted trading, investing and fintech firm with both back office and asset management solutions.

Peak6 employs twice as many female fund managers as the industry benchmark and has built the business based on a simple premise: "There is no reason women can't be equal at the job of allocating money," she told CNBC in a 2022 interview.

Its technology has been a winner with integrations across the platforms of other players in the financial markets new guard, too, from eToro to SoFi, Betterment and Robinhood. Among its latest ventures right on trend with investors: launching an overnight trading platform.

Just has also made a concerted effort to ensure that the next generation of professional women have the opportunities to build on her success, and develop confidence early in life.

In 2020, Just and her daughter Juliette launched the Poker Power platform to teach women and girls how to play the game, and how to use the lessons from poker to succeed professionally.

"In any industry, it doesn't matter just in finance, that money at the table is incredibly important," Just told CNBC in 2022. "Even in the smallest ways, getting to the table ... the first lesson is about courage knowing how much it takes for a woman to sit at that table," she said.

Professional poker, like the traditional world of finance, is heavily male, with one prominent 2021 study finding that less then 5% of casino poker players are women – online it was higher, at 30%. "That poker table has a forcefield around it," Just told CNBC. "It feels an awful lot like the meeting room. ... Practice going to the table to get over one hurdle, to get to the next one," she added.

Her work to create more career opportunities for women extend to her founding of the Women's Trading Experience and Women's Technology Experience programs, and her current position on the Women and Public Policy Board at the Harvard Kennedy School.