Badass Women at Any Age

Illana Raia's journey to entrepreneurship stemmed from her love of law and her personal experiences with mentorship. Despite loving her career as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer, she took a break to raise her children and later rejoined her firm. Realizing the impact of showing her daughter accomplished women at work, Illana envisioned scaling this experience to benefit other girls. She left her law practice, driven by the idea of creating a platform where girls could meet female leaders, leading to the founding of Etre.  Illana is the founder and CEO of Etre, a membership platform for girls believing that mentors matter as early as middle school. Illana brings girls directly into companies they choose to meet female leaders face to face.  Raia's National Research on the current state of girls confidence in 2022 and 2024 has been featured by Forbes, CBS News, Yahoo Finance, and Nasdaq, and the most recent 2025 research was conducted in partnership with Hello Sunshine and launched at Cannes. Illana is Chair