Breaking the Spell: Jes Wolfe of Rebel Girls on Climbing Higher, One Step at a Time

In this episode of Breaking Precedent, host Leah Solivan sits down with Jes Wolfe, CEO of Rebel Girls, adventurer, and precedent-breaker. Jes shares her experience summiting Mount Aconcagua, one of the tallest mountains in the world, and how she found the strength to keep going after facing an unexpected tragedy on the climb. Jes then discusses the birth of Rebel Girls, and the importance of sharing real-life stories of strong women and how early biases in media, education, and parenting contribute to the confidence gap in girls. Jes shares Rebel Girls’ ambitious mission to reach 100 million girls, the launch of Rebel Girls Sport, an ESPN-style platform designed to engage young fans in women’s sports, and the one major societal norm she would change if she could.

Guest Bio and Links:

Jes Wolfe is the CEO of Rebel Girls, a global storytelling company on a mission to inspire and empower young girls. A lifelong adventurer and leader, Jes has a background in finance, international business, and entrepreneurship. Before joining Rebel Girls, she held roles at Morgan Stanley, the World Bank, and various startups, bringing a wealth of experience in scaling purpose-driven companies. An avid mountaineer, Jes recently summited Mount Aconcagua, demonstrating her philosophy of resilience and ambition. Under her leadership, Rebel Girls continues to break barriers, reaching millions of girls worldwide with stories of fearless women and redefining representation in children’s media.

Listeners can learn more about Jes Wolfe on her website, and on LinkedIn @JesWolfe

Show Notes: 

• (0:00) Intro 
• (2:45) Leah introduces Jes Wolfe, adventurer, dog mom, and CEO of Rebel Girls 
• (5:00) Climbing Mount Aconcagua
• (7:15) Jes shares a personal tragedy while on Mount Aconcagua 
• (8:30)  ”It started out as a journey for me and it ended up as a thing for him.”
• (10:00) The physical and mental challenges of summiting
• (13:55)  ”To be successful to do this is you have to break everything down into the smallest parts.”
• (15:00) A little background into Jes’s adventurous childhood 
• (18:00) From finance to finding purpose
• (26:00) The next chapter - Rebel Girls
• (27:30) Empowering girls through storytelling
• (31:00) How Rebel Girls is rewriting history and inspiring a new generation
• (35:00) Norms that still need to be challenged
• (37:30)  ”94 percent of parents say that their kids were inspired because of our storytelling and 86 percent said that their daughter's confidence increased because of our storytelling. And to me, that's the ultimate measure of success is, are we achieving what we're setting out to do, which is to help raise a generation of girls that are going to go forth and be awesome and believe in themselves.”
• (40:30) Expanding Rebel Girls' impact
• (42:30) Future goals and inspirations
• (46:00) Rebel Girls Sport
• (51:00) Closing thoughts

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Leah Solivan is the host of Breaking Precedent, a podcast that explores the stories of innovators who are pushing societal boundaries and setting new precedents in their fields. Leah is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah has 15 years of experience building and creating technology products that have reached millions of people around the globe. She started her career at IBM as an engineer in the software group, working on Lotus Notes and Domino. In 2008, Leah founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world.

Connect with Leah:

Website: breakingprecedent.com/ 

Instagram: @labunleashed

X: @labunleashed