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Harvey Weinstein’s retrial verdict is a measured #MeToo victory during the backlash era

12 June 2025 at 12:54

– Verdict’s in. In an era of #MeToo backlash, with hyper-masculinity ruling from Washington, D.C. to Silicon Valley, the retrial of Harvey Weinstein could serve as a kind of litmus test—would his guilty verdict hold up in 2025?

Yesterday, a jury found the former Hollywood producer and convicted sexual predator guilty on the top charge he faced in New York—but acquitted him of the second and failed to reach a verdict on the third.

Three women—former production assistant Miriam Haley, former model Kaja Sokola, and Jessica Mann, who aspired to become an actress—brought claims forward against Weinstein. These weren’t the most headline-grabbing of Weinstein’s dozens of reported offenses—no celebrities involved—but they were what ultimately brought him to justice in 2020 (as did a trial in Los Angeles, which Weinstein is appealing).

Weinstein’s attorneys were counting on the vastly different cultural moment we are in to protect the ex-mogul. As the New York Times put it, his lawyers bet that the “#MeToo movement had waned enough to cast doubt on the motives and credibility of his accusers.” Attorney Arthur Aidala previously said that the women who accused Weinstein were “were trying to take advantage of [him]”—because of the impact of the #MeToo movement. Weinstein has continued to deny the allegations against him.

While accusations against Weinstein sparked the #MeToo movement, they weren’t its sum-total. The movement led to the passage of the Adult Survivors Act, which allowed victims of years-old abuse to come forward—including musician Cassie, leading to Diddy’s ongoing trial today.

The jury is expected to return today to deliberate on the third charge. Whatever the outcome, #MeToo is bigger than Weinstein—but the movement can still count his partial verdict as a measured victory during a hostile political moment.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Harvey Weinstein on retrial in New York.
Received before yesterday

Exclusive: Outdoor Voices founder Ty Haney raises $11 million for her second startup

11 June 2025 at 13:19

Loyalty program. Outdoor Voices founder Ty Haney launched her second startup, Try Your Best (or TYB), more than three years ago. It was peak Web3, a space that Haney became highly interested in after she left the athletic apparel retailer that, in some ways, defined 2010s startups.

Today, Haney is still building TYB, with 38 employees—and it’s outlasted the rise and fall of blockchain/crypto/NFT-mania. The platform is intended to be a layer of loyalty infrastructure for consumer brands, what Haney calls “community commerce.” Two hundred brands use the platform, as do 2 million users—mostly Gen Z women.

Haney just raised an $11 million Series A for TYB, Fortune is the first to report. The round was co-led by Offline Ventures and Strobe Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, and Unusual Ventures. This brings its total capital to $23.5 million.

Talking to Haney about TYB, you can feel her excitement. Years after the drama that engulfed Outdoor Voices, which included board battles and Haney’s exit and return, she’s thrilled to be at step one again. “I love this stage. I love building something from zero,” she says.

Ty Haney
Ty Haney’s second startup is the consumer loyalty platform TYB.
Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Create and Cultivate

The brands that use TYB include several of the buzziest brands from the beauty industry—like Glossier, Rare Beauty, and Saie. “Beauty as a category has popped off significantly for us,” Haney says. “[Beauty] consumers are already creating so much content and participating in rituals around the brands.” There’s also Poppi, Urban Outfitters, Set Active. Coming soon to the platform are Crocs and Away.

Consumers on TYB participate in gamified challenges, earn collectibles, and have blockchain-enabled loyalty profiles that can potentially follow them from brand to brand. A TYB-using customer has 40% higher frequency of purchase and a 28% higher lifetime value, Haney says. Monthly engagement rates for brands crack 40%. Haney tells brands that TYB can drive 5% to 10% of revenue—“in a more profitable fashion than putting all your dollars against Instagram or Facebook.”

TYB is developing “affinity webs” that can map a user’s loyalty to one brand and apply it to another. “Within the Glossier community where I’m level three—can that mean something to Nike?” Haney explains.

She’s brought some lessons with her from Outdoor Voices and the tens of millions it raised. “I’ve become a lot more sophisticated, or precise, in terms of who I who I raise money from, how much money I raise, and ultimately considerate of ownership and as little dilution as possible,” she says.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Create and Cultivate

Ty Haney's second startup is the consumer loyalty platform TYB.

The LA Clippers are building the future of tech in sports, with facial recognition powering a new fan experience

10 June 2025 at 13:15

– Taking the shot. Technology is rapidly changing sports—from mobile sports betting to the fan experience on the ground. One model for the high-tech future of the fan experience is in Los Angeles, at the 1-year-old Intuit Dome.

Halo Sports and Entertainment, owned by LA Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, opened the facility last year. Longtime Clippers exec Gillian Zucker became Halo’s CEO after its launch. She told my colleague Kristin Stoller at Fortune’s COO Summit in Scottsdale, Ariz., yesterday about implementing tech—including facial recognition—throughout NBA fans’ experience.

Gillian Zucker,
Gillian Zucker, Chief Executive Officer, Halo Sports and Entertainment.
Fortune

The Intuit Dome opened with an atypical ticket policy—requiring visitors to have their own tickets on their own phones. Without that change, much of the experience Halo wants to build wouldn’t be possible. When one person scanned four tickets on behalf of their group, the company was missing out on information about those other three customers or fans, Zucker says. “Everybody wishes they could know everything about their customers,” she says. “We essentially [knew] 25% of the people who are coming in.”

That friction has taken some getting used to for fans, but it gave Halo more information, paving the way for hyper-personalization. Its tech tracks decibel levels at each individual seat—allowing the Clippers to award the loudest fan in the arena at each game. Emerging tech also allows visitors to look at a screen when they enter and be greeted, by name—with every fan seeing something different. “It’s exciting enough that it gets people to engage with their face ID,” Zucker says.

While that might sound like a lot of personal data being recorded just for attending a basketball game, Zucker argues that consumers are comfortable with tech—when it’s not called “facial recognition.” When asked about that technology, they say, “I want nothing to do with it,” Zucker says. “We say, how do you feel about Clear? They say, ‘I love Clear,'” she says.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Fortune

Gillian Zucker, Chief Executive Officer, Halo Sports and Entertainment.

Women are 32% more likely to serve as company president before becoming CEO, according to a new report

9 June 2025 at 12:40


– Path to the top. On their way to top-tier CEO positions, women often take an extra step, according to a new analysis by the Eos Foundation.

Across the S&P 500, women CEOs were 32% more likely to spend time in a role as president before being named chief executive. Citi chief Jane Fraser, Clorox CEO Linda Rendle, ADP chief Maria Black, and Otis chief Judith Marks are just a few of the women who made stops as presidents on their way to the very top.

Men, more often, skipped that step and went straight from leading a business unit to becoming CEO. Twenty-nine percent of male CEOs went from a business division job, while only 23% of female CEOs did (Accenture CEO Julie Sweet and Expedia CEO Ariane Gorin are two among them).

Seventeen percent of men went from COO to CEO while only 8% of women did (like AMD chief Lisa Su). CFO is one role that has proven to be a solid launching pad for women—10% of female CEOs were CFO directly beforehand (like Best Buy CEO Corie Barry), while only 6% of male CEOs were.

The extra step women are taking on the way to CEO “suggests that they often need to go further to prove they’re ready for the top job” says Eos Foundation president Andrea Silbert. “One possibility is that some corporate boards or CEO hiring committees perceive women as carrying additional risk and therefore want to see them serve as presidents before considering them for the CEO role,” she adds.

This analysis of the pathways women take to CEO also sheds some light on why women are less likely to put themselves forward for jobs without feeling fully qualified. “Women may actually be acting rationally,” Silbert says, “because in practice, they do need to be more qualified to advance.”
 

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© John Lamparski/Getty Images

Citi's Jane Fraser is among chief executives who served as president before becoming CEO—a step women are more likely to take.
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