BARBARA BOWLES

FORMER CHAIR  & CEO THE KENWOOD GROUP

As chairwoman and CEO of The Kenwood Group, Bowles became the first black female asset manager to launch a mutual fund, Kenwood Growth and Income Fund, in 1996. As one of the few black women to head an institutional money management firm, Bowles handled some $260 million in institutional and pension funds for corporate leviathans such as Abbott Laboratories and Mitsubishi Motors. Eventually, Bowles merged the assets of Kenwood Growth & Income, which regularly outperformed the S&P 500, with another black-owned fund, the Profit Value Fund, which is run by Eugene Profit. On the board of WEC Energy Group Inc., Bowles is one of two black female lead directors of an S&P 500 company.

BACK TO 50 MOST IMPACTFUL WOMEN LISTING