Illana Raia

Named one of the first 250 entrepreneurs on the Forbes Next 1000 List and recognized twice by Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas, Illana Raia is the founder and CEO of Être - a mentorship 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. Être's national research on The Current State of Girls' Confidence (2022, 2024) has been featured by Forbes, CBS News, Yahoo Finance, NASDAQ and more.

Illana is Chair of the International Space Station U.S. National Lab Education Subcommittee, serves on the National Girls’ Collaborative Project Champions Board and was recently appointed to the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine Board of Governors. Illana contributes to the Forbes Business Council, has authored 60+ articles for HuffPost, Ms. Magazine and Thrive Global, and her award-winning book Être: Girls, Who Do You Want To Be? was released on Day of the Girl 2019. Her second best-selling book, The Epic Mentor Guide, arrived during Women’s History Month 2022, sparking a weekly conversation on LinkedIn with The Epic Mentor Newsletter.

Prior to launching Être in 2016, Illana was a corporate attorney at Skadden Arps in NYC and a guest lecturer at Columbia University. She graduated from Smith College and the University of Chicago Law School, and remains unapologetically nerdy.