EWA's Mission is to enable HIGH LEVEL women to reach their aspirations, professionally and personally, changing lives, one woman at a time

Once upon a time, a serial entrepreneur and immigrant to the USA, Larraine Segil decided to take her decades of experience and pay it forward to future generations of women who had some of her same challenges of "being exceptional but different."

​Her goal was to guide and connect them. She endowed the educational institutions that educated her and selected upper career Exceptional Women Who Walked the Road Less Traveled from those places annually. They called themselves the Larraine Segil Scholars (or LSS). These women learned from Larraine how to guide, connect and mentor each other and Larraine realized that there was a need that went beyond the institutions that had educated her. That is why she founded the Non-Profit Public Foundation, Exceptional Women Alliance (EWA).

Founding EWA.

​Larraine approached some of the world's leading companies and asked them if they wanted their high potential, high-level women to be enabled to rise even further in their organizations through the EWA Proprietary Metrics Driven Mentoring and Executive Coaching group by volunteer C-level Executives, and if so, if they would support this program?

The answer was a resounding 'yes'.

Aspirational Women

KPMG, Adecco, Intel, Cisco, Korn Ferry, Amgen, UBS, ITV Studios America, Frontier Communications, Cisco, Amgen, GlobalLogic (Hitachi), White & Case Lawyers and many more nominated their women executives, and continue to do so. Some women whose companies would not support them, nominated themselves.

C- Level Women

Over time, it became clear that there is a  segment of women for whom EWA has become a critical community. Most of them nominate themselves. They are women at C level who are either thinking of transitioning into a portfolio career, paying it forward along with Board work, or selling their businesses or the ones they are running, or even moving to another C level position. These women find when they make these transitions, they leave behind their identity, community and often their purpose with the P&L they just left. We fill that gap with a peer group of intellectual stimulation, mutual referrals, support and community. EWA now has multiple cohorts annually which are only C level and Board level women.

Public Sector Women
EWA fundraises to enable a public sector woman to join selected cohorts (CIA, FBI, ATF, Secret Service, US Army and more) at no cost

The EWA not only benefits in her own career, but she also learns how to coach and mentor, and joins the Alumnae group to pass her knowledge on to those who follow. The ladder of success for our women is always moving in both directions - reaching up and reaching down.