Know Your Value, Forbes celebrate women who are winning life’s second half

Women over 50 are redefining life’s second half — and they are just getting started.

That was the big takeaway from Forbes and Know Your Value’s “50 Over 50” celebration on Friday in New York City. The event brought together the 2024 list honorees, in addition to previous years’ listmakers with the goal of forging long-lasting relationships that will further their work in changing the world.

“Counting down to the election of America’s life, there are consequences playing out for women right now,” said Know Your Value founder and “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski during her opening remarks. “It has made what we do here even more important because we’re facing challenges. We’re facing setbacks — deeply personal, physical setbacks… I am so moved because what you were showing us is the strength of this community. It’s a global community, and being on this list together, we’re doing something very collective and very important for the next generation.”

Huma Abedin, vice-chair of Forbes and Know Your Value’s 30/50 summit and an MSNBC contributor reiterated that sentiment.

“We’ve had a pandemic. We’ve had a loneliness epidemic that’s been well reported. We have young women who don’t have opportunities that I had five years ago, and it makes the urgency of what we do and the examples that you will show us in the world all that all that more important.”

The ”50 Over 50” lists spotlight women who have rejected the conventional wisdom that their best years are behind them. And the women on this year’s list came from dozens of industries, including biotech, education, retail, architecture and beyond.

The 2024 list included actress and entrepreneur Brooke Shields and CEO of the Obama Foundation Valerie Jarrett. Both women spoke at the event during a fireside chat with Brzezinski, along with former “50 Over 50” listmaker, personal finance expert Suze Orman.

Brzezinski asked Shields, 59, if she ever imagined her career in her 20s and 30s.

“If you were to tell me 50, I would say, “Oh, that’s old, that’s old people,” said Shields. “And the older I get, the younger I feel.”

After a lifetime as an actress and model, at 59 Shields is redefining her career as founder and chief executive of Commerce — a hair company for women the age over 40. And earlier this year, Shields was elected president of the Actors Equity Association, a union representing approximately 51,000 actors and stage managers in the United States.

Shields said she came up with the idea for Commence during the pandemic when she was having conversations online with women over the age of 40. She said there was an overall feeling from so many women that once you hit midlife, you suddenly lose all your value.

“I was so shocked by how universal this feeling was. Your children start to leave,  you’re over 40, and all of a sudden you’ve got one foot in the grave, and people are counting you out, and they’re not telling you or appreciating your value,” said Shields.

“I started to really get to know these women, they wanted to go into this age, this next third of their life I call it with power and agency and belief in their individual selves and their differences and be proud of them. So [in addition to a need], there was an emotional reason why I started the company.”

During the on-stage conversation, Brzezinski asked Orman her best financial advice for younger women.

“Money doesn’t have an age,” said Orman, 73. “There’s no age. It has no sex, it has no religion, it has no political affiliation. Money really is your key to security, and the goal of money is for you to be secure. So I don’t care if you are 20, if you are 30, if you are 50, or you are 73 like I am…The best advice I can give all of you is you will never be powerful In life if you are not powerful over your own money.”

And Jarrett spoke about career pivots and politics.

Jarrett, who stepped into the White House as an advisor to President Obama at the age of 52 and is the longest serving counselor the president in U.S. history, was nominated for the “50 Over 50” list by her daughter, Laura Jarrett, who is co-anchor of the Saturday “TODAY.”

Jarrett told Brzezinski it was giving birth to her daughter that gave her the courage to quit a job in law that she hated and pursue a career in public service.

“Having Laura really gave me the courage to kind of abandon that plan …And for the first time, listen to the quiet voice inside of me, which is actually the most important one, and all my passion, which took me into public service and away from this fancy law firm and into a cubicle with a window lacing an alley for a lot less money,” said Jarrett, 67. “But when I walked in that door, I said, this is actually where I want to be. And I think part of life is finding that and knowing [that life can] change. And it took a while, and that’s okay… There’s nothing like being both miserable and bored and motivated to make you change.”

Jarrett also weighed in on the upcoming presidential election — and the outsized role women will play.

We are “in a moment here in our country where lot more is really at stake…you’re literally on the brink”, said Jarrett. “A lot of people like, ‘Well, what can I do? Does my vote matter?’  Yes, it does. Because I don’t believe in polls, and I actually strongly believe that Vice President Harris will win, but it’s going because of the energy that we see around this country, coming predominantly from women.”