TITAN Spotlight: Tiffany Dufu — Advancing Women, Building Power and Making Room for More

Tiffany Dufu, President of the Tory Burch Foundation, Author and Founder

Tiffany Dufu has spent her career answering one deceptively simple question: What becomes possible when more women have the resources, relationships and support to fully step into their power?

Her answer has taken many forms. She has raised more than $25 million toward advancing women and girls, helped launch Lean In, led Levo's leadership efforts, served as President of The White House Project and built The Cru, a peer-coaching technology company created to help women reach their personal and professional goals. Today, as President of the Tory Burch Foundation, she is focused on another critical lever of women's power: economic opportunity.

The throughline is remarkably consistent. Tiffany builds platforms, communities and pathways that help women move forward.

At the Tory Burch Foundation, Tiffany leads an organization dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs through access to capital, education and community. For women founders in the TITAN community and beyond, that work also translates into tangible opportunities. In fact, applications are now open for the 2027 Tory Burch Foundation Fellowship, a program designed to support women entrepreneurs with resources, education and community. Applications are open through November 17, 2026. Women founders interested in learning more or applying can visit the Tory Burch Foundation Fellowship page.

Her own experience as an entrepreneur gives her an intimate understanding of what founders need at different stages of building a business. She has described her current role as a natural convergence of the work she has spent her career doing: advancing women and girls and creating the conditions for women to build economic power.

That work sits at the center of a broader philosophy Tiffany has carried throughout her career. Women do not simply need encouragement. They need access, infrastructure and community.

It is a philosophy she knows firsthand.

Before joining the Tory Burch Foundation, Tiffany founded The Cru, a peer-coaching technology company built around a deceptively powerful idea: women thrive when they have other women in their corner. The Cru matched women into accountability circles designed to help them achieve their personal and professional goals. After five years of building the company, Tiffany sold The Cru to Luminary in 2023. The acquisition gave the platform a new home while allowing its core mission of peer connection and support to continue.

That experience matters beyond the entrepreneurial story itself. Tiffany understands what it takes to create a community that women actually value, one that moves beyond networking to accountability, trust and meaningful support. It is also a perspective she brings to TITAN, where she has been a member and trusted peer advisor since the organization's inception.

Her commitment to advancing women was established long before The Cru. Tiffany was part of the launch team for Lean In and previously served as Chief Leadership Officer at Levo, a professional network for millennial women. Before that, she served as President of The White House Project, where she helped advance women's leadership and trained thousands of women across the country to run for political office.

And then there is the book that made her philosophy personal.

In Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less, Tiffany challenged one of the most deeply ingrained expectations placed on high-achieving women: that success requires doing everything and doing it all well. Drawing from her own experience as a professional, wife and mother, she explored what happens when women let go of unrealistic expectations, ask for help and become more intentional about what actually deserves their time and energy.

The idea resonated because it was never really about doing less for the sake of doing less. It was about making room for what matters most.

That philosophy has become part of Tiffany's larger leadership framework. In a 2025 CNBC conversation about navigating uncertainty, she emphasized a simple but often difficult leadership practice: asking for help rather than continuing to struggle alone. It is advice that feels particularly relevant to leaders navigating complicated, rapidly changing environments.

Tiffany's influence extends well beyond her executive roles and entrepreneurial accomplishments. She has been named to Entrepreneur's 100 Powerful Women and Fast Company's League of Extraordinary Women and has been recognized for her leadership in advancing women and girls. She serves as a Trustee of Simmons University and has held board roles with organizations including Girls Who Code and Moms First. She is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and a Lifetime Girl Scout.

Yet perhaps the clearest expression of her life's work comes from Tiffany herself.

When asked what she does, she keeps the answer remarkably simple: “I advance women and girls.”

Her personal website takes that commitment one step further, describing the legacy she hopes to leave in equally simple terms: “She got to as many women as she could.”

There is something powerful about a career that can be traced through so many different institutions, platforms and movements yet remains anchored to the same fundamental purpose.

Tiffany Dufu is not simply building opportunities for women. She is building the conditions in which women can use those opportunities to build something bigger: businesses, careers, communities, wealth and movements.

And for TITAN, having someone with that depth of experience, entrepreneurial perspective and longstanding commitment to women's advancement within our community is meaningful. Tiffany has been part of TITAN from its early days, contributing as a speaker, but also through the kind of thoughtful counsel, sound perspective and support that strengthens an organization from within.

Sometimes the most consequential leadership does not happen on a stage. It happens in the rooms where people are thinking, building, advising and helping one another become more powerful.

That is the kind of leadership Tiffany Dufu brings to TITAN.

And we are proud to call her a TITAN.

Connect with Tiffany:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tiffanydufu
Website: www.tiffanydufu.com
Apply: 2027 Tory Burch Foundation Fellowship

Tiffany’s philosophy

is based on her knowledge that women do not simply need encouragement. They need access, infrastructure and community.

Applications are open now through November 17, 2026 for the 2027 Tory Burch Foundation Fellowship, a program that supports women entrepreneurs with resources, education and community. Learn more or apply: Tory Burch Foundation Fellowship.