Reshma Saujani has built her career around a question that is both personal and practical: Who has the system failed, and what would it take to serve them better?

The daughter of refugees, Saujani began her career in law and politics before founding Girls Who Code and, later, Moms First. Across those chapters, her purpose has remained steady.

“My parents lost everything once and had to build a life from scratch here in the United States,” she says. “I build things for people the system wasn’t designed for, because I know what it costs those who have been left behind.”

What Failure Made Possible

Saujani’s unsuccessful 2010 congressional campaign became an unexpected turning point. While visiting schools, she noticed computer science classrooms filled largely with boys, an observation that eventually led her to launch Girls Who Code. It also changed her relationship with failure.

“Running put me in rooms that I never would have entered otherwise,” she says. “The experience also taught me that failure will not break me. Once you bust that myth, you can get to work doing the hard, important things you were meant to do.”

That lesson became central to Brave, Not Perfect, Saujani’s call for girls and women to take risks, move through fear, and stop measuring themselves against impossible standards.

But over time, her understanding of what women need began to change.

From Individual Bravery to Structural Change

Saujani founded Girls Who Code believing that access, skills, and confidence could open doors for girls. What she saw next complicated that idea.

“They learned to code, and then they hit a wall built out of childcare costs and unpaid leave and a culture that still asks moms to do it all for free,” she says.

Motherhood and the pressures exposed by the pandemic made the limits of individual empowerment especially clear.

“There was a time that I bought into Girl Boss culture,” Saujani says. “I, too, used to think I just had to lean in, color-code my calendar, or get a mentor. But then I became a mother trying to have it all and do it all, like I was promised I could.”

Her conclusion was direct:

“I’m not broken. The system is.”

That realization helped lead to Moms First, the organization Saujani founded to advocate for affordable childcare, paid leave, and other structural support for mothers.

“You can’t skill your way out of a broken system,” she says. “You have to go after the system itself.”

Building Something That Can Outgrow You

After nearly a decade leading Girls Who Code, Saujani handed the organization’s leadership to a successor. Stepping away required her to separate her own identity from the organization she had built.

“Founders fall in love with being needed,” she says. “I had to get honest about the difference between what I wanted and what the organization needed, and those aren’t always the same thing.”

For Saujani, leadership is not measured by how indispensable a founder becomes.

“Real leadership is building something strong enough to survive without you, and then passing the baton to the next leader who’s ready to take it to places you can’t.”

Giving Women the Words

Communication has always been central to Saujani’s work. From “brave, not perfect” to “Moms First,” she has a gift for giving complicated experiences clear, memorable language.

“A message works when a woman reads it and thinks, ‘Finally, someone said the thing I’ve been feeling,’” she says. “You have to name something real that people already know but don’t have language for. Just give people the words, and they’ll do the rest.”

The same principle shapes how she communicates with mothers across political, professional, and economic lines.

“Every mother, no matter her politics or her paycheck, wants the same three things: to be able to afford her life, to see her kids and to stop apologizing for needing both,” she says. “We have to work from that universal experience, not the labels.”

Saujani also chooses the medium according to the response she hopes to create. Her latest project, the documentary No Country for Mothers, uses film to examine the systems and cultural narratives shaping motherhood in America.

“A book can hold nuance, a campaign can move a bill, and a film can gut-punch someone in a way that a policy brief never will,” she says. “I ask what the moment needs from people, whether it’s understanding, outrage or community, and then I pick the format built to deliver that.”

Although the film’s New York theatrical run has ended, No Country for Mothers continues through community screenings nationwide. More than 1,000 mothers are slated to bring the film to living rooms, libraries, and workplaces, creating space for conversation and action. (Find a screening near you or learn how to host one: https://momsfirst.us/doc/)

What Comes Next

Saujani wants the next generation of women to inherit more than encouragement. She wants them to inherit systems that no longer require extraordinary bravery simply to work, care for their families, and build full lives.

“I want women 20 years from now to read about unpaid maternity leave and daycare that costs more than a mortgage with the same disbelief that we read about women not being able to get credit cards without a husband’s signature,” she says. “I want them to be baffled by what we are facing.”

Five Quick Questions

Do you have a motto or quote you come back to?
Be brave, not perfect.

What advice would you give 12-year-old Reshma?
Keep going. You will get there.

What is one book that changed how you see the world?
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela.

What small ritual helps you feel most like yourself?
Spending time playing with my two sons, Shaan and Sai, even though they always beat me at chess.

What advice do you return to when facing a difficult decision?
Bravery doesn’t feel good. You have to be brave anyway.