Audrey Gelman Is First Pregnant CEO to Be on a Business Magazine Cover

For the first time ever, a business magazine has put a visibly pregnant CEO on its cover. Audrey Gelman, the 32-year-old CEO of The Wing, is featured sporting her baby bump on the October cover of Inc. magazine’s female founders issue.

If you’re not familiar with The Wing, it’s a chain of co-working spaces that were originally designed with women in mind. The spaces offer cozy workspaces with community tables, velvet couches and high-backed armchairs, plants, cafes, bathrooms stocked with luxury beauty products and lactation rooms, all geared toward women in business. The Wing currently has over 10,000 members and locations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and more, with additional locations coming in 2020.

Gelman tweeted how “honored” she was to be the first CEO to rock a baby bump on the cover of a business magazine. (In 2012, then-Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer, who was pregnant at the time, appeared on the over of Fortune magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Women issue. However, she decided not to be photographed for the story, so the magazine used an older photo where she didn’t look pregnant.)

Gelman’s post, which has nearly 12,000 likes, was retweeted by none other than Hillary Clinton, who wrote, “We shouldn’t have had to wait until 2019 for this first, but I’m glad we’re here. Go, Audrey Gelman, go!”

“My hope is that women see this and again feel the confidence to take greater professional risks while also not shelving their dreams of becoming a mother and starting a family,” Gelman told Today.

With studies revealing that women in business who have children are perceived to be less devoted to their jobs and often suffer salary decreases (while dads get increases), the image of a pregnant Gelman helps to put a spotlight on successful working moms.

“You can’t be what you can’t see,” she told Today. “I still think it’s so important to be proud and to put these images out there in the world.”

The magazine will hit newsstands in October. In the meantime, you can read the cover story on Gelman here.