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Seattle Storm
Co-owner
Ginny Gilder – aka Virginia Anne Gilder - has started several business and non-profit ventures, whose founding dreams range from the practical to the transformational. In the early 1990’s she established Washington Works, dedicated to altering the lives of women on public assistance by improving their earning capacity and helping them find and retain livable wage jobs. About ten years later, she launched Gilder Office for Growth, a single-family investment office, which she still heads as CEO. At the same time, in partnership with her sister, Britt-Louise Gilder, she launched a family foundation, The Starfish Group, with a mission to champion the underdog, individuals who face steeper odds in creating a sustainable life for themselves.
In 2008, joining with fellow civic leaders Lisa Brummel and Dawn Trudeau, Ginny helped establish Force 10 Hoops, LLC to purchase the WNBA's Seattle Storm. As a company dedicated to the philosophy that women should enjoy access to competitive opportunities at every level, the Storm showcases the power of women as inspirational athletes and leaders. Her newest venture, another mashup of business and sports, is Pickle at The Palms, Seattle’s first dedicated pickleball facility to be built from the ground up. Construction is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2026, right around the corner from the Storm’s Center for Basketball Performance, the WNBA’s first practice facility designed and built from the ground up, completed last April.
Prior to her career as an entrepreneur, Ginny earned four varsity letters as a rower at Yale University and was an All-Ivy Champion three times. During her freshman year, she helped usher in the post-Title IX era at Yale by participating in the now-famous Women’s Crew Strip-in to protest the lack of equal facilities. Ginny represented the United States on four national rowing teams, including two Olympic teams. She was named to the U.S. team that boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games and the 1984 team that competed in Los Angeles. She holds a pair of international medals, including a bronze from the 1983 World Championships in the single and a silver as the stroke of the women’s quadruples sculls with coxswain from the LA Olympics.
