Once the first sales manager at Google, Zurek is a founding partner in XG Ventures, which provides capital for Internet startups. Even more haute: she’s a professional auto racer.

The firm she co-founded was the first venture capital fund to invest exclusively in software companies. She’s been involved in entrepreneurship in the software industry for more than 30 years; in 1976, she co-founded Open Systems, an accounting software maker, with a $500 investment, which she sold six years later for some $15 million. She’s …

This Oakland-native’s first book, The Joy Luck Club, earned Tan the National Book Award and the L.A. Times Book Award in 1989. She followed up with a number of bestsellers, including The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, and Saving Fish From Drowning.

There are more than 580 million copies of her novels in print, and each of her books is a bestseller.

Shultz has served seven San Francisco mayors as chief of protocol and director of special events for the City and County of San Francisco. She’s so entrenched in the social scene that in 2004 California Governor Schwarzenegger appointed her as the chief of protocol. Her main duties are hosting foreign dignitaries, and promoting international trade …