Carolee Lee
Founder and CEO,
AccessCircles and Wham!

AccessCircles was founded in 2007 by Carolee Lee, the former CEO and founder of Carolee Designs, one of the world’s leading accessories brands. After the sale of her business in 2001, Carolee focused her passion and energy on women’s health and life planning with a vision to create AccessCircles, a global by invitation network for women providing connectivity, knowledge and access to thought leaders, resources and experiences that transform our lives.

AccessCircles is committed to improving the health and wellbeing of women and transforming their medical care through the discovery, dissemination, and integration of sex and gender-based differences and the application of this knowledge to the delivery of care. The focus is on building awareness of Gender Precision Medicine to impact issues related to women's health and gender biology and for advocating for changes in public policy to improve the health of women by advancing the new field of Gender Precision Medicine.

In July, 2018, Carolee launched WHAM! (Women’s Health Access Matters) as a donor-funded, non-profit, dedicated to improving and elevating women’s health to 21st century standards by applying precision medicine in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes. WHAM! aims to expand the scientific and clinical knowledge about health conditions that occur exclusively, predominantly and differentially in women and to translate these findings into solutions that optimize women’s health.

Throughout her career, Carolee has embraced mentoring and leadership roles in many diverse business organizations and is active in numerous civic, philanthropic and educational organizations. Some of those have included:

Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA); The Society for Women’s Health Research, Women’s World Bank and Museum of Arts and Design. She is a past Chair of the Committee of 200, the organization of preeminent businesswomen and also served as the Chair of its Foundation Board.

Carolee currently serves as a director on the board of DSW, Inc., a leading shoe retailer; The Women’s Leadership Board at The John F. Kennedy School of Government and as a founding board member of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, where she has served since 1986.

Carolee has been recognized with numerous awards and recognitions for her professional and philanthropic achievements.