Women-owned businesses have become a powerful force in Utah’s economy, blending innovation with empathy, resilience with creativity, and building businesses that make things better.
Studies consistently show that female entrepreneurs are more likely to reinvest in their communities, support other small businesses, and prioritize workplace culture. There’s something more personal to their work—a willingness to build organizations that reflect real life, real challenges, and real people.
For the six women featured here, entrepreneurship is about flexibility, family, and purpose. It’s about creating something that aligns with their needs and values while opening doors for others to do the same. Whether balancing motherhood, navigating career pivots, or stepping into leadership for the first time, these women are having meaningful impact on those around them.
Brandy Price
Beyond the Plate
For Brandy Price, wellness is about awareness, connection, and learning to trust your own body. As the founder of Beyond the Plate, her expertise as a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach includes nutrition, lifestyle, and self-empowerment.
“The more I can help people be aware of the challenges we face in our food and healthcare industries and then show them how making small shifts in their daily choices really makes me feel like I’ve done my job,” she explains.
Price’s friends describe her as dedicated, caring, and motivated. Just the kind of person who can help guide clients toward better health. “I’ve really been stepping into my educator role as a coach,” she says. “I want my clients to feel empowered and confident in their own health choices.”
It’s a philosophy that challenges the all-or-nothing mindset often associated with nutrition. “People assume working with me is all about the next fad diet and how restricted and miserable they’re going to be,” she continues. Instead, her approach starts with observation, not overhaul. “The first ‘assignment’ my clients get is to change nothing and keep a food log.”
She believes that true transformation happens beyond what’s on the plate. “I take the time to look at my clients’ lifestyle,” she continues. “How are they sleeping? Moving? Handling stress?”
It’s a holistic lens that reflects how Price lives her own life as well. Self-care comes first. Diagnosed with Celiac disease, her own health journey ultimately changed the course of her life as she began exploring the connection between food and overall well-being.
Looking ahead, Price’s vision for the future continues to evolve in both personal and professional realms. Through the Engage & Empowerwomen’s networking group and growing her Beyond the Plate platform, Price is creating spaces for community connection and discovery. “I would love to host wellness retreats—gatherings of like-minded people stepping into ownership of their bodies.”
Marie Franco
ModBaskets
On any given Friday in Sandy, you might spot a small curbside stand with something freshly baked—custom orders for pick up, cinnamon rolls, a loaf of focaccia, maybe some cookies. It’s a simple setup, but for Marie Franco, owner and baker of ModBaskets, every item she makes carries a piece of her time, her story, and her standards.
As a teenager, she took cake decorating classes and baked alongside her grandmother, learning recipes that would later become staples in her own kitchen. Years later, while pregnant with her first child, she made her first wedding cake—an ambitious, Ozzy Osbourne-themed creation.
It wasn’t until 2021 when she got serious about starting a micro-bakery from her home though. Today, she balances business ownership with raising four children, ages 4 to 16.
Most orders are placed online for pickup, though her curbside stand offers a rotating selection, especially during busy seasons or after the Sandy City Farmers Market each week. “You can swing by on a Friday and there’s usually something,” she says. “And if you order, it’s made within 24 hours. I never freeze anything.”
ModBasket’s menu reflects a mix of creativity and tradition close to Franco’s heart.
“I used to bake with my grandmother all the time,” she recalls. Customers can order pecan pie—made exactly as her grandmother taught her. “Everything’s done by hand. Exactly how she said to do it.”
In addition to baked goods, ModBaskets also offers thoughtfully curated and personalized gift baskets.
Looking ahead, she envisions a brick-and-mortar space once her youngest is older. “The whole point is to have a business I feel good about,” she says. “Will I become a millionaire? Probably not. But will people love what they receive? Absolutely!”
In the meantime, she’ll keep bringing joy to her customers—one loaf, one basket, one meaningful moment at a time.
Dr. Kat Lofley
Renewal Aesthetics and Sexual Wellness
For Dr. Kat Lofley, beauty has never been just skin deep. As the founder of Renewal Aesthetics and Sexual Wellness, her work lives at the intersection where science meets self-worth and personal transformation isn’t just visible, it’s felt when patients are at their best both inside and out.
In an industry often focused on surface-level results, Lofley’s holistic approach to aesthetics and wellness reflects her passion for empowering men and women to live beautifully. Utilizing all her expertise, from injectables and skin treatments to hormone therapy and sexual health services, she hopes to help shift conversations around topics that have long been considered taboo yet cause significant physical and mental discomfort.
A women’s health nurse practitioner and certified nurse midwife, Lofley’s path into aesthetics was shaped by a broad clinical foundation that allowed her to specialize in women’s health and midwifery.
Before opening Renewal Aesthetics, she worked at the Salt Lake City VA Hospital, where she managed the urology department and created a male sexual dysfunction clinic—an experience that shapes her broader approach to patient care today.
At home, Lofley balances her work with life as a mother of two, a role that grounds her perspective and fuels her to help others in a variety of ways.
Janet Snow
One Day Doors & Closets of Utah
For Janet Snow, owner and marketing director of One Day Doors & Closets of Utah, success has always been about people. Whether in a classroom or her own company, her focus is always the same: connection, community, and creating spaces where others feel they belong.
Before stepping into the business world, Snow built her career in education. After graduating from college, she taught kindergarten, an experience that shaped how she views both leadership and community. “I actually worked in a school community my whole career,” she explains. “You have to fit into that community, and you have to become part of that community.”
That idea of belonging now sits at the center of the business she and her husband have built together.
After years in corporate environments, the couple made a conscious decision to step away and do things differently. “What’s happening in corporate America can be very toxic,” Snow says. “As a small business, we definitely need to focus on metrics and outcomes, but we’re also trying to prove that we can do it by creating a positive culture.”
For Snow, that culture starts from within and extends outward. “We’re really focused on happy customers and happy employees,” she continues. “Why be in a business that’s grinding people down? We just like to prove that you can do both things right: work-life balance and enjoyment of your job.”
Snow is motivated by the idea that business can be human. “When you can enjoy most of your work and the people that you work with,” she says, “it makes your work nicer, better. We’re making sure that the customer has a fabulous experience from the minute they look at our website to the time we’re done.”
That customer experience is deeply personal to Snow. As a mother of three sons and grandmother to three grandsons, she understands the importance of home—not just as a place, but as a feeling. And her job is about helping others create that same sense of comfort and pride in their own spaces.
Jennifer Sweat
Sweat Equity
Most days, you’re just as likely to find Jennifer Sweat on a tennis court as you are touring a home somewhere between Ogden and Spanish Fork.
“I play two, three, sometimes four times a week,” she explains. “I’m on two USTA teams, and we’ve made it to nationals three times.”
That passion, drive, and competitiveness shows up in everything she does.
With over a decade in real estate, the industry has given Sweat the flexibility to be present in her children’s lives as a single mom, and now that they’re grown, to pursue her own interests.
“It was weird,” she admits about living alone. “But I gave myself some grace. It became a time to decompress, to figure out what I wanted to do next.” And that sense of openness is shaping her current chapter.
Though she doesn’t claim to be an avid hiker, she gravitates toward Utah’s canyons whenever she can. In summer, Utah’s country music concert lineup keeps her calendar full.
There’s also her love of food. “I go out to eat probably more than the average person,” Sweat admits. “But it’s easy when you’re single.” Trying new restaurants is her way of exploring the city and staying connected.
“I love people,” she continues. “I love staying in touch. Most of my clients become friends.” Whether she’s building friendships on the tennis court, staying close with family across states, or maintaining relationships with past clients, Sweat approaches life as a growth opportunity—personally, professionally, or both.
A new role as a host on the Real Estate Essentials show, a local platform that highlights listings and gives agents a unique way to showcase properties, is a natural fit.
Sweat’s 2026 mindset mirrors the way she plays tennis—always moving, always improving, always looking for the next point.
Jen Fox
Jen Fox Photography
Jen Fox spent nine years in the classroom as a second-grade teacher before discovering her path behind the lens as a sought-after boutique photographer.
Her approach to portraits is intentionally different, offering what she describes as a concierge-style experience, guiding clients from consultation to final portrait.
Her sessions are designed to bring out genuine emotion—whether that means playful humor with kids or carefully guided posing for adults. The goal is always the same: to create what she calls an “oh moment,” when someone sees their image and recognizes their own beauty.
She believes strongly in preserving memories too. After once letting her own family photos sit unprinted for years, Fox realized how easily meaningful moments can disappear into digital storage. Now, she ensures every client leaves with tangible portraits designed to live on their walls and enhance their daily lives.
Beyond preservation, her inspiration comes from her own childhood struggles with self-image. Those experiences shaped her passion for helping others, especially children, see themselves differently. “I want them to feel like they matter,” she says.
For Fox, every photograph is an opportunity to capture a moment and change the way someone sees themselves.
For these six women, entrepreneurship is about flexibility, family, and purpose. Whether balancing motherhood, navigating career pivots, or stepping into leadership, these ladies are leading the way.
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