Business in Heels, the Australian platform dedicated to empowering women in business, featured WanderSafe Co-Founder, CMO, and Global Ambassador Stephenie Rodriguez in its magazine and leadership summit program in early 2023.
A Cover Story of Resilience
The Business in Heels feature profiled Stephenie's journey through one of the most harrowing medical crises imaginable — contracting cerebral malaria during a 2019 business trip to Nigeria, surviving a near-death coma, enduring nearly 40 surgeries, and becoming a bilateral above-ankle osseointegrated amputee in March 2021.
The feature positioned Stephenie not as a survivor in the passive sense, but as an active architect of her own reinvention. Her leadership of WanderSafe continued throughout her hospitalization and recovery, and her emergence as a voice for people living with mobility challenges added a new dimension to her public advocacy.
Women in Technology and Safety
The publication highlighted Stephenie's work at the intersection of technology and women's safety. As the CEO of a company building non-violent personal safety devices, she represents a growing cohort of female founders using technology to address systemic problems that disproportionately affect women.
Her work alongside UN Women Australia to eradicate gender-based violence featured prominently in the coverage. WanderSafe's mission to impact a billion lives by 2025 — aligned with multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals — gave the feature a global scope that resonated with the publication's audience of ambitious, internationally minded businesswomen.
The 10/90 Rule
Stephenie shared the personal philosophy that has guided her recovery and leadership: "Life is ten percent what you are given and ninety percent what you do with it."
This framing — borrowed from her son Constantine — captures the essence of her approach to both business and adversity. She did not choose cerebral malaria, bilateral amputation, or the isolation of a pandemic-era hospital stay. But she chose how to respond: by walking on bionic legs, building a global safety company, and speaking publicly about what vulnerability really means.
Advocacy for Mobility and Accessibility
The Business in Heels feature also spotlighted Stephenie's growing advocacy for people living with mobility challenges. Having experienced life in a wheelchair for 22 months before her osseointegration surgery, she brings lived experience to conversations about accessibility, inclusion, and the design of public spaces.
Her use of the hashtag #BionicAndBlessed has become a recognizable marker of her personal brand — a declaration that disability and capability are not opposites, but coexist in the same person at the same time.
Impact Beyond the Cover
For the Business in Heels audience — entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and women building careers in male-dominated industries — Stephenie's story offered something more valuable than inspiration. It offered evidence that the worst possible circumstances do not have to derail the most ambitious possible goals.
The original Business in Heels feature is no longer available online. This article is reconstructed from verified sources.
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