Shailee Basnet: Leader of First Female Team to Climb the Highest Peak on Every Continent, the Seven Summits Women Team

Shailee Basnet led the first all-woman team to scale the highest peak in every continent, the Seven Summits Women Team.

Born and raised in Nepal, she dreamed of living a physically active life, but attended a school where girls’ participation in sports was almost a taboo. After completing a degree in business management, she discovered a group attempting to form an all-female Nepali expedition to Mt. Everest. Eager for adventure, she completed a rigorous training program and in 2008, she was one of ten Nepali women representing six different ethnic backgrounds to climb Mt. Everest—most, like Shailee, were first-time mountaineers.

Following the Everest expedition, Shailee went on to lead the Seven Summits Women Team—the world’s first female group to scale the highest peak in each continent: Mt. Everest, on the border of Nepal in 2008; Mt. Kosciuszko in Australia and Mt. Elbrus in Russia in 2010; Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa in March of 2013 (where the team honored International Women’s Day) ; and then the final three summits—Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina, Mt. Denali in Alaska, and Mt. Vinson Massif in Antarctica—all in 2014.

As a speaker, Shailee shares lessons learned from her epic missions on leadership, teamwork and dealing with conflict together with key takeaways on what makes a team “a force,” why mountain leadership translates so well to business, why the ego always has to take a back seat to the goal, and why diversity in a team’s makeup is critical to its success. Shailee has been a guest lecturer for multiple business programs, including the NYU Business program and the Entrepreneurial Master’s Program, and she is a frequent keynote for business and leadership audiences. She is also in demand as a speaker for international aid organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations and to NGOs, non-profits, government and university audiences across the world.

Shailee’s leadership, teamwork and goal-setting insights and lessons are profiled in The Leader Within Us: Mindset, Principles, and Tools for a Life by Design by entrepreneur Warren Rustand, which was published by Forbes Books in 2021. Shailee and her team’s journey are featured in two books: Les Népalaises de l’Everest by Anne Benoit-Janin, published in 2020 by Glénat Editions and 50 Women from Nepal Who Will Change the Way You See the World, written and published by Bec Ordish in 2021.

Shailee and her team have been featured on news, sports and entertainment media platforms around the world, including the BBC, PBS and ESPN. The 2019 French documentary Les belles envolées tells the story of the team’s journey to “break the glass ceiling” that has kept women from climbing the highest peaks.

Today, Shailee leads executive leadership treks in the Himalayas and runs a program to empower young Nepalese survivors of sex trafficking. Shailee is also a standup comic in three languages, and she brings her warmth, high energy and sense of humor to deliver inspiring and unforgettable keynotes on teamwork, leadership and motivation.