Women on the Move Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Li Haslett Chen of Howl on how her tech platform helps people earn money doing what they already do Oct 30, 2024

Li Haslett Chen is the founder and CEO of Howl, a technology platform that democratizes access to retail's next frontier, social commerce. Under Li's leadership, Howl has been named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, and one of the Most Promising AI Companies by Forbes. Li has been recognized as a retail disruptor by the Financial Times, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, and included on Ad Age's 40-Under-40. In this episode of the Women on the Move Podcast, Li sits down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss her career journey.

Three passions

Li says she has three passions that drove her early career (and later inspired her to start Howl): content, retail, and data science. She also loves systems-based thinking, she says, and throughout her career she’s focused on helping creatives who are passionate about retail to build their businesses. Growing up in Beijing in the early 1990s was instrumental. “That's when China really opened to the world,” she says. “I remember being five years old, and us getting our first refrigerator. I think all of that made me feel so in awe of products, and services, and how it really changes our lives. So I always knew I wanted to be in this industry, and at the same time, I never imagined I would be an entrepreneur.”

It was a combination of math, science, and creative industries that allowed Li to approach problems in a different way, she says. “I studied biochemical engineering, but I also grew up in a family of creatives,” she tells Sam. “And while I was [attending] Columbia University, I also did a lot of internships in [New York City] that was very grounded in the creative industries.”

Li was running the marketing at an e-commerce startup when one of the VC investors asked her if there was something that she wanted to build. “I think the reality is he saw some of those tendencies, in terms of the way that I would attack problems, or think about building technology within this company,” she tells Sam. “And within a year of him asking me that question, we had our first check, started building our first company, and that was really the pathway that made all of this possible.”

Entrepreneurial bug

The first company that Li founded was Narrativ, a business that connected large publications with other businesses that could help them better monetize their shopping recommendations. “It was my first foray as a startup,” she says. “It was really exciting, in terms of really the initial success that we had right out the gate.”

In fact, she almost didn’t launch Howl, due to the big success of Narrativ. “But, at the back of my head, there was always this thought of, what if we could give more people access?” she recalls. “What if it wasn't just the largest publications and companies in the world? What about other content creators and creatives who also have a perspective on what people should buy, and what they love, and they want to share it, and make money from it? Could we bring a lot of the technology, and the insight that we've developed at Narrativ, to a much larger ecosystem?”

Howl

Li describes Howl as a marketplace that connects people with something that they want to talk about, promote, and share with their community and with the brands that make those products and services. “So it could be that I'm obsessed with my three-pound laptop, because I am walking around all over the city taking meetings and I need something light,” she explains. “It could be a creator that loves this sunscreen that doesn't leave a cast, because she has darker skin. It could be sneakerhead discords, or folks on YouTube talking about the latest Samsung Galaxy launch.”

In general, she says, it’s about the products you want to “howl” about to your friends and family. The platform gives people the chance to make promoting those goods and services. Li says most creators on Howl are able to make a real living, earning tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from promoting and working with brands they already love to talk about.

As a leader, Li is committed to helping other women. “I am a big believer that what you send out into the universe is received,” she says. She notes that 75 percent of Howl’s leadership team are women, as is more than 50 percent of the company as a whole. “I think it's very rare in the technology industry,” she says.

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of October 29th, 2024 and they may not materialize.

Empowering Parenthood: How Bobbie CEO Laura Modi is Reducing Guilt and Expanding Choices for American Parents Oct 22, 2024

In this episode of the Women on the Move Podcast, host Sam Saperstein sits down with Laura Modi, CEO and co-founder of the organic infant formula brand, Bobbie. From her early days as a first-time mom navigating formula options in a drugstore to founding Bobbie, Laura's journey reflects her commitment to revolutionizing the infant formula industry.

Born from motherhood

Laura says her journey to founding Bobbie began in trauma: as a new mother excited to do everything possible for her baby, she suffered from mastitis and found herself unable to breastfeed. “Here I am doing something I wished and I hoped and I wanted to do so badly and I wasn't anatomically able to feed my child,” she tells Sam.

When she went to shop for formula, things got worse: “I'm in the middle aisle of a pharmacy, a place that you go for a medical solution, not food,” she says. “It didn't feel natural. Even worse, I had to ring a button to get someone to open up. So now you almost feel like you're asking for permission in a way that you felt shamed.“

She also remembers seeing ingredients she wouldn’t feed herself: corn syrup, palm oil, and “ingredients or words that I'd never even heard of.” She felt shame and guilt, but also she knew there should be a better option. She and her husband were astounded that the baby formula industry seemed to be stuck at least 40 years in the past. That’s when she started dreaming of disrupting the industry, and creating the formula she wanted.

An ounce of naivety

Before founding Bobbie, Laura was the director of host operations at Airbnb, and she drew on her experiences there when she created her own business. And when it came time to select a partner and co-founder, Laura turned not to a food scientist or a technologist, but someone who she had worked with at Airbnb, someone who she knew she wanted as her “work wife.”

As for actually formulating the baby formula they wanted to make, Laura says that she was nearly clueless. “An ounce of naivety is probably the secret sauce to succeeding,” she tells Sam. “You learn on the go and then you go, ‘Oh God, if I knew that I probably wouldn't have gotten this far.’"

With her partner Sarah, Laura started with a global standard review, looking for the best infant formulas in the world and researching breast milk and how they could get as close as possible to breast milk in the most natural way possible. “And by no means was I trying to find a world where I was replacing breast milk or creating something ‘better’ than breast milk,” she says. “I wanted to create something that I felt could get as close as possible in the most natural way, so that in absence of not being able to breastfeed, you don't feel guilty.”

Managing growth

In 2020, just as the pandemic unfolded, Bobbie got FDA approval, the green light to launch. At the time, two baby formula companies were producing 80 percent of the nation’s formula—and not long into the pandemic, there was a nationwide shortage of available formula. Bobbie’s customer count doubled overnight. As a start-up founder, Laura had to make the difficult decision to uphold their commitment to their existing subscribers and not take new orders. The company took some flak for the decision, but as a result, Laura says, Bobbie was the only baby formula company at the end of the shortage that was able to continue to feed its customers.

For the next two years, Bobbie had to manage a growing waitlist, balancing what they knew they could deliver with the fast-growing demand from new parents. Today, the formula is available in major retailers but still focuses on its subscription service. Laura says it’s a model that makes sense, since formula is an ongoing, measurable need. And it’s important to her that customers have an option to avoid the drug-store trips. She wants people to be “able to wear Bobbie loud and proud on a sweater, even if they've never been a parent, they've never used the product, but they are so connected to our mission and what we stand for that they're willing to wear it on their chest.”

From Incarceration to Advocacy: Dr. Topeka K. Sam on leading Ladies of Hope Ministries for justice-impacted women and families Oct 15, 2024

In this episode of the Women on the Move Podcast, Dr. Topeka K. Sam sits down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss her journey from incarceration to nonprofit founder. Topeka is the founder and executive director for The Ladies of Hope Ministries and the co-founder of Hope House NYC, a safe housing space for women and girls. She's a pioneer in the fight for the decriminalization and decarceration of women and girls and works relentlessly to provide resources and support for those transitioning back to society.

A new start

After spending three and a half years in federal prison and seeing all of the disparities and harms that women and girls had faced, Topeka came home determined to be a voice for those still incarcerated. “I knew when I came home because of the support services, the family, community that I had, that I could do anything, but the sisters that I left behind would not,” she tells Sam. “And so as God would have it, I was really just moved to start my organization, The Ladies of Hope Ministries, while I was incarcerated. And when I was released in 2015, I hit the ground running.”

Topeka says two things drove her mission: to provide safe housing for women after incarcerations, and to create platforms for women to be able to use their voices. “I felt that if we saw the faces of women who were incarcerated and heard their voices, that there would be no woman or girl in prison or jail,” she says. “I'm a firm believer that you can hold people accountable by healing them, and prisons and jails don't do that.”

Expanding and looking to the future

85 percent of incarcerated women are mothers of dependent children and heads of households, and 95 percent have experienced some type of sexual trauma or violence. In addition, 90 percent have mental health challenges. “There are drivers that lead to incarceration,” she explains, citing some alarming statistics for incarcerated women who have experienced some form of abuse, violence, trauma or mental health challenges. “As we know, women often are the most marginalized, the most vulnerable population and have the least support and services, no matter what industry you're in. And so going into prison, it's the same harms and the same drivers, but yet we come home and there's not enough organizations [to support] or opportunities when we come home.”

Since starting her nonprofit in New York, Topeka has expanded to several additional states. Together with United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Rapid Re-housing program, they are now helping families get their own apartments in New York, in Prince George's County, Maryland, and in New Orleans, and helping them pay rent for a year. They also have a workforce development initiative, which includes certification programs in digital marketing, project management, IT, and AI.

Topeka is also a co-founder of a FinTech company, EPIC Financial that focuses on making sure that justice-impacted people have financial education on savings and banking. “It’s about building the community,” she stresses. “Because if our families are strong, then it also helps that person who is reentering to become strong.”

Being a role model in the community, and in particular demonstrating that a criminal record doesn’t have to define you, is extremely important to Topeka. “When you come from a limited resource community, you can't see that you can have more unless you see someone who's lived that experience,” she says. “So that for me is the greatest gift, to be able to show women that it doesn't matter where we come from or what we've experienced that we can be and do it whatever it is that we want.”

As far as inspiring other women, Topeka offers some simple advice. You have to believe in yourself and give yourself permission to follow your dreams and your ambition. “Know that many of us are incarcerated before we even go to a prison,” she says. “You can be living in a prison in your mind, in your community, before you've even gotten through what I've been through. You can change that today. Each day, God gives us grace. We can get up every morning and we can decide.”

Why taking the risk is worth it, with Nicole Emanuel of 21 Seeds Tequila Oct 08, 2024

Nicole Emanuel says it isn’t fear of failure that drives her—it’s fear of not doing what you're passionate about. Here the co-founder of 21 Seeds Tequila talks about her journey with her co-founders—her sister Kat and their friend Sarika—to create a liquor brand that embodies empowerment, innovation, and inclusivity. Through their brand, they've crafted more than just a spirit. They've created a movement that celebrates friendship, authenticity, and the bold pursuit of dreams.

It's the inaugural episode of the Women on the Move podcast in its new format, featuring video as well as audio recordings of women leaders discussing their careers and personal journeys. They’ll dive into topics such as ambition, leadership, driving change, and building networks. In this episode, host Sam Saperstein sits down with Nicole to discuss the inspiring story behind 21 Seeds Tequila.

Starting with a dream team

Nicole tells Sam that it was her sister Kat who first came up with the idea of making infused tequila. As wine lover who didn’t tolerate wine well, Kat set out to create a relaxing spritz-like drink. “Her new goal in life was to figure out how to make this tequila as easy to drink as a glass of wine,” Nicole says. “She's an amazing cook, and she started infusing her own tequila in a filter.”

Kat’s first homemade infused tequila was cucumber jalapeno. “She did that happily, just to drink it for herself, for her friends, for about eight years, and everybody was asking her, Can I have more of your tequila?” Nicole remembers. “At some point, I couldn't even get to parties without bringing my sister's tequila.”

Soon Kat asked Nicole and their friend Sarika about starting a tequila company together. The three each brought unique skills and experience: Nicole had been a CFO and COO, Kat was a film producer, and Sarika had worked in organic foods. Together in 2019, they launched 21 Seeds with three infusions—grapefruit hibiscus, Valencia orange, and cucumber jalapeno—all at a lower alcohol content (35%) than most spirits.

“We all really had our lanes, and I think that's what allowed us to run faster,” Nicole says. “Because, we really stayed in our lanes in order to run, and we trusted each other, because it does go back to trust, of knowing that you trust their judgment, you trust how they're going to do it.”

A different approach

As women launching a product in an industry dominated by men, Nicole and her partners were bound to forge their own path. One early difference was their market strategy: Rather than focusing on getting into bars to begin with, they were focused on becoming the beverage of choice of women drinking at home or at friends’ homes.

“We were set up pretty nicely, because our go-to-market strategy was completely different than the spirits industry,” she tells Sam. “In the spirits industry, you went to on-premise, which are bars, restaurants, had the consumer taste it, and then moved to off-premise. That's typically the go-to-market strategy for spirits. That was not our strategy. We knew who our consumer was.”

An early break came when some of the early adapters “happened to be celebrities.” Katie Couric featured 21 Seeds in her Holiday Gift Guide, and through that, they landed on the Today Show. Soon they also made Oprah's Favorites, and Jessica Alba and Naomi Watts were fans. With help like that, they kept their first year’s marketing budget to just $4,000.

Looking ahead

By 2022, the three founders sold 21 Seeds to Diageo. Nicole says that once they started looking around for the right owner, it was an easy decision. “They have a lot of women leadership,” she says of Diageo. “They understood our position in the market. We felt like we had great representation because of that women leadership.”

As for the future, Nicole says she’s excited to continue mentoring talented and passionate women. “I've been lucky enough to be able to do that throughout my career,” she says. “I put my money where my mouth is. I invest in women, and I invest in their products.”

Most of all, she wants other women to feel empowered to achieve their dreams. “If you want to build a company, you can,” she says. “You have to not be so risk-adverse that you can't jump and chase your dreams. That's the kind of environment I want to create for my family, for my friends, for my children. Anything is possible, and I really believe that.”

Transcript here

From GM to Amazon to Alto Pharmacy, Alicia Boler Davis’ talks talking chances and leading with inspiration Dec 21, 2023

At JPMorgan Chase’s eighth annual Women's Leadership Day, Byna Elliott, the firm’s Global Head of Advancing Black Pathways, sits down with Alicia Boler Davis, CEO of Alto Pharmacy and JPMorgan Chase Board Director. They discuss Alicia's extraordinary career, from her engineering roots at GM to her pivotal decision to join Amazon, and eventually, lead Alto Pharmacy.

It's all about people

That’s a lesson that Alicia learned early in her career: “No matter what you're doing, no matter what you're leading, it's all about people.” She tells Byna the story of how she started as an engineer at GM, but after just a few years, she asked to work in an actual plant to learn more about “what it really means” to build cars. She says most of the leadership discouraged her from making that move, but in the end, she ended up in a plant where she led a team of 60. She recalls feeling both nervous and excited, and a bit overwhelmed at first—before she realized she had made exactly the right decision. “And so I think it started for me being curious and not being afraid to go into areas and do things that people may not think are easy.”

After nearly two decades and a number of promotions, Alicia’s next big move was to Amazon—a whole new industry, in a different part of the country. She says it was one of the hardest decisions she ever made. She says she loved her time at GM, had great mentors and colleagues, and advanced in her career—but she was ready for a new challenge. “I felt like even though I had an opportunity and there were more opportunities to come, there was a level of comfort being there that actually made me uncomfortable being that comfortable,” she tells Byna.

She made the move to Amazon just a year before the pandemic shut down businesses worldwide—and changed Amazon’s trajectory immeasurably. She says it was one of the best decisions she ever made. “Joining Amazon was really about joining a company that I thought was very innovative,” she says. “A very customer-obsessed company, a technology-based company. I thought I could have an impact.”

She did have an impact, taking on more and more responsibilities until by 2021 she was Senior Vice President for Global Customer Fulfillment. She recalls that she started getting recruiting calls for CEO positions but she barely had time to breathe. One of the calls was about a startup pharmaceutical company called Alto. At first Alicia wasn’t even intrigued, but, she says: “The more time I spent with the founders at Alto, the more I felt like this was the right thing for me to do. And it was a leap of faith, but I finally told myself: Alto is about challenging the status quo. That's who you've been. That's what you've always done. It's about fixing something that's broken, and it can have an impact on so many people's lives, and if it doesn't work out, you can always go run something big.”

On women and mentoring

Alicia tells Byna that she’s always had great mentors—and nearly 80 percent of them have been men. She says she’s very grateful for those invaluable relationships, but she now focuses on mentoring women—75 percent of the people she mentors are female. “And so I like to give examples and I like to be very vulnerable around, This is what happened to me, this is how I felt. I'm not saying this is what happened to you, but I'm saying that it's okay. Let me tell you how I work through it."

In the end, Alicia says, she likes to listen and learn. “I have a responsibility to help create opportunities for other people and also to encourage people to see beyond what they think is possible. For me, I think that's important, because sometimes, we think about what we can see, but there's so much opportunity if you can see beyond that. What's your wildest dream? What's the thing that you can just say this will never happen? Then that's the thing that you should be going for. And for me, that's how I think about it, and not to run away from those things, but to run towards them.”

Full transcript here

Inside Chase’s mission to be the Bank for All: Building trust one community at a time with Diedra Porché Dec 14, 2023

As head of community and business development at Chase, Diedra Porché has a deep passion for understanding the needs of the people the bank is seeking to serve. In this week’s episode of Women on the Move, she joins host Sam Saperstein to discuss her role and how she empowers local communities and helps individuals build financial security and wealth.

Growing along with JPMorgan Chase

Diedra began her career with JPMorgan Chase nearly 30 years ago. She likes to tell people that she’s had about 10 jobs and worked in three different business lines. She started her career in an officer development program in Texas, moved on to Commercial Banking, worked with the Government Banking team, and then physically moved across the country to California and helped build out the bank in Los Angeles.

“It’s been a wonderful journey,” she says. “I’ve always enjoyed staying close to customers, and working with our field teams, and representing the bank in our communities. I had no idea how much the work would evolve into an opportunity that allows us to work hand with community stakeholders to effect impact for people beyond banking. At the time when I started in banking . . . things were pretty straightforward. You went to your local branch, you worked with your local team. Fast-forward to today, and there’s just a myriad of complexities that customers are dealing with.”

She says that one of the most important things she learned along the way is how to work together with all stakeholders. “That means each of us has a role to play in serving communities in the best way,” she tells Sam. “And it takes private sector, it takes our public sector, and it takes our not-for-profits and our local stakeholders to really be that three-legged stool to make communities really thrive.”

“We do this work together”

In her current role as head of community and business development in Consumer Banking, Diedra says she’s “delighted and privileged” to serve her team. “We are a collective team of leaders that have the opportunity to go into communities, build trust, to work to boost financial health so that we can put people on a path to building legacy wealth for their families,” she explains. Her team accomplishes that by providing information in the form of free financial health workshops and programming, as well as building hyper-local relationships with stakeholders.

For context: Chase opened its first Community Center branch in Harlem in 2019 as part of its $30 billion racial equity commitment to build stronger ties to the community and provide banking services and financial education in underserved areas. Since then, Chase has opened 15 additional Community Centers across the country, primarily in low-to-moderate income communities.. Each Community Center features a team of local financial health experts focused on community engagement, mentorship and advice. Each Center also features a large multipurpose room which can be used to host free financial health workshops, community gathering or pop-up shops for small business customers.

When asked what she’s most proud of about the work her team does, Diedra has an easy answer: “First, let me just say I am delighted that in two and a half years, we really have become a part of the framework of the franchise. I tell my team all the time, we’re knitted and weaved into a full tapestry of who we are as a firm.”

In terms of metrics, Diedra has plenty to be proud of too. One of the most important metrics she looks at is trust metrics—how communities and consumers feel about the bank’s brand. And while noting that JPMorgan Chase already enjoys a very strong brand, she says that seeing those trust metrics in the communities where her team has invested in represents a meaningful shift – it’s the kind of change the bank is committed to building upon.

One of the keys to success, she says, has been welcoming non-customers into community center branches to get access to education and financial health workshops at no cost to them, and not requiring them to be a customer. “Additionally, we collaborate with local nonprofits that are already working with residents and [Chase] customers in these neighborhoods,” she notes. “So in partnership with them, we're able to create programming that our communities can access either at their nonprofit location or inside our branches.”

It's never too late to start…on your financial health journey

Diedra offers a simple idea for anyone wanting to improve their financial health. “The one tip that I would give is to create a plan. It's never too late to start and ensure that you have a plan. Start small. Any amount that you're putting away will make a difference, and to just stay focused on those habits and stay disciplined.”

Full transcript here

Founder’s Feature - Erin Croom Dec 07, 2023

In Today’s Founder’s Feature of the Women on the Move podcast, we’re speaking with Erin Croom, co-founder of Small Bites Adventure Club. Sam and Erin talk about Erin's mission to revolutionize food education for children and instill a love for fruits and vegetables.

Erin shares her vision for the Small Bites Adventure Club, aiming to empower teachers across America to lead engaging food education programs. The goal is ambitious yet crucial: she envisions every child naming five vegetables and confidently making their own snacks before reaching first grade.

As Erin unfolds the story behind Small Bites Adventure Club, listeners gain insights into the program's hands-on approach. Teachers receive monthly kits containing everything needed to lead food education, from Super Power Kale Pesto to Summer Salsa. Erin also emphasizes the importance of partnerships and scaling nationally, highlighting recent expansions to California and North Carolina.

The conversation delves into the challenges of picky eaters, and Erin shares a transformative moment when a child, initially hesitant about trying zucchini, ended up describing it with enthusiasm—a testament to the power of curiosity and exposure.

Tune in to this episode for an insightful and uplifting conversation that explores how Small Bites Adventure Club is sowing the seeds for a healthier, more food-literate generation.

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JP Morgan Chase & Co and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of December 7th, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Transcript here

Founder’s Feature: Kate Verlaan Nov 30, 2023

In this inspiring Founder’s Feature of the Women on the Move podcast, Kate Verlaan, the founder of Oz's Front Door, a business dedicated to reducing plastic waste and promoting sustainability.

During the interview, Kate shares how she started her journey as an entrepreneur, inspired by her background in addressing large, complex global challenges, particularly in the area of sustainability and climate change. She explains how her experience living in China and working on issues like the HIV/AIDS epidemic prepared her for taking on the plastic waste problem.

Emphasizing that her business is not just about profit but about making a significant impact on the plastic crisis, Kate explains that she encourages a slow and deliberate approach to reducing plastic waste, helping people make small, sustainable changes in their lives over time.

Kate also delves into the challenges of entrepreneurship, such as the scarcity mindset and the need to secure funding. She also highlights the importance of staying ambitious and maintaining a positive outlook, especially as a woman entrepreneur facing disparities in venture capital funding.

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JP Morgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of November 30th, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Transcript here

Cathy Hackl, Chief Futurist at Journey, on how the metaverse is about to change the way we all do business Nov 16, 2023

The world’s first Chief Futurist wants us all to embrace the metaverse—even if we don’t call it that. Cathy Hackl, founder and Chief Futurist of Journey, a global design and innovation studio, sits down with Women on the Move Podcast Host Sam Saperstein to talk about how she helps companies and individuals envision and build their virtual brands, and what excites her about merging the physical and virtual worlds.

One thing Cathy advises clients is to “take a step back” from the word metaverse. “I think that word makes some people nervous now,” she tells Sam. “[But] it’s the successor state to today's mobile internet. So if you think about that, what does this mean for you as a company? How are people going to [do business] in the future? How are people going to work in the future? How are people going to socialize in the future?”

Metaverse pioneer

Cathy has a communications and broadcast background, but she started working in virtual technology a decade ago, before people were even talking about the metaverse. She’s worked across a spectrum of metaverse-related industries, from VR to spatial computing and gaming. She’s worked at companies including HTC Vibe, Amazon Web Services, and Walmart. She says one of her favorite experiences came while building Walmart Land inside the social gaming platform Roblox, when she produced a virtual concert called Electric Fest. “I actually got to go to LA work with the artists,” she says. “I helped choreograph a little bit on the motion capture side, worked with them also to select their virtual couture looks. What are they going to wear as avatars? I love the fact that I actually get to get in the trenches.”

At Journey, Cathy and her team work with top brands on their metaverse and Web 3 strategies. “We say that we create real experiences for real people in whichever reality they choose,” she explains. “We do a lot of work in the physical world with physical builds, but we also do a lot of work in the virtual space, and that's my purview, whether it is gaming Roblox or Fortnite or whether it's augmented reality or artificial intelligence.”

Paradigm shift

Acknowledging that exploring Web 3 and the metaverse can feel overwhelming to most of us, Cathy emphasizes that understanding the reality of virtual reality is going to be critical for the business world. “When you go into these virtual spaces and you create these worlds, you have to understand that you can't be brand-led,” she says. “You have to be player-focused. At the end of the day, anyone that’s going into a Roblox, a Fortnite, a rec room, whichever game it is that they're playing, they're going there to have fun . . . and socialize. This is their new social network.” For brands, the key is to make it fun and authentic to the platform: “How do you respect the player? How do you respect the community that’s already built in there?”

For many brands right now, Cathy says, there’s a paradigm shift happening. She compares it to the early 2000s. Back then, she says, “Brands were like, oh, we'll never need a social media presence. And I think that that's kind of where we are right now with some of these virtual spaces and the gaming side of the house.”

One of the biggest differences is the way users interact with virtual spaces versus social media. On social platforms, Cathy notes, customers are able to make comments but not fully engage. “With [virtual] worlds, you're engaging in a totally different game,” she says. “For brands, it's been a bit of a wake-up call. I'm thrilled to have a front-row seat to helping them understand these gaming spaces and the culture, the economies of scale that are happening in these virtual spaces.”

The future for a futurist

One of Cathy’s latest adventures has been launching her own luxury tech label, First Luxe. She describes it as part label, part lab, and focused on disrupting both luxury and fashion. The first collection included 18-carat gold- and silver-and-gold–plated jewelry that has a chip in it that then becomes a digital collectible (think Non-fungible token (NFTs). “I've had a lot of women reach out and say, oh my gosh, I love this because I can express that I'm part of this Web 3 world in a fashionable way,” she says.

Overall, Cathy says, the world is headed for big change and she’s thrilled to be in the mix. “There's this whole economy happening in these virtual spaces that is bigger than Hollywood and music put together,” she says. “I don't think people realize how big the gaming economy is, and I see a lot of opportunity.”

Full transcript here

From the military to the boardroom – Bunker Labs Chair Lenore Karafa talks her transition from Marine Corps Officer to venture capitalist Nov 09, 2023

In honor of Veterans Day, in this special episode of Women on the Move Podcast Host Sam Saperstein talks with Lenore Karafa, Marine Corps veteran, venture capitalist, and chair of Bunker Labs. Lenore discusses her military career and her transition into the finance industry, and describes why a military background provides an excellent mix of skills and experiences for success in the corporate world.

Minority female

Lenore started at the Naval Academy in 1996, when it was less than 12 percent women. And in 2000, she was commissioned as an officer in the Marine Corps, part of just 5 percent of the officer corps that was female. “In those very early years, you first learn followership and then you learn how to lead,” she tells Sam. “So I really had the opportunity to fail early, fail often, and truly learn from those mistakes.” Another thing she learned was being comfortable as a minority female: “When I step into a classroom in front of a bunch of hedge fund managers and I'm the only woman, it's not a new experience for me. So it's made everything else a lot easier.”

Lenore says she’s intensely grateful for everything she learned in the military, and especially for the men and women she served with. Although she joined during peacetime and expected to serve during peacetime, 9/11 occurred just a year after her commission. She says that shaped the trajectory of her time in the military. She ended up in deployment in Iraq, including time as a military police officer in Fallujah. She tells the story of two women she admired who lost their lives: one, Captain Jennifer Harris, in the course of duty in Iraq, and another, Dr. Kate Hendricks Thomas, of metastatic breast cancer likely caused by exposure to chemicals during her service. “I’m grateful to both of them,” she tells Sam. “Grateful for their sacrifice and truly thankful that I get to be here and be called a veteran.”

Transition to finance

Lenore emphasizes that it was other veterans who helped smooth her transition out of the military and into the corporate sector. Through Merrill Lynch, she applied for a full tuition fellowship at the business school of her choice in 2007. She tells the story of how a veteran helped her in that process: “I literally go from running around the woods of Quantico in a green tree suit . . . to the next day in the most expensive outfit I've ever worn, interviewing on Wall Street. I get brought into the wrong interview room and in that room is a man by the name of Art Gorman. He looks at me and he says, ‘So you're the other Marine.’ He's like, ‘Give me your resume so I can vote for you later.’ Thirty-second interaction, totally serendipitous, doing what Marines do, he absolutely supported me.”

Today, Lenore is the chair and president of the board of Bunker Labs, a firm that provides community programs and courses to help military veterans and military spouses start and grow successful businesses. “We've got stages for early-stage entrepreneurs like our Breaking Barriers workshop and our veterans and residence program,” she tells Sam. “And we also have programs for more senior experienced business leaders who also happen to be military connected. And that's the J.P. Morgan CEO Circle—truly grateful for J.P. Morgan for supporting that particular program.”

She’s also a partner at First In, whose vision is to empower entrepreneurs who secure our freedom and provide opportunity for those who have served. They have a core team of military veterans who invest in early-stage security technology companies. “We all have had unique experiences,” she says. “We have complimentary overlapping skill sets to bring to bear when we think about our investments. Our goal is to ensure that the companies that we invest in are truly positioned for long-term success.”

As Lenore describes, veterans love hiring other veterans, and so there’s what she calls a magnifying effect each time one veteran supports another. She explains that the faith in other veterans is well-placed: “Veterans are used to functioning in high-performing teams in high-stakes environments. Without a doubt, they know how to lead, that's table stakes. But when you're coming into a junior role in an organization, you're not going to get the chance to lead right off the bat. So you're going to have to rely on some other skills, and that is being part of high-performing teams, knowing how to contribute. You do fall back a little bit on that followership initially, and you just perform.”

Full transcript here

Founder’s Feature: Shante Frazier Nov 02, 2023

In this Founder’s Feature of the Women on the Move podcast, host Sam Saperstein introduces Shante Frazier, the visionary founder of WellCapped, a groundbreaking wig rental subscription company.

Shante’s unique path to entrepreneurship started with her participation in a venture studio and a deep-rooted ambition to disrupt the haircare market. She discusses the hardships she faced as a founder, including the quest for capital and the need to educate consumers about her innovative business model all leading to WellCapped reshaping the antiquated hair extension and wig industry by offering affordability, accessibility, and cleanliness.

Listen now to be inspired by Shante Frazier's remarkable journey with WellCapped and her vision for the future of haircare.

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JP Morgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of November 2nd, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Full transcript here

Founder’s Feature: Paula Ilonze Oct 26, 2023

In this Founder’s Feature of the Women on the Move podcast, host Sam Saperstein introduces Paula Ilonze, the founder of Chilon Industries

Paula discusses her journey with her own textured hair to founding Chilon Industries and her plans for 2024, which include launching new products like their Curl-eeze brush, a revolutionary hairbrush that dispenses products such as gels, creams, and conditioners while brushing. Learn more about Paula and Chilon Industries by following them on Instagram and visiting their website chilonindustries.com

Transcript here

Unshakeable Founder Debbie Isaacs on her nonprofit’s mission to help women find stability and independence Oct 19, 2023

In this episode of the Women on the Move Podcast, host Sam Saperstein talks with Debbie Isaacs, founder and president of Unshakeable, a nonprofit that serves women offenders by addressing their trauma and needs. Unshakeable’s mission is to guide women survivors in recovery from traumas that include domestic and sexual violence, trafficking, homelessness, and addiction. “Our goal is to set them on a career path to achieve financial independence and stability,” Debbie says. Originally motivated to help just one woman achieve financial stability, Unshakeable has since changed hundreds of lives.

Making change

Debbie shares that she was already over 50 when she was inspired to launch Unshakeable. Living in Las Vegas, she had been a video producer with a successful business making “sizzle reels” for people pitching reality TV shows. She heard about a municipal court program that was helping women in recovery change their lives—and it ended up changing her life. “I sat in the courtroom and listened to the women share their stories and it was one of those moments where I just felt, I'm not here to tell their story, I need to change it,” she recalls. “One of the women shared that she had gotten dressed for herself that day, meaning that for the first time in months, her pimp wasn't telling her what to wear.”

Listening to more women share their stories that day, Debbie was drawn in not only by their heartbreaking experiences but also by the realization that she could relate to many of their feelings. “My physical circumstances didn't match, but how they felt matched,” she tells Sam. “And it didn't match only me, it matched friends of mine.”

And so Unshakeable was born, and soon incorporated into 501(c)3 that partners with other nonprofit organizations that provide housing and therapy. Unshakeable brings their Empower to Employ program, at no charge, to clients of those organizations in order to support their return to the workforce and into a sustainable career. Unshakeable programming includes three phases. Phase 1 is the “I AM” series, which includes a two-day conference where clients hear from community leaders, c-suite executives, and other professionals, who teach them business acculturation and other skills to build self-esteem. Phase 2 is career coaching, which is at least a two-year commitment to all clients, starting with an individualized case assessment and then moving into Phase 3, the bigger picture where case workers evaluate needs and bring clients from immediate employment to a longer-term career plan.

Today, Debbie says, Unshakeable partners with about 20 nonprofits in Las Vegas. Her focus is what she calls the “Four Rs.” That includes Rescue, where the goal is to find shelter for clients and possibly treatment or court. Next is Residency, where they find stabilized, temporary housing. Then comes Recovery, which is the therapy component. Finally, there’s Ready: “I tell people we’re the Get Ready part or the Rest of It, which means we partner with organizations here like Safeness, Shade Tree, and WestCare. We become their workforce development and allow their case managers to help the clients get the therapy they need, or then we work together."

Eye to the future

This summer, Debbie says she’s been traveling and connecting with other nonprofits, learning more about the needs that exist. “Housing is the number one factor that people are ending up on the street or in a situation of staying with somebody that is abusing them,” she tells Sam. “I think the other thing that works [is] the specialty court approach where we're not jailing people for misdemeanors and we're looking at that system as, can we create reform as opposed to just putting somebody into jail.”

As for the future, the vision is to grow Unshakeable in Nevada with a dream of expanding to another state and cities. “And one of the biggest things on our heart is to launch a social enterprise by the end of second quarter next year,” she says. “So that is an ambitious undertaking, but that's really the heart of Unshakeable. We have enough history here that we know our impact matters and it works and it's sustainable and there's thousands of other cities that we think that we could grow into. So that's an undertaking of ours, and the social enterprise, that will be our big focus.”

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JP Morgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of October 19th, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Full transcript here

Why women can and should succeed in leadership, with Something Major founder and CEO Randi Braun Oct 12, 2023

During a special event for JPMorgan Chase managing directors in honor of Women's History Month, Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein talks with Randi Braun, author of Something Major: The New Playbook for Women at Work, and the CEO and founder of the women's leadership firm Something Major. Randi discusses her mission to empower women at work to chart their own course, and touches on longevity, loss aversion, and why she hates the term “Imposter Syndrome.”

Longevity and loss aversion

Randi, a certified executive coach and sought-after speaker, has worked with a variety of large organizations and coached dozens of senior women in high-powered, “male-driven” industries.

“I think that in the conversation that we have around burnout and around thriving, we're seeing women in senior levels of leadership face this low work libido situation,” she shares. “So that, for me, was the light bulb, where I was like, okay, we need to start talking to women about how they can play the game on their own rules and win, because there's just no little blue pill for that. So instead, I hope that we have a new playbook.”

Women’s longevity in senior positions is one of Randi’s top concerns. She tells Sam that she frequently hears of women who are leaving the workforce at senior levels of leadership because of burnout. “So if you want to leave because it's your goal to retire early, I celebrate you,” she says. “But if you feel like you need to leave because you can't sustain, then something is wrong. And we need to create a space where women cannot just lead and thrive, but have that longevity for years to come.”

The idea of “loss aversion” is another top concern of Randi’s. She describes this as a trend where successful women, as their careers advance, begin to focus on minimizing their failures instead of maximizing their successes. “And that's when self-doubt moves from being something that is a healthy catalyst for evaluating a situation and making smart choices, to being something that really hampers our ability to be creative, share an innovative idea, or just not feel so burnt out,” she explains.

The case against “Imposter Syndrome”

Randi says that she wants to help women know that it's okay to be both successful and stressed out. “I want to normalize that it's okay to feel overwhelmed and grateful for the career that you've built, and I think we need to have a more nuanced, open conversation where those things have permission to coexist,” she says.

One thing that can help that acceptance is to move past the idea of “Imposter Syndrome.” It’s a term, she says, that can imply that women are somehow at fault for not feeling up to the task of being successful. “There is nothing wrong with any of us,” she reminds the audience. “We all go to work in a world that was not designed for our success. And I want us to understand that it is normal to have self-doubt. Every single one of us has an inner critic, it's that voice of self-doubt or self-judgment. It doesn't make you deficient, it makes you human.”

That’s where women run into trouble, she says: “Our inner critic can be an incredibly helpful problem identifier, because all our inner critic cares about is keeping us safe from a few key things . . . failure, risk, humiliation, vulnerability. What I want us to understand is that the inner critic is healthy in evaluating that there might be some risk or some exposure, and it's also really important to not let that voice of self-doubt start to dictate all of your decisions.”

Stream the rest of this episode to hear Randi talk about how to rethink the way you process feedback, and how the change you're looking for within yourself can be a spark to others as well. Following her discussion with Sam, Randi takes questions from the JPMorgan Chase managing directors in attendance.

Full transcript here

Bringing storytelling to corporate marketing—and Web3—with Warrior Love Productions’ Melissa Jun Rowley Sep 28, 2023

In this Women on the Move Podcast episode, host Sam Saperstein sits down with Melissa Jun Rowley, founder and CEO of Warrior Love Productions. Melissa shares her journey as a storyteller and how she came to realize her power and start her company. Along the way, she’s had a big impact on the Web3 space and has helped drive change at the intersection of social impact and technology.

Telling the story for impact

Melissa started Warrior Love Productions, a social impact strategy studio and marketing consultancy, nearly three years ago after her career in journalism—including stints with CNN and the Associated Press—led her to recognize a business need for internal corporate storytelling. She describes herself as a kind of internal editorial director, weaving storytelling into content strategy, marketing, thought leadership and other areas. “Our sweet spot is the intersection of technology and social impact,” she tells Sam. “So either companies working at that convergence or companies specializing in tech or company culture [who] really want to bring more social impact or climate positivity into what they're doing.”

Melissa says Warrior Love Productions works with many start-ups, perhaps because they’re a start-up themselves. “My journey into social innovation started when I began meeting entrepreneurs and founders who were harnessing technology for social good,” she says. “I was a tech journalist for a number of years, but didn't really feel passionate about it until I started meeting those people [who are] harnessing or creating technology for social impact, a lot of them creating incredible products and services.”

To those companies, Warrior Love Productions offers support in both telling stories with clarity and confidence, as well as helping them learn to drive deeper impact. She notes that while many founders have compelling stories and focused purpose, they don’t always see the value of those in their branding. “They just don't necessarily have the capacity to put their storytelling at the forefront of what they're doing,” Melissa says. “They're busy having an impact, they're busy getting customers, they're busy making deals.”

Moving into Web3

Melissa says that while she wasn’t initially drawn to Web3 and the idea of blockchain transactions, she quickly changed her mind when she realized how essential the idea of community was to the Web3 space. She says she was writing about blockchain as a journalist as early as 2014 without fully understanding its impact, but then she started to see it from a social impact perspective. “That’s really what attracted me to Web3,” she explains. “Web3 is going to not only survive, but potentially be successful and thrive, if there is a very strong community that vouches for one another, that values one another's opinions, and moves together collectively and consciously in that way.”

When she first started reporting on Web3 and blockchain investment, Melissa says her sources were mainly white papers for investors. But she knew that in order to tell the story in a way that the general public could understand and resonate with, she needed to see firsthand a “real-life tangible blockchain-based solution.” She found one in 2018 at a refugee camp on the border of Jordan and Syria, which had a grocery store that ran on blockchain. She contacted the World Food Program, who ran the project, and arranged a visit. “Basically, the refugees go to their grocery store to shop for themselves or their families,” she explains. “They walk into the store and rather than having to show a card that does a cash transfer, the biometric system comes up, scans their digital identity, and then the money's transferred immediately. And the reason the World Food Program wanted to do that was because so much money was going to banks as the third party to facilitate this. But because this is done on blockchain, there's no third party involved.”

Flash forward a few years, and many of Warrior Love Production’s clients are heavily Web3 focused. And while she says she fully enjoys the work, she’s experienced her share of start-up challenges, including the Web3 market running hot and cold—and the ensuing stress that’s put on her business. But after several up and down years, Melissa says she learned to take a step back from the stress and prioritize. “I'm just being much more mindful and selective about the kinds of projects we're taking on,” she says. “Every year that I am in business, I feel like I'm very privileged because we do get approached by companies that are mission-aligned and values-aligned, but we can be even more aligned. You might be focused on social impacts or climate action, but if your company values seem like they're not really going to integrate with ours, I can't do business with you. The stress of it is not worth it.”

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of Sept 28th, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Full transcript here

Building financial literacy in Latino youth, with the Latin GRAMMY’s Rocky Egusquiza and JPMorgan’s Silvana Montenegro Sep 22, 2023

Women on the Move Podcast host Sam Saperstein talks with two leaders who support Latinos in building strong futures: Rocky Egusquiza, executive director of the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation, and Silvana Montenegro, global head of Advancing Hispanics and Latinos at JPMorgan Chase. Silvana and Rocky talk about the partnership they’ve created, which is focused on providing financial health education to students and their parents.

Career with a purpose

Rocky says her experience as the daughter of immigrants has inspired her career. She says she comes from a “typical immigrant family” with hard-working parents who sacrificed for their kids, saw education as an economic equalizer, and valued giving back. “So whether it was opening our home to other immigrant families or friends, lending a helping hand, my mom used to always say, just add more water to the soup and more people can join the meal,” she says. “They really led by example and showed us the value of paying it forward and helping others.”

She says that emphasis on giving back and mentoring has been the common denominator and purpose in her career, which has spanned government, corporate, nonprofits, media, sports, and the music industry. “It's been about paying it forward, working with purpose, giving back,” she says.

Rocky took on the executive director role at the GRAMMY Culture Foundation—the philanthropic arm of the Latin Recording Academy—in October 2022. The foundation’s mission is twofold: One part is focused on the next generation of Latin music creators, supporting them through education, scholarships, and mentoring. The second priority is on Latin music preservation. “We work globally to look at, how do we preserve Latin music and how do we tell those stories?” she explains.

Educación Financiera

From her role at JPMorgan Chase, Silvana says she was inspired by the work that Rocky does with the GRAMMY Foundation to not only help students with their music but also to help them thrive. It’s work that aligns well with her team’s mission to advance Hispanics and Latinos, partly by creating opportunities for students and individuals overall. In early 2023, JPMorgan Chase and the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation partnered to launch Educación Financiera – financial health education workshops as part of the Latin GRAMMY® Master Series. The workshops provide high school seniors and college students with access to money and credit management information and resources, as well as expert advice from financial leaders, music executives, and creators.

Silvana describes Latin music as a great connector for everyone. “One of the ways that we can really help the community is by making sure that Latin music is even more accessible and that we can support artists regardless where they come from,” she says. “The basis of continuing to grow as individuals is obviously through financial health because we want to make sure that these artists have the tools and resources they need, not only to have a thriving career in music, but also to build their families, build their journeys and so forth.”

The value of expert advice

Rocky talks about the importance of mentorship. It’s something she prioritizes in her career, in part due to her own experiences. “I remember my first job that offered me the opportunity to contribute to a 401k,” she says. “My parents didn't have 401k’s, so I didn't have anyone to talk to and to help me understand the importance of that and how important it was to contribute early so that I could really help build that long-term wealth. So find those allies, find those mentors, find those sponsors that'll help you and ask the questions.”

She says that kind of expert advice is one of the biggest benefits of the partnership with JPMorgan Chase. She shares a story of an event where a music industry executive took out his Chase credit that he first got in college and talked about the importance of that moment. “And I thought that was very interesting and kind of shows the impact that finances and this financial education and our financial journeys have on us,” Rocky explains. “And even later in life, regardless of the level of our success, we don't forget when we were given credit, when we were given those initial opportunities and learned how to navigate that ourselves.”

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of Sept 22nd, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Full transcript here

Founder’s Feature: April Holmes Sep 14, 2023

In this Founder’s Feature of the Women on the Move podcast, host Sam Saperstein introduces April Holmes, co-founder and CEO of Hero Hangout, and a Paralympic gold medalist. April shares her inspiring journey of developing Hero Hangout, which was born out of her experiences as a professional track and field athlete.

During her athletic career, April noticed that parents often wished their kids could interact with athletes like her, seeking guidance on various topics. This sparked the idea of creating a platform where kids could connect with their favorite athletes, entertainers, musicians, and more to ask questions and gain valuable insights.

While April's entrepreneurial journey comes with its challenges, particularly navigating the tech space and creating a roadmap for the app's growth, her mental toughness, resilience, and experience as an athlete have equipped her to overcome obstacles.

Listeners are encouraged to support Hero Hangout in any way they can, as April believes that community support and help from others will be critical to achieving the platform's mission of making the world a better place for kids. To learn more, visit hero hangout.io

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JP Morgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of September 14th, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Full transcript here

J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Kramer and Leadout Capital’s Ali Rosenthal on their mission to get more funding to women and other diverse founders Sep 07, 2023

In this episode of the Women on the Move Podcast, host Sam Saperstein is joined by Jamie Kramer, head of the Alternative Solutions Group for J.P. Morgan Asset Management, and Ali Rosenthal, founder and managing partner of Leadout Capital. Jamie and Ali connected after Jamie's team invested in Ali's Venture Capital fund. Here they discuss their career journeys and why they both believe asset management is a great career for women.

The story behind Project Spark

In more than 30 years at J.P. Morgan, Jamie’s career has spanned both Asset and Wealth Management, with roles across public and private investments. Five years ago, she was named head of Alternative Solutions at the firm, where she’s responsible for insights, analytics, and cross alternatives investment solutions. She’s also the CEO of Global Hedge Fund and Alternative Credit Solutions business.

Jamie recalls when she met a woman who was struggling to raise funds for her own venture fund in 2020. “I couldn't really understand why she wasn't as successful raising these assets,” she says. “And so I approached our CEO and asked on behalf of Asset Management if we could give her some capital.”

That initial investment led to the creation of Project Spark, an effort aimed at providing capital to funds managed by diverse, emerging alternative managers, including minority-led and women-led venture capital funds and other private funds. “I'm really excited that the 33 managers that we've invested in and the $140 million has helped accelerate well over a billion in fundraising,” Jamie says. “And Ali is one of those managers.”

Leadout Capital

After a stint as a professional women’s cyclist, Ali began her career in operating roles at consumer technology businesses (she was an early employee at Facebook) and in investment banking as both an angel investor and an institutional investor. “I got Leadout going because I saw a gap in the market with respect to who got access to capital,” she tells Sam and Jamie. “I believe today the numbers are still that fewer than 3 percent of companies are invested in by the venture capital community. And I thought that was really compelling.”

Leadout’s focus has been on women, underrepresented minorities, and people who according to data are less likely to receive venture capital funding. As Ali says, these are founders who “had great ideas, great momentum, but oftentimes were overlooked because they didn't fit pattern recognition. And so I wanted to use my platform, my network, my experience to back them and to connect them via bridge for them to other sources of capital, not only monetary capital but network capital and social capital and people and experts who could really help them go from zero to one.”

“We really pursue what we call a founder market fit–driven thesis,” Ali says. “So we look for founders who themselves are customer segment experts, people who have lived a problem in a market that they know well either because they care enough about that market to embed with the customer, become a customer themselves, really understand the pain point that a customer is having and solve it with software.”

“A great career for women”

Ali and Jamie agree that asset management can be a great career fit for women. Jamie notes that the field is both relationship-driven and problem-solving oriented, two skills that women tend to excel at. It affords good life balance, she says, with relatively predictable hours. And she cites research that shows that although there aren't enough women in asset management, they tend to be successful in the field. In addition, it offers an opportunity for women to do well financially which in turn allows them to give back, which research shows women gravitate toward.

“And something that Ali said, which is that asset management is not transactional,” she adds. “It's extremely relationship driven. No matter what aspect you're in, you are managing money as a fiduciary on behalf of someone helping corporations meet their goals. You're helping individuals retire.”

Full transcript here

Founder’s Feature: Jennie Nwokoye, Founder of Clafiya , Techstars DC 2022 Aug 24, 2023

In this Founder’s Feature, Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein interviews Jennie Nwokoye, founder of Clafiya, a company with a mission to increase access to primary healthcare for communities in Nigeria and beyond. Jenny shares her journey as an entrepreneur and how her personal experiences motivated her to create a community-based approach to healthcare in Africa.

Jenny reflects on her own upbringing, moving from the United States to Nigeria and experiencing the challenges of accessing healthcare firsthand. She explains how her father's entrepreneurial spirit inspired her to become an entrepreneur, emphasizing the resilience and persistence required to succeed in this field.

She also shares how through the Techstars Founder Catalyst program, she learned to refine her storytelling skills, leading to success in raising funds for Clafiya. She shares valuable tips for other entrepreneurs, focusing on maintaining good health and well-being, leveraging storytelling to connect with investors, and not hesitating to seek help and support from their network.

Her passion for her mission shines through, and our listeners are encouraged to visit clafiya.com to learn more about the company's impactful work.

Full transcript here

Foreign Policy Magazine VP Diana Marrero talks her Hispanic heritage and lifelong love of politics and news Aug 17, 2023

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Women on the Move Host Sam Saperstein got the chance to sit down with Diana Marrero, Vice President of Strategic Development for Foreign Policy Magazine. Diana talked about her Cuban-American background and how that influenced her career journey, and she discussed her work at the magazine around educating readers on the geopolitical landscape and expanding the offerings across channels.

From Miami to Davos (via Capitol Hill)

Born in Cuba but raised in Hialeah—a Miami suburb with the highest Cuban-American population of any U.S. city—Diana says it was hard to not to be interested in geopolitics and politics. Her father had been a political prisoner in Cuba before she was born. “There's a very personal relationship with Cuba and politics and really understanding what the breakdown of democracy can do to communities and to populations,” she tells Sam.

She gravitated to journalism early, serving as editor-in-chief of her college newspaper as well as working for the Miami Herald before graduating. She headed to Washington, D.C., as a congressional reporter in the mid-2000s, just as newspapers were experiencing a sharp decline in revenue. “I was starting to feel those declines as a daily news reporter and looking around and thinking, This is the industry that I love. What can I do and how do I make an impact?" she recalls. She ended up getting an MBA at Georgetown with a goal of “saving journalism” by finding new revenue models.

Spotlight on the Hispanic community

Diana says she’s always taken pride in her Hispanic background and heritage, and while in D.C. she launched and directed The Hill Latino with the aim of covering the issues that are important to the Hispanic community.

“One in five Americans right now are Hispanic,” she notes. “It’s important to really understand the issues that they're grappling with, to cover these trends and shifts in the population and what it means for politics, what it means for the economy, for businesses. It was so gratifying and validating to the U.S. Hispanic community to have a publication that covered Congress and that covered the highest forms of leadership and political debate in the country, and to have that publication say Hispanics matter so much that we are going to devote resources specifically to covering them.”

Today, she says, The Hill Latino lead reporter Rafael Bernal is “doing incredible work.” She’s proud of how the outlet originally put a spotlight on the Hispanic community for politicians who weren't Hispanic and weren't necessarily thinking about the Hispanic community in such a nuanced way, and she’s thrilled that the work continues today. “You might see a lot of members of Congress who equate being Hispanic and thinking about Hispanic issues with immigration and that's it. And so thinking about what the community is interested in, how to serve the community better, I'm really proud of the impact that we've had,” she tells Sam.

Foreign Policy Magazine

Diana made the move to Foreign Policy Magazine in 2018. Today, she serves as Senior Vice President for Strategic Partnerships, and leads a team working with partners from both the private and public sector on a range of projects. “We work with a huge variety of partners on topics from healthcare to technology to gender equality, so it's a really varied group of topics and partners,” she says. “From events at Davos and other major global convenings to really very cool podcasts, but also research and analytics.”

Foreign Policy Magazine has been in circulation for 50 years. “So it's a very well-established, reputable magazine that covers global affairs and geopolitics,” Diana notes. “Our mission really is to explain the world to our readers, to bring the world to them, to really go a lot deeper than the typical headlines that you'll see in most major news organizations.”

Today, she says, the magazine is much more than a news outlet. “We've really diversified our offerings to be a multi-component multimedia publication, really leaning into digital media, but also convenings, bringing people together, bringing the world's foremost experts and leaders together to have really important conversations about what's happening in the world and bringing all of those assets that we have at our disposal together, so leveraging our analytics department and our podcast studios and the journalists that do incredible reporting day in and day out.”

You can check out the magazine’s podcast, HERO: The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, here: https://foreignpolicy.com/podcasts/hidden-economics-of-remarkable-women-hero/

Transcript here

Founder’s Feature: Marnee Goodroad, Founder of ReBLDing Aug 10, 2023

In this exciting new episode of the Women on the Move Podcast, hosted by Sam Saperstein, listeners are introduced to the new "Founder’s Feature" segment. This biweekly addition showcases founders who participated in the Techstars Founder Catalyst program. These inspiring short episodes shed light on entrepreneurs refining their business models, perfecting their pitches, and building networks to take their ventures to the next level.

The spotlight of this episode falls on Marnee Goodroad, the founder of ReBLDing, a company dedicated to supporting homeowners, contractors, and insurance companies working to rebuild homes after catastrophic events. Marnee aims to streamline the process of restoration and repairs, benefiting all parties involved and addressing the challenges faced by the industry. She describes her ambitions to help as many people as possible, making the rebuilding process easier and more transparent for homeowners and contractors alike.

Throughout the conversation, Marnee discusses the challenges she has encountered as a small business owner and the importance of perseverance. She also expresses gratitude for the Techstars Founder Catalyst program, which empowered her and provided invaluable mentorship, helping her secure a place in the Global Insurance Accelerator.

To learn more about ReBLDing and its innovative approach to rebuilding communities after disasters, visit reblding.com.

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JP Morgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of August 10th, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Full transcript here

Ceci Kurzman on her journey from music industry executive to board member to haircare changemaker Aug 03, 2023

Ceci Kurzman, board director, investor, and entrepreneur is on a mission to change the haircare industry to better meet the needs of multicultural consumers. In this episode, she sits down with Women on the Move Podcast Host Sam Saperstein and shares insights on her life as a senior executive in the music industry, her extensive corporate board experience, and the launch of her businesses, Nexus Management Group and OurX.

From executive to founder

After years of experience as a music industry executive, Ceci founded Nexus Management Group in 2004, initially as a talent management company. “My first client was Shakira,” she tells Sam. “I had just left Sony Music where I'd been an executive for many years. I really felt like it was time to do something sort of entrepreneurial in the business. There were no women managing artists and no female-led management companies at the time that I could identify.”

Ceci says she originally formed Nexus to handle talent, but what she identified as her point of differentiation was to ensure that artists had second acts. “Most artists like athletes and other cultural icons, they have these very, very bright careers that reach a peak and then eventually have the slide in their career due to natural organic relevance erosion,” she explains. “There are very few artists in that career class who are at their apex throughout their entire lives. The idea was how do you maintain the earning potential for that artist once they're no longer at their peak in terms of cultural relevance?”

Over time, Ceci navigated Nexus to become more of an investment firm. She says it was a combination of changes in her personal life—having children and wanting be at home more and working less around-the-clock as talent management requires—along with an increasing interest in the investments side of her business. “It felt like a very natural thing,” she says. “And it was very stimulating intellectually and in terms of building a network of people beyond the entertainment industry.”

A natural shift to board directorships

Beginning to serve on boards was a natural next step for Ceci. “Having worked with a lot of these management teams and investors over time, the natural evolution was being asked to serve on various boards, and it was a continuation of the learning and career and professional evolution to be honored to be asked to serve on some of these boards,” she tells Sam.

For several years, when she started serving boards, she says she stayed away from entertainment companies because it felt important to step away from that industry in order to gain perspective in the long run. “I only came back into Warner Music and UTA [United Talent Agency] relatively recently in the past few years because I did want to specifically explore industries that might have been tangential to but not squarely aligned with the entertainment and media business,” she says.

Meanwhile, she served on boards of beauty-related companies including Revlon and Johnson Publishing. She says it was there that she started looking at the unique needs of multicultural beauty. She soon found herself intent on identifying who exactly the multicultural consumer is, and where they've been underserved. She says the last bastion of segregation she identified in the beauty business was haircare: “While all these business model innovations had [thrived], none of that had reached the multicultural haircare world.”

Haircare entrepreneur

Based on her experience on boards like Revlon, when Ceci decided to enter the haircare business as an entrepreneur, she started by diving into market research of the multicultural consumer. She founded OurX with the mission of merging technology with the needs of the textured hair community. She says it was the research-driven approach that helped her stand out. She describes OurX as less of a product company and more of a Noom for textured hair. “It's a personalized system that takes an individual's data and creates a customized plan for them and shapes it through product and one-to-one coaching and a personalized content feed that stays sort of with you day in, day out,” she says.

Ceci’s long-term goal is to be able to open more access to investment for entrepreneurs who want to serve multicultural consumers. “I would actually love to challenge the beauty industry to fold those categories and move everybody into what is universally a general market so that there is this value exchange,” she explains. “And I think it's happened in all the other categories—this is sort of the last one, and I think [the industry] needs to see this category and this consumer differently.”

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JP Morgan Chase & Co and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of August 3rd, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Full transcript here

Lessons on authenticity and mental toughness, with Chicago Bulls sports psychologist Dr. Wendy Borlabi Jul 27, 2023

In this episode, Women on the Move Podcast Host Sam Saperstein sits down with Dr. Wendy Borlabi, Director of Mental Performance and Health for the Chicago Bulls. Wendy discusses the personal philosophy and authenticity she draws on to support athletes, young women, and even herself to help optimize performance and become mentally tough. The pair also discuss Wendy’s commitment to bringing other women along in the sports psychology field, and how she strives to be a role model in success and failure for both her own kids.

Commitment to authenticity

Wendy followed her own authenticity to her current role with the Bulls. After earning her undergrad degree in psychology, she worked as a psychologist for several years in Oklahoma, helping support adults with depression and schizophrenia. Being an athlete herself (she had once aspired to play in the WNBA) and remembering a conference on sports psychology that she had attended earlier with a friend, she started thinking about moving into that area.

She soon started the master’s program in sports psychology at Georgia Southern, and describes a pivotal moment in her life: her advisor warned her that the sports psychology field was full of men who may not be welcoming to a woman of color. “He wanted to prepare me that this was not gonna be an easy thing,” she tells Sam. At first, she says, she was upset by his message, but she soon had a realization: “I needed to be me authentically. I couldn't change who I was in order to get a position.”

Since then, she says, being true to herself has served her well. “I just remember my first year so much,” she recalls to Sam. “I just got to see when I was myself, my goofy regular self, they gravitated to me. And when I tried to be somebody else, it didn't work again. I don’t know if I would've thought of that if he wouldn't have said that to me.”

Commitment to other women

In her role with the Bulls, Wendy works with players, coaches, trainers, and “anybody in basketball operations” to help them perform better mentally. “If you think about a strength and conditioning coach or a nutritionist or a physical therapist, they get you back in different pieces of your body to help you perform,” she describes. “And what I do is on the brain, to help you be able to tackle some of those things that can possibly prevent you from performing your best at your job.”

But, she says, there aren’t a lot of women in the sports psychology field and it can be a difficult space for women to maneuver in. She hopes to see a big increase in the number of women across the entire male-dominated sports industry: bringing other women along, who in turn inspire more women is a personal goal.

To that end, Wendy founded a nonprofit called Wisdom Knot, which is dedicated to educating disadvantaged youth about careers in sports other than being an athlete. The more women that girls see doing these jobs, the more girls will be inspired, she says. But she also notes it’s just as important that men in the field are welcoming to women and make active statements like “A woman could do this job.”

In addition to the nonprofit, Wendy also founded Borlabi Consulting, focused specifically on women in sports psychology. Recognizing that there aren’t a lot of avenues into the field of sports psychology, she wanted to spread the word and provide more opportunities for women. She hires interns who get experience working with an NBA team or another institution, but also learn directly from Wendy about being a sports psychologist. The foundation also provides a platform for Wendy to do podcasts, presentations, and other outreach.

Wendy has a message for listeners working toward their own goals, which comes from a John Gordon Book called How to Be a Coffee Bean. “It talks about the fact that if you take hot water and you put an egg in it, that the egg becomes hard and you don't want to be a hard person to work with or deal with. If you put a carrot in the hot water, it becomes mushy and you don't want to be that person either. However, if you put a coffee bean in the hot water, what happens? They come together, they work together, they develop something magical: coffee. So I want you to be a coffee bean. I want you to come together with the things in your life and develop something magical. And that can be anything in your corner of the world.”

Full transcript here

The Atlantic’s Alice McKown talks her 20+ years in magazines and lessons on leadership success Jul 20, 2023

As Publisher and Chief Revenue Officer at The Atlantic, Alice McKown is always on the lookout for new ways to work with clients and deliver the magazine’s brand. “What's unique about The Atlantic is that we are known for our influence on the cutting edge of conversation,” she says.

In this episode of Women on the Move, Alice sits down with host Sam Saperstein while at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The two discuss Alice’s two-plus decades in the magazine business, and how having a solid support system has helped her navigate change.

From coast to coast in the magazine world

At The Atlantic, Alice oversees all commercial revenue and partnerships related to the magazine, events, website, social media, mobile channels, and the branded content agency, as well as the brand’s new film and TV business. She tells Sam that it was her 20 years of magazine experience under the Conde Nast umbrella that prepared her for her current role.

“I got incredibly lucky,” she recalls. “I moved to San Francisco after college. It was the internet heyday. I had some friends who worked at Wired magazine, who had just gotten bought by Conde Nast, and I jumped into the magazine business. I jumped into a marketing role and really grew at Wired. It was at a time when there was tremendous growth with the internet exploding, and we were just an ideas machine and we launched some amazing things.”

She eventually made the move to New York, where she worked on other Conde Nast products such Vogue, GQ, and Vanity Fair. “And what was incredible is I was there for 20 years, but I had so many unique different opportunities and different bosses,” she tells Sam. “I jumped from marketing into digital operations into sales. And I think that was a big moment for me, was sort of moving from marketing into sales.”

She says she’d always thought of herself as a marketer, as someone creative, until a friend suggested she think about sales. “And I was like, I don't know clients, I don't know how to sell,” she recalls. “And they're like, you're creative, you've got big ideas, don't worry. That's what the clients want to hear. So I jumped into being an associate publisher and managed a very senior sales team and I was terrified. But then I realized as you started having these conversations around partnerships, it really was about solving people's problems, big ideas, what could you do together creatively?”

Leveraging teamwork and a support network

Alice says she realized early in her career that people work best when they work together and allow their skills to complement each other. Another key lesson? Letting her team members shine. The best salespeople, she says, are like “heat-seeking missiles.” When something works for them, they keep coming back to it. “And so that's how I found both my relationships with them, and [with] their clients,” she tells Sam. “It's like, Working with Alice is really working for me and my business. And so I didn't come at it as, I'm your boss. I came at it as, Let's figure out how you do you and I do me and one plus one is three.”

Coming to The Atlantic to head up a new team—many of whom had been working together for a long time—was a challenge that Alice says she was prepared for. “It's tricky and I think you want to kind of listen and hear, but you also want to remember what you know and what you know that works, right?” she says. “And so I think some of it is thinking about who are the people within the organization that I know will get on board with how I'm thinking, right? And really lean into those folks, have them help you kind of spread that change too.”

During her earlier career moves, Alice says she learned to make sure she had one or two people with her who knew her well. “Whether that was a boss or a colleague, but knowing that I could show up in a new place [and] I knew I had a person or two that knew me, knew what I was capable of,” she says.

As far as the future, Allice says she continues to be inspired by the work she does and is excited about managing and motivating a great team: “I am so excited about the year ahead and how we can work with our partners, how we can make The Atlantic brand stand out even more in new and surprising ways.”

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of July 20th, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Full transcript here

The keys to owning your own journey and leadership success with longtime CEO and C-suite advisor Sabrina Horn Jul 13, 2023

Sabrina Horn believes that we’re all the director and lead actor in our own movie—and therefore we control our destiny. “You have one life to live and it's yours,” she says. “You have to push every day. You have to fight, and when you get shot down, you have to get up the next day and try it again.”

In this episode, the longtime CEO, C-suite advisor, professor and bestselling author sits down with Women on the Move Podcast Host Sam Saperstein to discuss this philosophy and her own career journey. Sabrina founded a PR company in the tech industry in 1991 when she was just 29—and she ran it for 24 years before selling it. At that point, she made a decision: “I decided that rather than doing public relations for companies and putting companies on the map, I wanted to switch to really helping individuals like CEOs and founders, entrepreneurs, students as well, people who run teams in corporations, individuals who want to become leaders and help give them the tools to get over certain challenges that they have,” she tells Sam.

Starting out as a 29-year-old female CEO in 1991 was a bold move, and Sabrina says one of the reasons for her success was the fearlessness that people have in their 20s. “I would say 98 percent of the executives I worked with were almost twice my age, and they were all male,” she recalls. “I felt like as long as I've done my homework and I'm really intelligent about the advice I'm giving them, there's no reason to be worried about my gender, and if they don't want to work with me because I'm a woman, then there's plenty of other fish in the sea to work with.”

PR as strategy

Sabrina says a common misperception about public relations work is that it’s all about the message and the hype. “It was never just about putting out press releases,” she clarifies. “It was about helping them think through what those strategies might be, what move are you making today in anticipation of this move you're going to make tomorrow and the day after tomorrow so that it's strategic, it's a plan. It can't just be tactical.”

In terms of helping companies grow strategically, Sabrina says being authentic and not being intimidated or backing down is important for leadership: “This is where standing true to what you believe, if you really have done your homework and you really have done your research and you know in your heart that the direction that they're going in is not going to help them, I would always say, Look, you can do that. You can do whatever you want. But I'm here. You ask me to come here to give you my advice. So if you go down this path, here's what can happen and if you go down this other path, here's what can happen here.”

Why “Fake it ‘til you make it” is the worst business advice

On the surface, she says, there’s nothing wrong with this common adage. “If you are doing cognitive behavioral therapy to practice certain behaviors that you wish you could exude, like more confidence, and you practice that and you visualize what that might look like or you wear a certain color to a meeting because it makes you feel more confident or as Amy Cuddy did over a decade now ago in a TED talk about power posing where you stretch your arms out, that was how fake it till you make it got started and it's okay because you're just helping yourself,” she says. “It’s self-help.”

The problem with the phrase, she says, is that it’s mutated over the years to become an excuse to lie and exaggerate the truth at the expense of others for personal good. “It was like an excuse for bad leadership,” she tells Sam. “But the problem is that the truth always comes out. The investor will do her due diligence, the customer will use the product and it won't work as prescribed. Then you expose yourself, you set yourself back, you embarrass yourself and your team. You ruin your credibility.”

Rather than go down that dangerous route, Sabrina encourages people to be authentic at every turn. “It’s about looking at yourself in the mirror every day and saying, this is what I stand for,” she says. “These are my values. This is what my company stands for. This is what we don't stand for, and committing every day to that. And surrounding yourself with people who will call you on that when you don't stay true to that.”

Full transcript here

Prepping women executives for the Boardroom with founder and CEO Diana Markaki Jul 06, 2023

Diana Markaki spent 22 years in a successful corporate career before founding the Boardroom, an organization dedicated to preparing women who aspire to be board members. Here she sits down with Women on the Move Podcast Host Sam Saperstein to discuss how she built a rigorous approach for helping executive women get on boards.

Diana grew up with what she calls a strong sense of justice and a desire to address the big problems of the world. She left her native Greece for New York as a 21-year-old and began a career as an international lawyer. It was when she received her first public board appointment, at 36, that the idea for the Boardroom started simmering. “I was the only woman on the board, by far the youngest,” she tells Sam. “And obviously the last thing I wanted was for my older male peers to challenge my credentials. I wanted to be the best board member anyone had ever met. So immediately, I started looking at the different things that I had to do in order to be a successful board member, then I built a solution for myself.”

As an MBA student at Harvard Business School at the time, she got the opportunity to put that solution into an actual business case, and she quickly realized that many women had the same problem she had. She decided to share the solution with the world, and the Boardroom was born.

Four pillars

Diana formally founded the Boardroom in Switzerland in 2021, as the world’s first private club for women executives who aspire to be board members. It’s an in-person focused organization, with a villa in the center of Zurich which members go to daily. “We developed what we call the holistic approach to board readiness, in the sense that we identified everything that an executive needs for the next step in our career, then we brought everything together in a one-stop shop approach,” she tells Sam.

The Boardroom has four organizing pillars. The first pillar is executive education for aspiring board members, for which they developed a proprietary five-module curriculum based on extensive market research. The second pillar is called the inner circle program, which is a combination of leadership development and peer learning. The third pillar is strategic networking, and the fourth is what Diana calls “the inspiration, the role models, and the representation in the sense that you cannot be what you cannot see.”

Disrupting the “boys’ club” culture in the workplace

Although the Boardroom is for women, Diana stresses that she was very intentional about including men, since they dominate the corporate board space and lead many board appointments. “You go through these informal networks that are dominated by men. Someone is a guy that knows a guy that played golf together, were in the Army together, and that's how it goes. That's why we bring the male supporters.”

The men recruited by the Boardroom are senior level executives who support senior female talent retention and board diversity. Diana notes that they don’t do coaching or mentoring “because we believe that our women are just as good and qualified as the men.”

Instead, the men who are supporters commit to bringing more women on their executive committees and boards. “When they have an opening and they want to affiliate with an amazing executive, then immediately they tap into the community of the boardroom and then we make nominations and referrals to make sure that we place the right people in the right positions,” she explains.

Future growth

Since its birth in Zurich at the beginning of the pandemic, the Boardroom has expanded to Athens, London, Paris, and Brussels, with plans for six more European sites next year. And while for now, the organization is focused on enrolling women who are already senior level executives, in the future Diana says they plan to expand their membership. “Once we create the critical mass that's needed at the board level, these women together with the support of the boardroom structure are going to build the pipeline and then we go to the next generation of leaders that will be able to join boards,” she tells Sam. “But it is time critical to create that critical mass, and that's why we focus only to very senior women executives that are determined to put in the time and effort to become a successful board member.”

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JPMorgan Chase & Co and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of July 6th, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Full transcript here

Why trust and representation matter in journalism, with Axios Editor in Chief Sara Kehaulani Goo Jun 29, 2023

Continuing her conversations with global leaders at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein sits down with Sara Kehaulani Goo, Editor in Chief of Axios. They discuss the organization’s newsletter approach to expand into more local markets—and how Sarah is committed to Axios reporters understanding their community and building trust with readers across the political spectrum.

With a background in reporting, Sara says she moved her way across the country working at local newspapers, eventually landing at the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post before moving to Axios a few years ago. “I loved being a reporter,” she tells Sam. “I loved breaking news, and over time I realized that there was an opportunity for me to shape the news in a bigger way at a time when our digital forces were changing how people consume news.”

News that is trusted, and locally responsive

Sara says that the premise at Axios is that while people increasingly don’t have time to read the news, they still want to be informed about the news. “So we came up with something called Smart Brevity,” she says. “It really distills the news to the most important essential elements of what you need to know, why it matters.” Axios uses a newsletter format to deliver brief summaries—written by experienced journalists—on major news topics. Readers can get what they need to know from the newsletter, and they can visit the website for deeper dives.

Earning readers’ trust is a key goal at Axios. “We know that people really need information, but we're operating at a time when people don't have a lot of trust,” Sara says. “They don't have trust in a lot of institutions, but in news it's become very polarized. So what we've tried to do is really be transparent with our audience and say [that] we are going to be clinical in our reporting and facts and delivery, and be not right or left. We don't have an opinion page. We want to attract an audience of all political stripes, of all backgrounds and interests, and give you the news that's essential for you to feel like you've got what you need.”

In addition to the trust gap, Sara says there is a growing gap in local news coverage—and filling that void is one of her top goals for the year. “There is an opportunity to rebuild trust,” she tells Sam. “So it's not just politics, but what's going on in my community, how do I understand the issues that I'm going to be voting on?”

To that end, Sara says Axios has expanded the newsletter approach and hired local journalists in 26 different cities to do targeted newsletters. “The goal there is to figure out both the business model and the journalism model to make sure that we become an essential trusted source of news,” she adds.

Representation matters

One key to earning readers’ trust is making sure that Axios staff are reflective of those readers. Sara says she’s committed to ensuring that women, people of color, LGBTQ+, and other historically underrepresented people have a spot at the table. “When I was first entering the news business, there weren't very many women at the top of the newspaper,” she recalls. “And why that matters is because that's who makes decision on what you cover.”

“I think it is making sure that we have journalists and editors who can cover the story with real authenticity and experience in relatability,” she says. “And the topics that they're covering matters. So immigration for example, or wage gap issues. And if they don't know, they have to be comfortable asking and getting out of their comfort zone. I mean, that's the essence of every reporter. So to me, I think about: it’s issues around race, it's issues around gender, LGBTQ, when you have issues come up around anti-trans hate or harassment going on, we have to have people on staff who can speak to that.”

Keeping with this year’s focus on the theme of ambition, Sara tells Sam that she feels like she’s always been ambitious, and for her, that’s gone hand-in-hand with a natural curiosity. “What's great about that is that it's really an unending curiosity,” she explains. “So how do you get the story? What's happening next? How do I get the interview? How can I tell the world first about what's happening, how I help them understand the story to then how do we run this newsroom in a different way? To me, those are all fun versions of the same curiosity. So I think I just love the challenge of it. It's not just a job. Journalism is essential to this country, to how we live to our lives, and I feel very responsible for that.”

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of June 29th , 2023 and they may not materialize.

Full transcript here

One hard conversation at a time: Impacting change and leadership with Author Ash Beckham Jun 22, 2023

Ash Beckham wants us all to have the hard conversations. The speaker, advocate, and author of Step Up: How to Live with Courage and Become an Everyday Leader sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss how she found her own voice as a speaker and a leader, and the qualities she believes everyone can tap into to grow their own leadership style.

Ash’s journey to advocacy started when her sister and friends began having children and Ash was thinking about how her LGBTQ identity might present challenges for them. “I knew I wanted to give those kids the tools and not bear the responsibility of having to advocate on my behalf,” she recalls. “So I did an Ignite talk which led to a TED talk and then all of a sudden the ball was rolling.” Her TED Talk, Coming out of the Closet, went viral. Her message was more than advice about coming out. She emphasized a universal truth that resonated with many: growth is possible when we commit to having those hard conversations.

She tells Sam that going on that journey of opening up via the TED Talk allowed her to have an understanding of finding the commonalities among people. “Empathy is so key in that our ability to connect is based on our ability to relate,” she says. “And I think we can get into the nitty gritty of the more difficult parts of the conversation if we start from a place of trust and really establish that from the beginning.”

Growing into the expert role

Once her talk went viral, Ash says her world started changing quickly. She experienced some imposter syndrome as media outlets started asking for her take on various issues. Coming to terms with the fact that she really could be an “expert” was a growth step. “Of course we are the expert in our own lives and I think a lot of us, especially when we step into leadership, we really downplay the impact of that,” she says.

“So I went through a phase where it was kind of like an aw shucks, who me?” she recalls. “And then all of a sudden there was this expectation of, okay, Where are you in the DEI space? What are your positions on intersectionality?” She soon learned to claim her expertise, and in doing that she says she made herself vulnerable, and, by extension, authentic—something she encourages everyone, and especially leaders, to do.

Continuing the conversation

In change-making, Ash emphasizes that winning someone over to your side is not the goal—the goal is to keep the conversation open so that people have room to grow and evolve. She uses a story to illustrate. A 15-year-old transgender teen was meeting with a state senator to talk about trans rights. The teen was nervous until a fellow advocate gave this advice: “You don't have to get him to change his mind, you just have to get him to question the certainty of his position slightly. That's all you have to do, and then all of a sudden you’re relationship building.”

As long as we’re continuing the conversation, she tells Sam, we’re making progress. And by being authentic and speaking our truth from a place of compassion or empathy, we’re leaving the door ajar for understanding and change. “Some things that people say, you can treat like they have broccoli in their teeth after a meeting,” she says. “You [can say], ‘I know what you really meant but this is kind of how it sounded. I thought you'd want to know. And if you want to talk about it, let me know.’” When you can broach difficult topics in a respectful way, you’re on the path to impacting real change.

Impacting leaders

In Ash’s book Step Up, she applies this concept to leadership: effective leaders, she says, need to have qualities such as empathy, courage, and grace. And they need to be flexible enough to be able to know when it’s time to employ which trait. “So to me it's kind of like a recipe or a tool belt,” she tells Sam. A good leader, she notes, needs to be able to quickly calculate when it’s time to lead with courage, or when it’s time to step back and lead with empathy.

“When we're stepping into that leadership role [we’re] creating a space where there is no fear of repercussion or judgment,” she says. “A place where people are not afraid. . . . You’re creating a space by being authentic and being vulnerable so that other people can do the same. And to me, that's the first step to leadership.”

Full Transcript here

UN Women Director Anita Bhatia on why public-private partnerships—and the allyship of men—are needed to solve gender inequality Jun 15, 2023

From the World Economic Forum in Davos, this episode of Women on the Move Podcast features Anita Bhatia, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women. She shares the mission of UN Women with host Sam Saperstein, and they discuss the importance of public-private partnerships in the journey to gender equity. Anita also describes her personal commitment to educating women and how education influenced her own trajectory in life.

Small agency with a big mission

Founded just 11 years ago by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN Women is the newest agency in the UN system. Anita recalls sitting next to the Secretary-General at dinner one evening as he shared his first perception upon getting to the UN and realizing there were agencies dealing with children, hunger, trade - but nothing that was focused on solving one of the greatest problems in the world: gender inequality. “So he set up UN Women,” Anita tells Sam.

“We're a small agency, but I like to think that we punch above our weight, and my role is really a partnerships role,” Anita says. “It's a resource mobilization role, but it's also partnering both within the UN system and outside the UN system.” Anita says her focus is on making sure her team is growing UN Women's impact on solving for gender inequality by partnering with others “because we're too small and this problem is too big for us to do it alone.”

Anita says the goals of UN Women include women's economic empowerment, ending violence toward women, and increasing leadership representation. One critical factor is driving more finance toward the mission. “Public finance and private finance because without proper resourcing, we're never going to be able to change the state of the world,” she notes.

Anita says she learned about the importance of the public-private partnership approach during her time with the International Finance Corporation, the private sector branch of the World Bank Group. “Working in IFC, you understand something very fundamentally, which is that it's possible to do financially well while doing social good,” she says. “The other thing you understand when you work at the World Bank Group is the important role of the private sector in business in solving for development problems because governments just don't have enough money or bandwidth to do this.”

Personal commitment to educating women

But Anita says she brings more than her professional background to her role at UN Women. “I think the thing that gets me going is the idea of a girl getting educated,” she says. “It's because education has been so fundamental in my own life. I really do believe the research that education is the single biggest lever for development. When I think about a girl going to school, that inspires me, and I also do think about women who are victims of violence and about the need for the world to just do a hell of a lot more on that issue.”

Anita grew up in Kolkata, India, with a mother who she describes as a very progressive teacher who believed firmly in education. Anita was just 18 when her mother died, but before that, her mother had asked Anita’s father to make sure their daughters were educated and not married early as many young women in India were. “So my dad was a very strong feminist actually,” she tells Sam. “He kept his promise. He made sure the girls were educated.” After college, Anita told her father she wanted to go to the United States for graduate school. And while many Indian fathers kept their daughters near to help take care of them, he urged Anita to accept her scholarship to Yale.

Today, Anita calls on men to follow in the footsteps of her own feminist father. That’s because another key part of UN Women’s mission is male allyship. “We work with women and girls, but what's becoming even more important in our work is working with men and boys because this is a problem that is not a woman's problem, it's a whole of society, whole of government problem,” she says.

“I don't want men to be bystanders,” she adds. “Men need to call out bad male behaviors and toxic masculinity when they see it. And so in Davos, I've made a call to action to men and said, ‘You need to acknowledge that you guys actually still hold the power. You need to challenge negative masculinities and you need to share space. When you are on an all-male panel, it shouldn't be the women who are saying, Hey, we're not there. It should be the men saying, Where are the women?’”

Full transcript here .

Author and Professor Elizabeth Lieba on empowering Black women in the workplace Jun 08, 2023

Elizabeth Lieba is on a mission to help Black women feel supported and heard. Here, the writer, college professor, and advocate for Black businesswomen joins Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her journey to understand the important historical context of race in America.

“Why are black women feeling this way?”

Elizabeth believes that the most important job for leaders is to develop their people, and she says really listening to Black women's needs is a critical part of that. She’s had a career as an educator and an advocate, and has recently released a book called I'm Not Yelling: A Black Woman's Guide to Navigating the Workplace, which provides strategies for savvy Black businesswomen navigating a predominantly white corporate America. She says one of her goals in writing the book was to empower Black women and to give them a sense of context about why they were feeling what they were feeling, and to validate those feelings.

“We've seen lately in the news that Black women are exiting corporate spaces in record numbers,” she tells Sam. “Black women are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, tired. There's a sense of a mental health crisis that has been happening. And I think it wasn't really brought to the surface until Covid 19, and a lot of Black women were obviously in the workplace and then working from home and having to juggle and balance all of those responsibilities. And I think there was a collective sense of What is happening? Why do I feel this way?”

Elizabeth says she’d already been vocal on LinkedIn about social justice and racial inequity, thinking and speaking about police brutality and racial profiling, so she felt it was the time to pivot into her identity as a Black woman and focus on issues like why all the Black women she knew had such a visceral reaction to seeing George Floyd murdered. Additionally, she said she heard over and over from Black women in every space that they did not feel like they belonged in the spaces that they were in.

“And that's literally why I started to write the book,” she says. “I wanted to advocate for Black women, and I knew that social justice and racial equity was important, but I felt like as a Black woman, I also had a responsibility to find out why I was feeling this way.”

Challenging the constructs

Another goal Elizabeth shares about writing her book was to emphasize to Black women that their authentic selves are already enough. “Because obviously if there's a problem, and Black women are exiting the workplace in record numbers, Black women are not waiting for these places to become more equitable,” she notes. “They're saying, you know what, I don't have time or space to wait for you to figure this out.”

She shares that across demographics, Black women have seen the biggest increase in leaving traditional employment and starting their own businesses—only to run into the challenge that very little venture capital funding is going to women or Black people. “They didn't really have the resources to start businesses, and they were even more stressed out because they're exiting these [traditional employment] spaces,” she says. “But then finding the same struggles with just trying to create a living outside of those spaces.”

In her book she provides the historical context for why Black women often feel like imposters in the workplace—or, even more commonly, feel that they are constantly code switching between their work and personal lives. “When you're going into a space and now you're second guessing yourself because somebody said you don't belong there, of course you're gonna have lack of confidence,” she says. “But you didn’t just hop off the bus and walk in. Someone had to invite you there. We have education, we have experience, someone has hired us, why are we being pathologized and why is someone saying, oh you have imposter syndrome.”

In the end, Elizabeth says, she won’t be happy until representation is equal for everyone. “When I fight for women's rights, when I fight for my rights as a Black woman, because we have intersectionality, everybody wins. We need to empower everyone. When Black women are empowered, everyone is empowered because our empathetic nature really creates that. And I want people to understand if you're sitting there, standing there, or in a space and you're not advocating for others, then that's a lack of empathy. That's apathy.”

Full transcript here

The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of June 8, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Zone In with NIL Network founder Michelle Meyer Jun 01, 2023

In today’s special feature, Women on The Move is highlighting J.P. Morgan’s newest podcast ZoneIn featuring special guest Michelle Meyer, founder of the NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) Network. She shares about her experience as one of the first, full-time NIL administrators in the country, how she stayed true to her purpose, and how athlete's build relationships with brands.

Full transcript here

Jill Koziol, co-founder of Motherly, on empowering today’s moms to thrive May 25, 2023

In this episode of Women on the Move, host Sam Saperstein sits down with Jill Koziol, co-founder of Motherly, a well-being destination. Jill co-founded Motherly in 2015 with the goal of empowering mothers to thrive.

“We felt like there were so many misconceptions about what it meant to be a modern mother back in 2015, and we knew that there was this tsunami of parents that were millennials that were about to become parents that were digitally native, super educated and very diverse, and we wanted to truly redefine what it meant to be motherly,” she tells Sam. “The definition is to be nurturing and caring and it really connoted this like martyrism approach to motherhood, and our lived experience was that motherhood gave us new superpowers and that we could be caring and ambitious, we could be strong and nurturing, and we wanted to really give a much more holistic approach to that.”

Drivers of change

As a co-founder, Jill’s approach was to look not at trends but at what she calls drivers of change, and to leverage a design thinking approach that got her out from behind her own identity as a mom. She says she and her co-founder identified three such drivers. The first is that the millennial generation that were having children in 2015 were the first generation in history to be digital natives when they become parents—and legacy brands were not speaking to them in a way that resonated with them. The second driver was that this generation is also the first one in which women are more educated than men. And third was the knowledge, based on demographic trends, that this was going to be the generation that shifted demographics in the United States: this generation was giving birth to the most diverse generation in history.

Jill says this approach was informed by her background as a strategy consultant, as well as her lived experiences as a mother, military spouse, and a daughter of an entrepreneur. She had young children when her husband was stationed abroad in the military, and soon after he left the military and started business school, she started her first company where she and a partner invented, patented, and brought to market a baby goods product called the Swingy.

By the time she started Motherly in 2015, Jill had a clear idea of the company culture she wanted: a workplace where women could thrive without having to make a choice between family and work. From the beginning, Motherly’s offices were 100 percent remote, cutting out lengthy commutes, and she encouraged her staff to have difficult conversations with their partners about sharing childcare and other duties.

Expanding to empower

Jill also discusses the results from Motherly’s latest Motherhood survey. The annual survey, now in its sixth year, is the largest statistically significant study of its kind of U.S. mothers. “The number one kind of key finding from this year’s 2023 state of motherhood survey was that the lack of and costs of childcare are continuing to create financial stress and are holding moms back from the workforce,” she tells Sam. “We saw that was the top reason cited why mothers are choosing to stay home with their children. We saw that 18 percent of mothers in our sample size this year chose to either leave the workforce or change jobs. And the number one reason that they did that was to stay home with their children, about 28 percent.” She says that bringing these women back into the workforce is an “economic imperative because, as we've discussed, today's mothers are the most educated cohort in the peer group.”

Looking forward, Jill says Motherly will be offering additional free resources. “This is something I'm really passionate and excited about,” she tells Sam. “I always knew that education was a really important social determinant of health, and when we launched Motherly, we knew that we were targeting this super educated demographic and that that was how we were going to grow with this new brand and this new perspective and voice. But 50 percent of today's children are born on WIC and Medicaid, and we are not going to achieve our mission of empowering mothers to thrive if we are only offering resources like our classes to the mothers that can afford that have disposable income to do it.”

Full transcript here

Bringing a cultural lens to her community – JPMorgan Chase Global Head of Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs shares her mission May 18, 2023

As Global Head of Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs for JPMorgan Chase, Vivian Young says her mission is to drive opportunity and progress for Asian and Pacific Islander communities globally through advancement and economic inclusion. In this episode, she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to talk about that mission and to describe her own immigration story and how the immigrant experience has changed since then.

Seeking fuller representation

Vivian’s team is one of the most recently established of the seven Centers of Excellence in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at JPMorgan Chase. Her priority, she says, is to bring a cultural lens to the broad API community. “Here in the United States, the Asian and Pacific Islander community is almost 24 million people that comprise over 30 different ethnicities and speak over a hundred different languages,” she tells Sam. “So I think it's really important for us to bring in that cultural dimension because we are not a monolith and honestly the term Asian American as a roll-up brings us together as a group. But what that does is it makes us invisible in that there's no representation for each of us.”

As a leader in a global organization, Vivian notes, making sure to attract and address the needs of employees, clients, and communities globally is a business imperative. She adds that a critically important step is addressing the model minority myth that all Asian Americans are doing well. “Because we are not as an aggregate,” she emphasizes, “When we roll up all of the information, our numbers look fantastic. We have the highest household income of any racial group. But when you take apart the numbers, what you see is that Asian households are larger than normal. So if you have a household of four with a hundred thousand dollars, you'll look at the Asian community and sometimes it's eight people or 10 people in a household. So when you start peeling those layers of the onions, they're not doing as well as we think on the surface. Part of it is really illuminating that not everybody is doing well. In fact, the Asian-American community has the largest income inequality of any racial group where the top 10% earns almost 11 times more than the bottom 10.”

A full 360 immigrant experience

Vivian believes that it’s critically important to understand immigrants’ origin stories of how and why they came to the United States—because coming as refugees, through chain migrations, or through education or employment sponsorships are all vastly different experiences. Her own story was one of chain migration: “My uncle came here first. He joined the Navy and was an engineer and worked on a nuclear submarine. And then he sponsored my father who was an accountant and he came over and got a job and then a year or two later, he was able to sponsor my mother and myself to come to the country.”

Growing up, she said her parents wanted her to assimilate—and she wanted to also. She shares a memory of asking her mom not to make egg rolls when guests came over. Of her parents’ generation of Asian immigrants, she says that many had opened service businesses to be able to support their children, and then invested their entire life savings into educating their children so that they could enter a profession such as lawyer, doctor, or engineer.

But she says she’s seen a complete turn-around with her own children’s generation. For one thing, they are embracing their cultural heritage and food. “What we are seeing now with this generation is that they're embracing entrepreneurship and they're rejecting the corporate structure and saying, I want to go in and take a risk and create my own table and have my own business,” she says. “So you're seeing this 360 of immigrants coming here, building a business, having their children not pursue the business, but then their children are now going into an entrepreneurial role.”

Diamond in the room

Today, Vivian advises others in the API community to embrace their differences. “Because if you are the only [Asian-American] in the room, it means that you are rare and you should embrace that difference,” she tells Sam. “Diamonds are rare. Think of yourself as the diamond in the room and own that. People don't invite you into spaces where you don't belong. So I think that is so critically important that when you are the only one in the room, that you represent yourself and your culture and have that pride because you are a diamond.”

Full transcript here

Creating a safe space for conversations around mental health, with influencer and advocate Victoria Garrick Browne May 11, 2023

When Victoria Garrick Browne began experiencing anxiety and depression as a Division 1 college volleyball player, she recorded a TED talk about her experiences. The recording instantly went viral, leading her to become a social media influencer, mental health advocate and podcast host. Here she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to talk about her journey.

The decision to speak up

It was during her sophomore year at USC that Victoria began struggling with the demands of being a high-level competitive athlete. “I was really struggling with my own mental health and just the intensity of the stressful environment that I was in competing at that level,” she tells Sam. “In going through that performance anxiety and a depressive episode, I kind of realized that if I'm feeling so alone, there's probably other athletes who are feeling alone.”

She also realized that she wasn’t hearing anyone else talk about the issue. Her solution was to talk honestly about it in a TED talk. “I just did not want someone else to kind of suffer in silence the way that I did,” she recalls. “So I gave that TED talk purely to come up on Google search and comfort someone else. It spiraled and it went viral in the athletic community.”

Hurdles and the strategies that helped

That TED talk catapulted Victoria to popularity, especially among athletes and coaches who started following her online and reaching out. In those early days, she says, her goal was for people to genuinely be able to validate themselves and know that it's okay to not be perfect or to experience failure or struggle. “I've literally never met a student athlete who said they got through four years of college athletics, no matter the division, no matter the sport, and said it was a breeze,” she says. “Everyone can relate to the struggle.”

Victoria discusses the challenges that she typically sees people face when confronting mental health issues. One of the biggest ones, she says, is not understanding the change in mental health as it happens. “These things happen gradually,” she says. “You don't wake up one day in the midst of your depression, you slowly drop down to that place.” A second hurdle, she says, is the stigma around being worthy of getting help.

As far as strategies and approaches that worked for her, Victoria says one of the main ones is therapy. “It's powerful to have an expert hear what you are going through and then kind of offer their advice and guidance.” If connecting with a therapist isn’t an option, she says talking to a trusted friend or journaling can also help people handle their complicated emotions.

Meditation is another strategy that Victoria says she finds helpful—and this doesn’t have to be as scary as it might sound, she adds. “It can be as simple as 10 minutes without your phone in the morning sitting with yourself, maybe you're thinking a lot, listen to your thoughts and then you'll recognize, oh my gosh, my thoughts always take me to work,” she explains. “My thoughts always take me to the situation. I'm gonna try to bring 'em back here. That 10 minutes to slow down your entire day and just be with yourself. I think that that's powerful and I do that in the mornings.”

The Hidden Opponent

Soon after her TED talk went viral, Victoria created the Hidden Opponent, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on creating a platform and a community for athletes to discuss topics like mental health. “We highlight student athletes and their stories,” she tells Sam. “We give them a voice. We're always publishing and posting articles that the athletes have written about what they've been through. I remember feeling like, Where do you talk about this? Where do you say it? How's it gonna be received? And so we've created that safe space where athletes who do want to be vocal can be, [and] we educate the members of our community.”

As far as ambition in her own life, Victoria says she’s trying to manage it in a good way—in a relentless pursuit of helping herself rather than being perfect. “I definitely consider myself ambitious, consider myself a go-getter,” she says. “However, I do think that that ambition has become a default state of who I am and the default state being constantly better, constantly improved, constantly do more. And of course it serves you well when you can become successful and you can build something, and that's great. However, it doesn't allow you to ever turn off, reap the benefits or take a break or pause. And it's funny because my whole message started as it's okay not to be okay, take a break.”

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: How companies are tackling personal wellness post-pandemic May 04, 2023

Are you seeing a difference in the types of benefits that companies are providing since the pandemic? And if so, what are employees taking advantage of these days?

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, is joined by Lilly Wyttenbach, the Head of Global Wellness at JPMorgan Chase, to discuss workplace wellness and how companies recognize a greater need to support their employees.

Full transcript here

On a mission to end period poverty, with Unicorn co-founders and co-CEOS Apr 27, 2023

Denielle Finkelstein and Thyme Sullivan are on a mission to make high quality period products available in restroom stalls across America. In this episode, they sit down with host Sam Saperstein to talk about the company they co-founded, Unicorn.

The Triple Co

Denielle and Thyme call themselves the Triple Co to reflect their stats as cousins, co-founders, and co-CEOs. They both had successful careers in corporate America—Denielle spent 20-plus years in fashion with Ann Taylor, Coach, and Kate Spade, and Thyme worked with beverage and food giants Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Nestle for 27 years. But as Denielle explains, “I'd gotten to that amazing C-suite job, that job I'd always dreamed of—and I was completely unfulfilled. I was working in a toxic environment. I had sort of lost that love of learning and the passion and really where that purpose was.”

She made the decision to walk away from her corporate career, and before long she reached out to her cousin Thyme who was similarly feeling unsatisfied and ready for a transition. Thyme says her background as a “grocery geek” provided inspiration for the idea of producing high-quality, organic tampons and other period products. “Going up and down the aisles for years on end, I just saw as everything was changing to organic and to sustainable and non-GMO and gluten-free and transparency became so important,” she tells Sam. “Yet when you got to what is called the feminine care aisle, and saw the period products, it looked like you were shopping back in the seventies. There'd been little innovation, and nobody was talking about it.”

Once they started researching and learning facts—such as the stat that in the U.S., one in four girls has missed school or work because she didn't have access to period products—they were even more motivated to start a business in the category that “nobody else wanted to talk about.” It didn’t hurt, Denielle says, that they’re perfect complements for each other: “Thyme came with an amazing, amazing pedigree with sales and operations and supply chain, and that complemented mine and where I came from as this brand-building and this marketing background.”

The challengers become disruptors

While providing quality, organic period products was the motivator, it wasn’t long before Thyme and Denielle zeroed in on a mission to address period poverty. Thyme says that their mission was always to advance women in society, and they didn’t initially see themselves as disruptors. “A disruptor by definition is more like an Uber, your Netflix, your Airbnb, it's something that's never been done before,” she says. “When we started this company, we were much more of a challenger brand. We were challenging the category, challenging the transparency and the efficacy and better getting access to better products for women. But we've actually evolved into a disruptor and we're incredibly proud of that.”

Specifically, they wanted to disrupt the outdated period product machines in public restrooms. “A lot of places don't [offer period products] because the big metal machines are very expensive, they're difficult to install, they're difficult to service from the staff, they don't hold very much product,” she explains. “They certainly don't hold quality products. Nobody has coins, and often they're broken and empty. And we were thinking long and hard about that's a real problem, and the solution goes even deeper.”

They spent a year and a half developing a low-cost, low profile dispenser that goes in the stalls, right next to the toilet paper. Then came the fun of fundraising—or as Denielle says, the non-fun. (“We have a phrase that there's no fun in fundraising, and it is real.”) The two had what they call a summer of un-love during which they spoke to about a hundred VCs without success. Then they found Barbara Clark, who they say changed their trajectory overnight. She not only believed in their mission and offered funding, she provided expert advice in terms of how they should shift their pitches to other VCs.

Another huge break came last summer when JPMorgan Chase became [one] the first big organization to adopt their dispensers. It started when they found CEO Jamie Dimon’s ear during his annual summer bus tour. “So everybody's asking about Bitcoin and world economics, and we're like, we know you got daughters, we want to talk about period products,” Thyme says. “And he listened. We had a good enough elevator pitch and he understood as a father of daughters and granddaughters.”

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Knowing when to start investing Apr 20, 2023

Investing feels complicated and there's a lot of uncertainty around how to start and what to do. How do you know when it's the right time and the right amount to start investing?

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, is joined by the head of Women and Investing at JPMorgan Wealth Management, Iliana Taormina. During the episode, Iliana gives tips on how to get into investing and how in 30 years, the average woman could end up with a portfolio worth 25% more than the average man.

During the chat, Iliana also mused on how she wished she understood the benefits of investing earlier and consistently. “ A 25-year-old college graduate invests a hundred dollars a month in a tax-deferred account and earns 12% annual return when that person retires at age 65, their investment can be worth just over a million dollars. If that same person were to start investing a hundred dollars per month at age 35, instead, they could only have around 300,000 by the time they reach 65, those 10 years could cost them $700,000.

Full transcript here

A conscious culture of wellness and empowerment, with Cisco’s Chief People Officer Apr 13, 2023

From the World Economic Forum in Davos, Francine Katsoudas, Executive Vice President and Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer at Cisco, joins Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to talk about her journey at Cisco, the idea of empowering managers in a hybrid workplace, and why Cisco includes mental health professionals in company meetings to support a culture of wellness.

Francine started working in Cisco’s contact center more than 25 years ago. Her first job was providing first-level technical support, despite not having much of a technical background. Francine credits the leader who hired her for believing in her potential to learn the skills needed for the role. Since then, she’s sought a variety of positions within the company, telling Sam that she believes there’s power in collecting experiences. “And so I would have one role and I would [ask myself] okay, what have I learned on this role and what do I still need to learn?” she says. “And I think that focus on learning really helped to navigate me through the company.”

She says she moved into HR about 15 years ago, which led to her current role of Chief People Officer. “I focus on people, policy, and purpose,” she tells Sam. “And what that means is that together with our team, we focus on how our people organization, how government affairs, how real estate, how building a digital agenda all come together in service of our company and our purpose, which is the power and inclusive future for all.”

Empowering managers

One focus of her job in the last few years has been hybrid work and work-life balance. At Cisco, she says, technology had enabled virtual work even before the pandemic—and so when the pandemic forced people out of offices, Cisco already had historical data showing that employees’ “promotion velocity” was the same whether they worked remotely or onsite.

“The approach that we have within the company is to really focus on the work and what is best as it relates to the team,” she says. “And so we've basically decentralized that decision. We ask leaders to make the best decision for their team. We also ask them to experiment.”

She notes that over time, the role of leaders has evolved. “I think it will continue to evolve, meaning that our leaders now I think have to be a bit more customized as it relates to how they approach every individual” she explains. “As we went through the pandemic, we asked our leaders to understand, how are your people doing? What do they have going on? Check in on them, right? I think we got rid of this belief that there's a one-size-fits-all approach to leadership.”

A culture of wellness

When it comes to helping women in particular navigate and succeed in their careers, Francine notes that Cisco relies on what they call their conscious culture. “Our conscious culture is this belief that every single employee owns the culture,” she notes. “We as a company have to focus on the environment, we have to focus on the experience and our principles. Part of how we do that is we have to be really overt in talking about what's not working. And I think when you do that, you build trust with your teams and they know that if there's something that you can do better, that you're willing to work it because you were willing to say it in front of the entire company.”

Once specific strategy that’s worked at Cisco is having a mental health practitioner attend every monthly meeting. “What will end up happening is we'll take questions about, hey, what's our strategy for security? Where are we going? Hey, there's this new program. Oh wait, we have a question for Dr. Zane. Dr. Zane, there's a question here about how do you handle anxiety?" Francine says. And when employees have actively received that message that it’s okay to ask about mental health issues, they feel empowered to embrace their mental health as a critical component of their work life.

Looking forward, Francine has three main goals on her 2023 agenda. The first priority is around hybrid work and ensuring that leaders are making the best decisions about how their teams can be at their best. Next is something the company calls resilient communities: the idea of how they show up in the communities in a way that builds lasting success. And her third item is focusing on people and taking the conversation around wellbeing and career growth to the next level.

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Critical points for recruiting and hiring Apr 06, 2023

It's important to me that I hire the best people and create a diverse and inclusive team. What are the most critical points in the recruitment and hiring process to consider?

Live from the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, Women on The Move Podcast host, Sam Saperstein, welcomes Daniel Chait, CEO of Greenhouse to discuss how the hiring process at an organization can drive positive change and big impact.

Full transcript here

Empathy, vulnerability, authenticity, and more: why women are innately effective leaders, with CNBC reporter and author Julia Boorstin Mar 30, 2023

In this episode, host Sam Saperstein kicks off Women’s History Month by sitting down with Julia Boorstin, CNBC's senior media and technology reporter, and the author of When Women Lead, a book focused on leadership for which she interviewed 120 women from various sectors and backgrounds. Sam and Julia talk about the lessons she learned and the key commonalities her research uncovered in terms of the skills and strategies of successful leaders.

Digging into women’s leadership styles

Julia tells Sam that she was inspired to write her book after her 20-plus years as a business journalist. Her career spanned six years as a writer at Fortune Magazine and then 16 years as a business reporter with CNBC. Along the way she created and launched the CNBC Disruptor 50, an annual list that highlights private companies that are transforming the economy. “And in that time I've been really grateful to get to interview thousands and thousands of leaders, CEOs, founders, [and] executives,” she says. “And the vast majority of those people have been men. The vast majority of them have been white men.”

In the past five or 10 years, she says, she’s noticed more and more women entering the conversation, and more female founders in particular. “And it was interesting for me through my work doing the Disruptor 50 list to see women founders create companies that were tackling different types of problems than the male founders were,” she says. “And also to approach that problem solving and approach their businesses, managing their businesses, leading their businesses differently.”

What she learned once she dug in, she says, is that women's leadership styles are incredibly effective. And she found a wealth of research indicating that if men were to adopt their styles, they would be more effective too. “It started as a storytelling exercise, and it turned into a research project, and I really wanted to combine the stories with the research to illustrate a new vision for what success looks like, a new vision of what leadership looks like, and a new type of path that people should be thinking about to pursue their own leadership strengths,” she says.

What makes women leaders shine?

Julia notes that while each of the 120 individuals she interviewed for her book are unique, she did find common threads in the attributes of successful business people. One of the those is having a growth mindset, which she defines as having a combination of the humility to understand you don't know everything and the confidence to believe that you could grow and push yourself to do the things that you aren't currently capable of. A second commonality, she says, is having authenticity. “The women who had succeeded did so by not trying to fit into any sort of stereotype or archetype of what leaders are supposed to look or sound like, but by leading in ways that were really honest and true to themselves,” she says.

Julia also discusses a list of more specific skills and strategies that she says research has shown to be effective. And she notes that an important footnote to these findings is that they are not anything that are biological differences between men and women. “Almost everything I write about are things that are socialized, and therefore they are things that if men want to get better at, they can learn as well,” she notes.

Her list starts with empathy. “Empathy is really about the ability to see things from someone else's perspective, which can be incredibly strategic if you're negotiating a deal or if you're trying to motivate your employees or to figure out what's gonna be more successful working with a team,” she says.

Other items on her list include vulnerability, a “communal leadership style,” and a divergent approach to problem solving rather than a convergent approach. Men, she says, are more likely to have a convergent approach where they focus in on solving the problem as quickly and efficiently as possible, whereas women are more likely to have divergent approach, where they're more likely to ask about things that may appear to be tangential but really are about taking the time to understand the broader landscape.

Julia also responds to audience questions that dig deeper into her findings on the nuanced differences between men’s and women’s leadership styles, on ideas such as intersectionality, and on traits including extroversion and introversion. Overall, she says, what she learned in the course of writing the book made her optimistic. “I'm very optimistic about the power that women have to drive change not just in the industry but to help each other succeed,” she says.

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Navigating the application process and finding success Mar 23, 2023

I'm looking for my next opportunity and not sure how to get myself noticed in the application process. How do I give myself the best shot at my next job?

Live from the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, Women on The Move Podcast host, Sam Saperstein, welcomes Daniel Chait, CEO of Greenhouse to discuss how the application process has changed over time and how staying focused on jobs that excite you can give you a better chance at success.

Full transcript here

From Davos, JPMorgan Chase CEO and his Chief of Staff discuss the values of diversity and business efficiency Mar 16, 2023

In this special feature from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Women on the Move Host Sam Saperstein sits down with JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon and his Chief of Staff Judy Miller. They discuss the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion at JPMorgan Chase and the equal importance of all stakeholders to the firm, and Jamie shares tips on being more efficient every day.

Jamie talks about what he sees as the biggest global issues facing the world today. “There's only one thing taking place in 2023 that matters for the future of the world, and that's what's going on in Russia, Ukraine, related trade, China, security, the trade issues around national security, what it's going to do to energy prices, oil prices, poor nations,” he says.

Being together with the world’s economic leaders at Davos is critical, Jamie says, because the issue today is about how the Western world can stay united—in terms of security and energy in particular. And although many of the solutions will come from government policy, global corporate leaders like J.P. Morgan have an important role to play as well. “We have a really complex problem here, which is we all want to get CO2 down, but we also need reliable, secure energy and cheap,” he notes. People yelling at banks and corporations isn’t going to solve the problem, he adds. But people coming together for R&D and solution seeking can impact change.

DE&I at JPMorgan Chase

Diversity, Sam notes, is one area where JPMorgan Chase has been a change leader. Judy says that for Women on the Move, it’s both internal—helping women thrive and take on leadership roles within the firm—as well as external—helping women entrepreneurs with training and resources. Women on the Move, she points out, started internally as a group of senior women who really wanted to help support women throughout the firm.

“I think that the roles that women are in at the company is really outstanding,” Judy tells Sam. “When you look at Jamie's direct reports, about half of them are women and they are leading some of our biggest businesses. It wasn't that way when I first started. And I think the women in these positions, they both can act as role models and the younger women can look at them as role models and see there is a path for themselves.”

Jamie adds that all areas of diversity are equally important to the company, and he notes that the challenges faced by people of color can be more substantial than those faced by women. “We want [everybody] to feel treated with respect and decency where they can contribute to the company to the best of their ability.”

Finding efficiency amidst the bureaucracy

Another core value for the firm, Jamie says, is efficiency. In such an immense global firm, bureaucracy is inevitable. The challenge, he says, is to not let it stifle growth. People are going to get bogged down in the details—sometimes to an unhealthy degree. But the way to fix that, he says, is not to resent it. “It's to understand that it's like weeds in the garden,” he tells Sam. “It's always growing. Meetings are getting bigger. Meetings taking longer. People want to collaborate. I want you all to come here to collaborate, but I don't want you to over collaborate.”

One of Jamie’s strategies for ensuring momentum rather than getting bogged down by bureaucracy is his to-do lists. He says he consistently maintains both short-term and long-term lists. “People throughout the company know about Jamie's list,” Judy vouches. “So I can just send an email and say, ‘Okay, you're on the list, let's work to get off it.’ Jamie rewrites this follow-up list every Sunday and there's nothing worse than being transferred from one week's follow-up list to the next week..” Judy describes Jamie’s list as something that keeps the company moving: “It keeps that constant forward progress.”

Jamie describes himself as relentless. “Nothing gets by me [where] I don't say, ‘Cut that out. We don't need that. That's too long.’ Every meeting starts on time. It ends on time.” Jamie says he’s relentless about it is because bureaucracy leads to politics. And that leads to stasis. “That's why you can't take it lightly and why I don't.”

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: How to go from manager to leader Mar 09, 2023

How do you shift your mindset from being a manager to being a leader?

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares how to take it to the next level and start thinking and acting as a true leader.

Full transcript here

Agua Bonita CEO and co-founder on her vision to be a leader in better-for-you beverages Mar 02, 2023

Kayla Castañeda turned a favorite childhood treat into a successful and fast-growing good-for-you beverage company. In this episode of Women on the Move, the CEO and co-founder of Agua Bonita sits down with host Sam Saperstein to talk about her family, company, thoughts on ambition, and advice for other founders.

Journey from California’s Central Valley

Kayla tells Sam that she grew up in a family of migrant farm workers in California’s Central Valley. Her grandfather would bring home fruit from the fields and make aguas frescas for the family. She also grew up with a dream of owning her own business—and although she didn’t realize it then, producing good-for-you versions of those refreshing fruit-based beverages would become her business plan.

First she cut her teeth in the food and beverage industry from the inside. Growing up in a small town made her crave something entirely different, so after high school she moved to New York City and started working in food and beverage, eventually moving into a sales and marketing position with Major League Baseball. She then took a role with Coca-Cola that bought her back to her roots in California.

It was during the pandemic, while working as a consultant for food and beverage companies, that she had the inspiration for Agua Bonita. “Oh, this is something that has been around in my family and in our culture forever,” she recalls thinking. “So why am I not doing something like this and why is this not commercially available?”Within a week she had fleshed out a business plan and embarked on a learning curve with venture capitalism. Agua Bonita’s product of a “modern” agua fresca—they use 80 percent less sugar than traditional recipes—was a hit. They first found a place on shelves in small California retailers and recently landed their first national retailer with Whole Foods Market.

Kayla attributes their success to their healthy approach as well as their commitment to corporate responsibility. Their sustainability efforts include a reliance on using imperfect fruit and recyclable aluminum containers, and they work with nonprofit partners like Justice for Migrant Women to help current migrant farm workers. But she says she believes their defining characteristic is their flavor profiles. “Right now our current offerings range from some more traditional ones like hibiscus and pineapple and sweet melon to some more fun and modern takes on these drinks like mango habanero and watermelon chili and some really cool new innovations coming soon. And then our packaging, we use a lot of fun packaging that's inspired by our culture and put it on shelf as a work of art. It's the Bonita part of Agua Bonita.”

Ambition and helping others

In keeping with this season’s theme of ambition, Kayla also talks with Sam about her perceptions of her own ambition. “I do consider myself ambitious,” she says. “I asked my mom, have I always been this ambitious? And her answer was yes. And there's been teachers along the way that have helped you with that. So I think I've just always been ambitious and that ambition really stems from my family. No one has ever capped my dreams or told me that I could not do something internally. . . . It gave me the mindset of if not me, it's gonna be someone else, so why not me?”

In terms of advice, what Kayla most wants to convey to others is that everything is going to be okay. “I think sometimes we can get really tunnel vision, and there's a lot of things that you're juggling when you're trying to get a company off the ground, and the wins are really high, but sometimes the losses can be really low,” she says. “And I think just having people around me to remind me that it's all gonna be okay, whether it works out or whether it doesn't, it's all gonna be okay, is sometimes just like that humbling thing that I need to hear to just be able to get on with my day.”

She adds that she tries to encourage others by making sure that they're feeling fulfilled in other areas of their life. “Because I don't think that you can pour from an empty cup,” she says. “And so that is how I encourage people to keep going with things is that there are other things that you find joy in than just this one thing. So don't let this one thing eclipse everything else.”

Ful transcript here

Mentor Moment: Creating a culture of belonging in the workplace Feb 23, 2023

As a manager, I want to make sure I'm creating an environment of belonging with a strong culture. What are the best ways you've seen this done?

Live from the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, Women on The Move Podcast host, Sam Saperstein, welcomes Daniel Chait, CEO of Greenhouse to discuss building workplace culture with intention.

Full transcript here

Carving their own path: DEI leaders talk the power of storytelling and redefining ambition Feb 16, 2023

In this episode, Women on the Move Host Sam Saperstein sits down with two leaders in the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) space. They discuss the experience women of color have at work and how, through storytelling, they illustrate this experience for others who don’t look like them. Deepa Purushothaman is the author of The First, the Few, the Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America, and the co-founder of nFormation, an exclusive community for high achieving women of color. Ryland McClendon is the Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for Corporate & Investment Banking at J.P. Morgan. Both women had early career success and followed slightly circuitous paths toward their current roles where they focus on driving the conversation on DEI and optimizing the work experience for everyone.

Find a home in the DE&I space

Deepa attended Harvard University’s Kennedy School and the London School of Economics while planning for a career in policy and politics. She landed as a consultant at Deloitte, where she stayed for 21 years, leaving during the early stages of the pandemic to focus on women of color research and topics. She tells Sam that “not quite fitting in” has been a part of her experiences her whole life. Growing up as one of only a few families of color in her hometown, she later found herself the only woman of color in many professional spaces throughout her career, especially her decades of consulting in the tech and telecom sector.

Ryland, meanwhile, wanted to be a singer when she was young. She also wanted to move away from her hometown of Atlanta, so she went to Duke University where she majored in economics and public policy. Ryland started her career in corporate banking at a regional bank and, frustrated by a lack of opportunity, moved to J.P. Morgan about 12 years ago. She had an opportunity to explore the human resources space a few years into her career and then knew that supporting the firms talent was the right place for her. That ultimately led to her current role as head of diversity and inclusion.

Stories and storytelling

Both women agree that listening to stories and encouraging others in their own storytelling is critical to growth in the equity and diversity realm. “Unless you tell stories to really impress upon people what different experiences you can have—depending on your dimension of diversity, whether that's race, whether that's gender, whether that's having a disability—the storytelling is the most powerful tool we can use,” Ryland says.

In the process of founding and running nFormation, and writing The First, The Few, the Only, Deepa listened to the stories of hundreds of women of color. She said she often hears women say that they hadn’t realized how much they would be representing their race at work. They describe the pressure of feeling that everything they do—what they eat, how they speak, even what objects they keep in the workspace—is under a microscope because sometimes they are the only people of color their colleagues know.

“You take on a lot outside of the job you were hired to,” she says. “I think that's kind of the dialogue that we need to get to, and those are the stories we need to tell, and that's how I have the conversation.”

The role of ambition

The conversation also veers into the territory of ambition, a top theme for the Women on the Move podcast in 2023.

Deepa describes how her own definition of ambition changed over the course of her career. “I think it started probably when I was a teenager. I was highly ambitious. I would say more competitive. I think I'm more comfortable with that word than ambitious, because I think ambitious is a little bit more vaguely defined, but I was always competitive, and always really good at everything I did.” Then, after leaving her career in consulting, her perspective shifted. “It's less about ambition. That word doesn't even mean anything to me anymore. It's success. I have really stepped back and defined success really differently.”

Ryland also describes herself as ambitious and says she wants to change the negative perception that’s often attached to the idea of an ambitious woman. “Last year a senior person used that word to describe me in the minute as a compliment and I was taken aback by it, but I'm gonna say yes, I am ambitious,” she says. “I want to reclaim that word. I want to make it a positive word.”

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Building an impactful business Feb 09, 2023

For entrepreneurs who are building a business to drive impact, what advice would you give them?

Live from Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, Women on the Move Podcast Host, Sam Saperstein, talks to Dr. Anino Emuwa about finding your tribe and building a business with impact.

Full transcript here

Championing diversity in funding with JPMorgan’s Leyonna Barba and Techstars’ Monica Wheat Feb 02, 2023

Leyonna Barba and Monica Wheat are committed to advocating for diverse founders. Leyonna, managing director of Technology and Disruptive Commerce at JPMorgan Chase, and Monica Wheat, managing director of Techstars Detroit, have embraced diversity in funding throughout their careers. In this episode of the Women on the Move Podcast, they sit down with Host Sam Saperstein to talk about their passion for that cause, and how they encourage investors to get more proximate to a diverse group of founders.

Ecosystems and networks

Monica discusses how, after spending time working with start-ups and investing on her own internationally and in San Francisco, she ended up in Detroit and being drawn to Techstars’ mission. She initially tried to “copy and paste everything that was in San Francisco and bring it back to Detroit.” But she soon realized that didn’t work—there simply wasn’t the ecosystem in Detroit to replicate the Silicon Valley/San Francisco model. Founders didn’t have a network of other founders to rely on for encouragement or resources. “And that's where Techstars came in,” she recalls. “They not only came in and said, ‘here's a check and here's some support and some resources,’ but they kept coming back and they kept asking the questions like, ‘what do you need?’ And it gave us the courage to really think about Detroit and some of these other emerging markets shaping themselves versus trying to copy and paste what was in Silicon Valley.”

Leyonna agrees that an established ecosystem is critical for start-up success. “To be successful in venture and within the tech ecosystem, you have to have a strong network, which is why for many founders, diverse founders, female founders, they've traditionally been locked out of those markets, locked out of those rooms,” she says. She’s proud of the work her team does at JPMorgan Chase in terms of being intentional around ensuring that diverse and female founders and veteran-owned business founders all have a voice at the table.

“We have a lot of emerging diverse managers,” Leyonna says. “We've seen an increase in the number of those diverse focused funds over the last couple of years, making sure that they're in a room with potential opportunities for investment, bringing those networks together. I know that I sit in a very special place in intersection at JPMorgan Chase where the power of our network can be amplified if we use it to bring those parties together. And it's part of the reason that I love the work that we're doing with Techstars.”

Making change

Leyonna and Monica agree that increasing the very small percentage of VC money that goes to diverse women—Sam currently notes that it stands at about 3 percent of all funding—will require funders to be deliberate in their attempts at inclusion. Monica says she doubts that any current funders are trying to purposefully divert money away from women- or black-owned businesses. “But you also have to be very intentional about the fact that you are including them. You have to be very intentional about the fact that you're making an environment that's not just for gamers and 18 to 22-year-olds, that it is for folks who are different ages and coming from different backgrounds,” she says. “The space of investing in women and investing in underrepresented founders is the biggest opportunity in investment to date because these are untapped markets that folks just really haven't had access to and the folks that are building in these spaces haven't had access to these markets.”

Leyonna agrees and emphasizes that it can’t just be diverse fund managers who fund diverse owners—it needs to be all investors. “Not all investments and all the people you're investing in should look exactly like you or only solve problems for certain types of people,” she says. That’s one reason, she notes, that it’s critical to have women and other diverse people on boards and investment committees. She describes it as following the money trail. “And I think the beauty of what Techstars is doing with this $80 million that is powered by JPMorgan Chase is they are using the fund structure to show and to amplify that investing in diversity is not charity,” she says. “It is real dollars, it is good returns. And hopefully by continuing to see that performance, it will create a fear of missing out from others.”

Full transcript here

Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JPMorgan Chase and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of February 2, 2023 and they may not materialize.

Mentor Moment: Confidence vs Ambition Jan 26, 2023

What is the relationship between confidence and ambition? And if so, how does it contribute to success?"

Women on the Move Podcast Host, Sam Saperstein, welcomes Kat Zacharia, Head of Organizational Effectiveness at JPMorgan Chase & Co., to share her thoughts on what confidence means and how when coupled with ambition it can lead to success.

Full transcript here

On a mission to build a clean-eating lifestyle community, with Base Culture founder and CEO Jan 19, 2023

Jordann Windschauer believes everybody deserves to have quality food made from pure, nutrient-dense ingredients. Here, the CEO and Founder of Base Culture sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to talk about her journey from making paleo-friendly baked goods in her apartment to running a 44,000 square foot facility producing items for national distribution.

Beginning with a gym challenge

Jordann was just out of college when she joined a CrossFit gym that was running a paleo challenge. Looking for ways to clean up her young adult lifestyle a bit, she signed up for the challenge. She recalls that she didn’t know one thing about paleo eating at the time, but she soon found that she was attracted to the simplicity of the ingredients—and she was a huge fan of the way it made her feel.

Soon she was experimenting in her kitchen, trying to bake the perfect paleo banana bread and brownie. Her motivation was that she wanted to treat herself to something that was good for her and not just okay-tasting, but delicious. “It took me six months, because it's extremely different baking with seeds and nuts as opposed to flour and yeast and sugar and all of these traditional baking elements,” she recalls. “I was just doing it for my selfish wants and desires. I never really had a business in mind at this stage.”

After those six months of experimenting and perfecting, her gym began its next biennial paleo challenge, and Jordann started bringing in her baked goods to share with friends. She still wasn’t thinking of a business, but the reaction from her gym friends helped her along that journey. They loved the baked goods and they really loved the idea that they didn’t have to bake them themselves—they could pay Jordann to bake extra for them. "I started a business on Facebook and would post online when I was going to make something and the people would place their orders and I would make everything at night and deliver it on the weekend,” she tells Sam.

After her small business took off, scaling up seemed only natural. She began by naming her brand Paleo Box but after less than a year she landed on Base Culture. “We are trying to lead this global revolution around nutrition culture, to honor that and do it so that we're creating the best for you baked goods, that are held to our mammoth standards,” she says. “And how we describe our mammoth standards are essentially a bar that you cannot rise above. It's the highest bar possible. And we did that by creating our own manufacturing plant. We built a 44,000-square-foot plant to bring these products to life. We weren't just adding a product to a category that already existed, but doing it a little bit differently.”

Ambition and embracing challenges

While Sam notes that ambition is not always perceived as an admirable quality in women, Jordann embraces the label. “I would say that sometimes I'm blissfully ambitious and keep away those dark voices that come up,” she says. “We are in a stage of the business where those scary voices come in saying, ‘What if this isn't going to work?’ Or, ‘What if I let everyone down and what if I lose everyone's money who's invested in this? And what if I fail?’”

Her advice for staying on track while also heeding your ambition is to stay true to your purpose. She notes that there is an “insane” amount of pressure on entrepreneurs to build an empire and do the impossible. Recognizing that so many decisions involve uncertainties and unknowns, Jordann says that knowing that you won’t always have the answers is critical. When you do need to make a decision, she says you should be able to say a full-bodied, unqualified yes.

“When I look back at some of the things where we took a misstep here or there, I really know in my gut that there was something telling me at that point that something's not right and I ignored it for one reason or another,” she says. “So when you're making a decision, have the full body yes. And if you have any inkling of doubt, lean into that and explore it and either that doubt will subside or it will get bigger, and then listen to it even if it's not the easy choice.”

Full transcript here

Mentorship Moments: Defining ambition and why it’s important Jan 12, 2023

How has the discussion on ambition and the perception of ambitious women evolved over time? Why is it important that Women on the Move at JPMorgan Chase’s mission is to fuel female ambition?

Women on the Move Podcast Host Sam Saperstein breaks down why it’s important for women to be ambitious and why JPMorgan Chase has made it their mission to fuel female ambition.

Full transcript here

The Women’s Network founder Jamie Vinick talks networking and why ambition should be celebrated Jan 05, 2023

Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein kicks off the podcast’s fourth year with a focus on the nuanced role that ambition plays in women’s lives. Here she sits down with Jamie Vinick, founder and president of the Women's Network, the largest collegiate women's networking organization in North America. With a mission to connect women to each other, to industry leaders, to resources and to mentorship, the Women’s Network grew from a pandemic-era launch at Syracuse University to a network including chapters on more than 120 college campuses in the United States and Canada with 45,000 members.

Filling a need on college campus

Jamie tells Sam that her inspiration for starting the Women’s Network actually grew from an uninspiring event. After arriving at Syracuse University for her freshman year, feeling like she was “behind” her peers in terms of career focus, Jamie threw herself into attending campus speaker events, looking for inspiration. “There was one event in particular that really changed my college experience and has impacted my life,” she says. “I left that event feeling very uninspired and I took that lack of inspiration to heart and thought a lot about it and launched the Women's Network as a club on campus eight months later.”

Jamie was dissatisfied with this particular event because of what she thought was a missed opportunity. “Here was this incredibly powerful accomplished woman who came in to speak about her career, and there really were no topics or conversations that centered around gender or in particular gender in the workplace,” she recalls. “And I felt like it was this tremendous missed opportunity to have nuanced, real, raw conversation on the challenges, the biases, the barriers that disproportionately often affect women more so than perhaps our male counterparts.”

She also says she recognized a lack of community around women’s ambition and being able to celebrate having career interests and meeting people in a non-competitive environment. “And it was a culmination of the lack of conversation, the lack of community, the lack of true mentorship regardless of what industry you were interested in pursuing a career in that culminated into this idea.” By her sophomore year, Jamie was going dorm to dorm, knocking on more than a thousand freshman dorms to hand out flyers about the brand-new Women’s Network.

Expanding and building confidence

Throughout her time at Syracuse, Jamie remained committed to building the Women’s Network. In the fall of her senior year, she turned down a full-time job opportunity, realizing that she wanted to focus on growing the network. In February, she chose five “random” college locations to launch proof of concepts. “We launched, and hundreds of people were coming out to these meetings, and then the next month Covid hits and everything was moved online,” she says. “No one knew what Zoom was. My professors didn't quite know how to lead a virtual classroom, and so I just put my head down, decided I wanted to see where this could go, and I doubled down on the work and we just kept launching. So we went from one school to about five additional universities to 16 to 22 to almost a hundred, in a little under two and a half years.”

Celebratory of ambition

Jamie explains how the Women’s Network functions: “The chapters operate in the sense of hosting their own events,” she says. “And then we also have national events open to members in the entire network. We host experiences such as speaker events, alumni receptions, networking trips, financial literacy workshops. Then we also host more social events as well.” She says the goal is to ensure members have access to the right networks, the right resources, and the right community.

Today, Jamie says, she’s looking ahead to moving the Women’s Network beyond college campuses to reach women as they’re entering and advancing in the workplace. She notes that the mission really speaks to a broad range of women. “The concept of being very celebratory of ambition, which we talk all the time about in the Women's Network, has struck a deep nerve with a lot of people,” she says. “A lot of people initially join to either meet ambitious individuals or to explore their own career interests, and then they often stay because they want to develop leadership skills, build more confidence, access better mentorship or resources specific to their career or industry, and to have vulnerable conversation.”

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Joining a board of directors Dec 29, 2022

As I continue to grow in my career, I've become more and more interested in joining a board of directors. Do you have advice on joining a non-profit board to build your skillset and round out your portfolio? If I'm thinking of being on a corporate board one day is being on a non-profit board a step stone to that?"

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, welcomes her colleague, Rebecca Thorton of the Director Advisory Services to give advice on how to join a board of directors

Full transcript here

A commitment to mental and physical health spelled success for CVS Health CEO Karen Lynch Dec 22, 2022

In this special episode from JPMorgan Chase's seventh Annual Leadership Day, Anu Aiyengar, JPMorgan Chase's global co-head of mergers and acquisitions, sits down with the highest-ranking female CEO ever in the Fortune 500, CVS Health CEO Karen Lynch. Karen discusses how her commitment to mental and physical health in her own life has carried over to the work she's doing at CVS Health.

Personal commitment to mental and physical health

Karen tells Anu that she had an early traumatic experience with healthcare when, at age 12, she lost her mother to suicide. She and her siblings were then raised by an aunt, who also died early—when Karen was still in her 20s. She says that her mother didn’t know how or where to get the mental health she needed, and years later, sitting in her aunt’s hospital room, Karen realized she didn’t know the questions to ask or how to get the help she needed either.

“And both of those experiences sort of have fueled my passion around healthcare and really being able to make a difference so that people are educated about healthcare, that people have access to healthcare, that people understand their options that are available to them in healthcare,” she says. “So that's really the passion I get up with every single day, from a very young age.”

Karen notes that it wasn’t just her passion that got her to where she is today: she’s had help from many, including relatives, a high-school teacher, and mentors and sponsors throughout her career. From her aunt she learned the importance of being decisive and making decisions based on whatever information was available. “That was an important lesson because as leaders, as people kind of managing people, people are always, always looking at you and watching whether or not you're making those decisions,” she says.

Another key lesson Karen learned early was about the importance of taking care of your own mental and physical health. Today, she says, she does that through early morning workouts as well as end-of-the-day Duolingo lessons. “I think it's important for all of us to make sure we're taking care of our own selves because if you can't take care of yourself, you can't take care of others,” she notes.

Keeping the customer as the north star

Leading CVS Health through the unprecedented challenge of the pandemic allowed Karen to put her leadership and priorities to the test. The last several years have seen huge changes in both mental and physical healthcare. “Before the pandemic we had 10,000 virtual visits for Telepsychiatry,” she says. “Last year we had 10 million. And so that just gives you a sense for the change and the ease that people have had with using virtual care.”

To thrive in the midst of all that change, Karen says she had to lean into focusing on her employees first, and then, most significantly, the customers and their evolving healthcare needs. “And we set sort of guideposts that we were focused on health and safety. We were focusing on our colleagues’ safety, focusing on the importance of getting Americans vaccinated and then looking around the corner,” she recalls. “So we had to tactically make sure that operationally we could do all the things that we had to do, but at the same time, we had to set a sort of a north star because everything in the world was changing around us and consumers expectations in healthcare were changing dramatically.”

In the end, Karen oversaw the shift in CVS Health “from kind of a corner drug store to this broad national healthcare company.” Today the company is focused on being in the community—meeting people’s growing interest in accessing care online. How does she do it all? “I think it's all about setting your own goal, setting your expectations, defining who you are and what you want to be and getting comfortable in your own skin,” she tells Anu. “And for women, sometimes that's hard. We just have to keep working at it. And I always say, there's always going to be those little voices in your head saying, You can't do this or questioning it. And you've just got to push beyond those voices and say, Yes, I can.”

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Building a strong team culture Dec 15, 2022

I'm a new people manager and want to ensure I'm building a strong culture and highly effective team. What advice do you have for managing and growing a team?

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares how to take a step back and think differently about managing your expanding team.

Full Transcript here

Making room for women in pro sports, with Sheryl Swoopes and the NFL’s Sam Rapoport Dec 08, 2022

In honor of JPMorgan Chase's seventh Annual Leadership Day, this episode features Lauren Tyler, Head of HR for J.P. Morgan Asset and Wealth Management, in conversation with two pioneers in the sports world: WNBA legend Sheryl Swoopes and Sam Rapoport, the NFL’s Senior Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Together they explore themes of inclusion, motherhood, and diversity in sports.

Breaking through in male-dominated fields

Sheryl grew up with two brothers and began playing basketball at age 7. She emphasizes the impact that the federal Title IX legislation, passed 50 years ago this year, had on her early success and subsequent career. As a college basketball standout, Sherly couldn’t understand why the women’s’ teams always had the smaller gyms. She brought up the inequity with her coach, who told her to wait and see: Title IX would have an impact on that.

Sheryl went on to be a pioneering force of that change: the first player drafted to the WNBA, then the first player signed—and the first active player to have a baby. “I take a lot of pride in who I am and what I've been able to do,” she tells Lauren. “For every little girl out there who has had dreams of someday playing in the WNBA and to see that dream come to fruition, I honestly couldn't ask for anything better.”

Sam, meanwhile, grew up playing tackle football and was a quarterback in the Women's League. She moved on to a role with the NFL 21 years ago. “And about six, seven years ago, I looked around at the NFL and I asked myself, Where the hell are all the women?” she recalls. “It was all men on the coaching side, on the scouting side, on the officiating side. And I decided that I wanted to be the one to change that. And so I did what anyone who had found their passion would do: I cornered my boss.”

That boss was legendary NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who “handed me the ball, put me in touch with the right people, and a couple months later, the NFL Women's Forum was born.” The Forum is a program where women in entry-level coaching positions get to meet with NFL head coaches, general managers, and owners. “We give them an opportunity to impress and potentially get hired,” Sam explains. “At the beginning of the season, we went from zeros across the board for women in every category to 15 women in coaching positions.”

Support from teammates and male leaders

Both women say they wouldn’t have gotten where they are today without the extended hands of both their teammates and the male leaders who invited them in. For Sam, that started with Roger Goodell. It wasn’t all a smooth ride after that—she recalls plenty of pushback, including Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans tweeting a petition to change the team name to the Tampon Bay Buccaneers after two women were hired to the coaching staff. But one by one, NFL coaching giants signed on to help with the Women’s Forum.

She recalls courting Coach Bill Belichick, nervously thinking he was a longshot to help with the Women’s Forum. But he emailed back within minutes, saying he’d be glad to help. She says he was enthusiastic and eager to help the female coaches he met with. “And at the end of the session, he gave all 15 coaches his personal email address, told them to email him questions, and they've all stayed in touch and continued to develop through Bill.”

For her part, Sheryl says she credits her teammates with giving her the opportunity to shine. “Because I think to have a great team, you have to have different pieces and different players that are willing to accept their role,” she tells Lauren. “And without those players, there's no way I would've been the athlete that I was.”

She also acknowledges male NBA stars and tells a story about meeting her hero Michael Jordan when she was pregnant. “I said, I would be honored if you would let me name my son after you,” she remembers. “And his response was, If he has a good jump shot. And my response was, He's gonna have a better jump shot than you ever had.”

In the end, both women say, they’re most proud of knowing that they played a role in paving the way for young girls to see themselves in male-dominated professional sports.

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Transitioning back to work after parental leave Dec 01, 2022

How should I transition back to work from maternity leave?

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, gives tips for a smooth transition back to work after having a child.`

Full transcript here

Helping women define and achieve success, with Luminary founder and CEO Nov 23, 2022

After two decades as a successful banking executive, Cate Luzio realized she wanted to do something with bigger impact. She quit her job and self-funded Luminary, a membership-based career and personal growth platform with the mission of uplifting and supporting women through all phases of their professional journey. In this episode she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her journey as an entrepreneur, how she pivoted and thrived during the pandemic, and what she’s learned about the issues professional women across the country are facing.

Jumping into entrepreneurship—and meeting a pandemic

In 2018, after stints in high-level roles at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and HSBC, Cate says she realized she had been involved in a lot of initiatives around investing in women and talent development, but “I just wasn't seeing the numbers and the needle move fast enough.” Knowing she wanted to focus on those issues, she quit her job without even knowing what exactly she would do.

With the encouragement of a mentor from JPMorgan, Cate took the time to step back and think about what she really wanted to do. Soon she had a business plan that she was able to self-finance by leveraging her lifelong savings, and she launched Luminary in early 2019.

Luminary was initially conceived as an in-person meeting space to help advance women in the workforce. But less than a year after the space opened in New York City, the pandemic brought in-person events to a screeching halt. Knowing she had to be ready for anything, Cate and her team set about examining expenses, contacting vendors, and re-defining their plans. “I look back at my original business plan, and there was not even a word of digital or virtual. It really was about that physical connection,” Cate recalls. “But what I realized pretty early on in the pandemic was it wasn't about physical, it was about connection.”

Involving men in the gender equality journey

In the end, the pandemic and resulting switch to online experiences didn’t stop Luminary’s growth. Cate says they’ve done more than 2,000 events, workshops, and programs since March of 2020, and have over 1,500 hours of content from all of these sessions. “We're working with thousands of women around the world and now male allies,” she tells Sam. “So that's the model. And then we work with great corporate members like JPMorgan Chase and many others to really invest in the women internally and get them access to, yes, bigger networks, but [also] additional learning outside of what they're getting within their company.”

From the beginning, Cate knew she didn’t want to exclude men from Luminary. “The future of women in the workforce cannot evolve, progress, change without the support and assistance of men,” she notes. “And so I wanted to create a really inclusive environment, and that's why we don't have an application process. I want people to walk in physically or virtually and feel like this is a space where they can be themselves, thrive, learn, connect, develop.”

Capacity constraints, defining success, and other top women’s issues

Cate says one of the top issues facing women today is what she calls “capacity constraints.” By that, she means the common barriers such as time, transportation, and childcare, but also the ongoing tension between the messages that women get about success. “Women in particular are constantly being told, do a great job . . . that's how you're going to get promoted,” she says. “But at the same time, you better find mentors, you need to have a bigger network, you need to invest in your skills.” And the growth of remote and hybrid work has meant that there are even fewer boundaries between work and personal life. In the end, she says, it comes down to women not being able to “fit it all in.”

A related issue Cate discusses is the ongoing pressure for women to be leaders, and to aspire to the c-suite. She’d like to see more of an emphasis on women defining their own vision of success. “[We] absolutely need more women in the c-level,” she tells Sam. “But not everybody should be at that level, and nor do they want to be. You can still have a phenomenal career and still invest in your skills and still get paid and still do well at your definition of success.”

“Most women that I know are very driven and ambitious,” she continues. “They want to feel valued, they want to be acknowledged, they want to be recognized, they want to be paid, and they want to be able to have opportunities. And I think we have this incredible sense of guilt if we're not meeting everyone else's standards.”

Full Transcript here

Mentor Moment: What it takes to become a mentor Nov 17, 2022

What are the best ways to become a mentor, and what is your responsibility as a mentor?

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares what responsibilities you should expect to have when becoming a mentor.

Full transcript here

U.S. Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce Founders talk supporting entrepreneurship among a unique demographic Nov 10, 2022

Jaime Chapman and Stephanie Brown are on a mission to empower military spouses. Both military spouses themselves, the two founded and run the U.S. Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce. Here they talk with Women on the Move Host Sam Saperstein about the unique challenges facing military spouses, why the population is often drawn to entrepreneurship, and the work the Chamber is doing to foster military spouse entrepreneurs.

Relocation, pay disparities, and other facts of military life

Jaime and Stephanie both describe their own journeys as military spouses. Stephanie tells Sam that she was a business owner in Washington, DC, more than two decades ago when she met her late husband, got married, and moved overseas. “I very quickly became unemployed and unemployable,” she says. Jaime had served in the Army Reserves for six years and thought she was done with the military when she “married into the army” nearly seven years ago.

Before they knew each other, both women shared the experience of learning how difficult it was to maintain their professional careers as military spouses, and both were involved in the world of entrepreneurship. Many factors combine to make employment complicated for military spouses: they relocate a lot, there’s often a lack of affordable—or any—childcare, and there’s often a lack of family or friends to help out due to the relocations. On top of that, they note, there’s a big disparity in pay between military spouses and other civilians.

Perhaps because of these factors, military spouses have a particularly high rate of entrepreneurship. Both Stephanie and Jaime were entrepreneurs with a passion for helping others, and the two were initially brought together by a mutual colleague who recruited first Stephanie and then Jaime to work on a Military Spouse Entrepreneur Task Force. It was while working on that task force that the idea of the Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce first came to Stephanie. “I one day said to Jaime and [another colleague], you know, we really need to have a military spouse chamber of commerce because I've been working on this certification for military spouse–owned businesses for a long time with USAA and we need a forum through which we can provide this certification and really change things for spouses and small business owners,” she recalls.

Launching a network for military spouse entrepreneurs

The two women launched the U.S. Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce in 2020. As Stephanie describes, gaining recognized certification of military spouse-owned business was a driving force. “So what we began doing is researching how other third parties and the Veterans Administration actually reviewed and certified veteran-owned service, disabled veteran owned, minority owned, women owned, et cetera. And so we took those best practices and narrowed it down and kind of customized it for the lifestyle of the military spouse.”

Another key aim of the organization, Jaime explains, was to help military spouse entrepreneurs with essential business functions like setting up retirement plans and employee benefits for themselves and their employees. “Because the first thing you should be asking when you're self-employed is, how do I save for retirement?” she notes. “But most people are more worried about setting up their website and logo and getting their business off the ground and marketing it when they should be thinking about taking care of themselves.”

Today, Jaime notes, the Chamber has 1,100 military spouse members spread across 35 states in five countries running businesses ranging from artisanal handmade products to multi-seven-figure firms. The organization is involved in several legislative initiatives, including a push to streamline occupational licensing for relocating spouses. But Stephanie says one of the biggest benefits has been the recognition of the value of the community. “I think we also are beginning to recognize that there is a huge network out there of other military spouse, business owners that we can turn to, to collaborate, to mentor, which is really kind of the secret sauce,” she says.

In terms of how others can support military spouses (and, in turn, support veterans and active military members, who also benefit from their spouses’ success), the two suggest a two-pronged approach. First, doing business with certified military spouse–owned businesses, either as an individual or as a business hiring contractors, helps them succeed. And second, anybody can support military spouse–owned businesses by seeking them out and buying from them.

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Strengthening your negotiation skills Nov 03, 2022

My end of year review is coming up and I would like to request more resources to elevate the impact of our organization next year. How can I negotiate for additional support and even compensation?

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, looks back on her on 2021 interview with negotiation expert, Kathryn Valentine, as she advises on negotiating compensation and useful resources to have in your pocket.

Full transcript here

JPMorgan regional head talks supporting racial equity through affordable housing Oct 27, 2022

Cécile Chalifour wants to see a big wave of advocacy for affordable housing. As Head of the West Region for Community Development Banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co., she works with partners across the spectrum to support the bank's racial equity commitment by helping to build additional affordable housing units in the Western United States. Here she joins Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her passion for the mission and her hope of seeing see more innovation in the housing sector.

Finding her place in affordable housing

Growing up in France, Cécile attended law school and planned to practice law in her home country. But when her father suddenly passed away at the age of 50, she changed course. Deciding that she didn’t want her life to be “the same,” she headed to the United States for what she thought would be a brief but exciting experience. Although she spoke French, German, and Russian, she knew no English. She rectified that via a book on how to learn English in 90 days. “And then because I was going for a job interview in affordable housing, I learned about low-income housing tax credits—I read a whole book about low-income housing tax,” she recalls. “My funny story is always that at the beginning, I was only able to talk about law and finance . . . and I could say nothing about everyday life.”

With a family background in political activism and a personal belief in the common good, Cécile says the policy area of affordable housing was a natural fit for her. “Affordable housing is not just about brick and mortar . . . it’s about potentially changing somebody's life trajectory,” she tells Sam. “That means more opportunity, more ability to be healthy. Think about what it means for our communities. It means the better economy. It means all of us doing much better. Fundamentally, I believe that when you invest in affordable housing in our communities, we invest in ourselves—and that drives everything I do.”

In her job in Community Development Banking, Cécile manages the company’s affordable housing platform for the Western U.S. region, including construction and permanent financing for large multifamily apartment buildings. They provide the conventional debt in a public and private partnership. Her focus is on deeply targeted housing which is rent restricted and income restricted. Technically that means housing that is below 60 percent of an area’s median income.

“So there is an actual threshold,” she adds. “It can be homeless people. It can be people with a job. It happens to be a job that doesn't pay very well. A home for single mom, maybe her first home, a senior on fixed income who’s been living in car, a low income family . . . people with special needs or veterans. So that's what we do. We finance those projects.”

Maintaining a focus on diversity and advocacy

Coming from a racially diverse family, being a woman in the male-dominated field of commercial real estate, and as a mother to a neurodiverse child, Cécile says she strongly believes that diversity is imperative. She says that especially in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, she worked hard to focus on her own understanding of privilege and bias. “One of the hardest things I did as a leader was to have a conversation with my team, make myself vulnerable, having a very open conversation about race, what it meant to all of us,” she shares.

As far as advocacy goes, she says she tries to encourage everyone to realize they can make a difference. “A lot of people react to affordable housing from a place of fear,” she says. “So please try to be an advocate when you can: don't be afraid to take risks, be willing to be uncomfortable.”

Overall, she’s proud of the work the bank is doing to help people and communities thrive. “The bank is doing quite a lot,” she tells Sam. “And I'm very, very proud to work for a firm that's committing so much to my passion in many ways. Building on our investments, we are helping drive inclusive growth by committing 30 billion, by the end of 2025, to a variety of programs that are meant to encourage economy growth and opportunities for Black, Latino, and Hispanic populations.”

“And that's the impact I'm hoping to have is to not just have been part of the status quo and deliver more projects,” Cécile concludes. “But to be part of the creative thinking on innovation to bring new tools.”

Full Transcript here

Mentor Moment: Building your case to ask for a promotion Oct 20, 2022

I have been in my role for a while and I'm interested in being promoted. How should I talk with my manager about this and what do I need to do to prove that I'm ready for the next level?"

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, discusses what you should consider when asking for a promotion at work.

Full transcript here

Blindish Latina founder talks smashing disability stigmas and making workplaces more inclusive Oct 13, 2022

Catarina Rivera is on a mission to let people know it’s not just OK to talk about disability—it’s imperative to take action. Here she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her journey as a person with a disability, a successful entrepreneur, a public speaker, and a DEI consultant.

Spreading awareness and smashing disability stigmas

Catarina tells Sam that she’s Cuban and Puerto Rican, and grew up in Maryland speaking Spanish as her first language. She started wearing hearing aids as a toddler and was diagnosed with progressive vision disability called Usher Syndrome at age 17. Using a white cane to help her navigate the world, she graduated from college and started her career with Teach for America as an elementary school teacher, teaching bilingual education. Later she moved into nutrition and public health, earning an MPH degree and transitioning into roles in nonprofit organizations throughout New York City, focusing on food justice work, community engagement, and capacity building.

In 2020, Catarina started her Instagram account @blindishlatina to share her story as a proud disabled Latina woman. “I started Blindish Latina because I wanted to see someone like me out there in the world,” she recalls. “I wanted to put myself out there as a professional, disabled Latina woman. I wanted to represent my story and create awareness among non-disabled people. It is said that knowing just one person of an identity group reduces prejudice and bias. So I wanted to be that disabled friend for people who don't have anyone in their life that's disabled.”

Catarina says her goal with Blindish Latina is to raise awareness and help everybody become a disability ally who knows how to take action on behalf of disability issues. “I want people to look at the world and realize that if they're nondisabled, their world is not my world,” she explains. “It's not the same world for disabled people and it's not okay to just leave it how it is. It needs to be accessible, whatever your capacity is. Whatever your scope of influence is, you can make a difference, whether that's at your place of worship or at work or in your family? How can you create more accessibility and inclusion for everybody?”

Inclusion in the workplace

As a DEI consultant, the workplace is one of Catarina’s prime focus. She’s invested in helping people understand that people with disabilities are invaluable additions to the workforce. For one, they have extensive life experience as problem solvers and innovators. “It takes a lot of energy to be disabled in a world that's not designed for us, not adapted to us,” she says.

Catarina has several simple suggestions for how to make the workplace more accessible. She tells Sam that her first goal is to make sure that a company is focusing on disability as part of diversity, equity, and inclusion work. Disability, she says, is absolutely a part of DEI, but it's not always seen that way, and it's not always prioritized. She notes that while there are more than a billion disabled people worldwide, 79 percent of disabled employees do not disclose their disabilities to HR. “There's a lot of people that are in the workforce and you don't know that they're disabled as well as another group of people who might not know themselves that they're disabled,” she ways. “All of this to say that in the workplace, disability needs to be talked about, there needs to be real inclusion built from the leadership standpoint.”

Often, she says, companies focus on accommodations—but that’s not enough. “That's actually the bare minimum,” she tells Sam. Catarina emphasizes that to her, disability inclusion is strong when an organization has thoughtfully built inclusion and accessibility into every stage of the employee and customer experience. “The work has been done and employees don't have to ask for everything that they need,” she notes. “This means building in a lot of flexibility and choice and designing with accessibility in mind from the beginning.” As an example, she says, organizations can offer different ways during the hiring process for candidates to demonstrate their abilities—not just verbal interviews, but also a live activity or actionable task.

She says she’s both hopeful for the future and has high expectations: “I would expect to see openly disabled executive leaders. I would expect there to be representation. I would also expect to see that accessibility is a mandatory part of all design processes, whether that's the design of an employee team-building experience or the design of a new product.”

Full transcript here

Two Chase leaders talk building company culture amid accelerating change Sep 29, 2022

What’s the key to successful leadership in times of fast-paced change? To Jen Piepszak and Marianne Lake, co-CEOs of Chase Consumer & Community Banking, it includes focusing on the customer and building and maintaining strong company culture. In this episode, the two leaders take the stage with Women on the Move Host Sam Saperstein as part of the sixth annual WOTM Leadership Day.

As co-leaders, Marianne and Jen have split up the Consumer & Community Banking umbrella: Marianne runs consumer lending and connected commerce, and Jen heads up banking businesses and wealth management. Jen tells Sam that their successful partnership is built on a lengthy experience of mutual trust, respect, and friendship. And while they’ve split up the responsibilities, they spend a lot of time collaborating on issues that make all experiences easier for customers.

“Be the CEO of whatever you’re running”

When Sam asks Marianne about the traits she looks for in leaders and managers, Marianne shares that for her, this includes putting the customer first and communicating clearly with the team every step of the way. She says that being the CEO of whatever you’re working on includes understanding and focusing obsessively on customer needs and putting the customer—internal or external—at the center of all decision-making. “Oftentimes the best way you can obsess about the competition is obsessing about the customer,” she says.

Once a leader has clarified their focus, Marianne says communication is key. “Whatever you have defined as success for your business or endeavor, you need to communicate it clearly, consistently, and often because people in the team can get behind what they understand,” she tells Sam.

After that, she says, a keen attention to the data analytics is necessary: She recommends being very disciplined about showing data-driven decisions that people can understand. “Jamie [Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO] has said often and I agree with him: data analyze, rinse, repeat,” she says. “It takes the emotion out of decisions.”

Building and maintaining culture

Jen and Marianne discussed one of the largest changes they’ve managed over the past 18 months—the sudden move to remote and then hybrid work, which the company continues to pilot and test. Jen says that there’s a difference between the initial fast-paced move to remote work versus what flexibility will ultimately look like going forward. She notes that the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on women and that the flexibility coming out of it will likely have a disproportionately positive impact on women as well.

“I think it was extraordinary what we were able to do in a weekend really, turn our entire workforce into a remote workforce,” she says. “I do think that we have proven that you can maintain culture in a remote environment. We have yet to prove that you can build culture in a remote environment. And so I think having an office-based culture is incredibly important to this company for a very, very good reason.”

Jen and Marianne both agree that while remote work offers valuable flexibility, the in-person experience is critical to establishing team relationships and ultimately building culture and trust. “And I think that is a huge motivating factor for anyone,” Jen says. “In person, you have that opportunity to build that culture. And yes, you also have that opportunity to take a little bit more time to work through an issue or solve a problem, or run next door to Marianne's office and say, what do you think about this?”

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Getting the most from a hybrid work model Sep 22, 2022

This year most of my colleagues operated in a hybrid work environment, and that's how we'll continue into next year. I want to stay on track for a promotion and increased responsibility. How do I do that in a remote and in an in-person world?

WOTM host, Sam Saperstein, gives advice on how to make the most of a hybrid work environment and showing up when and where it matters.

Full transcript here

On a mission to recognize and support Latino success, with JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Head of Advancing Hispanics & Latinos Sep 16, 2022

Silvana Montenegro was a college student in Brazil when she applied for an internship in human resources at JPMorgan Chase & Co. She had no idea what human resources even meant, but she knew she wanted to see the world, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. seemed like a good first step. It’s 25 years later, and today she’s the firm’s Global Head of Advancing Hispanics & Latinos, and was recently named by Latino Leaders magazine as one of the country’s top 100 Latinas. In this episode, Silvana sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her career, the importance of being curious and creating personal connections, and her thoughts on the future of the Hispanic and Latino community.

Growing up in Brazil, Silvana was influenced by a father who wanted his children to see the world and appreciate history, and a social activist grandmother. She says she always dreamed of an international career, so she jumped at the chance to intern at JPMorgan Chase & Co. And although she started out knowing nothing about human resources, she was quickly drawn in when she realized it was all about lifting people up. “And because of my family background, I have always been very curious,” she tells Sam. “I went to university to study psychology. So the way I learn and I relate to the world is by learning about people's stories over the years, it gave me an appreciation of how can I be most impactful to lift people up.”

Changing the narrative

Silvana describes her role today as centered around creating access and opportunities for the Hispanic and Latino community. One critical factor to that mission, she says, is helping to change the narrative of how the community is perceived in the United States today. “I think we're probably better known for some of the barriers that we face and continue to face as well as the culture, right?” she notes. “When we see Latinos on TV, they're not presented in the most positive ones. I want to see more movies and more TV shows that actually portray the families as they are. The Latinos from the most affluent to those who actually face significant barriers.”

She notes that she knows her team’s mission and the journey ahead is important, but for now it starts by portraying a more holistic narrative of the community. One key part of the narrative that she wants to emphasize is the Latino impact on the U.S. economy. She notes that Latinos make up nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population, and are also the youngest demographic.

Providing the tools and services for community success

A second component of Silvana’s goal is to do more to support Hispanics and Latinos to have the tools they need to grow and thrive. She says she sees opportunities in several areas. One is simple talent mobility and helping Latinos succeed at work. Another is promoting financial health education, particularly on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, with so many people working in the United States to provide for families in Mexico. “How can we think about cross-border products so that we can support the need?” she asks. “From the U.S. side, I think it's doing more to demonstrate to the community that we’re the bank for Hispanics. And it's the little things. It's being in the community, partnering with organizations that have trust in the community so that they can see and feel that we're there for them.”

One product where Silvana sees big growth potential is digital account opening. “Because Latinos are very digital and that's how they engage,” she tells Sam. “And they tend to go to untraditional financial places to actually send money to their families. And the fees that they're paying are very high. So how can we help them send money to their families and do that banking seamlessly and not as expensively?”

Looking forward, Silvana’s excited to build on the success of initiatives already underway both internally at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and with external partners such as the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “The funding that we provide actually enables the local chambers to provide coaching to the small businesses there,” she notes. “And we also have the opportunity to connect these businesses with our local business consultants. It's a very holistic approach. And right now we are in 11 markets, we're reaching 5,000 businesses, and we're making real change, giving them the tools they need to grow and thrive.”

Transcript here

Mentor Moment: How to get involved with Web3 Sep 08, 2022

How would you advise people to get involved in Web3? What's the best way to get started?

WOTM host, Sam Saperstein invites Jaime Schmidt, founder of Schmidt’s Naturals and co-founder of BFF, to share her thoughts on how to get involved and navigate the new Web3 space.

Full transcript here

Schmidt’s Naturals founder talks taking her product from kitchen sink to global brand Sep 01, 2022

Jaime Schmidt began making natural care products in her kitchen, and in just seven years scaled her brand into 30,000+ stores and sold it to consumer goods giant Unilever. In this episode of Women on the Move, she sits down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss that journey as well as her newer interest in Web3 and blockchain.

From kitchen sink to multinational

Jaime says she was living in Portland and newly pregnant when she started being extra mindful of the products she was using on her skin. She was also searching for a new creative twist in her career path, but she didn’t know those two interests would collide at first. “I decided to make my own [products] because it was cheap and it was the cleanest way to do it—but not quite realizing the business potential in that and what my future would hold there,” she tells Sam.

She started off making lotions, sunscreens, deodorants, and shampoos and selling them at farmers’ markets. “I started to get a lot of really positive feedback and realized, you know what, there's something here and I could maybe make a little money off it,” she recalls. The face-to-face interactions at those markets made her feel vulnerable but also helped her learn what was working, and what she needed to change.

But Jaime had larger aspirations for her brand, Schmidt’s Naturals. Flash forward a few years and she was on the shelves at Target, CVS, and Walmart, “those distribution channels where you might not expect to find a handcrafted natural deodorant made by a woman in her kitchen,” she summarizes for Sam. “Those were the channels I was most excited to get into because I saw big opportunity there, because no other natural deodorant brands were going after these channels.” Her vision paid off, and in 2017 she sold Schmidt’s to industry giant Unilever.

Moving forward in the Web3 space

Jaime says she was thrilled to have Unilever acquire Shnmidt’s, but she didn’t want to step away form the company; in fact she remains involved with creative decisions. “Any time a brand gets acquired, there's the biggest fear of any founders—what are they going to change?” she tells Sam. “What was important for me to maintain was just the creative energy of the brand. I was a maker at heart, and I had stayed so close to the product throughout the growth. You know, our brand had fun energy that I wanted to make sure didn't go stale.”

Meanwhile, Jaime has moved on to a variety of other interests including investment funds, crypto, NFTs, and even writing book. One of her goals is to help other women succeed—in the entrepreneurial space but also in the new Web3 space. Toward that end, she co-founded Blockchain Friends Forever (BFF) with the idea of opening up this new online world of investing to women and non-binary people.

“When we had the idea to create BFF, we knew that the first thing we wanted to do was have this big kickoff, introduce people to everything we thought they needed to know on the most basic level, like what is an NFT? What is the blockchain?” she explains to Sam. They put together an introductory online event to introduce new audiences to the ideas of NFTs and blockchain, and they expected maybe 5,000 participants. When they got more than 20,000, they knew they were filling a need.

Through BFF, she’s continuing to provide guidance and resources to people entering the world of Web3. “We're constantly looking at ways to keep the community engaged and to teach and to help connect and do some fun things too,” she says.

“I think people need to understand what it is they want out of Web3 and this new technology,” she explains. “And so that's the first step—recognizing for yourself, what are the opportunities for me and what really resonates and gets me excited?”

For more traditional emerging entrepreneurs, Jaime wrote her book Supermaker: Crafting Business on Your Own Terms. In it, she tells her story of founding Schmidt’s and growing it into a global brand, and sharing tips for launching and executing a successful business plan. “There's such a holistic culture right now. And the brands that are most sustainable are the ones that truly start from a solid foundation,” she says. “And then also just keeping an open mind to shifting gears when you need to, because not everything will go as you think it will.”

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Finding balance between work and home life Aug 25, 2022

The question from our community of female founders is how do you balance being a founder and a caretaker or someone with other responsibilities outside of work?

WOTM host, Sam Saperstein invites Pamela Aldsworth, Managing Director and Head of VC Coverage at JPMorgan Chase to discuss why there’s no such thing as work-life balance and how to get over the guilt of being a working mom.

Full transcript here

Hair and skincare entrepreneur talks honoring the authentic middle-aged woman Aug 18, 2022

Hair and skincare entrepreneur talks honoring the authentic middle-aged woman

Angel Cornelius was 57 when she left her lifelong career in healthcare management to start her own premium beauty products company. Here, the founder and CEO of Maison 276 discusses how she built her business as a middle-age Black woman—and shares her dream that soon all women will come to appreciate the benefits of midlife rather than feel pressured to re-capture their youth.

Angel tells Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein that she wasn’t looking to become an entrepreneur when she started inventing beauty products—she was just looking for something that would work better for her than the commercial products she kept cycling through. “Honestly, I was solving for personal pain points,” she says. When her hair turned grey early she soon got fed up with moving between “purple” products to make her hair more “vibrant” and other products to tone down that vibrancy.

She started mixing her own hair products at home in her sink. “What I wanted was just one system, one set of products to just wash my hair, adding no unwanted color and also solving for the fact that our hair is just like our skin,” she recalls. “It changes as we mature and women often think there's something wrong and no, there's absolutely nothing wrong. It's just different hair.” Before long she was using her leftover haircare ingredients to make similar skincare products. And not too long after that she started sharing her products with friends and family and soon had to open an Etsy store to keep up with demand.

Big breaks in the beauty biz

Angel tells Sam that her first big break came when she was discovered by ESSENCE through one of her son’s friends, an original employee of the beauty subscription company Birchbox; they wanted to include one of her homemade beauty butters in a package. Angel said yes before she realized that they would need at least 10,000 units to start. “I tell people all the time, it's a good thing we didn't have zoom back then because the words coming out of my mouth did not match the look on my face because I knew that was not going to happen in my kitchen,” she jokes. Before she knew it, she was exploring the world of manufacturers (and learning that they “won't turn their machines on for less than 50,000 units”).

Angel learned on the fly about formulations, white label products, boutique manufactures, and other ins and outs of the industry. Before long, Angel had branched out from skincare and was scaling up her original innovation: haircare products. That led to her next big break when a home shopping network called TJC invited her to showcase her three-step system for silver and blonde hair. The appearance was so successful, she was asked to appear again six hours later. Angel parlayed that success into winning a competition on QVC and suddenly her brand—Maison 276, an homage to her New Orleans roots—was erupting.

A focus on authenticity for middle-aged women

Angel says she’s always kept the needs of middle-aged women at the forefront of what she does at Maison 276. When she first started going to trade shows, she realized she was often the only older face behind a booth. “And so women would crowd around my table and yes, they loved the skincare moisturizers, but they were asking me questions all across the spectrum about beauty. They wanted to know about my hair. How did I keep it so white? How did I keep it so healthy?” she recalls. Today, she says, she’s focused on building the leading beauty brand for a diverse group of middle-aged women who want to embrace the naturally occurring changes that take place in their bodies with clean and innovative products while also celebrating the beauty and vibrancy of their lives.

“The middle-aged woman is the most powerful consumer group in this country and in fact in the world, but she's also the most ignored, misunderstood, and the most misrepresented,” Angel says. “And when they do pay attention to us, it's often from a point of age correction, anti-aging wrinkle reduction, medications like incontinence products, like it's their mission to fix everything that they think is wrong with us. And I reject that as a woman and as an entrepreneur. Maison 276 really has been built by the power of community because we represent middle-aged women in a way that is beautiful, vibrant, energetic, and that's authentic to how she lives her life. She is super excited about this stage and really believes that she's in the prime of her life. And that is what we reflect, not only in our innovative products, but also in our messaging, in our representation.”

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Staying motivated while in a male dominated field Aug 11, 2022

How do you stay motivated when venture capital is full of mostly men?

WOTM host, Sam Saperstein invites Pamela Aldsworth, Managing Director and Head of VC Coverage at JPMorgan Chase to discuss how after being in the tech industry for over 20 years she remains motivated, and how women inventors and entrepreneurs are changing the game.

Full transcript here

Beyond the Billion founder talks the importance of funding female entrepreneurs Aug 04, 2022

When Shelly Porges learned in 2017 that women were only receiving 2.7 percent of global venture capital, she started thinking about what she could do to change that. By 2018, she had co-founded the Billion Dollar Fund for Women (now Beyond the Billion), and within a year more than $1 billion was committed from over 80 funds globally. In this episode of Women on the Move, Shelly sits down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss her multisector background, why she’s so passionate about connecting funders with women, and how Beyond the Billion achieved success beyond her expectations.

Multisector experience

Shelly tells Sam that her varied experience across the corporate, government, and entrepreneurial sectors has been invaluable. “Each sector has its own rewards and its own challenges, things that you learned that you wouldn't have learned maybe doing the last thing you did,” she says.

Starting out in the corporate sector, Shelly worked 10 years at American Express before spending three years at Bank of America as Chief Marketing Officer during an historic turnaround. She went on to found not one but six companies in the Bay Area. By 2005, she had moved to Washington, DC and become involved with Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. “I wasn’t doing it for money,” she tells Sam. I was doing it because I really believed in her as a candidate and her as a leader. And then I had the opportunity to join her at the state department as her senior advisor for global entrepreneurship.”

Shelly is now working in her fifth sector, venture capital, having launched the Billion Dollar Fund for Women in 2018.

Raising a billion for women

Shelly says the inspiration for the Billion Dollar Fund for Women was the many female founders she worked with over the years at the Cartier Women’s Initiative, the largest women's business plan competition in the world. “I would see women from all over the world, innovating amazing technology or tech-enabled businesses that were helping people in the healthcare sector or any number of things, saving lives, educating more and more young people,” she says. “And then afterwards I would try to help get them funded. And so I knew those companies intimately and not being able to find them funding would drive me nuts.”

Back in the private sector after the 2016 election, Shelly knew she wanted to focus on helping women entrepreneurs raise money. She found her path forward when a friend, a prominent Asian businesswoman, told her the World Bank was holding its annual meetings in Bali in 2018. The friend was working to mobilize a blended finance forum around the 17 UN sustainable development goals—but she couldn’t find a project partner for Goal #5: Gender Equality.

“I said, well, send me your parameters and I'll see what I can do,” Shelly recalls. “I know a lot of people. And meanwhile I started getting obsessed with this notion. What if I offered to promote these venture funds to limited partner investors who would invest in them in exchange for which they would make a pledge to invest more into female founders? And that's where it all started.”

“So now she had a project partner for number five and we were up and running,” she tells Sam. “By the time we got to the World Bank meetings, we had over $460 million pledged from initially at 23 funds. So [it was] the beginning of what we call our global consortium of funds; in under nine months we achieved and then surpassed the billion dollars.”

Getting results

Since then, Beyond the Billion has continued to exceed expectations. Shelly says that’s partly a reflection of the untapped value of women entrepreneurs; data shows that women are consistently getting better results than men.“Whereas when we invest in men, it's a normal carbon. It's the very definition of the normal curve because they represent the total universe practically of who gets invested in.”

As far as advice to female entrepreneurs, Shelly is straightforward: “Do your homework, know who you're reaching out to,” she says. By doing your research upfront you can find the subset of funds that might be a good match for you in terms of stage, geography, mission, and other criteria, she notes.

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: How having a diverse team can make your pitch stronger Jul 28, 2022

The question from our community of female founders is how can we use having a diverse team as an advantage during pitch meetings?

WOTM host, Sam Saperstein invites Pamela Aldsworth, Managing Director and Head of VC Coverage at JPMorgan Chase to share her take on using diverse teams to your advantage during pitch meetings and why it's important to have different opinions and voices in the room.

Promoting integrity, inclusion, and diversity in the water with the founders of Textured Wave Jul 21, 2022

When Chelsea Woody, Danielle Black Lyons, and Martina Duran met online a few years ago, they had two things in common: they were all Black women, and they were all devoted to the sport of surfing. In this episode of Women on the Move, the three sit down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss their individual journeys toward surfing and how they all came together to found Textured Waves, a collective dedicated to promoting integrity, inclusion, and diversity in the water.

Finding their space in the surf world

Martine, Danielle, and Chelsea were all introduced to surfing as young adults, but they each had a different journey. Chelsea, a nurse, discovered surfing when she and her husband took a year off from their jobs in Seattle and traveled the world. During the trip, she learned to surf in Indonesia; once they returned home, they moved to California to more fully embrace the sport.

Danielle grew up in the bay area in a family of swimmers and water-lovers, but didn’t discover surfing until a college trip to Hawaii. Later she studied abroad in Costa Rica where she cemented her love for the sport.

Martina, from Florida, credits her parents enrolling her in a water-safety ocean program for her lifelong love of the water. She also didn’t surf until college, and took her first surfing lesson while studying abroad in Costa Rica.

In their 20s, the three pursued careers while each also embraced surfing. All three share that by then they had developed a deep emotional connection not just with surfing, but with the ocean and water itself. They also all shared a feeling of not quite belonging, as women of color, in a sport usually branded with a blond-haired, blue-eyed aesthetic.

“We all met each other online, just searching for our likeness,” Danielle recalls. “It’s hard to find other women of color in the water here in Southern California. Usually, I'm the only one who looks like me. So I think we were all looking for camaraderie and sisterhood and we found it in each other and on Instagram.”

Textured Waves

Once they met online, and eventually in person, the three women knew they wanted to share their experiences as women of color in surfing, and help other women feel more welcome in the surf community. Like the ocean, Black hair has both texture and waves, and so they settled on Textured Waves as the perfect name for their collective.

“We all felt like we can't be the only ones out here,” Chelsea adds. “And I think that was the drive to find other women that looked like us that had similar experiences, similar shared experiences, and then form a community. So others wouldn't have to navigate the space with such difficulty. We wanted to make it easier for the next generation and women, and for our age as well.”

The group is conscious of the history of the disadvantages experienced by the Black community and how segregation often kept Black Americans away from beaches and other water spaces. “I want to acknowledge that this is actually in our blood . . . when we came over from Africa we were coastal water people, and that has been lost through [racism and segregation],” Chelsea says. “There’s this stereotype that we aren't water people, and that's not true.”

Looking forward

In just a few years, Textured Waves has grown to be a force of change in the world of surfing. “I think the thing I'm most proud of is just when I see a Black woman or a Black girl enter the ocean for the first time and attempt surfing for the first time because they saw something on our page,” Martina says.

For the most part, they agree, the wider surfing community has been receptive to what they’re trying to do, especially after the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. “I think what happened was a lot of people did some self-reflection of what it means to hold privilege in spaces and maybe how their privilege might unintentionally or intentionally have caused someone to be excluded,” Martina continues.

A partnership with Chase and Marriot Bonvoy Boundless credit card has helped Textured Waves to spread their message of inclusion to a wider audience—and it also allowed them to host their first retreat in Hawaii last year. This fall, the collective will head back to that surfers’ paradise to host a second retreat where they hope to introduce more women of color to the sport and continue normalizing their presence.

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Transferring skills to help pivot your career Jul 14, 2022

After graduation, I began my career because it was the first job offer I received and was in the industry I was interested in. Since then I've continued to build my skills and career, but I'm more interested in a different role. How do I begin to make a switch and show the transferable skills that I have? Is there a right way to rebrand myself for this new trajectory?

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares how she pivoted her career from journalism to business, and how you can do the same by advancing your education or transferring your core skills to the desired role.

Full transcript here

Instant Teams founders on remote work opportunities, tapping underserved talent pools Jul 07, 2022

What happens when two military spouses—a software developer and an entrepreneur—combine forces? In this episode of Women on the Move, host Sam Saperstein finds out, as she talks with Instant Teams founders Liza Rodewald and Erica McMannes.

“Instant Teams is a remote team marketplace that builds remote workforces by tapping technology and the largest database of military connected workers in the industry,” Sam explains. “They are challenging the status quo and building a unique way for companies to diversify their workforce.”

Common challenges

Erica McMannes has been a military spouse for more than 20 years, moving 12 times in those two decades. Along the way, she experienced the challenges shared by military spouses in trying to build their own career amidst frequent moves. She eventually landed in “the Silicon Valley space” and put her varied experience to work launching start-ups.

Liza Rodewald, meanwhile, had a career as a software developer before her husband decided to return to active duty military service. Like Erica, she soon understood the common challenges faced by her peers. “Every single military spouse I would meet would ask me the same questions,” she tells Sam. “How are you working from home? How have you maintained your career? And can you help me do the same?”

Erica and Liza met and developed a relationship via a Facebook group, and only lived in the same place—Fort Lee, Virginia—briefly. But they kept up with each other, and when Erica came up with the basic idea of Instant Teams, she reached out Liza: “Am I crazy?” she wrote. “Is this an actual thing we could do?”

Liza, who had always been a solo entrepreneur and was in the final stages of launching another business, didn’t take long to get excited about Erica’s idea. “It was just really clear to me that I wanted a partnership and to really do something for this [military spouse] community in the remote workspace,” she recalls. Within months, working remotely before the pandemic had made it the norm, the two were making the VC rounds and launching Instant Teams.

A two-sided marketplace

Liza and Erica talk about how, as a talent marketplace, they serve two clients and solve two problems: that of employers and that of employees. By focusing on skills-based hiring rather than the standard chronological résumé system, Instant Teams offers career opportunities to the military spouse community who often get overlooked because of résumé gaps and other byproducts of the military lifestyle. Employers get direct access to a pool of candidates without having to post jobs and screen candidates themselves.

As a side benefit, skills-based hiring naturally promotes diversity in workplaces. “You're not just getting the same flavor of people when you're trying to hire, but you actually have diverse pipelines built in,” Liza says.

Pioneering a remote work culture

Erica and Liza founded Instant Teams with a focus on remote career opportunities before the pandemic even hit. As military spouses, they were both familiar with the benefits and challenges of working remotely. “I was doing gymnastics basically to try to create quiet spaces for myself, and closed one deal while I was in my car because my house was being packed up at the time,” Liza recalls. But once the pandemic normalized working from home, she says she began to realize she didn’t need to be so hard on herself for every little interruption. “We all have families,” she says. “We all have doorbells that ring or a dog that barks, and to see people as humans in the workforce I think was a really positive thing that came out of the pandemic.”

Erica emphasizes that fostering a positive remote work environment was also paramount at Instant Teams. “One of the first documents we ever created was called our Ethos to Remote Communication,” she says. “And this was pre-pandemic, and I look back and I think, wow, we were like pioneers, like look at us, charging ahead with remote communication.”

Today, they say, they’re proud of the work they’ve done to promote remote work opportunities to talented military spouses and others, as well as the opportunities they offer to employers to have a curated recruiting pipeline experience. “What we're building towards is something greater, not even just for the organization or for our teams or for our customers, but in a bigger sense of women in business and women in leadership,” Erica says.

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Networking as a student vs. a professional Jun 30, 2022

As a student, we learn the ways of networking to get a job and initiate our career. But how does networking change once you've begun your career? What are the differences and tips to ensure you're always building a network as a professional?

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, talks about how networking is a long-term job and gives you tips on building relationships once school ends and your career begins.

Full transcript here

Unleashing the power of female founders with Techstars CEO Maëlle Gavet Jun 23, 2022

When Maëlle Gavet became CEO of Techstars last year, she brought a background in both entrepreneurship and consulting—and a commitment to diversifying tech funding. One of the largest seed investors in the world, Techstars has nearly 3000 companies in their portfolio this year, and Maëlle says the plan is to add up to 650 more. In this episode, she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to talk about Techstar’s approach, her commitment to supporting female and other founders, and her partnership with Women on the Move.

An ecosystem approach

Maëlle says she thinks about Techstar’s approach as an ecosystem, built on a framework of accelerators, or bootcamps, for entrepreneurs. “Young entrepreneurs join us, and for three months work with us to take their company to the next level,” she explains. “We also do a lot to build an entire environment around the entrepreneurs. We have things like startup weekends or catalyst programs where we basically help activate communities all around the world, bring wannabe entrepreneurs and mentors and alumni of our programs and potential investors and corporate partners and government institutions. So basically we really try to get a stronger ecosystem because no one succeeds alone.”

An integral part of Techstar’s approach is the diverse founders they serve. Shying away from typical Silicon Valley start-ups, Maëlle says that Techstar regularly invests in women, in people of color, in people with disabilities, and in the LGBTQ community. This year Techstar will have 52 programs in 18 countries. They also have shorter catalyst programs in more than 50 countries. “The underlying philosophy is that talent and ambitions are distributed equally around the world, but opportunities are not,” she tells Sam.

The power of sisterhood

Maëlle says the power of sisterhood is phenomenal—making investing in their business endeavors a no-brainer. “I think women are strong,” she says. “Women are smart. Women have run the world for as long as I know—they've just done it in the back rooms rather than at the forefront. To me, this is more about unleashing and supporting existing potential than anything else.”

She notes three key elements that Techstar’s programs can help unleash in the women they support. The first is helping with imposter syndrome. “It saddens me that it still exists, but the reality is we still have a lot of women who are not 100 percent sure that they’re worth it, that they can do it, that they have what it takes and going through these programs helps increase that confidence,” she tells Sam.

The second element is an understanding that nobody succeeds alone. She notes: “Your chances of success increase proportionally to the network that you have, whether it's the network to find the first people you're going to hire, or the first customers that you're going to sign, or the mentors that you're going to surround yourself [with] or bring to your board, or ultimately the investors.”

The final key element to building strong female entrepreneurs, Maëlle says, is simply money. “Ultimately it all comes down to money,” she notes. “Are you going to find a way to invest in this woman? And so I think for me, these programs are about making sure that these women are being funded, are being put in touch with the right investors.”

Partnership with JP Morgan

Maëlle and Sam talk about the importance of networking in getting women in touch with the investors they need. And they describe how a partnership between Techstar and Women on the Move is helping foster those relationships. A few months ago, J.P. Morgan announced an 80 billion fund that they’ll use to partner with Techstar and set up accelerator programs in several cities, as part of their commitment to racial equity in those areas of the United States.

Sam mentioned that only 2 percent of venture capital money goes into female founders, and the two women talk about their commitment to moving that stat. “There is so much potential,” Maëlle asserts. “And so many things that can be done to unleash all this potential. As I say, talent and ambitions are equally distributed, but opportunities are not. And the partnership that we're doing with [J.P. Morgan] is basically trying to make this opportunity more equally distributed.”

Full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Taking the confusion out of mid-year reviews Jun 16, 2022

Feedback is important to growth and the formal, mid and annual review process can be confusing. Could you speak to appropriate preparation for these reviews? What should you expect from each and what is the appropriate planning to do?
Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, stars how to make sense of your formal employee reviews, and how managers should also consider giving real-time feedback throughout the year.

Full transcript here

Crypto, NFTs, and the wave of the future, from a marketing pioneer Jun 09, 2022

Avery Akkineni wants you to know: It’s not too late, and you didn’t miss the boat. As president of VaynerNFT, Avery is a leader in the emerging NFT space. In this conversation with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein, she breaks down the NFT market, Web 3, and the ongoing opportunity for consumers and brands to participate in this fast-moving space.

A marketing pioneer with a mission to bring other women along

Avery began her career right out of college at Target Corp., but within a year or so she moved to Google, still a relatively new company in 2012. At Google she worked on products including AdWords, YouTube, Hardware Products, and Double Click, and she also learned about Vayner Media when Gary Vaynerchuk gave a motivational talk to her team. “I was incredibly impressed with how different Gary's perspective was, and about his passion around social media,” she recalled. “At the time, I didn’t know too much about social media. So, I thought I’m going to learn all about social from the guys who know it best at Vayner.”

She joined Vayner in 2018 as a Vice President on the media team—her first experience of the agency side of marketing. “So, it was a totally new experience of learning a different side of the marketing coin,” she tells Sam. “And I learned a lot really quickly. Had the opportunity to help build out some teams. I then had the opportunity to actually go and start Vayner Media's presence in the Asia Pacific region.”

By 2019, she moved to Singapore to start Vayner Media there. She soon opened offices in Tokyo, Bangkok, Sydney, and Hong Kong as well—all during the pandemic. “It was a very different type of working environment, where we were all pretty much remote and working across borders digitally,” she recalled.

One benefit of working through the height of the pandemic was that she got to explore new ways of building teams, as well as new ways of thinking about technology. “We thought something very interesting might be happening in this world of NFTs,” she says. “At the time, I didn’t even know what that meant, what it was.” By July of 2021, she was heading up the new VaynerNFT, which she describes as “a Web 3 consultancy focused on helping enterprises navigate all things Web 3 and NFT.”

Immersed in this new world, on thing struck Avery: Her colleagues and Web 3 leaders were mostly male. “Right now the community who's super active is very heavily men,” she tells Sam. “And I'm super passionate about helping to bring women into this space.”

Breaking down NFTs for the uninitiated

As an early leader in the world of NFTs and related Web 3 activities, Avery is skilled at de-mystifying the concept for others. She breaks it down for listeners: “What NFTs, non-fungible tokens, represent is really digital asset ownership. It can be a piece of art. It can be a ticket. It can be a utility. But fundamentally, that represents a digital asset that you own that is provable on the blockchain.”

And while there’s currently a small community of people who are active in the NFT world, Avery says she believes there’s a place for everyone. She encourages small business owners and individuals—especially women—to get involved. And she offers three pieces of advice for those interested.

First, she says, get started by jumping in in a hands-on way. “Get yourself a Discord and Twitter, and understand what's happening,” she advises. “I think really spending the time to shape your own perspective is incredibly important.”

Next, she advises all business owners to figure out how they can develop something that would be interesting to their existing consumers. “I would maybe look into loyalty as an NFT mechanism, and finding a way to reward people who already come to your dry cleaner, or to your daycare, or whatever it is,” she offers.

Her third piece of advice is to consider expanding your business’s payment options to include accepting crypto. “I think as a small business, you actually can move much quicker and navigate this world of Web 3 in a really cool way,” she adds. “And being able to operate without a ton of bureaucracies can be a huge advantage.”

As for her goals for VaynerNFT, she’s looking forward to continuing work that’s game-changing, interesting, and long term: “I think our goals are really to help enterprises enter this Web 3 world in an authentic way that builds value for their communities and builds value for them.”

Full Transcript here

The podcast is not intended to provide legal, tax, or financial advice or to indicate the availability or suitability of any JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. product or service. JPMorgan Chase is not responsible for views expressed other than our own.

Mentor Moment: Taking on more responsibility at work to advance your career Jun 02, 2022

How do I go about taking on more responsibility at work?

In today’s Mentor Moment, Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein shares how to take on more responsibility at work without causing your current role & responsibilities to suffer.

Transcript here

Melissa and Doug co-founder talks discovering her true self and finding joy May 26, 2022

About two years ago Melissa Bernstein, co-founder of Melissa and Doug Toys, began a journey of self-discovery that eventually led her to a diagnosis of existential angst—and a commitment to uncovering her true self. In this episode of Women on the Move, the world-famous toy entrepreneur sits down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss that experience and how it led her to co-found LifeLines, her new company focused on wellbeing.

Melissa says she knew she was different—and struggled intensely with life—since she was a child. “From my earliest recollection, I struggled with asking . . . Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?” she recalls. “And when I asked those around me these deep dark questions, people didn't really want to hear that from a little child.” She recalls being told that she was too deep, too emotional, and that she should go outside and play. Ultimately, her response was to bury herself in introversion, perfectionism, and creativity—three ingredients that helped create magic when she co-founded Melissa and Doug in her 20s.

Toy Story

Melissa recalls how she and her now-husband Doug, both working in finance at the time, decided that they would start a company. Both the children of educators, they initially honed in on something for children. After considering and rejecting the idea of opening an alternative school, they decided on the toy business. Melissa describes Melissa and Doug Toys as “open-ended” toys because they are aimed to be 90 percent about the child and 10 percent about the toy. In the first years of the business, Melissa says they “faced every single hurdle you could ever imagine.” They persevered to establish one of the most iconic toy companies.

The success and creativity she found through the business allowed her to channel the darkness she still felt inside. “It was dark into light through Melissa and Doug in making these toys,” she tells Sam. “[But] ultimately about two years ago, that cry of my own soul to be seen authentically grew so loud. It was deafening. And I started to see that even though creating toys for 33 years had been like my salvation, my lifeline, and my reason for being, it was almost [a] façade I had created.”

Channeling angst into lifelines

Receiving a diagnosis of existential angst and coming to terms with her own truth was life-changing. She came to realize that there's a deep connection between those who have existential angst and those who are extra creative. “Because the very qualities that lead us to ponder these deep dark realities also lead us to experience the beauty and the joy and the wonder of the world,” she describes. “I always say both the beauty and the pain of the world are unbearable for me. I could vacillate between the profound highs and the devastating lows in a minute.”

It was this journey of discovery that inspired Melissa to co-found LifeLines two years ago. The company is dedicated to her daily Practice, which she developed and continues to refine to help keep her grounded in the face of the extreme highs and lows she experiences.

She describes three core tenets she learned in her journey and focused LifeLines on. First, that she isn’t alone anymore, after years of denying the truth of how she felt. After “coming out” with her diagnosis and her own truth, she heard from thousands who felt the same way. Her second tenet is a commitment to helping others who suffer from existential angst to unearth their unique form of self-expression or creativity to make meaning in their own lives. And third is recognizing that she needed help. The end result is accepting “that Melissa Bernstein is the full emotional spectrum from the lowest of lows . . . to the highest of highs, like unbounding limitless joy.”

Melissa wraps up with one piece of advice for listeners: “We all have the ability to make meaning in our lives if we take responsibility for doing so. And that responsibility is a choice. So I think what I always want people to know is they may choose not to do it. They may choose to stay stuck and remain a victim, but it is a choice. And as long as they know that they have a choice to think differently and they have a choice to grab life by the horns and savor all there is to savor, then I feel like I've done my job.”

Transcript here

Mentor Moment: Leaving your job after a short period of time May 19, 2022

How soon can I leave a job without it reflecting negatively on my resume?

In a special edition of Mentor Moment, Women on The Move host Sam Saperstein and Rabia Baig, a member of the campus recruiting team at JPMorgan Chase share how important it is to make sure your resume and interview showcase the right reasons for leaving your job to new employers.

Transcript here

JPMorgan Chase Global Head of EAP talks about prioritizing mental health and encouraging connection May 12, 2022

This podcast is for informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your mental health professional or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding your condition.

There’s no doubt in Judith Bess’s mind that the past two years of pandemic living have been traumatic for nearly all of us. As global head of the employee assistance and work life program at JP Morgan Chase, Judith has been privileged to witness and assist JP Morgan Chase employees as they navigate the impacts on their mental health. In this episode, she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her journey to leadership, how the pandemic gave people permission to be vulnerable, and how connections with others are so critical to our wellbeing.

Two leadership lessons

With a social work background, Judith started at JPMorgan Chase early in her career expecting to stay for a short time. Instead, she fell in love with the work and the firm and has stayed for nearly three decades. She’s found her background a perfect fit for the employee assistance and work-life programs she heads. “When you’re working within an industry like ours, every management triangle is a family. And so you can apply the same systems that you would in a family, right to the corporation,” she tells Sam.

Judith discusses her transition from being an EAP counselor to heading the firm’s global program, and she shares two invaluable lessons she learned. The first was from a senior HR leader who told her, as she was taking over the management position, that she could build on what had been working well but she could also assess what wasn’t working well and what she wanted to do differently; she gave Judith permission to make changes.

The second lesson came from outside the firm, from a book by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign marketing director. “Her book really talked a little bit more about how for Hillary Clinton, they marketed her like they would market a man and they left off her female characteristics, her warmth, her familial attention, her endurance, her ability to bring the community together,” Judith recalls. “And I thought, you know what? I don’t have to do it that way. I can come into this with me being a woman and being okay, but being a woman of color and coming into this role.”

EAPs and the pandemic

Assuming her leadership role just before the pandemic broke out means that “COVID kind of took over my first two years,” Judith says. For one thing, the pandemic highlighted the importance of the assistance program that had been in place for decades. “Once COVID hit in 2020, I think the recognition of the impact to our mental health and our wellbeing became so very clear, and the need for something to really help us learn and not isolate and be able to heal and find coping tips along the way, shot EAP out of a cannon,” she says.

One response to the increased need brought on by the pandemic was the introduction of Coping Connections, an online group support model. “We came into Zoom rooms—and still do every week—to support one another, to allow for people to come into the room and say, you know what? I'm not doing great today. And how are you doing? And to really share with one another and break the seal on having to feel like we had to pull it all together all the time,” she describes. “And I saw thousands of people come through. It was amazing.”

As employees return to the office, Judith hopes the increased focus on and awareness of the importance of mental health will continue—and that more employees will recognize and utilize the convenience of the EAP. She hopes employees will bring with them the lessons learned from remote work: “You may have 20 things on your to-do list, but how can you listen to good music while you're doing it? Or how can you bring a little bit of sunshine into your day?”

In the future, she says, we all have the possibility of changing. “Look what we did to the business world,” she notes. “We're in a hybrid work environment. We can do this. We can make sure that we have an adjustment to our life and our lifestyle, and we can get things done yet push the envelope on what might have been something that was just antiquated at this point. COVID taught us that we could do anything anywhere. So I’m really, really hopeful that we can get creative about what our needs are. How do we bring more joy into everything we do?”

full transcript here

Mentor Moment: Gaining an internship as a college student May 05, 2022

How do I get an internship?

In a special edition of Mentor Moment, Women on The Move host Sam Saperstein and Rabia Baig, a member of the campus recruiting team at JPMorgan Chase give tips to college students on how to secure an internship, as well as how companies can go about offering them.

Full transcript here

Preparing young women for political leadership, with Ignite CEO Sara Guillermo Apr 28, 2022

Sara Guillermo wants to build a pipeline of young women who are ready and eager to become the next generation of political leaders. As the CEO of Ignite, the largest young women's political leadership organization in the country, she’s fulfilling that goal: Ignite has already trained 20,000-plus young women from all over the country. In this episode she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss what she loves about her work and how she sees the future of women in politics.

From kindergarten organizer to CEO

Sara started running for office in the first grade. Her elected role as Class Organizer was everything she’d dreamed it could be: she got to hand out all the classroom papers, make sure all of the colored pencils were in their particular bin, and most impressively, join with the leaders of the older grades to plan schoolwide events. Her excitement was two-fold: the excitement of being a leader but also the thrill, as an immigrant from the Philippines, of representing people who looked like her.

Sara says that experience in first grade launched her career in leadership. It also got her thinking more and more about how who sits at the table is important. “I kept running [for leadership positions] all through my education and actually now serve on a community board here in my county,” she tells Sam.

She earned her master’s in social work and began working with after-school school programs in San Francisco in the late 2000s. She met Ignite’s founder, Ann Moses, before the nonprofit was even established. “But she was starting to share this idea,” Sara recalls. “And I was like, okay, cool. Well, I ran for office, I'm a student leader. I can do that here. And so Ignite was quickly embodied into our after school programs.” She started with Ignite as a program facilitator in Oakland schools and moved into a full-time position in 2015 before moving up to Executive Director, and then becoming CEO in 2021.

Many sides of political leadership

Sara talks about how being a leader not just during a pandemic but also at a time of such intense civil unrest has really opened her eyes to how eager young women are to claim their political power. “I just spent an entire day yesterday in Sacramento with middle schoolers and high school students and college women from all across the state of California to identify the policies that matter to them and advocate on those policies,” she recalls. “One of the questions I asked yesterday is, What is something you want to change in your community? And it's everything: I want to feel safe riding the bus. I want to make sure that I have access to clean water. I do not want to pay a hundred thousand dollars to go to college.”

Throughout Ignite’s first ten years, Sara says, they were hyper-focused on preparing young women to run for office. “And what we discovered from the 2016 and the 2018 election is that young women were really joining other forces,” she tells Sam. “They were joining campaigns, they were getting on commissions at the most local level. They were mobilizing voters and then they were policy makers. And what we discovered is that all of those roles paired with candidates and elected [officials].”

Women’s political participation

Sara and Sam also discuss the barriers that continue to prevent more women from entering the political sector. One important aspect is intersectional issues such as lack of visibility of many women, and especially women of color. Another barrier is a lack of knowledge—young women simply aren’t aware of the variety and levels of political offices and participation.

And a huge barrier, both Sara and Sam agree, is the doubt that many young women face: doubt of their abilities or about their place at the table. “And I think a lot of what I've learned in policy and political leadership and campaign work prior to my work at Ignite is like, you just have to be consistent as change [happens]. Unfortunately it doesn't happen overnight and you have to keep pushing for it, whatever role you want to play. And we can all tap in and out of our roles throughout a generation, but we're gonna need all of us in order to move this movement forward. And that is really the critical need to support this particular generation of gen Z young women.”

Transcript here

Mentor Moment: Getting a head start with your Finances Apr 21, 2022

What are realistic ways to start saving as a young person?

In today’s Mentor Moment, Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein outlines financial tips for young adults.

Transcript here

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Climate Scientist sees hope for the future Apr 14, 2022

Dr. Sarah Kapnick wants to make sure that climate is at the forefront of everyone’s thinking, planning, and decision-making. As Senior Climate Scientist and Sustainability Strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Sarah is charged with providing subject matter expertise around climate to the firm and its clients. In this episode, she sits down with her colleague and Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her role, her belief that climate is woven into every aspect of our lives, and her hopes for the future.

Combining a love for science and math

Sarah grew up in the Midwest and took her love of science to Princeton University. “I loved math and math puzzles, but realized in my initial research that only a few people in the world would understand what I was really working on,” she recalls. “And I was really interested in applying math to the real world.” That desire led her to obtaining a certificate in finance along with her degree in math and studies in the geographical sciences.

Her path after college included investment banking at Goldman Sachs, a PhD at UCLA in Atmospheric Oceanic Sciences, time at a renewable energy forecasting startup, and 10 years at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She joined JPMorgan Chase in 2021 and has found her niche.

“Many people realize as they were trying to start doing investing and planning around climate, they didn't have enough information on the science and it wasn't something that they could easily pick up by reading a few papers or a few research reports,” she tells Sam. “So I produce research reports on climate and how it's interacting with different sectors or thinking about investments and how it'll change the future of investing. I also advise our clients in asset and wealth management to be able to explain how climate affects all of their investments.”

On being a woman in STEM

Throughout her career path, Sarah took strength from the women she befriended. As an undergraduate studying math and science at Princeton, she was one of only a few women. But, she tells Sam, in her PhD program, she had several other women in her cohort who were all very close and supported each other a lot. At the NOAA, she was elevated to a senior deputy division level as part of the first group of women in leadership. “Strides are being made,” she says. “I got a lot of encouragement from my peers and from some really good mentors along the way.”

Because of that isolation that can come with being a woman in STEM, Sarah says, connecting with the other women you do find can be a lifeline. “And so if you talk to each other about the problems that you're facing as a woman in science, and then seeing that they're also facing it, it becomes a lot less isolating,” she says.

That’s why her advice for other women STEM is to network. “And then you can build your team, your team that you talk to,” she says.

Hope for the future

Sarah feels she’s right where she should be in her current role. “I'm thinking about how to explain to [clients] how climate is going to affect the things that they care about and how it can help them be more informed about those different issues,” she says. Many of these discussions have been successful in helping clients understand that climate is something they need to be thinking about. “Whereas when we first started the conversation,” she says, “they were extremely curious, but didn't think that it would affect them at all.”

Today, Sarah says, the thought that keeps her up at night is, Am I doing enough? “Because climate change is going to continue,” she tells Sam. “It's actually going to accelerate in the coming years and decades. And so we need to be prepared for that.”

Sarah believes that every individual can impact climate change. Investors and philanthropists can make decisions based on encouraging climate improvements. Individuals can not only recycle, but also be intentional about reducing their consumer footprint, for example by cutting back on airline travel. And individual choices such as the hobbies you practice can impact climate too. As an example, she describes how her daughter really likes gardening. “We are putting out plants that are important for a habitat for butterflies,” she says. “And then we also put plants out in the front of our yard in Brooklyn that also help filtrate water to make cleaner water going into the sewers. So you can think about what are the things you care about, and then you can look it up and find things that relate to climate and sustainability within that.”

Transcript here

Mentor Moment: Giving feedback that matters without offense Apr 07, 2022

How do you overcome hesitation to provide a colleague with feedback when it's more constructive in nature, and you do not have the strongest lines of communication with them?

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares to give constructive feedback without stepping toes, in today’s Mentor Moment.

Transcript here

WIE Suite founder talks community building and helping other women advance Mar 31, 2022

Dee Poku founded the WIE Suite to bring together ambitious women leaders and creators who work to drive action for themselves and for each other. In this episode of the Women on the Move Podcast, she sits down to discuss community building and why she encourages women to be more transactional.

The WIE Suite

Dee first recognized the need for an organization like the WIE Suite many years ago. “There are so many wonderful women's conferences, but as someone who cares so deeply about women's advancement, what I felt was missing was that sort of true deal making that would really sort of catapult us to success” she says. “When I look at someone like my husband, within five minutes of meeting someone, they've exchanged business cards and they found a deal to do. And I think that to broadly generalize with women, we’re relationship builders, it takes us a little bit longer.”

She realized that instead of large, anonymous conferences, women would benefit from more intimate, curated spaces. She started the WIE Suite as a sort of “informational exchange.” When members join, they fill out a form about their goals, and they get placed in a cohort that meets every four to five weeks. “We're very thoughtful about how we put women together,” she says. “There are these sort of invisible lines in the sand that we [women] draw around conversations about business and money. And I just wanted to get rid of all of that and create a space where women have permission to ask.”

She describes the ethos of the WIE Suite as providing a space where women can be more actionable and transactional in their relationships. “It's a lot of referrals, introductions, check writing,” she notes. “It's very, very transactional in that way. And I feel like people just get truly tangible results. It's basically like having your own personal advisory board.”

Lessons from the entertainment industry

Dee didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur or to create spaces for women to grow. As a math major in college, she was on the hunt for a way to express her artistic side. She began her career in marketing and soon worked her way up in the entertainment business, becoming Director of International Marketing for a large film company.

In that intense landscape, Dee says she learned about intentionality and community building. Today, whenever she has an idea, she thinks first about the people she can reach out to for help bringing her idea to fruition. “And so when we hosted those early conferences, we were very successful at getting some really huge names,” she tells Sam. “And it was very much the same strategy of thinking about who comes first and then who follows.”

Dee describes herself as a big believer in intentional community, by which she means being thoughtful and intentional about who's in her life. “I think that so many people just kind of stumble around, and it's really about who just happens to be [there],” she says. “I think that the most successful people are really intentional about how they build their careers and who can sort of support that.”

Community building practice and advice

One way that Dee has put her intentions into action was creating an initiative called 2 Million Mentor Minutes during the pandemic, which lets women (WIE members and nonmembers alike) donate time to mentor other women, especially those forced to leave the workforce during the pandemic. She notes the pandemic impacted everybody but especially women—and specifically Black and Brown women. “Everybody wanted to do something,” she recalls. “We all felt so helpless. Just being able to just post to your platform or send a note to your network to say, Hey, I have 60 minutes to give or 120 minutes to give, take advantage. I think was just a simple, effective idea.”

Dee advises women just starting out in their careers to be intentional from the beginning about building their community. “I think it starts early. So often when we are thinking about building relationships, we're looking sort of ahead, like who is important or like who can bring value,” she says. “It's really about building that community around you, being thoughtful and intentional about having good people around you, people who build you up and make you the best version of you, people who you share ideas and who inspire you.”

Transcript here

Anita Hill on combating gender violence and her hope for the future Mar 24, 2022

More than 30 years after she became a national figure during the 1991 Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings, Anita Hill is now one the nation’s fiercest activists for the eradication of gender-based violence. In this episode of the Women on the Move Podcast, Anita talks with Natalie Williams, General Counsel for card services at JPMorgan Chase & Co., for a special Women’s History Month event. The two discuss Anita’s activism journey and her new book, Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence.

Answering a call

Anita tells Natalie that folding activism into her ongoing work as a lawyer, professor, and author was a natural choice. She describes it as a decision to not ignore the reality she was faced with. After the hearings ended and Thomas was confirmed despite Anita’s accusations of sexual harassment, she received many thousands of letters of support. She says she felt a sense of responsibility to not let those supporters down.

Growing up black in the 1950s and 1960s with 10 older siblings who attended segregated schools, Anita says she also keenly appreciated that she benefitted from the civil rights movement and had the opportunity to go to law school. “It was my responsibility, but also it was something that I had the opportunity [and] the chance to do, to make a difference in the world that people had already changed for me,” she tells Natalie.

Addressing the structural institution of gender violence

Once she made the decision to lean into her role as a voice against gender-based violence, Anita says she found support from her friends, her family, her students, and complete strangers. Her work often focuses on what she calls “mini manifestations of gender violence”, and the many ways that our institutions, including schools and workplaces, enable that violence. She describes how, from a young age, girls and women are told that small acts of harassment or violence are not important, and that they should be able to brush them off.

“We've been given stories that tell us that either the problem isn't as big as people think it is, or they tell us that, oh, it's the victim's fault, or they tell us that, you know, it's not so bad,” she says. “And those have been part of our thinking for all of our lives.” Anita says this type of minimizing, or saying the problem isn’t as big as some people make it out to be, was part of the resistance to her testimony in 1991.

And although resistance and minimizing starts as early as grade school, it continues into universities and workplaces. One of the reasons that sexual harassment continues to be widespread despite more media attention in recent years is because of the way institutions and workplaces operate, she says. They tend to develop policies and procedures focused on compliance rather than culture, and until the culture of minimizing harassment is changed, gender violence will continue to grow. Anita calls it institutional denial that begins with leadership. “And what I say in the book is that if it's going to change, the leadership attitude has to be changed and it has to be intentional and vocal,” she tells Natalie.

Support and hope for the future

In recent years, Anita has focused on combating gender violence in the entertainment industry, leading the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace. She describes how that experience has changed some of her thinking on how to best combat gender violence. Where she had once been focused on the structural impediments of protecting people, she came to see that in Hollywood and the largely unregulated entertainment industry, it’s the informal structures that perpetuate violence.

“In Hollywood, you're not just talking about one individual in one workplace, you're usually talking about multiple workplaces,” she says. “And when it comes to serial abuse, you have people moving around from location to location and doing the same bad deeds, and you don’t have any way of tracking it. And we’re developing a platform to identify who those people are, by allowing people to come in and be empowered to file complaints.”

Anita and Natalie discuss other recent events that Anita says give her hope for the future, including the Supreme court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson and President Biden’s support for strengthening the Violence Against Women Act. In terms of looking forward, Anita says she draws big inspiration from her students: “It is a blessing to be a teacher because every day I get to look at the possibility for the future. And so I don’t lose hope because I’m seeing my students and what they can do and what they want to do and how they see the world.”

To hear more from Anita Hill, please listen to her podcast, Getting Even with Anita Hill, found wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript here

Mentor Moment: How learning new things can push career development Mar 17, 2022

What traits, professional qualities, et cetera, should I develop to be ready for the new market realities in ever-changing landscape?

In this Mentor Moment, Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares how being a lifelong learner can help you to excel in an ever-evolving workforce.

Transcript here

Ballet, banking, and the innovation economy, with JP Morgan’s Melissa Smith Mar 10, 2022

As head of specialized industries at middle market banking at J.P. Morgan, Melissa Smith is focused on helping female and diverse founders grow and scale over time. She sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss the innovation economy, her passion for supporting women in business, and how her early life as a ballerina prepared her for a banking career.

From ballerina to banker

Melissa says she developed early skills in discipline, commitment, and focus from her classical ballet training. She began studying ballet at age 4, and by the seventh grade, her mother was driving her 120 miles a day to train in Washington D.C. Between her determination, her family’s support, and the willingness of teachers to re-arrange her high school schedule so she could finish classes by noon, Melissa ended up graduating high school a year early and starting a professional ballet career.

By her early 20s, Melissa made the decision to give up dancing in order to go to college full time, eventually earning her master’s in public policy from the University of Chicago. Straight out of that program, she joined JPMorgan Chase in public finance. “For me, the public finance role was a great way to leverage the quantitative skills I had acquired at school with my interest in the public sector,” she tells Sam.

From the associate program, Melissa moved to the debt capital markets team, where she got to experience the fast-paced trading floor. “I just loved the pace and the energy level and the phones ringing all the time and the noise,” she recalls. She also loved the opportunity to be up close with senior leaders on the trading floor, learning by observing everything from how to lead effectively to how to manage complicated client needs.

Focus on the innovation economy

After 16 years on the Investment Banking side of the firm, Melissa switched to the Commercial Banking side where she now leads the industry coverage teams within the Middle Market Banking business. Today, she’s focused on building an ecosystem around the innovation economy.

Melissa describes the innovation economy as high growth, disruptive companies across a variety of industries—primarily technology, consumer retail, and healthcare payments. She shares examples of how innovative companies have changed how we live and work in recent years: online fitness, food delivery, and streaming services.

Of particular interest to Melissa is supporting the gender and racial diversity of those founders, their employees, and their boards. She notes that while progress has been made, female and diverse founders continue to receive a much smaller percentage of venture dollars than companies founded by men. One reason for that, she says, is that female founders often don’t have access to the same networks for seeking funding that their male counterparts do. Another is that often their companies have products targeted to diverse markets, making it harder to capture the attention of mainstream funders. Both of these are issues that Melissa’s team aims to help female founders navigate.

Another area of focus for Melissa and her team is increasing female representation on boards. “Internal appointments on VC backed boards are actually part of the reason boards have become more diverse,” she notes.

Empowering other women: coaching, mentoring, and sponsoring

Melissa tells Sam that some of the most inspiring work she’s done is coaching women and their businesses. She also discusses her own experiences and what she’s gained from mentors and sponsors. She says she’s gained the most from mentors who are honest with their feedback and help women process the constructive feedback they get from other sources, such as performance reviews.

Melissa believes that sponsorships are invaluable to women. She defines a sponsor as someone “helping to make sure you have the visibility and network internally that you need to get a promotion [etc.].” She says that she was helped the most by a sponsor who was more prescriptive and helped her develop a list of people to meet with each month.

Today, she continues to devote energy to helping other women. “The thing that I very much learned in watching these more senior women who were mentors or sponsors was what a difference it made, and the passion that they had around it,” she tells Sam. “And I consider that so much a part of my day job. And it's really one of the most rewarding things that any of us can do – to help somebody else, give back and help them advance their career.”

Mentor Moment: Finding a sponsor to help enhance your career Mar 03, 2022

How do you develop more relationships with sponsors? I want to prepare for a promotion in the next two years and would love any guidance.

Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, discusses what it takes to develop sponsorships to help boost your career, in today’s Mentorship Moment.

Transcript here

* You can access Sam’s recent article on sponsorship here

Skintelligent leaders talk AI’s potential to change the face of skincare Feb 24, 2022

Can artificial intelligence and deep learning improve both cosmetic and medical skincare? Absolutely, say two women immersed in the effort. Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein learns more as she sits down with Eleanor Jones, CEO and Founder of Skintelligent, and Dr. Meenal Kheterpal, dermatologist and scientific advisor for the company. Sam, Eleanor, and Dr. Kheterpal discuss their background and motivations, how they believe AI will drive innovation in skincare, and how new technology must address equitable health outcomes for all.

Uniting an interest in skincare, a business background, and medical expertise

Skintelligent, the skincare company that Eleanor founded in 2019, aims to be the global leader in developing intelligent AI skin health solutions. Meeting that goal requires expertise in business, dermatology, and deep learning. As a veteran of the corporate world (she spent 10 years with the Coca-Cola Corporation), Eleanor brough plenty of business smarts to her company. She also brought a deep interest in skincare dating from her struggles with teenage acne.

As a dermatologist, Dr. Kheterpal had long been fascinated with deep learning and AI, and its implications for skin cancer diagnosis and other medical uses. Eleanor describes “chasing” Dr. Kheterpal when she was starting Skintelligent. And Dr. Kheterpal recalls feeling that the pair were a match made in heaven. “She just had this clear vision, and I felt we agreed on so many different levels as far as the potential for AI, and some of the work that she had already done was just so impressive,” she says of Eleanor. “I was so impressed with Eleanor's passion, direction, and purpose.”

Innovations in both cosmetic and medical skincare

Eleanor and Dr. Kheterpal agree that AI has the capacity to impact skincare in both the retail world and the healthcare world. Eleanor explains that the retail world of beauty and skincare is easier because, unlike healthcare, it’s an unregulated market. Machine learning and AI can be used to give consumers information about their skin and offer interactive product recommendations. “I think within a retail space in five years [we] will be walking down the aisles of Target, Walmart, and there’ll be a kiosk with a camera that allows you to take your skin and then port you over to the most suited product recommendations within that space,” she predicts.

As for medical skincare, the potential is great, but so are the hurdles. Eleanor and Dr. Kheterpal agree that AI can play a huge role in assisting dermatologists by automating some of the more routine tasks they now perform. One big potential is in telehealth, giving patients the ability to get diagnosed for skin conditions remotely. “I think we see ourselves as a part of an omnichannel healthcare plan, where we could potentially play triage,” Eleanor explains.

Technology as equalizer

An aspect that Eleanor and Dr. Kheterpal are particularly passionate about is the potential for reducing inequities in healthcare. One application of that is in the ability for rural and other underserved communities to access dermatology care. “There are healthcare deserts and flyover regions that are very, very underserved medically,” Eleanor says. “So you can think about a teenager in rural Tennessee, where there's no dermatologists, dealing with severe acne. The idea of having either a telehealth solution or potentially AI offers an access point in a service that was not previously available to them.”

Another area of great potential is in the area of racial equality. Currently, much dermatology research is based on European skin tone. “So a lot of our data that we use to train [AI] models is largely not equal,” Dr. Kheterpal explains. “There is a dearth of images with patients of skin of color, or various ethnicities. And this is where I have to give Eleanor a lot of the credit. She has been able to source an incredible amount of data where we are able to source images that we use to train a lot of the models in-house.”

Both women agree that the future of Skintelligent, and of AI in skincare, is bright. AI is already changing the way women buy beauty and skincare products. And with legislative changes underway in terms of healthcare regulation—especially regarding state line issues—they believe AI will only come to play a bigger role in healthcare. “My dream in the next five years is if you are a North Carolina resident, and you have a lesion of concern, you should be able to get a diagnosis from any remote corner of North Carolina, with the help of virtual care and the models that we are focusing on building,” Dr. Kheterpal says.

Transcript here

**Disclaimer: This podcast may contain general information about medical tests and treatments. The information is not advice, and should not be treated as such. JPMorgan Chase is not responsible for views expressed other than our own.

Mentor Moment: Mapping out your career journey with your manager Feb 17, 2022

"I found a new role that I'm very interested in, but I'm nervous to tell my manager I'm interested in mobility. How should I handle tough conversations with my manager?

In today’s mentorship moment, host Sam Saperstein gives advice on how to talk with your manager about your career roadmap.

Transcript here

Highlighting Black tech innovations, with The Plug founder and CEO Feb 10, 2022

Sherrell Dorsey has long been fascinated by the tech innovations coming out of Black and Brown communities across the United States. In this episode of Women on the Move, the founder and CEO of The Plug—a subscription-based digital news platform covering the Black innovation economy—sits down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss her background in marketing and technology, her journey with The Plug, and her new book.

Early tech immersion

Sherrell tells Sam that it was her technophile grandfather who first nurtured her love for technology by insisting that she and her sister spend an hour a day on Mavis Beacon typing courses. That early foray into tech, she says, paved the way for her to take part in a program called the Technology Access Foundation, which taught kids of color in the inner city about technology, computers, and programming languages—and helped prepare Sherrell for high-school internships at Microsoft.

Sherrell says she loved her experiences at Microsoft, learning about building tech products and also realizing she could have a place at the tech table. But after high school, with her family expecting she’d go to college for computer science, she tacked in a different direction and studied fashion merchandising at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “I got to study the business of marketing within the fashion world, a multi-billion-dollar industry, and [one that] really encompasses so much technology from textile selection and forecasting to the building of an e-commerce business and brand.”

Taking those marketing skills with her, Sherrell worked at both Uber and Google Fiber. But while she loved her day jobs, she found herself more and more drawn to understanding the tech world from the vantage point of Black and Brown communities. “I would keep up on industry literature and read about these great profiles of, you know, the Gates’ and the Musks and the Zuckerbergs,” she tells Sam. “But I did not see the folks that I was interacting with and engaging with on a daily basis profiled or quoted. And the journalism to me just felt very one-sided. It did not identify genius as looking like, sounding like, feeling like, or coming from communities that looked like mine, but those were the people that I was inspired by.”

Transition to journalist and author

Sherrell remembers getting up early before heading to her job at Uber or Google Fiber and curating articles about “folks who I find really fascinating.” She was soon writing about Black and Brown tech innovations and submitting stories to publications like Fast Company. “And just trying to show the robustness of communities of innovation coming up with really cool ideas to solve specific challenges that they were facing that were being left out of this mainstream sort of noise,” she says. “Like sure robots are space. [But] here's a guy who's creating an app to exchange vegetables and fruits with neighbors on a more human level.”

Soon The Plug was born—with a $10 domain registration and a free MailChimp account. Sherrell built up subscribers one at a time based on her solid reputation as the tech journalist who covered Black and Brown start-ups. “It's just about being consistent,” she tells Sam. “It's about serving my audience well, and beyond that, it was every subscriber truly earned through this sense of trust and through this sense of representative storytelling, and care and adoration, and sometimes, you know, harsh honesty.” Sometimes, she shares, she had to be the one to say, “Hey, maybe this company isn't as exciting as I thought it was gonna be.” That kind of honestly, she says, helped solidify her reputation and that of The Plug.

Sherrell’s most recent venture is her new book, Upper Hand: The Future of Work for the Rest of Us, just published in January 2022. She describes it as a love letter to her grandfather. Drawing on his experience of moving from Birmingham, Alabama, to Detroit and finally to Seattle where “there weren’t a lot of folks who looked like him,” Sherrell wanted to illustrate her own experience along with Seattle’s changes, and how that was replicated across the country in a way that left many communities behind.

As far as the future, Sherrell says she’s excited to have The Plug become “the intelligent source for an inclusive business future.”

Transcript here

Mentor Moment: Expanding your role to further your career Feb 03, 2022

What are some ways to expand your platform within your existing department or function in order to further your career? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares ways to navigate the guardrails of your job to showcase new skills, in today’s Mentorship Moment. Transcript here.

Rise Above the Story founder Karena Kilcoyne talks reframing our personal narratives Jan 27, 2022

Rise Above the Story founder and author Karena Kilcoyne experienced more tumultuousness in her childhood and early adulthood than most experience in a lifetime. But rather than get trapped by her story, she forged a path to rise above it. Here she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss the progression of her career from criminal defense lawyer to author and how she's using her own experiences to help others reframe their personal narratives.

A tumultuous beginning

Karena describes the challenges of her early years with clarity: a childhood spent finding solace in books, her father convicted of mail fraud and sent to a federal penitentiary when she was 12, and teen years spent taking care of younger siblings as her mother struggled with debilitating depression and anxiety. “I put myself through school with scholarships and working,” she says, “and I put myself through college and law school. I ended up practicing law for many years, and these days I say that I am a recovering lawyer because I have stopped practicing law and I am focused back on my childhood dream, which was writing books.”

Karena tells Sam that she originally chose to go into law partly because she was so familiar with the world of criminal law from her father’s experience, and partly because she needed a stable career at age 24 when her mother died and she adopted her nine-year-old brother. “And there was also this call in me that I wanted to help other families that were going through what I went through,” she explains. She started as a criminal defense lawyer and later switched gears to take on the challenging role of in-house council for a $6 billion publicly traded company.

Changing her narrative

Although she found success as a lawyer, Karena tells Sam that she found herself searching for fulfilment. She was successful—but she still had that childhood dream of being a writer, or a storyteller of some sort.

Making the shift form lawyer to writer was scary, Karena recalls, but she took the plunge. To ease into it and begin her learning curve, she started a lifestyle blog. “I figured just some way to get me writing multiple times a week and to make me feel more comfortable with it,” she tells Sam. The blog, Carousing.com, was flirty and fun, and, she says, definitely ignited her passions.

“But what was really interesting was that when I would write deeper, when I would get vulnerable and I would share some of these life stories, I would get such a great response from that,” she recalls. “My whole life, I had kind of shunned where I came from and shunned who I was, and I was ashamed of that. I started to really excavate who I was and what I was willing to show people, and it got really interesting as I started to write more of that.”

Just as she was exploring this new passion, Karena says, her beloved dog was diagnosed with cancer, and she spent two months nursing him before his death—coincidentally, the same two calendar months she had spent 20 years earlier caring for her mother as she died of cancer. After a “watershed of grief” caused her to reprocess much of her earlier trauma, she ended up writing a memoir.

It was an empowering experience. “I suddenly started to realize that if I could do what I did and rise above that story, there are so many people out there that could benefit from that,” she explains. It was the beginning of her journey with Rise Above the Story.

Rising above the story

“Rising above the story is understanding and acknowledging your story and then figuring out how you're going to change that story, rewrite that story so that you can rise above it and get out of those limitations,” Karena says. Today she spreads the word via her website, writings, podcasts, videos, and a special Rise Above The Story Acknowledgment Guide.

Karena tells Sam that she has big plans for 2022. “The biggest thing, my biggest dream of all is that I have this Rise Above the Story book written, Making My Dream a Reality, and I'm really, really proud of the book, the brand, the site,” she shares. She’s also focused on continuing to spread her message of empowerment through her social platforms, her website, and her newsletters.

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