Episodes
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In this episode of Invest In Her, host Catherine Gray sits down with Dr. Yi Sherry Zhang, a visionary leader and founder of GenoPalate, a pioneering company in the field of personalized nutrition and nutrigenomics. Dr. Zhang is a highly respected innovator in the health and wellness industry, known for her unique approach to helping people understand their dietary needs based on their genetics. Her impressive journey includes building a multi-million-dollar brand from scratch, creating sustainable revenue growth, and raising over $12 million in funding. With a background as a molecular biologist and a track record of impactful leadership, Dr. Zhang has earned recognition as one of Wisconsin's Titan 100 CEOs.
Throughout the conversation, Dr. Zhang shares insights on her entrepreneurial journey, her passion for health equity, and the future of personalized nutrition. She discusses the challenges she faced while scaling GenoPalate and the strategies she used to grow a mission-driven team and create partnerships with major players in the health and wellness space. This episode offers listeners an inspiring look into how Dr. Zhang combines science, business acumen, and an unwavering commitment to empowering people to make informed choices about their health. Tune in for a compelling discussion highlighting the intersection of innovation, leadership, and wellness.
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Mona DeFrawi. She has been a member of 12 startup teams over 3 decades, managing IPOs for the first 4 and serving as Founder & CEO of the last 4. She pioneered the first Private Market platform for institutional investors to restore venture liquidity and IPOs, and initiated the unicorn investing trend. That startup was acquired twice, then spun out as the standalone Nasdaq Private Market I 2021 with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanly, Citi, and other leading financial institutions all investing. Radivision® is the new streaming and community platform for the startup world that helps everyone understand, participate in, and prosper with private market and IPO investing. Mona has been recognized as one of Forbes’ “Most Powerful Women in Technology,” and one of the “Top 100 Women in Fintech."
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Laurie Cercone, an angel investor with Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN), one of the largest and most active angel groups in the country where she served as former Board President and spent four years on the board. Laurie currently serves on the Investment Committee, Ecosystem Committee, and leads the Women in Angel Investing Committee. She participates in CTAN’s side car fund, and other funds within and outside of Texas. Laurie has a passion for the start-up ecosystem. She is a mentor at SKU’s CPG accelerator and served as Managing Director at a start-up accelerator and investment fund.
Having a background in food brands, Laurie has held leadership positions at multi-sized companies in the CPG and food industry. She helped scale sales and distribution at a former company leading its acquisition by a fortune 50 company, and currently leads the retail, foodservice and B2B sales division for food manufacturing company based in Houston.
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Jill Johnson, the co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership (IFEL), based in Newark, NJ. Founded in 2002, IFEL is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a mission to eradicate the systemic barriers that prevent people from historically excluded populations from having access to the knowledge, networks, and capital required for entrepreneurial success and wealth creation. With over 30 years of experience as a business strategist, Jill is a pioneering voice for inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems and is especially focused on creating a new paradigm for the access to capital conversation. Most recently, Jill led the acquisition of Pipeline Angels, an angel investing network focused on increasing investor diversity and funding for women. The acquisition unites two trailblazing organizations committed to increasing capital access to foster a more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Dr Kristen Weatherby, the founder of Breakthrough Labs, an accelerator and community supporting female tech founders seeking early-stage funding. Breakthrough Labs addresses the unique challenges that women encounter on their entrepreneurship journeys and offers research-backed support to ensure that more female-founded start-ups thrive. The new Breakthrough Labs online community supports women entrepreneurs globally by providing them access to the learning, connections, and resources they need to help their businesses thrive. Dr Weatherby is also a Scout for Ada Ventures, an impact-driven VC committed to funding diverse founders in the UK. She has a PhD in education technology from the UCL Institute of Education, and a Masters in Education from the University of Michigan.
Her 25-year career has included leadership roles in some of the largest global public and private sector players in education, technology, policy, and research, including Microsoft, the OECD, and University College London.
https://www.breakthroughlabs.net/
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Sherry Deutschmann, a serial entrepreneur, author, and passionate advocate for entrepreneurship. In 2019, Sherry founded BrainTrust, a company dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses. Prior to founding BrainTrust, Sherry was also the founder and CEO of LetterLogic, Inc., a company she grew to $40 million and sold in 2016. LetterLogic was named an INC 5000 company (the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the US) for ten consecutive years.
Sherry attributes the success of LetterLogic to its unique culture in which the needs of the employees came before those of the customer or shareholder. That culture led Sherry to be recognized by EY as one of their 2009 Entrepreneurial Winning Women and LetterLogic was featured in the New York Times, Forbes Magazine, Business Leaders, INC, and Fast Company. Sherry was honored by President Barack Obama as a White House Champion of Change in 2016.
Sherry’s book, Lunch with Lucy: Maximize Profits by Investing in your People, was released in March 2020 and has received national awards.
https://www.usebraintrust.com/
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Nancy D. O'Reilly, PsyD, founder of Women Connect4Good, Inc., a 501(c)3 foundation. She founded the foundation to help support other organizations working to advance women and girls. She also serves on the boards of several social-profit groups, including the National Women’s History Museum. Dr. Nancy’s latest books, In This Together: How Successful Women Support Each Other in Work and Life (Adams Media/Simon & Schuster, January 2019), and Leading Women: 20 Influential Women Share Their Secrets to Leadership, Business, and Life, were both released as audiobooks in 2022, and she has two new titles scheduled to be released in 2024. Supporting women is Dr. Nancy’s passion and purpose. Her popular podcast “Smart, Amazing Conversations with Dr. Nancy” examines the stories of life and leadership of smart, amazing women and men whose stories connect us, and helps listeners understand that the possibilities are endless if we support each other and lift one another up.
www.drnancyoreilly.com
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Isabella Mandis, an undergraduate student at Harvard. She is the founder of Girls Into VC (the first organization dedicated to empowering the next generation of female venture capitalists and championing women-led startups) and Rising Stars Review (a platform to highlight young talent). She is a Kleiner Perkins Fellow and was one of the youngest people to be listed on Forbes 30 Under 30’s regional list.
Starting at a young age, Isabella was interested in entrepreneurship and helping others. In high school, she did academic research for university professors and built her own algorithm to reduce racial and gender bias in machine learning—her research was published in an international peer-reviewed journal. Isabella also worked at several startups and is certified to teach English as a second language. Since arriving at Harvard, she has pursued her interest in venture capital, acting as a Venture Scout for Alumni Ventures under Yard Ventures & Women's Fund, and the first and sole Harvard undergraduate Campus Investment Partner for The MBA Fund Isabella recognized the grave gender disparities in venture capital and wanted to help make the field more diverse—leading her to create Girls Into VC. Rising Stars Review was founded to promote and inspire young talent.
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Laura Nix Gerson, the CEO & Co-founder of Nix|Gerson Media. She develops and produces content that celebrates women. She is also the co-founder of Venture:F and the producer and host of the Venture:F podcast, the destination for women investing in women.
Laura serves as a Board Director of the Los Angeles Venture Association and as the Co-Chair for Women@LAVA.
She is a business development expert with more than twenty years of expertise and has advised start-ups, entrepreneurs, and major corporations on growth strategy. She has led both agency and corporate environments, where her extensive background in lead generation, marketing, and communications have been the cornerstone of her expertise. Laura has a knack for seeing the opportunities in specific introductions and is known for creating strategic partnerships that garner results.
In her previous role at Worth Media Group she reinstated the Women & Worth community, building out the business and content strategy, to include producing the Leading Voices Series and the 2023 Women & Worth Summit booking such luminaries as Stacey Abrams, Valerie Jarrett, Jenny Just, Gloria Feldt and Sallie Krawcheck.
Prior to this Laura launched FOUNDED, a curated community focused on strategic introductions, to help founders grow and scale their businesses and was the Founder & CEO of MomAngeles Media, where she spent 10 years working with brands in the parenting and women's health & wellness space. During this time she booked 200+ top tier women speakers, all experts in their field, for events and series including: The Riveter Stories, United State of Women Summit, SoCal Wellness Annual Summit, and The MomFair. This was a formative time in her career that she credits with a deeper appreciation for the ability of women to innovate, launching businesses that solve challenges women and moms deal with every day.
As a writer she has contributed to Worth, CBS Local Los Angeles, Babble, and Modern Mom.
https://www.nixgersonmedia.com/
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Dr. Julie Ducharme, President of Lead and Empower Her She Talks, President of Synergy Learning Institute, Keynote Speaker, TEDx Speaker, Entrepreneur, Award-winning Author, and Pro bball/vball Athlete. Dr. Ducharme’s first love was sports, and she pursued college athletics despite being told she wasn’t smart enough for higher education. She persevered, earning three degrees: a BA in Communication with a specialization in public speaking, an MBA with a specialization in Marketing, and a Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) with a specialization in Leadership.
After playing volleyball and basketball overseas, Dr. Ducharme returned to become a head volleyball coach at a local college, which led to her becoming a professor at the young age of 23. As an overachiever, within seven years, she became the chair of three programs, then a dean overseeing 20 business colleges, before retiring to start her own technical vocational college, where she has served as president for the last decade at Synergy Learning Institute.
Dr. Ducharme has authored several bestsellers, including “Authentically You: Empower Your Way to Success.” While advancing her academic career, she also built multiple businesses. Her first venture, Julie’s Party People, an event company, has successfully served San Diego for 23 years and continues to thrive.
Not stopping there, Dr. Ducharme founded JD Consulting, a company that has evolved over the past 20 years into a digital design agency, course design firm, and commercial production company. She once said, “Once I started building businesses, I was hooked. I am an entrepreneur through and through.”
She then established a sports Equipment company Taylor Elite sports and co-founded Your Authentic Genius, a PR company focused on branding women, with Shelby Jo-Long. Additionally, Dr. Ducharme has been developing Lead and Empower Her She Talks for the past seven years. This initiative has grown from a conference into a magazine, a membership organization, and a movement. She is passionate about this work and dedicated to changing the paradigm for women, expressing her commitment to this cause for the rest of her life.
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Cheryl Kellond, a 3x founder, 3x Ironman, and 4x Mom. As a founder, she’s raised $20M in VC for her own companies and worked 1:1 with 200 early-stage entrepreneurs. As a funder, she’s a loud and proud baby-check writer who has invested in more than 50 startups using the funds in her IRA. Her current startup, Play Money, brings all these passions together.
Play Money is Instagram for Angel — enabling everyday angles to build their dream startup portfolios without making investing a full-time job and at just about any budget. Connecting deal flow and aspiring investors from the best-emerging fund managers, trusted communities, and well-known influencers, Play Money is on track to put a $1B in motion for the next generation of founders and funders.
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Dr. Farnoush Fadavi, the founder of Bala Enzyme. Dr. Fadavi, along with her husband, Dr. Arash Aftabi, are retired dental surgeons based in Southern California.
Dr. Fadavi’s journey began with years of research at Boston University focused on plant-based enzymes as a natural alternative to pharmaceuticals for reducing bruising and inflammation after oral surgery. Over the past 20 years, she integrated plant-based therapy into her clinical practice, and eventually, she and her husband took all the research and clinical data to develop the Bala formula.
In 2018, Dr. Fadavi was involved in an accident that left her with chronic pain and forced her to retire early. Sensitive to pharmaceuticals, she turned to Bala as a natural solution for her recovery. The profound impact Bala had on her life inspired her to share the formula and her story with the world.
Dr. Fadavi believes that a balanced life is one without inflammation, which is why she named the product "Bala," short for Balance. Tune in to hear how her personal experience and dedication to natural healing led to the creation of Bala Enzyme, a product that is changing lives by promoting a balanced, inflammation-free life.
https://balaenzyme.com/
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Nekei Lewis, the founder of American Dreamers, a groundbreaking membership-based financial platform for wealth empowerment. With a strong belief in a foundation in finance for individuals and business owners, Nekei has created a community that brings together corporate and real estate partners along with a host of other resources and opportunities. Resources include consulting in business credit, loans & grants, personal credit, Wills & Trust, and passive investment opportunities.
In addition to her work with American Dreamers, Nekei is also the creator of a unique financial organizer bag that helps individuals get their finances organized. Her commitment to education and advancement extends beyond her platform, as she actively participates in city and non-profit initiatives focused on workforce development and renewable energy.
https://www.americandreamers.club/
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Gloria Feldt, a nationally acclaimed expert on women, power, and leadership with expertise from frontline leadership experience, a bestselling author, and in-demand keynote speaker. Selected for Forbes 50 over 50, she is cofounder and president of Take The Lead, whose mission reflects her life’s passion: to prepare, develop, inspire, and propel women of all diversities to take their fair and equal share of leadership positions across all sectors by 2025 by providing breakthrough training, mentoring and coaching role modeling, and thought leadership.
They discuss the Take The Lead, Power Up Concert and Conference, on August 26th, in Washington DC on Women’s Equality Day! Get your tickets here:
https://togetherwelead.events.whova.com/registration/
Show Her the Money will be screening after the conference on August 26th! Get your tickets here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/womens-equality-day-dc-show-her-the-money-screening-panel-afterparty-tickets-977207212077
She is the bestselling author of five books. Her latest, Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics and How Women Will Take The Lead, shows how we can seize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of massive disruption to build back stronger with women at the center of the recovery. Through the lens of women’s stories, it delivers a fresh set of leadership tools, skills, and concepts that help all women reach their own highest intentions, purposefully creating new norms, while guiding institutions to break through the remaining barriers to gender and racial parity for everyone’s good.
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Jasmine Jones, the Co-founder and CEO of Myya, the only online direct-to-consumer, insurance-billable, post-mastectomy intimates brand. Inspired by her grandmother’s battle with breast cancer, Jasmine created Myya to address the challenge of finding well-fitting post-mastectomy bras that provide support when you need it most. Incubated at Cherry Blossom Intimates, the brand’s retail space, Myya is the next step in the company’s evolution, connecting women across the country with certified mastectomy fitters. Myya offers breast cancer survivors a completely customizable virtual post-mastectomy bra fitting, ensuring that all women get the perfect fit. Myya is the only online boutique that can bill insurance directly for its customers, making the shopping process seamless for them. In October 2020, Cherry Blossom Intimates, the Techstars-backed company, closed its $1.25 million seed round, making Jasmine one of the few Black women in the world to close over $1 million in venture funding. A former Miss District of Columbia USA, Jasmine was named a Forbes Under 30 Listmaker in the Retail and E-Commerce category, as well as a Fashion Institute of Technology award-winning lingerie designer, and a Tory Burch fellow.
Own equity in MYYA!
Jasmine currently has a WeFunder where you can invest to have equity in Myya.com
You can invest any amount here in her WeFunder investment opportunity!
It takes a village! https://wefunder.com/myya/
https://myya.com/
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Rebecca Hart and Margaret Gifford of Abundance Capital. Rebecca Hart has owned her firm Hart & Partners for 20+ years. Her clients have included a broad spectrum of organizations, from Fortune 500 companies to nonprofits, from multinational corporations to start-ups.
In recent years, she has become more active in the areas of investing and philanthropy, including the Next Wave Social Impact Fund, part of a growing movement to increase women’s participation in angel investing as an asset class. She is also on the Advisory Council for Abundance Capital and believes it is important for donor-advised fund holders to understand how to leverage these dollars for investing in entrepreneurial ventures.
Margaret Gifford is serving as Abundance Capital’s Chief Impact Investment Officer. She is a multi-company founder and C-Suite executive with over twenty years of experience developing and leading impact investing strategy and operations, investor relations, and global marketing for companies from startups to Fortune 100 in Silicon Valley, New York City, and the Southeast. Her professional focus is activating capital and investor networks to drive social and environmental impact in communities around the world.
Margaret serves as a professional impact investor, philanthropist, and consultant supporting the growth of transformational sectors including food/food tech; agriculture/ag tech; mobile computing; and blended finance, including alternative private debt and equity investments focused on economic development. Curious, innovative, driven and comfortable working in diverse cultures and communities, she brings a broad-minded perspective to her teams.
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Episode 400!!!
Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Marcia Dawood, an early-stage investor who serves on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee, a venture partner with Mindshift Capital, a member of Golden Seeds, and the chair emeritus of the Angel Capital Association (ACA), a global professional society for angel investors.
She is also an associate producer on the award-winning documentary Show Her the Money.
A TEDx speaker and the host of The Angel Next Door podcast, Marcia walks the talk and holds investments in over fifty early-stage companies and funds. She is committed to expanding support for diverse companies that overcome the world’s biggest problems and accelerate positive change. She is passionate about bridging the gap from early-stage inception to building thriving, profitable companies.
She is a founding member and chair of the ACA’s Growing Women’s Capital Group, which is building syndication and collaboration among US investment groups focused on women-led companies.
She is also a co-author of the book You Can, You Will, which was an Amazon bestseller in thirty-nine categories in four countries.
Prior to that, Marcia worked in sales, marketing, and operations for Kaplan Education for over sixteen years. Marcia received an MBA from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Marcia currently lives in North Carolina with her husband, Izzy, and she feels lucky to be the stepmom to three amazing sons.
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Meredith Yinger and Adrienne Rouan. Meredith is a Film Director, Documentarian, and Owner of She TV Media - a female-led, full-service video and virtual event production company. Based in Los Angeles, she carries additional titles of bestselling author, producer, host, and voiceover artist. She is dedicated to bringing overlooked stories to life through the magic of film.
Adrienne specializes as a Certified Trauma Resilience Life Coach, a Somatic Experiencing Coach, and a TEDx speaker. She also stars alongside three other powerful women in the newly released documentary, Scars Unseen. She has earned her reputation for speaking up for the past five years about the need for additional emotional health training in workplaces and speaking internationally in some of the world’s most influential organizations such as the International Trauma Institute and The Children and Young People's Services Committees.
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Barbara Basbanes Richter is a dynamic storyteller and entrepreneur. As the host of the podcast "Writing for Immortality" and founder of DIYBook and In Ink Ghostwriting, Barbara breathes life into words, helping people write their stories with clarity and confidence.
Barbara holds a BA and MA in French Language and Literature from Smith College and Tufts University. She is a founding member of the Ticknor Society, a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle, and a member of the Grolier Club, the country’s oldest bibliophilic association. Currently residing in Westchester, New York, with her family and beloved basset hounds, Barbara continues to enrich the landscape of literature and entrepreneurship by contributing to the domains of storytelling and literary access.
www.sheangelinvestors.com
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/writing-for-immortality/id1726828796
https://www.diybook.us/
https://www.ininkghostwriting.com/
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Catherine Gray, the host of Invest In Her, interviews Nicola Corzine, the founding executive director of the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, a non-profit that delivers world-class resources and mentoring to enable every entrepreneur across the globe to realize their maximum potential. As Executive Director, Nicola is responsible for strategic and operational leadership that helps drive research, programming, fundraising, and operations for the organization.
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https://thecenter.nasdaq.org/
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