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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.”
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 Oct 8th, 2024 and they may not materialize.
Transcript here
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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.”
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 December 21st, 2023 and they may not materialize.
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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.”
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 December 14th, 2023 and they may not materialize.
Full transcript here
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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.
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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
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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.”
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 November 16th, 2023 and they may not materialize.
Full transcript here
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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.”
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 November 9th, 2023 and they may not materialize.
Full transcript here
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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
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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
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 26th, 2023 and they may not materialize.
Transcript here
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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
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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.
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 12th, 2023 and they may not materialize.
Full transcript here
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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
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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
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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
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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.”
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 September 7th, 2023 and they may not materialize.
Full transcript here
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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.
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 August 24th, 2023 and they may not materialize.
Full transcript here
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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/
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 August 17th, 2023 and they may not materialize.
Transcript here
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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
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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
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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.”
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 July 28th, 2023 and they may not materialize.
Full transcript here
- Se mer
