Episodes
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Now that the U.S. has just elected a presidential candidate with the most specific, ambitious and comprehensive climate plan ever put forward by a national party candidate, how can the new administration make up for the lost time over the last 4 years? Nicole Systrom, Founder of Sutro Energy Group, works with investors and clean tech social entrepreneurs and is a climate activist who believes there are things President Biden--and everyone--can and must do to address climate change in his first few months in office. As a member of Climate Leaders for Biden, she is laser focused on addressing the climate crisis and can discuss what’s needed from investors, philanthropists and policymakers to move the needle forward at last, from supporting local environmental justice groups to making a first low-carbon investment. And, as someone who advises clean-tech entrepreneurs, she’s knowledgeable about the innovation that’s needed from startups too. Come join us as we learn more about the much needed “investment revolution” to combat the climate crisis.
Nicole serves on the board of directors for Activate, a non-profit supporting entrepreneurial scientists and engineers tackling the world's biggest challenges; Prime Coalition, a non-profit providing funding to companies combating climate change; and the Energy Foundation. -
Today we’re fortunate to be joined by Judy Samuelson, vice president at the Aspen Institute, Founder and Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, and author of her new book THE SIX NEW RULES FOR BUSINESS: Creating Real Value in a Changing World. We’re going to talk about Judy’s path as well as get a sneak peek at her book, out January 12, 2021. In it, Judy discusses the profound shifts in attitudes and mindsets that are redefining our notions of what constitutes business success. Changes such as transparency, the power of the worker's voice, and the lessening importance of capital. How do we balance the needs of our global supply chains with the reality of our limited natural resources?. Judy gives us a roadmap on how to engage business decision-makers and identify the forces that are moving the needle in both boardrooms and business classrooms and offers a powerful guide to how businesses are changing today—and how best to succeed in tomorrow's economic and social landscapes.
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Missing episodes?
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Sustainability and climate are front and center among many corporations and U.S. manufacturers as they step up and adopt more sustainable practices around their supply chains across industries. Some are just getting started, hiring sustainability officers, switching to renewable energy, and taking other initial steps. Today, however, "do less harm," is not enough—companies need to operate as regenerative businesses that give back. Walmart, an early mover in this field, is moving into the sustainable and regenerative future. In this episode of SOCAP Leadership, SOCAP Global President Kate Bryne has a conversation with Walmart's Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer Kathleen McLaughlin.
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Today we are sitting down with author and co-Founder of the Omega Institute, Elizabeth Lesser. Through her work, be it the books she writes or the wellness she empowers through the Institute, Elizabeth fuels our creativity and social change. One of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100, Elizabeth is one of a hundred leaders who are using their voices and talent to elevate humanity. This morning we are going to dive into her latest creation, Cassandra Speaks: When Women Are the Storytellers, the story changes. We’ll talk about power and investigate the role of men. What would the world look like today if the stories we grew up with, ranging from myths to the bible to fairy tales, were written from a female point of view? Listen and find out...
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In this episode, we'll be hearing from serial tech entrepreneur, Cheryl Contee. Cheryl co-founded and sold her first company, Attentive.ly, and is now the CEO and Founder of the mission-driven digital agency, Do Big Things. On top of that, Cheryl is the author of Mechanical Bull: How You Can Achieve Startup Success, and she’s an award-winning political blogger. We recorded this conversation on June 3rd, 2020 in the midst of national protests of the murder of George Floyd. In our conversation, we talk about systemic racism in business and building diverse and equitable workplaces.
Show Notes:
The Way We're Working Isn't Working by Tony Schwartz and Jean Gomes
HBR Article: Advice on Launching a Tech Startup When You’re Not a White Man by Cheryl Contee -
Welcome back to the World-Changing Women Podcast Season 4! To kick off the season, we're releasing our favorite Lightning bolt speakers from past World-Changing Women's Summit Events. In this episode, we'll be hearing from leadership thought-leader, Akaya Windwood. Akaya led the Rockwood Leadership Institute for over a decade and is now a Partner at Wisebridge - a consultancy committed to creating a world where people and planet thrive. Akaya is internationally recognized for elevating the effectiveness of leadership and collaboration in the nonprofit and social benefit sectors (plus, she has always been a crowd favorite at Conscious Company events). Today, she’ll be offering her leading edge perspective on patriarchy, hierarchy, race, the future of the planet, climate change, being a woman, and where to source our wisdom.
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Marci Zaroff has been leading the charge in the health, wellness, and organic apparel industries since the '90s — as in, before it was cool. She actually coined and trademarked the term ECOfashion and has built numerous brands over her 25-year career, including The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Under the Canopy, Metaware, and Farm to Home. She's also the author of ECOrenaissance. On this episode, Zaroff and I discuss what it takes to start multiple businesses, how she's followed her intuition, and what advice she has for others who are trying to change the narrative in their own industries.
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Jenn Graham is on a mission to drive civic engagement. Her tool of choice: the dinner table. Graham is co-founder & CEO of Civic Dinners, a national organization that facilitates important conversations in cities across the country by bringing strangers together to share a meal and discuss specific topics affecting their communities. But the beauty of the Civic Dinners model is that the action doesn't stop when dinner is over. She and her team have created actionable steps to take after leaving these dinners, steps that are driving real positive impact — including people running for office, laws being changed, and more. On this episode, Graham shares her personal story of discovering the power of getting involved and explains how she's created a successful organization that helps others do the same.
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As a long-time vegetarian, Miyoko Schinner knew that eating a plant-based vegan diet was better for the environment, but she was finding it nearly impossible to give up one food item: cheese. So, over the years, she began tinkering with creating vegan cheeses made out of cashews and in 2012 ended up literally writing the book on how to make vegan cheeses. A couple of years later, after encouragement from others in the industry, she ended up launching a vegan cheese company: Miyoko's Creamery. At first, she imagined the company would remain small, but the market had other ideas with the demand for delicious vegan cheese outpacing her ability to make it. Fast forward five years and Miyoko's cheese is sold in more than 12,000 stores nationwide and the company is on track to hit over $100 million in sales in the coming years. On this episode, I sat down with Schinner to talk playing to your strengths, the challenges that come with tons of demand for your product, and what to do when you realize your own leadership is getting in the way of your company's success.
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Did you know that one in every four girls fails to earn her high school diploma in four years, and that those numbers are even worse for girls of color? When girls do not complete high school, they experience higher rates of unemployment, earn significantly lower wages, and are more likely to need to rely on public support programs to provide for their families. Research has confirmed that single-sex schools benefit students that are the most educationally at-risk, including girls and minority students. After learning about this, Liz Wolfson had a vision for an all-girls school that would foster academic excellence and personal development for young women. Fast forward many years, and she is now the co-founder of GALS and BOYS, which are tuition-free charter schools and are the only public, single-gender, college-preparatory schools in Colorado, which are now expanding into other states. We sat down with Wolfson to talk education, how she built a school with no history of doing so, and how she has overcome the challenges along the way.
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In 2014, Heather Fleming, Jessica Stago, and Natasha Hale launched a one-day event on the Navajo reservation to help the community learn about entrepreneurship. With the hope that at least five people would show up, the team was shocked to see more than 80 people attend their first event. Of course, they knew they were on to something. One of their funders encouraged them to transition from a one-day event to a full-scale organization that would help create a space for Native entrepreneurs and community members to access the infrastructure, expertise, and support they need to build small businesses, and thus, Change Labs was born. On this episode, Fleming walks us through how she moved from a one-day event to a full organization, how she's navigated feeling like an outsider, and why business is so critical to sparking social change.
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After loving eating microwave popcorn during her pregnancy but not being able to find a healthy option, Kristy Lewis began researching healthier packaging and ingredient options for microwave popcorn a mere three days into her first maternity leave. She had been frustrated with the fact that no one had created a better-for-you microwave popcorn for years and decided to see what could be done about it during her three-month maternity leave. Little did she know that this would lead her to launching her own company that would disrupt an entire industry. On this episode, Lewis details how she started her company by asking tons of questions, how she's kept it alive for more than eight years, and why having passion for what you're doing is one of the most critical components.
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With her law degree from Stanford and a shiny new offer from a huge law firm in hand, Suzanne McKechnie Klahr was on her way to the top, but before she arrived, she decided to do one last thing that would change her life forever: she applied for a fellowship to work in East Palo Alto, which was the murder capital of the US at the time, to try to help low-income adults start businesses. Shortly after, four young high-school students walked into her office looking for help setting up their own business, and she realized she finally found the right target market. Twenty years later, her organization Build helps at-risk high school students learn entrepreneurship. I sat down with Klahr to talk following your heart, knowing when to step away, and figuring out how to start something even when you don't know what you're doing.
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Why is it that we think more about what we put in our bodies than what we put on our bodies? This was a question that Beck Lacouture asked herself when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in her twenties and was looking for answers. Fortunately, after Lacouture made it through her cancer diagnosis, she and her business partner Greg Altman set out to start a green chemistry company that reinvents silk in liquid form to replace harmful ingredients in skincare and textile products. In this episode, I sat down with Lacouture to hear about her inspiring journey from cancer survivor to green chemistry entrepreneur, including how she had two children in the first five years of her new business.
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As co-founder and Chief Purposologist, yes, you read that right, Chief Purposeologist of the Purpose Institute, Haley Rushing helps organizations and individuals find their true purpose in this world. It's work that she came to after working in the advertising space for much of her career and realizing that the companies that she loved working with were the ones that had an authentic purpose. So, she left the ad world behind and jumped into a new career focusing on purpose. On this episode, Haley will walk us through the basics of finding your purpose, as well as discuss the importance of taking care of yourself while you do purpose-driven work.
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In 1972, a landmark civil rights law entitled Title Nine was passed, which requires gender equality in all aspects of publicly-funded education. Missy Park was one of the first cohorts of students to benefit from Title Nine during her college career, which allowed her to play numerous collegiate sports. Following her career as a student-athlete and after working in the outdoor apparel industry for a handful of years, in 1989 Missy realized there was a massive hole in the market for women's sports apparel. So starting with a self-made mail order catalog and inventory piling up in her garage, she launched a new women's sports apparel company and called it Title Nine. Title Nine is now a multi-million dollar company with stores in states across the US and a thriving eCommerce company. On this episode, I sat down with Missy to talk gutting it through your first few years, staying independent and not taking external capital, and the best advice she has for other business leaders — oh, and there's some good stuff about parental leave in here as well.
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Cat Perez didn't become a co-founder of HealthSherpa in the traditional way. Her journey actually began tinkering with friends after work on programming what they thought could be the next big tech company, which led to her and two others entering a Salesforce hackathon with a grand prize of $1 million. They entered the contest with a concept for making Healthcare.gov more user-friendly and, to their surprise, they won the entire event and with it, received $1 million. And all of this happened before she became a co-founder of HealthSherpa. In this episode, I sat down with Cat to talk about her incredible story, how she's overcoming the challenges of being a leader of a fast-growing startup, and how, by just going for it, she's changed her life forever.
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Most of us have had to scrounge around for odd jobs at certain points in our lives either to make ends meet or to help save for that certain special thing we've wanted in our lives, but few of us have turned that odd job into a thriving company. This was the case for Kristen Hadeed, who started cleaning houses in college as a way to save up for a pair of jeans that she desperately wanted. 10 years later, Hadeed is the Founder of StudentMaid, a cleaning company based in Florida that helps teach leadership skills to employees to help them move onto their next big thing. I sat down with Kristen to talk accidentally starting a business, the many failures she has had along the way, and how listening to your gut as a leader is critically important. Fair warning: this episode is chock-full of great insights for entrepreneurs.
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Elyse Stoltz Dickerson is an earwax entrepreneur. Yes, you heard that right. After being let go from her big-time corporate job, Elyse and a colleague decided they wanted to start their own business, but they didn't quite know what unmet need the would fill in the market. We sat down with Elyse to talk about how she created a successful company by going out and finding a problem that needed a solution, and how she transformed one of the worst days of her life into one of the best things that ever happened.
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If you’ve got a business idea, chances are, you’ll need money. And money can be a major source of anxiety. There are fears about getting money… and once you have it, fears about how you’ll spend it. Jenny spent two decades as an attorney and advisor for mission-driven businesses and her primary focus is on empowering women entrepreneurs to raise money on their own terms. In this episode, we’ll hear Jenny’s story and her best advice for raising money.
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