Evolving Your Workplace

On this episode of “Authentically Successful,” we hear from Mitali Saxena, the CEO of Fashom, an AI-powered clothing brand based on body shape designed for busy moms. She reflects on the challenges of rapidly changing markets, the importance of sustainability in the fashion industry, and her advocacy for body positivity, especially in women.   During the podcast, Mitali candidly shares h...

In this episode of "Authentically Successful," previous founder and entrepreneurship expert Joshua Ross shares his candid experience in starting and growing companies to now teaching students how to do it.   From his early days at a healthcare startup to founding his own IT consulting business and navigating the challenges of multiple startups, Joshua offers valuable insights into the wo...

In this insightful episode, host Carol Schultz welcomes Gleb Budman, CEO of Backblaze, a cloud storage and data backup company that competes with industry giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.   The two delve into the founding of Backblaze and the decision-making process behind taking the company public. Gleb shares how his company offers an alternative for those seeking to optimize...

Welcome to another episode of Authentically Successful, where host Carol Schultz has a compelling conversation with the founder of McKie Consultants, Miranda McKie.  In this episode, Miranda shares her journey of building her consulting firm, focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy, HR analytics, and inclusive product design.   The two discuss the ongoing challenges o...

In our first episode of 2024, Carol is joined by longtime journalist and founder Jeff vonKaenel. He leads N&R Publications, an organization that utilizes professional journalists to help government and nonprofits tell their stories effectively, simplifying critical issues for impactful storytelling.  They delve into Jeff's fascinating journey, starting with his grassroots advocacy and pol...

"The real leader is the one who does whatever is needed to get that tower done, whether it's sitting there quietly folding something or directing the tower or getting the coffee. It doesn't matter,” Leif Cocks shares. “The real leader supplements whatever he's doing, whatever makes sense to the greater cause and fills in the gaps that is necessary for the team to achieve their goals."  In tod...

"People generally want to do the right thing, but it's hard to figure out what the right thing is when there's 12 different priorities and you can only afford to do three of them." - Mike Rowlands  In today's episode, our host, Carol Schultz, sits down with Mike, president and CEO of Junxion, an international consultancy with a keen focus on sustainability and social impact.   Mike...

“I actually think that’s the case with a lot of women...you just get used to bad behavior and you normalize it.” - Gavriella Schuster  This week, our host Carol Schultz sits down with a renowned figure in the tech industry, Gavriella Schuster. Now a solopreneur, Gavriella was formerly a longtime leader at Microsoft and continued into an extensive career in the tech industry.   Throu...

We are back! For the official return of Authentically Successful , Carol sits down with the CEO of ProcureAbility, Conrad Snover. His company leads the industry in supply-chain solutions.   "I see so often in business... (businesses) don’t create a strategic plan, they don’t have operating principles, and they don’t use it as a road map and manage to it. That’s where people get in troubl...

On this episode of Authentically Successful, host Carol Schultz interviews Sudhir Bhojwani, co-founder and CEO of a procurement technology company named ORO Labs.  Sudhir opens up about his journey as a software engineer and his first startup which opened the door to three more. He reflects on projects that failed and also shares successes, such as his company Vayulogic.  The conversatio...

On this episode of Authentically Successful, Carol Schultz is joined by Tobias Dahlberg, the founder and CEO of The Simple Company. As the title displays, his business works with organizations of many sizes to simplify, refocus, and hone their operations. He calls these companies “maxed-out operators” and aims to transform them into “wealthy business owners.” With over 15 years of experience in st...

On this episode of Authentically Successful, host Carol Schultz interviews Paul Baron, the founder of The Wall Printer. Paul's printer technology transforms images into wall art. In this episode, you’ll learn about Paul’s winding journey through business, including his experience in retail and manufacturing, and what later lead him to retire. He also delves into the process of starting The Wall Pr...

On this episode of Authentically Successful, we dive into the world of healthcare and the importance of vaccinations with our guest, Dr. Jonathan Baktari. Jonathan leads three organizations: e7 Health, a platform aimed at streamlining adult vaccinations, eNational Testing, offering nationwide access to laboratory tests, and lastly, U.S. Drug Test Centers, a network of testing centers in America.&n...

“I think there's a lot of disruption coming, and that disruption has started with the advent of Chat GPT and all these generative AI tools. And I think if you ask me if there's anything that's going to keep me up at night is, how do we pivot as a company to understand and appreciate these tools that are coming. And what does that mean to our workforce?...”- Rajeev Kapur On this episode of Authenti...

On this episode of Authentically Successful, host Carol Schultz sits down with guest Ted Rubin, a highly successful CEO in the automotive tech industry. They discuss topics such as the importance of evolving conversations, messaging solutions, and how to succeed in the automotive industry.  Ted’s company, ActivEngage, aims to help automotive companies sell and service more cars through an imp...

On this episode of Authentically Successful, host Carol Schultz invites the co-founder and CEO of Carbon Title, Trevor Dryer, to share his journey in Fintech and later co-founding his organization in the climate tech space.  Carbon Title offers transparency into the carbon emissions of all buildings, empowering stakeholders to understand, manage, and take action to reduce emissions across the...

"I feel like men think— and a lot of people think— oh, nonprofits are just nice and they're all volunteer ran and it's this nice, fluffy thing over here. But we are really meeting a need." - Tracy Smith On this episode of Authentically Successful, we hear from Tracy Smith, the CEO of Make-A-Wish Alabama, a nonprofit organization that grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditio...

“By bringing customers to the back along with their pets, they were able to see everything that was going on. And so we did that for transparency reasons. What we discovered then is when the pet owners we call customers were able to see the caregivers, what they were doing, they were really appreciative. It added value in their eyes to the work that we were doing." — David Bessler  It’s a 2-f...

Should you take venture money? "You really need to be up for growing a business, growing it relatively quickly, and finding an exit." — Seth Levine On this episode of Authentically Successful, Carol interviews Seth, the managing director and co-founder of Foundry Group. The venture capital firm was formed in 2007 and has now grown to 75 employees.  You’ll hear about Seth’s winding journey fro...

“Don’t invite me onstage because I’m a female.” Bobbie Shrivastav says, “Invite me onstage because I have something valuable to add to the conversation.” Bobbie, co-founder, and COO of Benekiva, is a second-time founder. She and her husband first created Docsmore, a document manager, and later moved on to join Benekiva, a platform that transforms the end-to-end insurance claims and servicing exper...

“The true answer in the startup world is those who are successful are almost always white men who have exited before.” Leslie Hyman says, “In order to compete particularly in the payment world and then in the multifamily world, it takes a fair amount of money. That is not easy, and I just want to call out, it’s hard, I mean women still get 2-3% of VC funds. That is unconscionable.” Leslie co-found...

“I want to hear people acknowledge that they have failed,” Chuck Frydenborg says, “What I ask of my people is to make new mistakes. Don’t make the same ones over and over again. Then we got a problem. Make new ones. Learn from them.”  MarketMuse, an AI platform for content creation and strategy, began as a personal science project. The original founder, Aki Balogh, was researching the space w...

“I think we’ve learned pretty quickly that we can do work remote. (But) It is difficult to lead and it is difficult to be the leader you need to be without being around the leaders you’re going to replace,” Rick West says, “I think you’ll have a whole wave of people upset that they’re not the next partner…because they were in California on a beach doing amazing work but someone else was there arou...

“You take care of your people and your people take care of your company every day— on personal levels, professional levels. I know without a doubt that they have my back.” - Melissa Hurrington  As CFO of Premier Claims, a public adjustment firm that advocates on behalf of the customer, Melissa leads with a people-first approach.  Melissa says her company turns away about 50% of work beca...

“What we’ve done is we’ve really tried to take peoples’ skill sets and use them so that they’re not only doing what they’ve been hired to do but they’re doing what they love to do.” - Cynthia Adams Cynthia and two others started GrantStation in a one-room cabin in the woods of Alaska. The organization was created to connect nonprofits with grantmakers nationally and internationally in order to get...