How She Does It

What motivates some of today’s successful leaders? What person or event helped snap their futures into focus, creating a roadmap they followed with grit and resilience, determined to make it to the highest levels in business and beyond?  Some of the most high-profile founders and CEOs have shared such moments from their lives with Karen Finerman on HOW SHE DOES IT. In this episode, we want to revi...

Imagine willingly opening up your life to as much A.I. as possible. Have a question? Ask A.I. first. Feeling blue? Talk to an A.I. therapist. Need a ride? Summon a Waymo. In journalist Joanna Stern’s New York Times bestseller  “I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything,” she did all of the above and more. She shares what's hopeful, what’s creepy, and how A.I. is already in your...

In our first-ever pop-up podcast in front of a live audience, Karen Finerman sits down with Karen Firestone at the CNBC Pro Event: Wealth For Women at the Nasdaq MarketSite. Karen Firestone, who goes by Kari, began building her impressive career as an investor in the early ‘80s. There were far fewer women working in finance at that time, and things were far more challenging for women in that space...

What does it take to create culture-defining entertainment that not only attracts loyal viewers but wins accolades as well? We’ve asked Sarah Aubrey, Head of Original Programming for HBO Max. The streaming service behind shows like “The Pitt,” “Hacks,” “And Just Like That,” and the forthcoming “Harry Potter” series is once again evolving what audiences expect from premium television: high-quality...

Brooke Shields has been famous her entire life. Now, in her early 60’s, the actress and model is using her passion to take charge and create impact. She is an executive producer on her new ACORN TV series YOU’RE KILLING ME, she was elected president of Actors’ Equity, and she is founder and CEO of her hair care line, COMMENCE.    It’s a portfolio she’s immensely proud of. In her new series, which...

When Alexis McGill Johnson was asked in 2019 to become interim CEO of Planned Parenthood, she thought it would be a short assignment.   “ I remember my famous last words to the board when I stepped in were, “‘I'll get you through 2020’,” she recalls.  Almost immediately, she found herself in the unenviable position of steering a healthcare organization through a pandemic.   She embraced the challe...

It’s something we’re intensely curious about: “How She Does It.”  Not only do we want to hear about our guests’ climb to the top of their professions, but also how they’ve built meaningful personal lives outside of work.   And for many of the women who join Karen Finerman on her podcast, that includes motherhood.    So, in honor of Mother’s Day, we’re revisiting some of those conversations, along...

PEOPLE is one of the most recognizable names in the entertainment news and lifestyle space, and at the helm of the print & digital enterprise is Editor-In-Chief and General Manager Charlotte Triggs. And if you’re familiar with PEOPLE, then you know the two big, annual tentpole issues of the 52-year-old publication are PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive and PEOPLE’s World’s Most Beautiful.  Charlotte Trigg...

Thasunda Brown Duckett has a seemingly endless list of honors to her name: TIME 100, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, and, most recently, Barron’s 100 Most Influential Women in Finance.  She’s marking five years as President and CEO of TIAA, overseeing $1.6 trillion in assets.   She is also one of just two Black women leading a Fortune 500 company. With women holding just 11% of CEO seats, she is pa...

Creating a company with beloved products from scratch is no easy task, and Nicole Bernard Dawes has pulled it off twice. At 29, she launched Late July Snacks, which are famous for their flavored organic, non-GMO tortilla chips. When the $100+ million company was acquired by Campbell's in 2018, Bernard Dawes decided to do it all again.  This time, she set her eyes on the competitive beverage busine...

If you’re on TikTok, Instagram, Substack, or YouTube, you’ve likely come across content creator Vivian Tu.  She’s taken her expertise learned from her time as a trader at J.P. Morgan and a sales exec at Buzzfeed to create the platform “Your Rich BFF,” which now boasts 10 million combined followers. Vivian is the CEO of Your Rich BFF and has a team of approximately 20 people working for her.  Toget...

Veronica Swanson Beard’s life changed when she met her future business partner, Veronica Miele Beard, and her future husband, Jamie Beard, on the same evening. The two Veronicas, who became sisters-in-law, share a love of fashion. They explored a number of possible business ventures together (including, at one point, maternity wear) before landing on their game-changing women’s dickey jacket.  Sin...

Gorgeous landscapes, high-stakes drama, and throw in some horses and cattle for good measure.  That’s just another day at the office when you work on a show in Taylor Sheridan’s universe.  Emmy-nominated Christina Alexandra Voros is one of the most influential female voices in Sheridan’s inner circle, having directed multiple episodes of his hit shows, including “Yellowstone,” “1883,” “Lawman: Bas...

Our mission at HOW SHE DOES IT WITH KAREN FINERMAN is to have meaningful conversations where high-achieving women across business, media, science, the arts, and more can share their insight and wisdom. So to celebrate Women’s History Month, we put together a collection of highlights from some of our history-making guests, spotlighting their incredible experiences and what they’ve learned along the...

Throughout her career, Eva Pilgrim, the new anchor of “Inside Edition,” has always strived to deliver excellent journalism. It’s a mindset she traces back to her childhood, raised by her American father and, what she calls, her “Korean Tiger Mom.” Eva recalls her mother not tolerating anything below perfect grades (to the point that she once hid a paper with a grade of 98 in the trash). As an adul...

Music is ever-present in our lives, from our morning exercise routines until bed. And we all have a "life soundtrack” of songs that transport us to a moment or an era — one note, and you're right back there. Music is also a multi-billion-dollar business. But who runs this business? Despite so many of the biggest performers being women, the industry itself has long suffered from a lack of women and...

For Sesame Workshop CEO Sherrie Westin, there’s one question that rises above the rest.  “Is Sesame going to be here for the next generation of children?” Making sure favorites like Elmo, Big Bird, Abby Cadabby, and Grover continue their work educating kids is a responsibility she takes very seriously.  Over the past year, Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind the 56-year-old global phenomenon, fa...

Kristin Lemkau was thriving in her job as CMO of JPMorgan Chase, a job she thought would be her last, when CEO Jamie Dimon and his leadership team threw a new challenge her way.  They wanted the company to become more competitive in the wealth management space, and offered Lemkau the job as CEO of J.P. Morgan Wealth Management.  Despite some significant hurdles that would come with building the bu...

Kecia Steelman was a 20-year-old single mom living in government housing when she faced a realization: if she wanted a better life, it was up to her.  She became determined to find a job where she could learn and grow.  From the men’s department at Target, she buckled down, worked holidays and weekends, and transformed what started as an $8 an hour gig into something much more. She built a career...

We’re all likely to encounter some change in life that’s unwelcome:  a scary health diagnosis, the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, or the end of a dream.  Maya Shankar, PhD, deeply understands the concept of change and offers a roadmap for navigating it.    She is a cognitive scientist and Senior Director of Behavioral Economics at Google.  But she is perhaps best known for her side gig:...

“I don’t sweep the floor with my uterus,” asserts Corinne Low, Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania.  It’s a stark statement, but her underlying point is to urge men and women to re-examine gender roles around the work needed to maintain a home and family: cooking, cleaning, making the kids’ doctor’s appointments, and s...

The markets are still riding high, but if 2025 taught us anything, it’s that not everything that glitters is gold. In this episode of our sister podcast HerMoney, Jean Chatzky sits down with legendary investor and How She Does It Host Karen Finerman to unpack the wild ride of 2025: the highs, the flops, the lessons learned, and the big bets she’s making in 2026. We also talk about what makes a win...

We love hearing insight and hard-won wisdom from some of the most exceptional and accomplished women. In this episode, we’ve put together some particularly insightful moments from a few of our guests from across our first 70 episodes. We cover how to push through those tough moments, trust your gut, and do what it takes to build the life you want (and not the life other people think you should be...

It was a “gigantic” role: one that required Gina Raimondo to engage in high-powered meetings with heads of state and be called on in the White House Situation Room to weigh in on critical decisions of national security.  After serving as Secretary of Commerce during the Biden administration, Gina Raimondo is now taking time to consider what her next move will look like.  But there’s one thing the...

Selling subscriptions door-to-door. It was difficult work and a worst-case scenario for Angie Hicks, a self-proclaimed introvert. Straight out of college, Hicks went to work with a former boss from an internship to help launch a new business. The idea: create a resource of home repair and renovation service providers curated by customers, along with reviews.   They called it Angie’s List.   Now, 3...