Behind Her Empire

Melanie Strong is a founding partner of Next Ventures, a VC firm she co-founded with Lance Armstrong that focuses on building the next generation of sports, health and wellness brands.  Melanie has spent her entire life in the sports industry. She’s a lifelong runner and started her career as a journalist at Runner's World magazine. She then applied for a position at Nike despite not having t...

Eve Rodsky is a Harvard-grad lawyer, Activist, and New York Times Best Selling Author.  In Eve’s first book Fair Play, Eve uses her background in organizational management to ask the simple yet profound question: What would happen if we treated our homes as our most important organization?  She created a step-by-step approach to help partners rebalance the work of running a home and reim...

Nicole Gibbons is the Founder of Clare, the only Black-owned paint brand in the US, and is a favorite of Jessica Alba, Maria Sharapova, and Nate Berkus to name a few.  Before pursuing interior design, Nicole spent nearly a decade managing PR for one of the world’s largest retail brands, Victoria's Secret. Although she was excelling in her career, Nicole felt uninspired and was looking for a n...

Desi Perkins is a digital content creator and Founder/CEO of her eyewear brand, Dezi, and skincare line, Dezi Skin. Before becoming a mega beauty influencer with over 4 million Instagram followers and over 3 million Youtube subscribers, Desi was working as a cocktail waitress looking to make a change in her life but wasn’t sure which step she was going to take.  It all started with a last-min...

Keren Eldad is an acclaimed motivational speaker, leadership psychology expert, and founder of With Enthusiasm, where she provides world-class personal and professional coaching.  Before becoming an internationally-recognized coach, Keren had an illustrious business career. After spending years in the world of publishing, she then founded her own marketing company, Digiluxe. Despite all of th...

In this week's episode, we're rebroadcasting one of our top interviews with Beatrice Dixon, the Founder of The Honey Pot Company, a plant-based feminine hygiene line created to provide women with healthy alternatives to feminine care. The Honey Pot Company began with a dream - literally. In 2014, Beatrice was struggling with an ongoing case of bacterial vaginosis. She visited her doctor and tried...

Alexandra (Alex) Carter is a world-renowned negotiation expert, bestselling author of the book, Ask for More, and Columbia Law School Professor. The image that most of us have in our heads when we think about negotiation is people speaking over one another, fighting for the prize. But this is not what it takes to be a masterful negotiator. In fact, quite the opposite.  As Alex explains in our...

As we gear up for the holidays & get ready for more incredible interviews in the new year, ⁠we’re taking the opportunity to highlight our top 5 most popular episodes from 2021. Even if you are an avid listener of the podcast, chances are you may have missed one of these game-changing interviews. Marcus Lemonis is known for helping struggling businesses get back on their feet through investing...

Jesse Draper is the Founding Partner of Halogen Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investing in consumer tech companies led by female and co-ed teams. With women making up to 80 percent of household purchasing decisions, Jesse and her team are betting big on early-stage, female-founded companies with billion-dollar potential. Jesse is a fourth generation venture capitalist as...

Dr. Mary Pardee is a functional medicine practitioner and naturopathic medical doctor who specializes in integrative gastroenterology, hormones, and gut-brain health. She is also the Founder of Modrn Med, a telemedicine and virtual wellness company. We’ll talk to Dr. Pardee about what the heck gut health is and why it plays such a big role in your happiness, energy, confidence, and overall well-be...

Natalie Gordon is the CEO and Founder of Babylist, the fastest-growing universal baby registry in the U.S. In 2011, after she closed down her first business and did some consulting projects to make ends meet, Natalie came up with the idea for Babylist after becoming frustrated with the options available for baby registries at the time. What started as a side-project that launched two weeks before...

Dr. Stephanie Estima is a chiropractor with a special interest in metabolism, functional neurology, and body composition who has devoted her time to analyzing hormones and creating a system to help women naturally overcome painful periods.  She's the creator of the Estima Diet, host of the Better! podcast, and author of the best-selling book, The Betty Body. She's had over 3.5 million article...

Jane Wurwand is the Founder and Chief Visionary of Dermalogica, the number one professional skincare brand in the world. At the young age of 24, Jane immigrated to California and saw a distinct lack of continuing education with skin therapists in the US. Without a college degree or network, she set out to launch her own skin therapy education with only $14,000 in a small classroom in Los Angeles....

Dr. Sara Gottfried is a World-Renowned Physician, Hormone Expert, Speaker, and 4x New York Times Best Selling Author. Dr. Gottfried’s interview marks the start of our first podcast in the world of health and wellness. One of the biggest myths that women have on their path to building their empire is that they have to sacrifice their health in order to be successful. This couldn't be further from t...

Sandra Campos is an internationally recognized retail technology CEO, entrepreneur, and retail executive. A child of entrepreneurial, immigrant parents, Sandra’s upbringing was characterized by a focus on education, helping out in her family’s tortilla business from a young age, and experimenting with her own entrepreneurial ventures in fashion. Sandra’s love for fashion and buying led her to New...

Hitha Palepu is a serial entrepreneur, investor, activist, and author.  Currently, Hitha is the CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals and author of her latest book, We're Speaking: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris: How to Use Your Voice, Be Assertive, and Own Your Story. She also runs #5SmartReads, a social series that compiles five must-read articles every day to keep her community informed. ...

Angela Sutherland is the Co-Founder and CEO of Yumi, a fresh, organic, and nutritious baby food delivery service. After many years working in private equity, Angela never imagined she’d one day be an entrepreneur and start a baby food company. When she became pregnant with her first child, she became hyper-aware of the importance of nutrition in a child's first 1,000 days of life. She realized mos...

Helene Godin is the founder and CEO of By The Way Bakery, a unique, old-fashioned bakery where each treat is handmade, gluten-free, dairy-free, and certified kosher.  Helene hasn't always been a baker. She spent over two decades as a successful lawyer when she decided that she was ready for a change, and took the bold step of starting her business. Although she was not an experienced baker, H...

Kaylin Marcotte is the founder and CEO of JIGGY, a brand that supports emerging female artists by turning their art into exciting jigsaw puzzles that are worth framing. Kaylin’s fondness for jigsaw puzzles started when she was looking for a way to unwind after a long day at work. She was the first employee at the well-known digital media company, theSkimm, and was managing everything from their br...

Noura Sakkijha is the co-founder and CEO of Mejuri, a fine jewelry brand that introduces handcrafted, everyday jewelry without the traditional retail markups.  Looking from the outside in, entering the jewelry market can seem like a daunting endeavor. Not only is it seemingly saturated, but it’s also exceptionally expensive. Growing up in Jordan as a third-generation jeweler, Noura noticed th...

Logan Hollowell is the designer, founder and CEO of Logan Hollowell Jewelry. Logan started with little more than a dream board, some affirmations, and the right mindset and manifested her way to a jewelry empire. Her jewelry is a cult favorite and has been spotted on the likes of Rihanna, Jennifer Lawrence, Meghan Markle, and Jessica Alba, among others.  Today she joins us to share her i...

Dubbed by the New York Times as ‘the woman who dresses America’, Jenna Lyons, is a fashion icon and the co-founder/CEO of the beauty brand, LoveSeen.  Having kicked off her career as an intern at Donna Karan, Jenna went on to join the design team at J.Crew, eventually becoming its President. She is recognized as the main driver behind its incredible rise to success, and is a regular feature i...

Reham Fagiri is the Founder and CEO of AptDeco, an online marketplace that eliminates the hassle of buying and selling furniture.  Reham always knew she wanted to build something but never knew exactly what it would be. The idea for AptDeco came to Reham after she finished business school at Wharton and was preparing to move to New York. Desperate to sell her furniture, she used Craigslist, a...

Ariel Kaye is the Founder and CEO of Parachute, a direct-to-consumer home essentials brand. After spending a decade in advertising and brand development, Ariel was yearning to do something more. She always considered herself a home and interior design enthusiast, describing herself as a super consumer of home goods, but she struggled to find a single brand that was affordable, high quality, and ea...

Vicky Tsai, founder of Japanese beauty brand Tatcha, had a nontraditional path to eventually founding one of the top skincare companies today. About 10 years ago, Vicky decided to leave her thriving career and travel the world in search of happiness and meaning in her life.  In her travels, when visiting Kyoto, Japan, Vicky had a life-changing meeting with a Geisha. She learned some of t...