Build Your Own Boat

Episode Summary Can you build a thriving new business in your 60s and beyond — after decades inside an institution? In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, Helen Hirsch Spence proves you can. After 35 years as a leader in Canadian education — principal, founding executive of the Ontario Principals' Council, and head of an all-girls school — Helen walked away from institutional authority and, in he...

Episode Summary If you have spent decades building a career and now feel pulled toward something new, this episode shows you how to start. Denise Drinkwalter spent 31 years in education — as a teacher, a behavior resource teacher, a principal, and an international leader with the Council for Exceptional Children — before launching a brand-new venture in her 50s. She built a coaching practice, crea...

Episode Summary If you have ever wondered whether it is too late to leave corporate America and build a coaching business from scratch, this conversation answers that directly: it is not. Karrie Mitten spent 25 years in corporate sales and marketing feeling unfulfilled before launching Uplevel Your Life Consulting at age 53 — and turned it into a thriving, 90%-referral practice with clients split...

Episode Summary Can you start a thriving business at 60 — after a cancer diagnosis, an empty nest, and the collapse of your last venture? Diana Dunbar Place did exactly that. In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, Diana explains how she left a senior VP career in international advertising to found Third Act Quest and the 333 Collective, a membership community helping women over 50 stop shrinking...

Episode Summary Wondering whether decades of nonprofit experience can become a business you own? This episode answers that directly. After 25-plus years leading healthcare philanthropy, arts, and community development organizations, Ashley Kasprzak launched her own nonprofit fundraising consulting practice, AK Consulting / Partners for Purpose, in late 2023 — and this conversation walks through ex...

Episode Summary Margit Novack left a 20-year career in healthcare and hospital administration and, when most people look for the next job doing what they already know, she did something completely different. She started a business helping older adults downsize and relocate — a service so new in 1996 that business advisors told her not to bother printing business cards because no one would pay for...

Episode Summary Many women reach midlife with deep professional experience but freeze when it comes to pricing their work, asking for investment, or managing their own money. This episode solves that problem by showing exactly how one woman turned a lifetime of pivots into a thriving "fleet" of income streams — and what she teaches other women to do the same. Rebecca Reynolds Moore left the museum...

Episode Summary Karen Brown spent years at the top of the oil and gas industry — the first female geoscientist at Boone Pickens' Mesa Petroleum, then CEO of a major nonprofit. So why did she walk away from the money, the titles, and the respect to build a career in aging and age tech? This episode answers that question directly: after nearly a decade caregiving for her parents and in-laws, Karen s...

Episode Summary This episode answers a question many accomplished women ask at midlife: how do you leave a stable, high-impact career and build a consulting business that actually fits the life you want?  Hatton Littman, founder of Surf HL, left a 25-year career in education, government, and nonprofit leadership to launch her own leadership development and strategic communications firm in Montana...

Episode Summary Attorney and author Maria Leonard Olsen shows how women can build a fulfilling second career — as a writer, speaker, and podcaster — without giving up the financial security of their primary profession. After becoming a lawyer to please her immigrant mother, Olsen used the "side boat" of writing during a career break to eventually publish eight books, deliver two TEDx talks, host t...

EPISODE SUMMARY Rachel Cohen spent nearly three decades working across urban planning, social work, public health, and nonprofit housing before launching Aging Dynamics, her own age-friendly community consulting firm, in her 40s. In this episode, she explains how a career built on curiosity and cross-sector fluency became her competitive advantage — and how she overcame the guilt many women feel a...

Episode Summary Jennifer Stapleton left a senior communications executive role at a national nonprofit at 46 to launch Fire and Bliss, a consulting firm that now helps foundations and well-funded nonprofits with crisis communications and fundraising strategy. This episode answers a question every experienced professional should ask before going out on their own: what is your "unfair advantage" — t...

Episode Summary Most women over 50 who want to start a business don't have angel investors lining up — and AnnMaria De Mars, founder of 7 Generation Games, didn't either. In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, De Mars explains exactly how she funded her math-and-culture-based educational game company without a single six-figure investor check: SBIR federal research grants, three Kickstarter campa...

Episode Summary Nancy Shenker left a 20-year corporate marketing career at Citibank and MasterCard at age 48 and, over the next two decades, built not one but a fleet of ventures — a marketing consultancy called The OnSwitch, fractional CMO work, a serialized Substack memoir, and an AI-focused newsletter. In this episode, she explains how women over 50 can price their expertise with confidence, la...

Episode Summary Dr. Sam Graber spent decades as a practicing chiropractor before walking away from disease-focused medicine to build a health and life coaching business from scratch. In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, she explains how burnout, an undiagnosed perimenopause transition, and a growing frustration with insurance-driven "disease management" pushed her to close her practice and star...

Episode Summary What happens to your business when an aging parent moves in and needs your care? Wendy Green, founder of Hey Boomer and host of the Boomer Banter Podcast, faced exactly this — and instead of powering through, she made a deliberate choice to scale back her podcast and refocus her energy on the work that gives her the most fulfillment for the least burnout. In this episode of Build Y...

Episode Summary Jacqui Fishman spent decades as a creative marketing strategist before reviving a shelved apparel line into This Girl Can! Change the World, a mission-driven brand and media property that tells girls, out loud and on purpose, that they have the power to change the world. In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, Fishman explains how a Harvard graduate degree in children's media, a po...

Episode Summary How do you build a strategic financial plan for entrepreneurship after 40 — one that includes retirement savings, catch-up contributions, and a paid-off house? This episode answers that question through the lived experience of Cindy Morris, founder of The Benson Agency and Women Who Changed the World. Cindy walks through the difference between building a business out of necessity v...

Episode Summary When a tenant secretly manufactured methamphetamine inside Kathi McCarty's Colorado log cabin, she discovered that meth contamination in rental and residential properties is far more common than most homeowners, real estate agents, or insurance companies acknowledge — and that almost no legal or financial protections exist for victims. In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, McCart...

Episode Summary When the school and disability-services systems couldn't give her son Chris — now 42 and living with autism — the life he deserved, Anne Patton built the infrastructure herself. In 2013 she founded A Better Life, a state-approved Program Approved Service Agency (PASA) that lets her bill Medicaid directly for Chris's residential, community, and employment supports, cutting out the 3...

Episode Summary After more than two decades leading global technology teams at Oracle and serving as VP of Services at an AI-driven consulting firm, Kristen Harris was laid off at 55 — a moment that felt devastating even though she already knew the role wasn't right for her. In this episode, Harris explains why perfectionism isn't a flaw to "recover from" but a trait that high achievers can sharpe...

Episode Summary This episode is for every woman who has spent decades building an impressive career and wonders whether that experience can fuel something entirely her own. Ramona Schindelheim — award-winning journalist, Emmy and Peabody winner, and former editor-in-chief of Working Nation — answers that question with a resounding yes. In this conversation, Ramona and host Janine Vanderburg trace...

Episode Summary For women who have spent decades being indispensable — and invisible — this episode is the roadmap you didn't know you needed. Bonnie Schutz spent nearly 30 years as an elite executive assistant, mastering the art of making everyone else's vision run flawlessly. Then, after one too many layoffs and a workplace incident that became her tipping point, she gave her boss a month's noti...

Episode Summary After two decades as a talent acquisition executive at Fortune 500 companies, Chelle Johnson found herself successful on paper — and spiritually depleted in practice. In 2019, she made the leap: she launched Best You Talent Advisors, a fractional talent advisory firm, and never looked back. This episode is a masterclass in what it actually takes to build a sustainable business in m...

Episode Summary What does it look like to launch a strategic communications firm in the middle of a global pandemic — and build it entirely around a commitment to equity and social justice? Angelle Fouther did exactly that when she co-founded Kindred Communications in 2020 with her daughter, Darren. In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, Angelle shares the real story behind the leap: the years of...