Career Contessa

Meet Anu Duggal and Sutian Dong, the power duo behind Female Founders Fund and women disrupting venture capitalism. You’ve probably read the headlines about how much funding women-founded companies receive from investors and those low, low numbers are no lie. That’s where Anu and Sutian come in. They are reshaping traditional venture capital by creating their own early-stage fund that invests in t...

Meet Laura Vanderkam, an author, productivity expert, and a woman disrupting time management skills. I first came across Laura’s work when Career Contessa published an article called “How You’re Wasting 50+ Hours a Week” and, as you can probably imagine, I was immediately taken by the article because it’s true— we all do share the same number of hours in a week—168 to be exact—but it does seem lik...

Meet Debbie Sterling, the Founder and CEO of GoldieBlox and a woman disrupting the pink aisle. For many women, our childhood toys consisted of Barbies, kitchen sets, and other variations of princess obsessions. And while we may have fond childhood memories with those toys, our male counterparts were being introduced to Legos, video games requiring strategy, and, following the male daredevils they...

Today is a really special episode because we are celebrating International Women’s Day, a day that was first celebrated in 1911 as a way to honor women all over the world for their contributions and achievements. And speaking of positive differences for women, I’ve invited Liz Dolan to the show. Liz is the former Chief Marketing Officer for world-class brands like Nike, Oprah Winfrey Network, and...

Meet Beth Comstock, author and former Vice Chair and head of marketing and innovation at General Electric. Beth has made a name for herself as a change-maker and someone who can convince the inconvincible to also adapt change through her almost 30-year corporate careers.   Beth’s new book is called Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and The Power of Change and that’s exactly what we’ll be co...

Meet Erica Cerulo and Claire Mazur founders of fashion and design site, Of A Kind, authors of Work Wife, and women who are disrupting the power of female friendships.   It’s true that Claire and Erica have been joined at the hip since their college days in Chicago and now as they run Of a Kind in New York City. It’s true that Claire and Erica host a hilarious weekly podcast called A Few Things. An...

Meet Elise Loehnen, the Chief Content Office at Goop and a woman working to disrupt traditional media and ecommerce.   In addition to learning exactly how one goes about becoming GP’s (ahem, Gwyneth Paltrow’s) right-hand woman, we’ll also be chatting with Elise about all things media and ecommerce in the ever-changing digital landscape including why it’s been valuable for Goop to have their hand i...

Meet Caroline Turner, author, speaker, and a leadership consultant disrupting how both male and female leaders communicate. You’ve probably heard that men are from Mars and women are from Venus as a way to explain our communication differences but Caroline strongly disagrees with that. In fact, we’re about to disrupt all the traditional advice you’ve heard about masculine and feminine communicatio...

Meet Sadie Lincoln, the founder of Barre3 , a boutique fitness studio offering full body workouts. Since 2008, Sadie’s been disrupting the fitness industry by putting community before company—always. And she comes by that love for community honestly. Sadie’s childhood was anything but typical. She was born in an adobe in New Mexico without any electricity to her mother who, along with her four bes...

Welcome back to The Femails, a podcast that covers all things women, work, and what it takes to build a successful and fulfilling career on your terms.   Last season we brought you stories of meltdowns followed by swift comebacks from 12 dynamic women.   We’re back in the studio for season 2 of The Femails where will be focusing on disruption. You see, last year I wrote about how 2018 was going to...

Meet Paige Adams-Geller, Founder and Creative Director of PAIGE, a highly successful premium denim and lifestyle brand. Paige’s journey began in Los Angeles, where her entrepreneurial spirit took her from working as one of the top fit models in the industry to launching her namesake collection in 2004. However, as you’ve heard throughout season one of this podcast, no journey to success happens wi...

Meet Amanda Enayati, a stress expert, author, and cancer survivor. If you’ve ever looked at the headlines around stress and anxiety,  the message is very clear: Chronic stress is on the rise. But what about the research that tells us how we can manage our stress or even turn our anxiety into positive action? And is there a difference between professional stress and personal? With so many questions...

Meet Jill Abramson, author and Harvard college professor.  She also happens to be the first and only woman to hold the position of Executive Editor at The New York Times, a role she’d lose in a very public way Jill Abramson’s ascent at The New York Times makes perfect sense considering Jill is a native New Yorker through and through and she spent years in journalism including in the managing edito...

Meet Christine Hassler, an author, speaker, and life coach who is committed to guiding people and organizations to reach their highest potential. At age 25 Christine had a successful career as a Hollywood agent, was engaged to the love of her life, and literally hanging out with the likes of George Clooney at parties. It was a pretty glamorous set-up, but there was one (huge) thing missing: fulfil...

Meet Aliza Licht, the senior vice president of brand marketing and communications at Alice + Olivia and author of Leave Your Mark , a bestselling career advice book. Aliza started with aspirations to become a plastic surgeon before she let her creative side take over and moved into the media world. And it’s a good thing she did because Aliza’s been a major player in fashion PR for over 20 years—th...

Before she wrote the CliffsNotes on career truths, Jennifer was the Chief Content Officer at Shondaland.com with yes, that Shonda, formally known as TV producer Shonda Rhimes, and was also Editor in Chief at some pretty prominent companies like Hello Giggles, Yahoo Shine, and Lucky Magazine. All that sounds glamorous, but before Jennifer became a star in the world of online content, she suffered s...

Meet Aditi Javeri Gokhale, the first Chief Marketing Officer for Northwestern Mutual, a mother and a very interesting woman who’s worked hard to overcome her “underdog” position at work to become a female role model we can all look up to. In addition to working hard and making proactive career choices, Aditi’s also mastered the art of a career transition—something I know many of you listeners prob...

Meet Ann Shoket, the former editor-in-chief of Seventeen Magazine, author of The Big Life, and a champion for millennial women who are redefining the meaning of power and success. But championing women isn’t why I asked Ann Shoket to join us—although we’ll definitely cover that. I wanted Ann to come talk about what I call The Ambition Trap. Sometimes drive and direction don’t work in tandem, and t...

Meet Farnoosh Torabi, a personal finance expert, 3-time author with her latest book called “ When She Makes More ,” and host of the popular So Money podcast.  Farnoosh isn’t your typical money expert with years working at a bank or managing other people’s portfolios. It was actually through a career in journalism, coupled with her first-hand experience of working her way out of thousands of dollar...

Meet Dr. Zelana Montminy, a prominent figure in positive psychology and the author of 21 Days to Resilience. Her research is at the forefront of ground-breaking new science, which she calls “the science of thriving”, a field in which experts are exploring what drives us toward optimal well-being. And that’s what brings us to the podcast. Dr. Z  is going to help explain, “Why do we meltdown?” We ar...

Actress Autumn Reeser had her whole life planned out. Marriage, successful career, kids, and more. But then she was hit with a divorce, lack of emotional support, and even postpartum psychosis. Autumn’s vulnerability has led her to share that, until recently, her version of “having it all” definitely didn’t include room for messy moments. The result was that she was preoccupied with the idea of do...

Drybar Founder, Alli Webb, isn't afraid of a career pivot. Alli went from college dropout to fashion PR misfit and finally found her passion at beauty school. That beauty school experience eventually laid the foundation for what is now Drybar, a successful blow dry bar and product line. Alli's an accidental entrepreneur with over 10 years of business success and she's here to discuss her relations...

Welcome to The Femails, a podcast from Career Contessa that deep dives into the world of  women, work, and what it takes to build a successful and fulfilling career on your terms. The Femails podcast, hosted by Lauren McGoodwin, is an extension of the conversation, resource, and tools created  by Career Contessa, the only career platform dedicated to helping women. This is a podcast about  explora...