Founders in Jeans

What if your brand wasn't a logo or a color palette, but a living thing you could actually listen to? This episode is with Luna Battalia — brand strategist, leadership mentor, and founder of a full-spectrum brand studio — whose background spans design and depth psychology, including years in clinical settings before branding tripled her income during COVID. Luna walks us through "Animist...

What does it take to disrupt a category that's been around for millennia? In this episode of Founders in Jeans, I sit down with Clara Veniard, founder and CEO of Coro Foods, the company reinventing salami and pepperoni with bold flavors, all-natural ingredients, and humanely raised pork — all made 100% in-house at their own facility in Washington state. Clara shares the unexpected origin story...

Most founders believe that if the work is good enough, the right people will eventually find it. Publicist KJ Blattenbauer is here to gently end that myth. In this episode, I sit down with KJ, founder of Hearsay PR and a publicist with nearly 30 years of experience, to talk about why brilliant founders stay invisible, and what to do about it. KJ makes the case that you don't have to be big, fa...

Fertility advice is broken, and most of what you've been told about periods, trackers, and "regulating your cycle" is flat-out wrong. In this episode, I sit down with Kirsten Karchmer, North America's first reproductive acupuncturist and founder of Conceivable, who treated 10,000+ women before building an AI that got her fertility outcomes without her in the room. We get into the...

Can you really build a personal brand on LinkedIn while working a full-time 9-to-5? Raina Das did exactly that, quietly building her personal brand after work until it turned into 150+ brand deals, 25,000 LinkedIn followers, and three sponsorship deals in a single week. No hustle-porn, no chasing followers, no quitting her day job. In this episode of Founders in Jeans, Raina shares her honest play...

What if the safest path to entrepreneurship isn't quitting your job, it's staying in it a little longer? Ksenia Votinova-Arnaud is the co-founder of LeVPN, a profitable SaaS business she's been building for 15 years without a single outside investment. She's also the founder of the Weatherproof Business Launchpad, where she coaches women in tech to leave corporate life on their own terms, with a v...

I sat down with Yvette Boateng, creative strategist, UGC creator, and founder of The Good Yap, and she said something that stopped me mid sentence: You don't really know what your story was until you talk about it. Yvette has spent nearly a decade in marketing. She started out chasing the influencer dream, pivoted into UGC, built a career around brand storytelling, and eventually realized the...

I sat down with Eraj Lodhi, founder of Plot Out Loud, a cheeky marketing agency and podcast based in the UK, and she said something that stopped me mid-conversation. "Audacity is my business plan." Eraj left the traditional route, the safe job, the visa sponsorship, the box, and built something entirely her own. She's grown a marketing agency, launched a podcast in her first year, tr...

I had a blast with Palak Agarwal, London-based marketer and personal brand builder, and she said something that made me rethink everything I thought I knew about showing up online. Palak moved from Nepal to London with limited resources, navigated rejection after rejection, and built a LinkedIn community of 10,000+ followers, not by going viral, not by gaming the algorithm, but by simply being rea...

I sat down with Mafalda Johannsen, sales expert, author, and she said something that stopped me mid-conversation. Mafalda has spent 15 years in sales, starting at 22 on 100% commission selling timeshares in Florida with no safety net and no plan. Since then she's built a career in B2B prospecting, written a book on sales and AI, recorded masterclasses for the DACH region's top sales platfo...

I sat down with Viktoria Jancurova, LinkedIn personal brand strategist and founder of VJ Personal Branding, and she said something that made me stop and look at my own profile differently. Viktoria has published over 1,000 posts, generated millions of views across client profiles, built six-figure pipelines, spoken at South Summit in Madrid, and landed paid brand collaborations, all from one platf...

I sat down with Lauren Gibson, founder of Letter Launched and newsletter strategist to coaches, founders, and agency owners, and this one genuinely stopped me in my tracks! Lauren has lived in 44 countries, worked for the co-founder of Ethereum, taught English in Tunisia, got her MBA at Georgetown, and battled depression through 15 years of journaling, and somehow, every single one of those seemin...

What happens when the life that looks good on paper feels completely wrong in your body? In this episode of Founders in Jeans , Emily Jean sits down with Adele Kamel Whitley, founder of Buy Yourself, to talk about people pleasing, self-trust, and building a life that actually feels like yours. Adele shares how she moved from checking boxes, chasing approval, and cycling in and out of corporate lif...

In this episode, Emily Jean sits down with Razane Boustany - a justice sector advisor, project manager, and emerging LinkedIn voice - to talk about what it really looks like to build a meaningful online presence without a perfect plan. This is a conversation about courage, consistency, and why showing up as yourself still matters more than chasing the algorithm. Razane shares how she started posti...

What happens when you trust your gut, start over more than once, and build a business around what actually lights you up? In this episode, Emily sits down with mindset coach, entrepreneur, and electrician Kiomi Barritt to talk about reinvention, resilience, and the mindset shifts that shape everything from business growth to personal freedom. From moving to Egypt at 17 to walking away from a succe...

Niluka Kavanagh went from “everything looks great on paper” to a one-way flight to Spain - and a full reset on what work could look like. In this episode, Niluka breaks down the real transition from corporate life at KPMG to building multiple ventures across 14 countries, and why community, customer validation, and adaptability matter more than the perfect plan. If you’ve ever felt that quiet “is...

Carrie Johnston has spent two decades helping communications professionals land roles they never thought they could get - and now she’s bringing that same “look beyond the resume” lens to her consultancy, The Comms Connector. In this episode, Carrie and Emily unpack what actually moves the needle in comms careers right now: storytelling, writing, networking, and a LinkedIn presence that doesn’t hi...

Fashion is a massive environmental problem - but  Julia Dietmar  isn’t building Open Wardrobe as a guilt machine. She’s building it as a  behavior-change product : a platform that digitizes your closet, uses AI to help you create outfits, and plugs into resale + repairs so “mindful” becomes frictionless. In this episode, Emily Jean sits down with  Julia Dietmar, founder of Open Wardrobe , to unpac...

Arielle Loupos built her career helping DTC brands scale - then took a hard left into product development to solve a problem she was personally fed up with: disposable period products that felt outdated, uncomfortable, and not body-safe. In this episode, the founder of Flower Girl shares what it  really  took to develop period underwear from scratch in Los Angeles (two years of testing, textiles,...

Maija Morton didn’t plan to become a mindset coach - a torn ACL and meniscus in Byron Bay literally knocked her into a new path. Now, she helps women (especially early-stage entrepreneurs) break self-sabotaging patterns like people pleasing, self-doubt, and burnout so they can build businesses - and lives - that actually feel aligned. In this episode, Maija and Emily get real about what mindset co...

What does it look like to build a fashion brand where human dignity is the bottom line? Shahd Alasaly, founder of Blue Meets Blue, joins Emily Jean to share her journey from sociologist to fashion founder, creating a sustainable clothing line that employs refugee artisans in the United States. From sourcing Damascus brocade from the last remaining maker in Syria to creating safe spaces for refugee...

Eleanor Mooney is the co-founder of Verdant, a New York City-made luxury lingerie line built for real life - not just the fitting room. In this episode, she and Emily Jean get into what it actually takes to create high-quality lingerie from the ground up: sourcing European fabrics, obsessing over stretch and recovery, wear-testing every sample, and building an e-commerce experience that still feel...

Personal branding isn’t about perfect pictures or chasing likes - it’s about whether your audience actually learns something from you. In this episode, Emily Jean sits down with Ayesha Ameer , founder of Mentoria Digitals , to unpack what real LinkedIn influence looks like, why executives from Louis Vuitton to Visa are investing in personal brands, and how founders can build visibility without bur...

This week, Emily sits down with Vimbai Midzi , the founder of Deeper Beauty , a melanin-first skincare brand born out of frustration, lived experience, and a whole lot of brilliance. Vimbai grew up never finding products that worked for her dark skin and instead of settling for “making it work,” she built the solution herself. In this honest, eye-opening conversation, Vimbai shares what it’s reall...

From a New Jersey dairy farm to co-founding a boutique marketing agency trusted by early stage tech founders, Amy Winner has built her career on grit, intuition, and an uncanny ability to spot potential where others don’t. In this conversation, Amy breaks down the real state of marketing today, why early founders consistently focus on the wrong things, and how AI will change (and already is changi...