PEERS

Hailing from a town two hours outside of Istanbul, Turkey to studying in the rice fields of Japan, Serkan Toso’s entrepreneurial journey has seen him explore the world.  However, as one of the Co-Founders of byFood, a platform for tourists to discover Japan’s best cuisine, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.  In this episode, Serkan shares how he began a business in a foreign country,...

Genevieve Day is the CEO and Founder of Day Management, one of Australia’s first influencer management agencies and a 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 listee.  In this open Peers2Peers chat, Genevieve shares how she expanded her company in 2020 whilst others were shutting their doors, why she aims to work smarter (not harder) and how her traditional family of teachers, lawyers and doctors supported he...

Have you ever felt worse after scrolling social media? With new houses, shiny cars and business wins, sometimes our feeds can feel like a never-ending highlight reel.  In today’s episode, Managing Partner of digital marketing and advertising agency, Eikon7, Shayan Mahmud shares his thoughts on how social media is warping our ideas of success and expectations.  Managing three global busin...

Has your entrepreneurial journey ever felt like being on the edge of a cliff?  You can either stay put in your comfort zone or… jump.  Jumping is exactly what today’s Peers2Peers guest, Nicole Liu, did when she founded Kin Fertility.  The first subscription service for the contraceptive pill, Kin Fertility is now helping thousands of women navigate the turbulent waters of reproducti...

Where have your travels taken you? For today’s guest, Emille Mendoza, it was a trip back to her parent’s country of the Philippines that sparked a business idea.  Now the Founder and CEO of Boracay Skin, Emille turned her business from a part-time side hustle while working as a flight attendant to a seven figure e-commerce brand.  Huge, right? In today’s episode powered by Shopify, Emill...

How has your network helped you in your entrepreneurial journey?  For today’s guest it was a cold call to Emma Watson’s stylist that changed the course of her business journey forever.  Now spotted on the likes of Nicole Kidman, Serena Williams and Michelle Obama (amongst others), Harvard University student Shilpa Yarlagadda is creating beautiful jewellery with an incredibly important mi...

To be a winner, you have to think and act like one.  It was this mindset that propelled world champion gymnast-turned-serial entrepreneur, Lisa Carmen Wang to success.  The Forbes 30 Under 30 Venture Capital Listee has always been unapologetic in her pursuit for victory. Now, she’s dedicated her career to helping women do the same.   Powered by Shopify, in this Peers episode ,...

Spandana Nakka waited for the perfect opportunity to quit her dream 9-to-5 gig at Google to launch her own business. Unsurprisingly, the decision to do so has already started to pay off. Sleek sells AI software to venues to manage their wait times and has been featured on Forbes AI 50 watchlist. In this episode, Sleek Co-Founder and CEO, Spandana teaches us some vital lessons about the import...

After having his company, Kit, acquired by none other than Shopify, today’s guest knew he had to listen to the voice inside of him and keep pursuing his purpose. A former Shopify Product Director, Michael Perry has co-founded four businesses throughout this time as a software start-up superstar.  Now, his latest venture, Maple, has raised more than $3.5 million in seed funding and is set...

Founded in 2017, today’s guest is the brilliant Iva Gumnishka, CEO of Humans in the Loop. Through her social enterprise, Iva and her team are providing employment opportunities in the data industry to people affected by conflict.  Thanks to @shopify, we sat down with Iva to hear about her experience with culture shock, choosing adventure and risk over stability, and what advice she wished she...

Powered by Shopify, this week’s guest is Swee Lin Lee, one of the clever brains behind the refugee platform, PichaEats. Founded after volunteering in a KL refugee living centre with her two business partners, Swee Lin created a solution to the problem of young children abandoning their education to support their families.  In this episode, we sit down with Swee Lin to hear about her jour...

Today’s guest, Zaure Rozmat is the CEO of Kazakhstani media startup The Steppe, a media outlet with a focus on education, technology and cultural economics, without the gossip, tabloids and clickbait.  As a self-described risk-taker, Zaure’s pathway to entrepreneurship isn’t unexpected, but what she’s created with The Steppe is. In this episode, Zaure shares how motherhood inspired her busine...

Today’s episode discusses mental health and may be triggering for some listeners. If you need support, help is available. Contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. Today’s guest, Samantha Pratt is the CEO and Founder of KlickEngage, an organization that uses SEL to limit the impact of complex trauma on student achievement. Drawing on her own mental health experiences, Samantha sits down with us to discuss the...

In true New Yorker form, today’s guest is fast and bright. Kaitlyn Barclay is the CEO and Co-Founder of Scout Lab, a boutique full-service creative agency building purpose-driven brands for founders with a vision. Since its launch in 2017, Scout Lab has worked with some of the biggest and most progressive brands including Adidas, Wix.com, WordPress.com, Venmo and Alibaba.  We sit down with Ka...

When today’s guest, Skyler Mapes visited her now-husband’s parents in his hometown of Le Castella Calabria, she also met their orchard of olive trees - while not as personable, they were just as intimidating. Upon returning to Texas, Skyler couldn’t forget the taste Calabria had left, so she decided not to leave it and relocate to Italy.  In 2017, EXAU Olive Oil was born - a family-owned dire...

We are so excited to share the news: we have a sponsor! The leading global commerce company, Shopify has come onboard to help us power the entrepreneurial success stories of peers around the world. To mark this huge milestone, our CEO and Founder Michelle Akhidenor has taken to the mic alone to reflect on what this sponsorship means to her, how she made it happen and what she learnt from her two-y...

In 2015, Adelle Archer lost her close friend and mentor to pancreatic cancer. That's when she heard about turning loved one's ashes into diamonds and created Eterneva.  In today’s episode, Adelle recounts how a conversation about grief inspired an idea that celebrates life, how to stay committed to our business during periods of self-doubt and external disapproval, and what it’s really like t...

Shireen Jaffer is the co-founder of Edvo, an edtech company empowering people with the tools to think for themselves and forge their own stories. But two minutes into this chat, we thought she could give Oprah a run for her money. In this uplifting and (damn) motivating interview, Shireen gets real about what actually matters in the real world as opposed to what school and society tells us. She sh...

Lisa Qu  is a fashion designer hailing from Australia but based in NYC. Lisa launched her eponymous label in 2018 when she was a student at Parsons School of Design.  In this intimate episode, Lisa reflects on the unspoken expectations that come with being a child of immigrant parents, navigating through the struggle of thinking ‘we’re not enough,’ and the truths The Devil Wears Prada go...

Sarah Chen is a venture capital aficionado who can drop a six-figure dollar amount into Excel and mean it. As the Co-founder of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, Sarah is working to mobilise $1 billion dollars of funding into female-founded companies. In today’s episode, she’s telling us how. In this ep, we also cover accidental feminism, the importance of critical thinking and how to build...

This episode is all about identity: what it means, why we’re fixated on ‘solving it’ and if we should even try to. Joining us to share her journey with identity is the Founder and CEO of Indian-inspired skincare brand Aavrani, Rooshy Roy. With humility and humour, Rooshy reflects on the confusion she felt as a teen trying to navigate cultural expectations as an Indian and American woman. Why rebel...

Zoia Kozakov’s life and career to-date has been so full, condensing it into a few sentences seems impractical. Alas, here we go. Vice President, Product at  CitiBank NYC, Global Marketing Lead at Women In Innovation, a Podcast Host and Founder, Zoia straddles between tech and innovation.  In this ep, Zoia recounts the journey of being inscripted into the Israeli army following her father...

You’re graduating college, you’ve got your 9-5, health-care covered, cubicle cemented dream on a platter. You call your mom. Everything is good, everything is right, everything is in order, except you.  When Rachel Carpenter called her mom, she had one question: to take the opportunity with money, or to sleep on a friend’s couch and earn no money. Her mom said to do the thing that fuelled her...

How can we progress when everyone around us is urging us not to go forward? That’s a pain today’s guest, Cristina De la Peña knows all too well. An architect turned-tech-entrepreneur, Cristina left Mexico to pursue a career in Paris, only to return after her then-business partner told her she was the ‘weak link.’ With her self-worth in question, Cristina stopped focusing on ‘who’ she was and began...

Niara Valério is an ed-tech entrepreneur and Co-founder of Learnabi, an online platform that brings personalised learning to high-risk students in underserved areas of the U.S. In two years, Learnabi has earned over six figures in sales and led Niara to be recognised on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. It all came together in the end, but only because it fell apart. With wisdom and frankness, Niara sh...