The Athlete Effect™ with Bonnie Bernstein

As a field hockey goalie at Babson College, Elissa Kalver knew every move she made... mattered. Little did she know then that an athlete mindset built on resilience, perseverance, and the ability to "control the controllables" would one day help her navigate profound loss, entrepreneurship, and a Stage 4 HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer diagnosis just days before her daughter's first birthda...

NCAA sports aren’t the only path to executive leadership, just ask former Sun Bum CEO Cynthia Herrera. Cynthia spent more than 20 years in executive sales and marketing roles at global consumer goods giant SC Johnson (think Windex, Pledge, Raid, and Method), including a six-year stint leading Sun Bum. In this conversation with Bonnie Bernstein, she shares how her club volleyball experience at West...

Olympic gold medalist Dominique Dawes joins the podcast to discuss life after sports, overcoming identity crisis and a perfectionist mindset, and thriving as an entrepreneur, team owner, and mother of four. A three-time Olympian, Dawes was a member of the 1996 Magnificent Seven squad that secured Team USA's first Olympic gold in women's gymnastics. Today, she's the founder of the Dominique Dawes G...

Female Quotient CEO Shelley Zalis proudly wears the title "Chief Troublemaker." An award-winning tech entrepreneur, the first female CEO of a Top 25 market research firm, and a fearless champion for workplace equality, she didn't just shatter the glass ceiling, she made her own rules. Shelley shares with Bonnie Bernstein how teamwork learned through tennis has informed her "Power of the Pack" lead...

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was a two-sport athlete at Lehigh and became Deloitte’s first female CEO. Today, she’s one of the most powerful women in sports. Engelbert joins Bonnie Bernstein on The Athlete Effect™ for a conversation focused on her journey from athlete to WNBA Commissioner, and the defining moments that have forged her path. She reflects on the evolution of her leadership styl...

Jessica Mendoza is the first woman to call a World Series for a national network. Now she's paving the way for women in sports broadcasting. A two-time softball Olympian, Stanford All-American, groundbreaking ESPN MLB analyst, and one of the most influential Latina women in sports, Jessica joins Bonnie Bernstein to explore how the laser focus and poise under pressure honed as an athlete has kept h...

Dr. Seun Adigun, 2x Olympian, CEO and biomechanist, shares how her competitive sports mindset fuels her success in medicine, business, and leadership. A first-generation Nigerian-American, Dr. Adigun earned a full track scholarship to the University of Houston and represented Nigeria in the 100m hurdles at the 2012 Summer Olympics. She later made history as the founder and pilot of Nigeria’s first...

One of only 33 Black female neurosurgeons in the U.S., Dr. Theresa Williamson joins Bonnie Bernstein to reveal how her Yale soccer experience shaped her path to the operating room. Williamson currently serves as the Director of Minimally Invasive Endoscopic Surgery at Brown University Health. She explains how sports shaped her ability to perform under pressure, communicate effectively, make critic...

Ginger Zee, ABC News Chief Meteorologist, Good Morning America co-host, and New York Times bestselling author joins veteran sports journalist and host Bonnie Bernstein on The Athlete Effect™ to explore how her experience as a multisport athlete shaped her career in meteorology and broadcast journalism. She reflects on how sports built confidence, discipline, and mental toughness, and the parallel...

O nce an athlete, always an athlete.  Did you know that 94% of female C-suite executives played sports? The Athlete Effect™ leadership and career development podcast explores the powerful connection between sports participation and professional achievement, delivering actionable insights for anyone striving to be a high performer, long after the final whistle.  Emmy-winning sports journa...