The Curious Middle

If you'd describe yourself as a foodie who loves restaurants, or if you're curious about what it takes to start a restaurant, then today's interview with Erin Wade is for you. Erin is the founder of Homeroom, a mac-n-cheese restaurant with a mission to serve the most delicious and comforting pasta dish in America. And they're well on their way.   Homeroom quickly became a community destination in...

Vicki Saunders is the founder of SheEO, an organization redefining the rules for how businesses are funded. SheEO's radical generosity funding model is completely transformative, and if Vicki's goals are realized, a $1B dollar fund will be created to fund female-owned small-to-medium businesses, forever. In episode 56 of I Want Her Job: The Podcast , Vicki shares advice from her career path with H...

If you love thoughtful conversation and inspiring other women, then today's podcast is for you. Anne Devereux Mills is the founder of the  Parlay House , a salon-style gathering of more than 500 women in the San Francisco Bay Area. Members of the group meet once a month to connect, learn and inspire. Each meeting features a discussion on an interesting topic. The goal of Parlay, Anne says, is to c...

Happy 4th of July! In honor of the holiday, we are speaking with Erin Loos Cutraro, the founder of She Should Run. Erin founded She Should in 2008, a bi-partisan organization dedicated to increasing the number of women running for political office. if you just decided to run or are just exploring, through an incubator, research, events and campaigns, She Should Run offers community support and man...

How do you define success? It's a question Courtney Martin asked herself and others while writing her book, The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream , which attempts to help all of us think about redefining our measures of success. She encourages us to "reject the tired narratives about success" because our motives and lives will change when we shift our focus, instead, to community. " T...

As a book lover since childhood, Cherilyn Parsons longed to be a part of the literary community. So, she risked her security, job stability and comfort for her dream of starting a world-class book festival in Berkeley, California. Although there had been a book festival in her home region, the San Francisco Bay Area, more than a decade prior, there wasn't one when Cherilyn decided to take a chance...

Eugenia Cheng has built a "portfolio career" combining her passions for math, piano and education. Eugenia has a PHD in Pure Mathematics and is a Scientist in Residence at School of the Art Institute in Chicago. As part of her portfolio career, Eugenia also performs as a concert pianist and is a published author of two books about math. Eugenia also works to develop math training materials and cur...

If you love writing, blogging, photography, creating content — and having control of your future while developing your own business — we think you will enjoy hearing how Lauryn Evarts created her blog and brand, The Skinny Confidential. When Lauryn started blogging 6 years ago, she was broke and miserable working in a bartending job. Today, With six employees, Lauryn is running her own business. ...

Ida Tin is founder of Clue, the world's fastest growing period tracking and fertility app. Ida shares why she is so committed to using technology to empower women with more knowledge and control of their bodies and for family planning. Ida is on a mission to help women become more aware and "friendlier with their bodies". Hear how Ida founded Clue and and about Femtech, an emerging area of technol...

In episode 32 of I Want Her Job: The Podcast , we speak with Lauren Collins, staff writer at The New Yorker , and author of When In French: Love In A Second Language . The book, which is a memoir of falling in love, learning a new language and adjusting to a new culture, was recently selected as a " Notable Book of 2016 " by The New York Times . And it's easy to see why. With plenty of humor and f...

Felena Hanson was just another woman working from home when she came up with a brilliant idea. While working at home for eight years, she missed having a sense of community and often time struggled to focus. The options in the market at the time, while uber-hip and high tech, were lacking an environment that felt beautiful and clean to her. She realized she was craving a coworking space designed b...

Judy Robinett's story begins in Franklin, Idaho. As a young girl who was bullied during junior high, Judy felt uncomfortable at social events, which she would often arrive late to and leave early from. Until her 40s, she felt shy, awkward, not good enough, not cute enough and not educated enough. Today, however, Judy's life paints a different picture. As a well-known and highly respected investor...

Imagine wearing a beautiful gold choker with black onyx cabochons on the end. It's on-trend, stunning … but wait, it's only $200? And it's real gold? Yes. Thanks to a dream of two best friends – Bouchra Ezzahraoui and Sophie Kahn – over a Sunday brunch, exquisite gold jewelry brand AUrate came to life. AUrate, which is "AU" for gold (thanks, chemistry class!) and is pronounced "OR-ate" (because, l...

Meet Therese Huston, author of " How Women Decide: What's True, What's Not, and What Strategies Spark the Best Choices. " In her book, Therese shares research that shows women and men are, however, actually equally skilled when it comes to decision making. And, as an expert on the topic of changing the conversation surrounding female decision-makers,  In this episode, Polina and Therese discuss hi...

Jessica Jackson Sloan is the youngest-ever elected official in the charming city of Mill Valley, California, located just 14 miles north of San Francisco. In her role as vice mayor of the city where she grew up, Jessica works on local politics. That would be enough of an accomplishment for many to be satisfied, but not Jessica, who has deep life experiences that motivated her to spend her time hel...

  Many of us feel like we hit the lottery when we land our dream job. But today's podcast guest has held a handful of dream jobs for some majorly crush-worthy companies. The last time we featured Rachel Hofstetter on I Want Her Job, her book about foodie entrepreneurs, Cooking Up A Business , was fresh off the press and stirring up quite the media buzz. She also had just launched guesterly , a mem...

Bea Arthur knows a thing or two about making a pivot. And no, just to be clear we're not talking about the same Bea Arthur who starred among the OG Girl Squad – the Golden Girls . This Bea Arthur, like the other, was a bad ass. But, unlike the Bea of nostalgia's past, this Bea Arthur has an entrepreneurial bug that bit her hard and never left – seeing her through two startups since graduating coll...

Alisha Gaddis is the consummate I Want Her Job Leading Lady. She's an actress, musician, author, comedienne, wife and mom. Not only does Alisha wear a plethora of hats, but she's also damn good at what she does. She is an Emmy-winning actress, to be exact, and along with her husband, Lucky Diaz, the two are the first Americans ever to win a Latin Grammy in the children's category for their music i...

Jane Mitchell's idea started out with an idea on a sticky note. It has since grown into The Reset Foundation , an organization set to buck convention for those incarcerated. The idea is simple, says the Foundation's website, "Instead of serving time in a dehumanizing prison environment, a sentenced young adult lives at Reset Campus, focused entirely on academics, career and healthy living." The go...

Dona Sarkar is an Engineering Lead for Microsoft's HoloLens, a fashion designer, blogger and author of several books. We talk to Dona about her career in technology and how following your interests on the side can enhance your career.   Dona compares learning to coding to learning a new language, it takes time. We discuss online resources to start learning new skills, and the massive opportunity t...