Women Authors of Achievement (WAA) Podcast

Today's guest is one of the most thought-provoking and inspiring voices in the contemporary feminist movement. Mirna Funk is a writer, journalist, and cultural critic based in Berlin. She offers a refreshing perspective on what it means to be a self-determined, independent woman in the 21st century. In this episode, we discuss Mirna's latest non-fiction book in German translated as: " Who cares! A...

My guest today grew up surrounded by Hip Hop. And back in the days she didn’t really have many role models, and she had to figure out how to turn her passion for music into a profession. Today Sehriban Cirik is a living example of how to turn your wildest dreams into a reality. Before becoming the Head of Hip-Hop at Amazon Music, Sehriban worked in the music industry as a label manager. Today she...

Naïs Graswald is the Head of Executive and Digital Communications at the Volkswagen Group, she is a systemic coach and simply a loving human. Today we reflect on her family past, as we discover the roots of her value system where she embraces opposing views and continuously questions the status quo. We discuss how she transitioned from her communication work at the German Parliament and the Federa...

Our guest today Johanna Keimeyer is a multimedia artist who creates immersive experiences. This can take the form of large scale art installations where she works with video, light, objects, scent and sound. She invites the audience to explore deeper questions about identity and the core fundamental values that make us human. David Bowie, Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol - just a few of the names in her I...

You probably heard of the Lemonaid and ChariTea before, delicious soft drinks that contain only organic ingredients that also support fair trade. The project was born in the bohemian district of Hamburg called St. Pauli with the intention to change the world drink by drink. Beyond fair trade, every bottle purchased supports the Lemonaid & ChariTea Foundation which is managed by our guest today...

Alexandra Bondi de Antoni is a writer, director and occasional photographer born in Vienna and based in Berlin. She is the former editor of I-D Germany and former Executive Editor at VOGUE Germany where she was in charge of all things digital. Today she gets to explore the intersection between social political issues, pop culture and fashion in her freelance life. In this episode we speak about he...

My guest today, Martina Rink , grew up between Germany and the UK. She landed her first job as a personal assistant of the late Isabella Blow, a legendary English muse, stylist and magazine editor. After Blow's death in 2007, Martina released a coffee table book portraying the impact of her mentor on the fashion industry. Fast forward to today, Martina is releasing her fourth book called People of...

From the start Nadine Michelberger together with her co-founder and husband Tom, wanted to create the first hotel in Berlin which replaced the typical lobby, with an open space that invites guests and visitors for encounters. This idea was born back in 2003. As years went by, the hotel has evolved as well. Today the Michelberger team is running the renowned restaurant   Ora , they are producing th...

Today, Ann-Kathrin Grebner and Yasmin Poloczek shared their personal stories of reclaiming control of their own health and wellbeing. As founders of MY INNER HEALTH Club , they are on a mission to provide people with practical, simple exercises that can easily be incorporated into daily routines, empowering people to improve their mental and physical health. In today's episode, we discuss how to i...

Jennifer Baum-Minkus quit her corporate job not knowing what's next. She found her way into the startup scene after realizing how harmful nail polishes can be for people. After a couple of months of deep research, she founded gitti a conscious beauty brand, with the mission to offer products that are good for people, the planet and society. Today we learn how to build courage while listening to on...

Today's guest is full of courage and curiosity. In fact, her professional journey has been all about following a thread of deep curiosity for people—trying to understand their motivations and choices they make. Rhiannon White , is the Chief Product Officer at Clue , a period & cycle tracking app. Rhiannon speaks to women on a weekly basis across the globe and gets to hear about their pain and...

Emma Tracey worked as a journalist in Colombia and founded a communications agency in South Africa. In 2015 she came to Berlin where she found herself doing something completely new - co-founding a recruitment platform called Honeypot . Reflecting back, Emma didn’t feel like she was “qualified” per se to found a tech company. But she also knew that she would figure most of it out. And she actually...

Our guest today is Laura Lewandowski , the founder of the media brand Smart Chiefs and co-founder of the YouTube show Meet Your Mentor . As one of the leading voices in the German digital scene, Laura writes on social media, in her newsletter and as a columnist for Business Insider about the new work, creator economy and personal development. We talk about her successful career as a creator, self-...

Today with me live on stage here in London is Deann Evans , Director of EMEA Expansion at Shopify . More and more SMEs and creators are unlocking the power of social commerce through platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Youtube, where social commerce orders grew four times in the beginning of the year. As the bridge from content to commerce gets shorter, Shopify continues to innovate and build too...

First time in the studio we get to welcome a data scientist! Dr. Alisa Kim is the Head of Data Products at Vestiaire Collective where she follows her passion for machine learning applications to achieve corporate sustainability goals, upgrading traditional business operations. Previously Alisa worked at Amazon Web Services as a research scientist and was an educator at Humboldt University of Berli...

How can you reduce your ecological footprint and increase your next vacation budget? The answer is simple - by buying and selling only used furniture. Gemma Comabella is the co-founder and CEO of COCOLI , a marketplace for used furniture and interior design pieces. Before COCOLI Gemma was building global fashion and consumer brands like Zalando, L’Oréal, Vestiaire Collective and Showroom, and was...

Lana Wittig is a true Berliner born in Wedding, she grew up in Tegel. Lana started her career in the music industry and has been responsible for artist management and music marketing since 2006. In 2021 Lana took over as the CEO of the media company called EDITION F , a digital home for strong women and their friends. In this episode, we speak about Lana’s upbringing and how she overcame fear of n...

Right after graduation Jessica Holzbach worked as a digital strategy consultant for banks and insurance companies. Quite quickly she realized that traditional banking is not innovative enough. At this moment Jessica decided to not wait any longer and took the initiative in her own hands. She founded Penta in 2017 with the goal of building a bank that offers a user friendly product and a great cust...

Vera Futorjanski came to the Middle East back in 2015 as a founder at Rocket Internet. She has been leading global communications at The Dubai Future Foundation launched by the office of the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and was the Director of Innovation at 500Global . Today Vera is the founder of a global strategic advisory firm, Veritas Ventures and is currently building a supporti...

In Germany, she is known as the expert for all things digital media and her name is Cloudy Zakrocki . Up until 2021, Cloudy was the Vice President for International Content & Brand Strategy at Refinery29 , she was also the Editor in Chief of German INTERVIEW Magazine and LesMads, the first and leading fashion blog in Germany. Today she is the founder of the interior brand HAND IN HAND and co-f...

From a no-name startup to a post-IPO industry giant, Katia Yakovleva joined Spotify back in 2009 as one of the first sales executives. She built out advertising sales both in Spain and Germany and was leading strategic accounts, generating millions of revenue for the company over the years. Today Katia is wearing many hats. She is the Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Beyond, angel invest...

In 2019 Jenny Saft turned 32. With no partner and no desire to have kids anytime soon she decided to freeze her eggs. But the issues started to arise even before she found a fertility clinic. Long story short, this experience encouraged her to kick off her own startup called Apryl. According to Apryl, in Germany over 50% of women with academic education do not have kids at age of 35. And it's been...

From the German Bundestag to the tech giant Meta. Constanze Osei started her career in politics later on heading the department of economic and innovation policy at the Germany’s digital association Bitkom. Today she is the Head of Society & Innovation Policy at Meta (previously Facebook). We speak about racial justice, explore self-identification and discover the interplay between technology...

Are you an everyday creator? Then this episode is for you. Together with Jennifer Phan we discover the creator economy and how side-hustlers are developing the passion economy of the future. Jennifer herself left the VC world back in 2021 to build Passionfroot, an operating system that helps creators manage their financing and workflows in one place. In this episode, we speak about why Jennifer is...

After studying communications and business, Stephanie Dettmann started her advertising career in 1998 at the well-known creative agency Jung von Matt. She worked with lifestyle brands such as Sixt, Mini, BMW, Ferrero and many more. Then came a change in her life as she switched to the beauty industry and co-founded organic beauty label UND GRETEL. We speak about how she selected her first business...