Women on the Move Podcast

When Victoria Garrick Browne began experiencing anxiety and depression as a Division 1 college volleyball player, she recorded a TED talk about her experiences. The recording instantly went viral, leading her to become a social media influencer, mental health advocate and podcast host. Here she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to talk about her journey. The decision to speak up It was during her sophomore year at USC that Victoria began struggling with the demands of being a high-level competitive athlete. “I was really struggling with my own mental health and just the intensity of the stressful environment that I was in competing at that level,” she tells Sam. “In going through that performance anxiety and a depressive episode, I kind of realized that if I'm feeling so alone, there's probably other athletes who are feeling alone.” She also realized that she wasn’t hearing anyone else talk about the issue. Her solution was to talk honestly about it in a TED talk. “I just did not want someone else to kind of suffer in silence the way that I did,” she recalls. “So I gave that TED talk purely to come up on Google search and comfort someone else. It spiraled and it went viral in the athletic community.” Hurdles and the strategies that helped That TED talk catapulted Victoria to popularity, especially among athletes and coaches who started following her online and reaching out. In those early days, she says, her goal was for people to genuinely be able to validate themselves and know that it's okay to not be perfect or to experience failure or struggle. “I've literally never met a student athlete who said they got through four years of college athletics, no matter the division, no matter the sport, and said it was a breeze,” she says. “Everyone can relate to the struggle.” Victoria discusses the challenges that she typically sees people face when confronting mental health issues. One of the biggest ones, she says, is not understanding the change in mental health as it happens. “These things happen gradually,” she says. “You don't wake up one day in the midst of your depression, you slowly drop down to that place.” A second hurdle, she says, is the stigma around being worthy of getting help. As far as strategies and approaches that worked for her, Victoria says one of the main ones is therapy. “It's powerful to have an expert hear what you are going through and then kind of offer their advice and guidance.” If connecting with a therapist isn’t an option, she says talking to a trusted friend or journaling can also help people handle their complicated emotions. Meditation is another strategy that Victoria says she finds helpful—and this doesn’t have to be as scary as it might sound, she adds. “It can be as simple as 10 minutes without your phone in the morning sitting with yourself, maybe you're thinking a lot, listen to your thoughts and then you'll recognize, oh my gosh, my thoughts always take me to work,” she explains. “My thoughts always take me to the situation. I'm gonna try to bring 'em back here. That 10 minutes to slow down your entire day and just be with yourself. I think that that's powerful and I do that in the mornings.” The Hidden Opponent Soon after her TED talk went viral, Victoria created the Hidden Opponent, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on creating a platform and a community for athletes to discuss topics like mental health. “We highlight student athletes and their stories,” she tells Sam. “We give them a voice. We're always publishing and posting articles that the athletes have written about what they've been through. I remember feeling like, Where do you talk about this? Where do you say it? How's it gonna be received? And so we've created that safe space where athletes who do want to be vocal can be, [and] we educate the members of our community.” As far as ambition in her own life, Victoria says she’s trying to manage it in a good way—in a relentless pursuit of helping herself rather than being perfect. “I definitely consider myself ambitious, consider myself a go-getter,” she says. “However, I do think that that ambition has become a default state of who I am and the default state being constantly better, constantly improved, constantly do more. And of course it serves you well when you can become successful and you can build something, and that's great. However, it doesn't allow you to ever turn off, reap the benefits or take a break or pause. And it's funny because my whole message started as it's okay not to be okay, take a break.” Full transcript here

Are you seeing a difference in the types of benefits that companies are providing since the pandemic? And if so, what are employees taking advantage of these days? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, is joined by Lilly Wyttenbach, the Head of Global Wellness at JPMorgan Chase, to discuss workplace wellness and how companies recognize a greater need to support their employees. Full transcript here

Denielle Finkelstein and Thyme Sullivan are on a mission to make high quality period products available in restroom stalls across America. In this episode, they sit down with host Sam Saperstein to talk about the company they co-founded, Unicorn. The Triple Co Denielle and Thyme call themselves the Triple Co to reflect their stats as cousins, co-founders, and co-CEOs. They both had successful careers in corporate America—Denielle spent 20-plus years in fashion with Ann Taylor, Coach, and Kate Spade, and Thyme worked with beverage and food giants Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Nestle for 27 years. But as Denielle explains, “I'd gotten to that amazing C-suite job, that job I'd always dreamed of—and I was completely unfulfilled. I was working in a toxic environment. I had sort of lost that love of learning and the passion and really where that purpose was.” She made the decision to walk away from her corporate career, and before long she reached out to her cousin Thyme who was similarly feeling unsatisfied and ready for a transition. Thyme says her background as a “grocery geek” provided inspiration for the idea of producing high-quality, organic tampons and other period products. “Going up and down the aisles for years on end, I just saw as everything was changing to organic and to sustainable and non-GMO and gluten-free and transparency became so important,” she tells Sam. “Yet when you got to what is called the feminine care aisle, and saw the period products, it looked like you were shopping back in the seventies. There'd been little innovation, and nobody was talking about it.” Once they started researching and learning facts—such as the stat that in the U.S., one in four girls has missed school or work because she didn't have access to period products—they were even more motivated to start a business in the category that “nobody else wanted to talk about.” It didn’t hurt, Denielle says, that they’re perfect complements for each other: “Thyme came with an amazing, amazing pedigree with sales and operations and supply chain, and that complemented mine and where I came from as this brand-building and this marketing background.” The challengers become disruptors While providing quality, organic period products was the motivator, it wasn’t long before Thyme and Denielle zeroed in on a mission to address period poverty. Thyme says that their mission was always to advance women in society, and they didn’t initially see themselves as disruptors. “A disruptor by definition is more like an Uber, your Netflix, your Airbnb, it's something that's never been done before,” she says. “When we started this company, we were much more of a challenger brand. We were challenging the category, challenging the transparency and the efficacy and better getting access to better products for women. But we've actually evolved into a disruptor and we're incredibly proud of that.” Specifically, they wanted to disrupt the outdated period product machines in public restrooms. “A lot of places don't [offer period products] because the big metal machines are very expensive, they're difficult to install, they're difficult to service from the staff, they don't hold very much product,” she explains. “They certainly don't hold quality products. Nobody has coins, and often they're broken and empty. And we were thinking long and hard about that's a real problem, and the solution goes even deeper.” They spent a year and a half developing a low-cost, low profile dispenser that goes in the stalls, right next to the toilet paper. Then came the fun of fundraising—or as Denielle says, the non-fun. (“We have a phrase that there's no fun in fundraising, and it is real.”) The two had what they call a summer of un-love during which they spoke to about a hundred VCs without success. Then they found Barbara Clark, who they say changed their trajectory overnight. She not only believed in their mission and offered funding, she provided expert advice in terms of how they should shift their pitches to other VCs. Another huge break came last summer when JPMorgan Chase became [one] the first big organization to adopt their dispensers. It started when they found CEO Jamie Dimon’s ear during his annual summer bus tour. “So everybody's asking about Bitcoin and world economics, and we're like, we know you got daughters, we want to talk about period products,” Thyme says. “And he listened. We had a good enough elevator pitch and he understood as a father of daughters and granddaughters.” Full transcript here

Investing feels complicated and there's a lot of uncertainty around how to start and what to do. How do you know when it's the right time and the right amount to start investing? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, is joined by the head of Women and Investing at JPMorgan Wealth Management, Iliana Taormina. During the episode, Iliana gives tips on how to get into investing and how in 30 years, the average woman could end up with a portfolio worth 25% more than the average man. During the chat, Iliana also mused on how she wished she understood the benefits of investing earlier and consistently. “ A 25-year-old college graduate invests a hundred dollars a month in a tax-deferred account and earns 12% annual return when that person retires at age 65, their investment can be worth just over a million dollars. If that same person were to start investing a hundred dollars per month at age 35, instead, they could only have around 300,000 by the time they reach 65, those 10 years could cost them $700,000. Full transcript here

From the World Economic Forum in Davos, Francine Katsoudas, Executive Vice President and Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer at Cisco, joins Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to talk about her journey at Cisco, the idea of empowering managers in a hybrid workplace, and why Cisco includes mental health professionals in company meetings to support a culture of wellness. Francine started working in Cisco’s contact center more than 25 years ago. Her first job was providing first-level technical support, despite not having much of a technical background. Francine credits the leader who hired her for believing in her potential to learn the skills needed for the role. Since then, she’s sought a variety of positions within the company, telling Sam that she believes there’s power in collecting experiences. “And so I would have one role and I would [ask myself] okay, what have I learned on this role and what do I still need to learn?” she says. “And I think that focus on learning really helped to navigate me through the company.” She says she moved into HR about 15 years ago, which led to her current role of Chief People Officer. “I focus on people, policy, and purpose,” she tells Sam. “And what that means is that together with our team, we focus on how our people organization, how government affairs, how real estate, how building a digital agenda all come together in service of our company and our purpose, which is the power and inclusive future for all.” Empowering managers One focus of her job in the last few years has been hybrid work and work-life balance. At Cisco, she says, technology had enabled virtual work even before the pandemic—and so when the pandemic forced people out of offices, Cisco already had historical data showing that employees’ “promotion velocity” was the same whether they worked remotely or onsite. “The approach that we have within the company is to really focus on the work and what is best as it relates to the team,” she says. “And so we've basically decentralized that decision. We ask leaders to make the best decision for their team. We also ask them to experiment.” She notes that over time, the role of leaders has evolved. “I think it will continue to evolve, meaning that our leaders now I think have to be a bit more customized as it relates to how they approach every individual” she explains. “As we went through the pandemic, we asked our leaders to understand, how are your people doing? What do they have going on? Check in on them, right? I think we got rid of this belief that there's a one-size-fits-all approach to leadership.” A culture of wellness When it comes to helping women in particular navigate and succeed in their careers, Francine notes that Cisco relies on what they call their conscious culture. “Our conscious culture is this belief that every single employee owns the culture,” she notes. “We as a company have to focus on the environment, we have to focus on the experience and our principles. Part of how we do that is we have to be really overt in talking about what's not working. And I think when you do that, you build trust with your teams and they know that if there's something that you can do better, that you're willing to work it because you were willing to say it in front of the entire company.” Once specific strategy that’s worked at Cisco is having a mental health practitioner attend every monthly meeting. “What will end up happening is we'll take questions about, hey, what's our strategy for security? Where are we going? Hey, there's this new program. Oh wait, we have a question for Dr. Zane. Dr. Zane, there's a question here about how do you handle anxiety?" Francine says. And when employees have actively received that message that it’s okay to ask about mental health issues, they feel empowered to embrace their mental health as a critical component of their work life. Looking forward, Francine has three main goals on her 2023 agenda. The first priority is around hybrid work and ensuring that leaders are making the best decisions about how their teams can be at their best. Next is something the company calls resilient communities: the idea of how they show up in the communities in a way that builds lasting success. And her third item is focusing on people and taking the conversation around wellbeing and career growth to the next level. Full transcript here

It's important to me that I hire the best people and create a diverse and inclusive team. What are the most critical points in the recruitment and hiring process to consider? Live from the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, Women on The Move Podcast host, Sam Saperstein, welcomes Daniel Chait, CEO of Greenhouse to discuss how the hiring process at an organization can drive positive change and big impact. Full transcript here The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of April 6, 2023 and they may not materialize.

In this episode, host Sam Saperstein kicks off Women’s History Month by sitting down with Julia Boorstin, CNBC's senior media and technology reporter, and the author of When Women Lead, a book focused on leadership for which she interviewed 120 women from various sectors and backgrounds. Sam and Julia talk about the lessons she learned and the key commonalities her research uncovered in terms of the skills and strategies of successful leaders. Digging into women’s leadership styles Julia tells Sam that she was inspired to write her book after her 20-plus years as a business journalist. Her career spanned six years as a writer at Fortune Magazine and then 16 years as a business reporter with CNBC. Along the way she created and launched the CNBC Disruptor 50, an annual list that highlights private companies that are transforming the economy. “And in that time I've been really grateful to get to interview thousands and thousands of leaders, CEOs, founders, [and] executives,” she says. “And the vast majority of those people have been men. The vast majority of them have been white men.” In the past five or 10 years, she says, she’s noticed more and more women entering the conversation, and more female founders in particular. “And it was interesting for me through my work doing the Disruptor 50 list to see women founders create companies that were tackling different types of problems than the male founders were,” she says. “And also to approach that problem solving and approach their businesses, managing their businesses, leading their businesses differently.” What she learned once she dug in, she says, is that women's leadership styles are incredibly effective. And she found a wealth of research indicating that if men were to adopt their styles, they would be more effective too. “It started as a storytelling exercise, and it turned into a research project, and I really wanted to combine the stories with the research to illustrate a new vision for what success looks like, a new vision of what leadership looks like, and a new type of path that people should be thinking about to pursue their own leadership strengths,” she says. What makes women leaders shine? Julia notes that while each of the 120 individuals she interviewed for her book are unique, she did find common threads in the attributes of successful business people. One of the those is having a growth mindset, which she defines as having a combination of the humility to understand you don't know everything and the confidence to believe that you could grow and push yourself to do the things that you aren't currently capable of. A second commonality, she says, is having authenticity. “The women who had succeeded did so by not trying to fit into any sort of stereotype or archetype of what leaders are supposed to look or sound like, but by leading in ways that were really honest and true to themselves,” she says. Julia also discusses a list of more specific skills and strategies that she says research has shown to be effective. And she notes that an important footnote to these findings is that they are not anything that are biological differences between men and women. “Almost everything I write about are things that are socialized, and therefore they are things that if men want to get better at, they can learn as well,” she notes. Her list starts with empathy. “Empathy is really about the ability to see things from someone else's perspective, which can be incredibly strategic if you're negotiating a deal or if you're trying to motivate your employees or to figure out what's gonna be more successful working with a team,” she says. Other items on her list include vulnerability, a “communal leadership style,” and a divergent approach to problem solving rather than a convergent approach. Men, she says, are more likely to have a convergent approach where they focus in on solving the problem as quickly and efficiently as possible, whereas women are more likely to have divergent approach, where they're more likely to ask about things that may appear to be tangential but really are about taking the time to understand the broader landscape. Julia also responds to audience questions that dig deeper into her findings on the nuanced differences between men’s and women’s leadership styles, on ideas such as intersectionality, and on traits including extroversion and introversion. Overall, she says, what she learned in the course of writing the book made her optimistic. “I'm very optimistic about the power that women have to drive change not just in the industry but to help each other succeed,” she says. Full transcript here

I'm looking for my next opportunity and not sure how to get myself noticed in the application process. How do I give myself the best shot at my next job? Live from the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, Women on The Move Podcast host, Sam Saperstein, welcomes Daniel Chait, CEO of Greenhouse to discuss how the application process has changed over time and how staying focused on jobs that excite you can give you a better chance at success. Full transcript here

In this special feature from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Women on the Move Host Sam Saperstein sits down with JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon and his Chief of Staff Judy Miller. They discuss the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion at JPMorgan Chase and the equal importance of all stakeholders to the firm, and Jamie shares tips on being more efficient every day. Jamie talks about what he sees as the biggest global issues facing the world today. “There's only one thing taking place in 2023 that matters for the future of the world, and that's what's going on in Russia, Ukraine, related trade, China, security, the trade issues around national security, what it's going to do to energy prices, oil prices, poor nations,” he says. Being together with the world’s economic leaders at Davos is critical, Jamie says, because the issue today is about how the Western world can stay united—in terms of security and energy in particular. And although many of the solutions will come from government policy, global corporate leaders like J.P. Morgan have an important role to play as well. “We have a really complex problem here, which is we all want to get CO2 down, but we also need reliable, secure energy and cheap,” he notes. People yelling at banks and corporations isn’t going to solve the problem, he adds. But people coming together for R&D and solution seeking can impact change. DE&I at JPMorgan Chase Diversity, Sam notes, is one area where JPMorgan Chase has been a change leader. Judy says that for Women on the Move, it’s both internal—helping women thrive and take on leadership roles within the firm—as well as external—helping women entrepreneurs with training and resources. Women on the Move, she points out, started internally as a group of senior women who really wanted to help support women throughout the firm. “I think that the roles that women are in at the company is really outstanding,” Judy tells Sam. “When you look at Jamie's direct reports, about half of them are women and they are leading some of our biggest businesses. It wasn't that way when I first started. And I think the women in these positions, they both can act as role models and the younger women can look at them as role models and see there is a path for themselves.” Jamie adds that all areas of diversity are equally important to the company, and he notes that the challenges faced by people of color can be more substantial than those faced by women. “We want [everybody] to feel treated with respect and decency where they can contribute to the company to the best of their ability.” Finding efficiency amidst the bureaucracy Another core value for the firm, Jamie says, is efficiency. In such an immense global firm, bureaucracy is inevitable. The challenge, he says, is to not let it stifle growth. People are going to get bogged down in the details—sometimes to an unhealthy degree. But the way to fix that, he says, is not to resent it. “It's to understand that it's like weeds in the garden,” he tells Sam. “It's always growing. Meetings are getting bigger. Meetings taking longer. People want to collaborate. I want you all to come here to collaborate, but I don't want you to over collaborate.” One of Jamie’s strategies for ensuring momentum rather than getting bogged down by bureaucracy is his to-do lists. He says he consistently maintains both short-term and long-term lists. “People throughout the company know about Jamie's list,” Judy vouches. “So I can just send an email and say, ‘Okay, you're on the list, let's work to get off it.’ Jamie rewrites this follow-up list every Sunday and there's nothing worse than being transferred from one week's follow-up list to the next week..” Judy describes Jamie’s list as something that keeps the company moving: “It keeps that constant forward progress.” Jamie describes himself as relentless. “Nothing gets by me [where] I don't say, ‘Cut that out. We don't need that. That's too long.’ Every meeting starts on time. It ends on time.” Jamie says he’s relentless about it is because bureaucracy leads to politics. And that leads to stasis. “That's why you can't take it lightly and why I don't.” Full transcript here

How do you shift your mindset from being a manager to being a leader? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares how to take it to the next level and start thinking and acting as a true leader. Full transcript here

Kayla Castañeda turned a favorite childhood treat into a successful and fast-growing good-for-you beverage company. In this episode of Women on the Move, the CEO and co-founder of Agua Bonita sits down with host Sam Saperstein to talk about her family, company, thoughts on ambition, and advice for other founders. Journey from California’s Central Valley Kayla tells Sam that she grew up in a family of migrant farm workers in California’s Central Valley. Her grandfather would bring home fruit from the fields and make aguas frescas for the family. She also grew up with a dream of owning her own business—and although she didn’t realize it then, producing good-for-you versions of those refreshing fruit-based beverages would become her business plan. First she cut her teeth in the food and beverage industry from the inside. Growing up in a small town made her crave something entirely different, so after high school she moved to New York City and started working in food and beverage, eventually moving into a sales and marketing position with Major League Baseball. She then took a role with Coca-Cola that bought her back to her roots in California. It was during the pandemic, while working as a consultant for food and beverage companies, that she had the inspiration for Agua Bonita. “Oh, this is something that has been around in my family and in our culture forever,” she recalls thinking. “So why am I not doing something like this and why is this not commercially available?” Within a week she had fleshed out a business plan and embarked on a learning curve with venture capitalism. Agua Bonita’s product of a “modern” agua fresca—they use 80 percent less sugar than traditional recipes—was a hit. They first found a place on shelves in small California retailers and recently landed their first national retailer with Whole Foods Market. Kayla attributes their success to their healthy approach as well as their commitment to corporate responsibility. Their sustainability efforts include a reliance on using imperfect fruit and recyclable aluminum containers, and they work with nonprofit partners like Justice for Migrant Women to help current migrant farm workers. But she says she believes their defining characteristic is their flavor profiles. “Right now our current offerings range from some more traditional ones like hibiscus and pineapple and sweet melon to some more fun and modern takes on these drinks like mango habanero and watermelon chili and some really cool new innovations coming soon. And then our packaging, we use a lot of fun packaging that's inspired by our culture and put it on shelf as a work of art. It's the Bonita part of Agua Bonita.” Ambition and helping others In keeping with this season’s theme of ambition, Kayla also talks with Sam about her perceptions of her own ambition. “I do consider myself ambitious,” she says. “I asked my mom, have I always been this ambitious? And her answer was yes. And there's been teachers along the way that have helped you with that. So I think I've just always been ambitious and that ambition really stems from my family. No one has ever capped my dreams or told me that I could not do something internally. . . . It gave me the mindset of if not me, it's gonna be someone else, so why not me?” In terms of advice, what Kayla most wants to convey to others is that everything is going to be okay. “I think sometimes we can get really tunnel vision, and there's a lot of things that you're juggling when you're trying to get a company off the ground, and the wins are really high, but sometimes the losses can be really low,” she says. “And I think just having people around me to remind me that it's all gonna be okay, whether it works out or whether it doesn't, it's all gonna be okay, is sometimes just like that humbling thing that I need to hear to just be able to get on with my day.” She adds that she tries to encourage others by making sure that they're feeling fulfilled in other areas of their life. “Because I don't think that you can pour from an empty cup,” she says. “And so that is how I encourage people to keep going with things is that there are other things that you find joy in than just this one thing. So don't let this one thing eclipse everything else.” Ful transcript here

As a manager, I want to make sure I'm creating an environment of belonging with a strong culture. What are the best ways you've seen this done? Live from the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, Women on The Move Podcast host, Sam Saperstein, welcomes Daniel Chait, CEO of Greenhouse to discuss building workplace culture with intention. Full transcript here

In this episode, Women on the Move Host Sam Saperstein sits down with two leaders in the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) space. They discuss the experience women of color have at work and how, through storytelling, they illustrate this experience for others who don’t look like them. Deepa Purushothaman is the author of The First, the Few, the Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America, and the co-founder of nFormation, an exclusive community for high achieving women of color. Ryland McClendon is the Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for Corporate & Investment Banking at J.P. Morgan. Both women had early career success and followed slightly circuitous paths toward their current roles where they focus on driving the conversation on DEI and optimizing the work experience for everyone. Find a home in the DE&I space Deepa attended Harvard University’s Kennedy School and the London School of Economics while planning for a career in policy and politics. She landed as a consultant at Deloitte, where she stayed for 21 years, leaving during the early stages of the pandemic to focus on women of color research and topics. She tells Sam that “not quite fitting in” has been a part of her experiences her whole life. Growing up as one of only a few families of color in her hometown, she later found herself the only woman of color in many professional spaces throughout her career, especially her decades of consulting in the tech and telecom sector. Ryland, meanwhile, wanted to be a singer when she was young. She also wanted to move away from her hometown of Atlanta, so she went to Duke University where she majored in economics and public policy. Ryland started her career in corporate banking at a regional bank and, frustrated by a lack of opportunity, moved to J.P. Morgan about 12 years ago. She had an opportunity to explore the human resources space a few years into her career and then knew that supporting the firms talent was the right place for her. That ultimately led to her current role as head of diversity and inclusion. Stories and storytelling Both women agree that listening to stories and encouraging others in their own storytelling is critical to growth in the equity and diversity realm. “Unless you tell stories to really impress upon people what different experiences you can have—depending on your dimension of diversity, whether that's race, whether that's gender, whether that's having a disability—the storytelling is the most powerful tool we can use,” Ryland says. In the process of founding and running nFormation, and writing The First, The Few, the Only, Deepa listened to the stories of hundreds of women of color. She said she often hears women say that they hadn’t realized how much they would be representing their race at work. They describe the pressure of feeling that everything they do—what they eat, how they speak, even what objects they keep in the workspace—is under a microscope because sometimes they are the only people of color their colleagues know. “You take on a lot outside of the job you were hired to,” she says. “I think that's kind of the dialogue that we need to get to, and those are the stories we need to tell, and that's how I have the conversation.” The role of ambition The conversation also veers into the territory of ambition, a top theme for the Women on the Move podcast in 2023. Deepa describes how her own definition of ambition changed over the course of her career. “I think it started probably when I was a teenager. I was highly ambitious. I would say more competitive. I think I'm more comfortable with that word than ambitious, because I think ambitious is a little bit more vaguely defined, but I was always competitive, and always really good at everything I did.” Then, after leaving her career in consulting, her perspective shifted. “It's less about ambition. That word doesn't even mean anything to me anymore. It's success. I have really stepped back and defined success really differently.” Ryland also describes herself as ambitious and says she wants to change the negative perception that’s often attached to the idea of an ambitious woman. “Last year a senior person used that word to describe me in the minute as a compliment and I was taken aback by it, but I'm gonna say yes, I am ambitious,” she says. “I want to reclaim that word. I want to make it a positive word.” Full transcript here

For entrepreneurs who are building a business to drive impact, what advice would you give them? Live from Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, Women on the Move Podcast Host, Sam Saperstein, talks to Dr. Anino Emuwa about finding your tribe and building a business with impact. Full transcript here

Leyonna Barba and Monica Wheat are committed to advocating for diverse founders. Leyonna, managing director of Technology and Disruptive Commerce at JPMorgan Chase, and Monica Wheat, managing director of Techstars Detroit, have embraced diversity in funding throughout their careers. In this episode of the Women on the Move Podcast, they sit down with Host Sam Saperstein to talk about their passion for that cause, and how they encourage investors to get more proximate to a diverse group of founders. Ecosystems and networks Monica discusses how, after spending time working with start-ups and investing on her own internationally and in San Francisco, she ended up in Detroit and being drawn to Techstars’ mission. She initially tried to “copy and paste everything that was in San Francisco and bring it back to Detroit.” But she soon realized that didn’t work—there simply wasn’t the ecosystem in Detroit to replicate the Silicon Valley/San Francisco model. Founders didn’t have a network of other founders to rely on for encouragement or resources. “And that's where Techstars came in,” she recalls. “They not only came in and said, ‘here's a check and here's some support and some resources,’ but they kept coming back and they kept asking the questions like, ‘what do you need?’ And it gave us the courage to really think about Detroit and some of these other emerging markets shaping themselves versus trying to copy and paste what was in Silicon Valley.” Leyonna agrees that an established ecosystem is critical for start-up success. “To be successful in venture and within the tech ecosystem, you have to have a strong network, which is why for many founders, diverse founders, female founders, they've traditionally been locked out of those markets, locked out of those rooms,” she says. She’s proud of the work her team does at JPMorgan Chase in terms of being intentional around ensuring that diverse and female founders and veteran-owned business founders all have a voice at the table. “We have a lot of emerging diverse managers,” Leyonna says. “We've seen an increase in the number of those diverse focused funds over the last couple of years, making sure that they're in a room with potential opportunities for investment, bringing those networks together. I know that I sit in a very special place in intersection at JPMorgan Chase where the power of our network can be amplified if we use it to bring those parties together. And it's part of the reason that I love the work that we're doing with Techstars.” Making change Leyonna and Monica agree that increasing the very small percentage of VC money that goes to diverse women—Sam currently notes that it stands at about 3 percent of all funding—will require funders to be deliberate in their attempts at inclusion. Monica says she doubts that any current funders are trying to purposefully divert money away from women- or black-owned businesses. “But you also have to be very intentional about the fact that you are including them. You have to be very intentional about the fact that you're making an environment that's not just for gamers and 18 to 22-year-olds, that it is for folks who are different ages and coming from different backgrounds,” she says. “The space of investing in women and investing in underrepresented founders is the biggest opportunity in investment to date because these are untapped markets that folks just really haven't had access to and the folks that are building in these spaces haven't had access to these markets.” Leyonna agrees and emphasizes that it can’t just be diverse fund managers who fund diverse owners—it needs to be all investors. “Not all investments and all the people you're investing in should look exactly like you or only solve problems for certain types of people,” she says. That’s one reason, she notes, that it’s critical to have women and other diverse people on boards and investment committees. She describes it as following the money trail. “And I think the beauty of what Techstars is doing with this $80 million that is powered by JPMorgan Chase is they are using the fund structure to show and to amplify that investing in diversity is not charity,” she says. “It is real dollars, it is good returns. And hopefully by continuing to see that performance, it will create a fear of missing out from others.” Full transcript here Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JPMorgan Chase and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of February 2, 2023 and they may not materialize.

What is the relationship between confidence and ambition? And if so, how does it contribute to success?" Women on the Move Podcast Host, Sam Saperstein, welcomes Kat Zacharia, Head of Organizational Effectiveness at JPMorgan Chase & Co., to share her thoughts on what confidence means and how when coupled with ambition it can lead to success. Full transcript here

Jordann Windschauer believes everybody deserves to have quality food made from pure, nutrient-dense ingredients. Here, the CEO and Founder of Base Culture sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to talk about her journey from making paleo-friendly baked goods in her apartment to running a 44,000 square foot facility producing items for national distribution. Beginning with a gym challenge Jordann was just out of college when she joined a CrossFit gym that was running a paleo challenge. Looking for ways to clean up her young adult lifestyle a bit, she signed up for the challenge. She recalls that she didn’t know one thing about paleo eating at the time, but she soon found that she was attracted to the simplicity of the ingredients—and she was a huge fan of the way it made her feel. Soon she was experimenting in her kitchen, trying to bake the perfect paleo banana bread and brownie. Her motivation was that she wanted to treat herself to something that was good for her and not just okay-tasting, but delicious. “It took me six months, because it's extremely different baking with seeds and nuts as opposed to flour and yeast and sugar and all of these traditional baking elements,” she recalls. “I was just doing it for my selfish wants and desires. I never really had a business in mind at this stage.” After those six months of experimenting and perfecting, her gym began its next biennial paleo challenge, and Jordann started bringing in her baked goods to share with friends. She still wasn’t thinking of a business, but the reaction from her gym friends helped her along that journey. They loved the baked goods and they really loved the idea that they didn’t have to bake them themselves—they could pay Jordann to bake extra for them. "I started a business on Facebook and would post online when I was going to make something and the people would place their orders and I would make everything at night and deliver it on the weekend,” she tells Sam. After her small business took off, scaling up seemed only natural. She began by naming her brand Paleo Box but after less than a year she landed on Base Culture. “We are trying to lead this global revolution around nutrition culture, to honor that and do it so that we're creating the best for you baked goods, that are held to our mammoth standards,” she says. “And how we describe our mammoth standards are essentially a bar that you cannot rise above. It's the highest bar possible. And we did that by creating our own manufacturing plant. We built a 44,000-square-foot plant to bring these products to life. We weren't just adding a product to a category that already existed, but doing it a little bit differently.” Ambition and embracing challenges While Sam notes that ambition is not always perceived as an admirable quality in women, Jordann embraces the label. “I would say that sometimes I'm blissfully ambitious and keep away those dark voices that come up,” she says. “We are in a stage of the business where those scary voices come in saying, ‘What if this isn't going to work?’ Or, ‘What if I let everyone down and what if I lose everyone's money who's invested in this? And what if I fail?’” Her advice for staying on track while also heeding your ambition is to stay true to your purpose. She notes that there is an “insane” amount of pressure on entrepreneurs to build an empire and do the impossible. Recognizing that so many decisions involve uncertainties and unknowns, Jordann says that knowing that you won’t always have the answers is critical. When you do need to make a decision, she says you should be able to say a full-bodied, unqualified yes. “When I look back at some of the things where we took a misstep here or there, I really know in my gut that there was something telling me at that point that something's not right and I ignored it for one reason or another,” she says. “So when you're making a decision, have the full body yes. And if you have any inkling of doubt, lean into that and explore it and either that doubt will subside or it will get bigger, and then listen to it even if it's not the easy choice.” Full transcript here

How has the discussion on ambition and the perception of ambitious women evolved over time? Why is it important that Women on the Move at JPMorgan Chase’s mission is to fuel female ambition? Women on the Move Podcast Host Sam Saperstein breaks down why it’s important for women to be ambitious and why JPMorgan Chase has made it their mission to fuel female ambition. Full transcript here

Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein kicks off the podcast’s fourth year with a focus on the nuanced role that ambition plays in women’s lives. Here she sits down with Jamie Vinick, founder and president of the Women's Network, the largest collegiate women's networking organization in North America. With a mission to connect women to each other, to industry leaders, to resources and to mentorship, the Women’s Network grew from a pandemic-era launch at Syracuse University to a network including chapters on more than 120 college campuses in the United States and Canada with 45,000 members. Filling a need on college campus Jamie tells Sam that her inspiration for starting the Women’s Network actually grew from an uninspiring event. After arriving at Syracuse University for her freshman year, feeling like she was “behind” her peers in terms of career focus, Jamie threw herself into attending campus speaker events, looking for inspiration. “There was one event in particular that really changed my college experience and has impacted my life,” she says. “I left that event feeling very uninspired and I took that lack of inspiration to heart and thought a lot about it and launched the Women's Network as a club on campus eight months later.” Jamie was dissatisfied with this particular event because of what she thought was a missed opportunity. “Here was this incredibly powerful accomplished woman who came in to speak about her career, and there really were no topics or conversations that centered around gender or in particular gender in the workplace,” she recalls. “And I felt like it was this tremendous missed opportunity to have nuanced, real, raw conversation on the challenges, the biases, the barriers that disproportionately often affect women more so than perhaps our male counterparts.” She also says she recognized a lack of community around women’s ambition and being able to celebrate having career interests and meeting people in a non-competitive environment. “And it was a culmination of the lack of conversation, the lack of community, the lack of true mentorship regardless of what industry you were interested in pursuing a career in that culminated into this idea.” By her sophomore year, Jamie was going dorm to dorm, knocking on more than a thousand freshman dorms to hand out flyers about the brand-new Women’s Network. Expanding and building confidence Throughout her time at Syracuse, Jamie remained committed to building the Women’s Network. In the fall of her senior year, she turned down a full-time job opportunity, realizing that she wanted to focus on growing the network. In February, she chose five “random” college locations to launch proof of concepts. “We launched, and hundreds of people were coming out to these meetings, and then the next month Covid hits and everything was moved online,” she says. “No one knew what Zoom was. My professors didn't quite know how to lead a virtual classroom, and so I just put my head down, decided I wanted to see where this could go, and I doubled down on the work and we just kept launching. So we went from one school to about five additional universities to 16 to 22 to almost a hundred, in a little under two and a half years.” Celebratory of ambition Jamie explains how the Women’s Network functions: “The chapters operate in the sense of hosting their own events,” she says. “And then we also have national events open to members in the entire network. We host experiences such as speaker events, alumni receptions, networking trips, financial literacy workshops. Then we also host more social events as well.” She says the goal is to ensure members have access to the right networks, the right resources, and the right community. Today, Jamie says, she’s looking ahead to moving the Women’s Network beyond college campuses to reach women as they’re entering and advancing in the workplace. She notes that the mission really speaks to a broad range of women. “The concept of being very celebratory of ambition, which we talk all the time about in the Women's Network, has struck a deep nerve with a lot of people,” she says. “A lot of people initially join to either meet ambitious individuals or to explore their own career interests, and then they often stay because they want to develop leadership skills, build more confidence, access better mentorship or resources specific to their career or industry, and to have vulnerable conversation.” Full transcript here

As I continue to grow in my career, I've become more and more interested in joining a board of directors. Do you have advice on joining a non-profit board to build your skillset and round out your portfolio? If I'm thinking of being on a corporate board one day is being on a non-profit board a step stone to that?" Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, welcomes her colleague, Rebecca Thorton of the Director Advisory Services to give advice on how to join a board of directors Full transcript here

In this special episode from JPMorgan Chase's seventh Annual Leadership Day, Anu Aiyengar, JPMorgan Chase's global co-head of mergers and acquisitions, sits down with the highest-ranking female CEO ever in the Fortune 500, CVS Health CEO Karen Lynch. Karen discusses how her commitment to mental and physical health in her own life has carried over to the work she's doing at CVS Health. Personal commitment to mental and physical health Karen tells Anu that she had an early traumatic experience with healthcare when, at age 12, she lost her mother to suicide. She and her siblings were then raised by an aunt, who also died early—when Karen was still in her 20s. She says that her mother didn’t know how or where to get the mental health she needed, and years later, sitting in her aunt’s hospital room, Karen realized she didn’t know the questions to ask or how to get the help she needed either. “And both of those experiences sort of have fueled my passion around healthcare and really being able to make a difference so that people are educated about healthcare, that people have access to healthcare, that people understand their options that are available to them in healthcare,” she says. “So that's really the passion I get up with every single day, from a very young age.” Karen notes that it wasn’t just her passion that got her to where she is today: she’s had help from many, including relatives, a high-school teacher, and mentors and sponsors throughout her career. From her aunt she learned the importance of being decisive and making decisions based on whatever information was available. “That was an important lesson because as leaders, as people kind of managing people, people are always, always looking at you and watching whether or not you're making those decisions,” she says. Another key lesson Karen learned early was about the importance of taking care of your own mental and physical health. Today, she says, she does that through early morning workouts as well as end-of-the-day Duolingo lessons. “I think it's important for all of us to make sure we're taking care of our own selves because if you can't take care of yourself, you can't take care of others,” she notes. Keeping the customer as the north star Leading CVS Health through the unprecedented challenge of the pandemic allowed Karen to put her leadership and priorities to the test. The last several years have seen huge changes in both mental and physical healthcare. “Before the pandemic we had 10,000 virtual visits for Telepsychiatry,” she says. “Last year we had 10 million. And so that just gives you a sense for the change and the ease that people have had with using virtual care.” To thrive in the midst of all that change, Karen says she had to lean into focusing on her employees first, and then, most significantly, the customers and their evolving healthcare needs. “And we set sort of guideposts that we were focused on health and safety. We were focusing on our colleagues’ safety, focusing on the importance of getting Americans vaccinated and then looking around the corner,” she recalls. “So we had to tactically make sure that operationally we could do all the things that we had to do, but at the same time, we had to set a sort of a north star because everything in the world was changing around us and consumers expectations in healthcare were changing dramatically.” In the end, Karen oversaw the shift in CVS Health “from kind of a corner drug store to this broad national healthcare company.” Today the company is focused on being in the community—meeting people’s growing interest in accessing care online. How does she do it all? “I think it's all about setting your own goal, setting your expectations, defining who you are and what you want to be and getting comfortable in your own skin,” she tells Anu. “And for women, sometimes that's hard. We just have to keep working at it. And I always say, there's always going to be those little voices in your head saying, You can't do this or questioning it. And you've just got to push beyond those voices and say, Yes, I can.” Full transcript here

I'm a new people manager and want to ensure I'm building a strong culture and highly effective team. What advice do you have for managing and growing a team? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares how to take a step back and think differently about managing your expanding team. Full Transcript here

In honor of JPMorgan Chase's seventh Annual Leadership Day, this episode features Lauren Tyler, Head of HR for J.P. Morgan Asset and Wealth Management, in conversation with two pioneers in the sports world: WNBA legend Sheryl Swoopes and Sam Rapoport, the NFL’s Senior Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Together they explore themes of inclusion, motherhood, and diversity in sports. Breaking through in male-dominated fields Sheryl grew up with two brothers and began playing basketball at age 7. She emphasizes the impact that the federal Title IX legislation, passed 50 years ago this year, had on her early success and subsequent career. As a college basketball standout, Sherly couldn’t understand why the women’s’ teams always had the smaller gyms. She brought up the inequity with her coach, who told her to wait and see: Title IX would have an impact on that. Sheryl went on to be a pioneering force of that change: the first player drafted to the WNBA, then the first player signed—and the first active player to have a baby. “I take a lot of pride in who I am and what I've been able to do,” she tells Lauren. “For every little girl out there who has had dreams of someday playing in the WNBA and to see that dream come to fruition, I honestly couldn't ask for anything better.” Sam, meanwhile, grew up playing tackle football and was a quarterback in the Women's League. She moved on to a role with the NFL 21 years ago. “And about six, seven years ago, I looked around at the NFL and I asked myself, Where the hell are all the women?” she recalls. “It was all men on the coaching side, on the scouting side, on the officiating side. And I decided that I wanted to be the one to change that. And so I did what anyone who had found their passion would do: I cornered my boss.” That boss was legendary NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who “handed me the ball, put me in touch with the right people, and a couple months later, the NFL Women's Forum was born.” The Forum is a program where women in entry-level coaching positions get to meet with NFL head coaches, general managers, and owners. “We give them an opportunity to impress and potentially get hired,” Sam explains. “At the beginning of the season, we went from zeros across the board for women in every category to 15 women in coaching positions.” Support from teammates and male leaders Both women say they wouldn’t have gotten where they are today without the extended hands of both their teammates and the male leaders who invited them in. For Sam, that started with Roger Goodell. It wasn’t all a smooth ride after that—she recalls plenty of pushback, including Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans tweeting a petition to change the team name to the Tampon Bay Buccaneers after two women were hired to the coaching staff. But one by one, NFL coaching giants signed on to help with the Women’s Forum. She recalls courting Coach Bill Belichick, nervously thinking he was a longshot to help with the Women’s Forum. But he emailed back within minutes, saying he’d be glad to help. She says he was enthusiastic and eager to help the female coaches he met with. “And at the end of the session, he gave all 15 coaches his personal email address, told them to email him questions, and they've all stayed in touch and continued to develop through Bill.” For her part, Sheryl says she credits her teammates with giving her the opportunity to shine. “Because I think to have a great team, you have to have different pieces and different players that are willing to accept their role,” she tells Lauren. “And without those players, there's no way I would've been the athlete that I was.” She also acknowledges male NBA stars and tells a story about meeting her hero Michael Jordan when she was pregnant. “I said, I would be honored if you would let me name my son after you,” she remembers. “And his response was, If he has a good jump shot. And my response was, He's gonna have a better jump shot than you ever had.” In the end, both women say, they’re most proud of knowing that they played a role in paving the way for young girls to see themselves in male-dominated professional sports. Full transcript here

How should I transition back to work from maternity leave? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, gives tips for a smooth transition back to work after having a child.` Full transcript here

After two decades as a successful banking executive, Cate Luzio realized she wanted to do something with bigger impact. She quit her job and self-funded Luminary, a membership-based career and personal growth platform with the mission of uplifting and supporting women through all phases of their professional journey. In this episode she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her journey as an entrepreneur, how she pivoted and thrived during the pandemic, and what she’s learned about the issues professional women across the country are facing. Jumping into entrepreneurship—and meeting a pandemic In 2018, after stints in high-level roles at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and HSBC, Cate says she realized she had been involved in a lot of initiatives around investing in women and talent development, but “I just wasn't seeing the numbers and the needle move fast enough.” Knowing she wanted to focus on those issues, she quit her job without even knowing what exactly she would do. With the encouragement of a mentor from JPMorgan, Cate took the time to step back and think about what she really wanted to do. Soon she had a business plan that she was able to self-finance by leveraging her lifelong savings, and she launched Luminary in early 2019. Luminary was initially conceived as an in-person meeting space to help advance women in the workforce. But less than a year after the space opened in New York City, the pandemic brought in-person events to a screeching halt. Knowing she had to be ready for anything, Cate and her team set about examining expenses, contacting vendors, and re-defining their plans. “I look back at my original business plan, and there was not even a word of digital or virtual. It really was about that physical connection,” Cate recalls. “But what I realized pretty early on in the pandemic was it wasn't about physical, it was about connection.” Involving men in the gender equality journey In the end, the pandemic and resulting switch to online experiences didn’t stop Luminary’s growth. Cate says they’ve done more than 2,000 events, workshops, and programs since March of 2020, and have over 1,500 hours of content from all of these sessions. “We're working with thousands of women around the world and now male allies,” she tells Sam. “So that's the model. And then we work with great corporate members like JPMorgan Chase and many others to really invest in the women internally and get them access to, yes, bigger networks, but [also] additional learning outside of what they're getting within their company.” From the beginning, Cate knew she didn’t want to exclude men from Luminary. “The future of women in the workforce cannot evolve, progress, change without the support and assistance of men,” she notes. “And so I wanted to create a really inclusive environment, and that's why we don't have an application process. I want people to walk in physically or virtually and feel like this is a space where they can be themselves, thrive, learn, connect, develop.” Capacity constraints, defining success, and other top women’s issues Cate says one of the top issues facing women today is what she calls “capacity constraints.” By that, she means the common barriers such as time, transportation, and childcare, but also the ongoing tension between the messages that women get about success. “Women in particular are constantly being told, do a great job . . . that's how you're going to get promoted,” she says. “But at the same time, you better find mentors, you need to have a bigger network, you need to invest in your skills.” And the growth of remote and hybrid work has meant that there are even fewer boundaries between work and personal life. In the end, she says, it comes down to women not being able to “fit it all in.” A related issue Cate discusses is the ongoing pressure for women to be leaders, and to aspire to the c-suite. She’d like to see more of an emphasis on women defining their own vision of success. “[We] absolutely need more women in the c-level,” she tells Sam. “But not everybody should be at that level, and nor do they want to be. You can still have a phenomenal career and still invest in your skills and still get paid and still do well at your definition of success.” “Most women that I know are very driven and ambitious,” she continues. “They want to feel valued, they want to be acknowledged, they want to be recognized, they want to be paid, and they want to be able to have opportunities. And I think we have this incredible sense of guilt if we're not meeting everyone else's standards.” Full Transcript here

What are the best ways to become a mentor, and what is your responsibility as a mentor? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares what responsibilities you should expect to have when becoming a mentor. Full transcript here

Jaime Chapman and Stephanie Brown are on a mission to empower military spouses. Both military spouses themselves, the two founded and run the U.S. Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce. Here they talk with Women on the Move Host Sam Saperstein about the unique challenges facing military spouses, why the population is often drawn to entrepreneurship, and the work the Chamber is doing to foster military spouse entrepreneurs. Relocation, pay disparities, and other facts of military life Jaime and Stephanie both describe their own journeys as military spouses. Stephanie tells Sam that she was a business owner in Washington, DC, more than two decades ago when she met her late husband, got married, and moved overseas. “I very quickly became unemployed and unemployable,” she says. Jaime had served in the Army Reserves for six years and thought she was done with the military when she “married into the army” nearly seven years ago. Before they knew each other, both women shared the experience of learning how difficult it was to maintain their professional careers as military spouses, and both were involved in the world of entrepreneurship. Many factors combine to make employment complicated for military spouses: they relocate a lot, there’s often a lack of affordable—or any—childcare, and there’s often a lack of family or friends to help out due to the relocations. On top of that, they note, there’s a big disparity in pay between military spouses and other civilians. Perhaps because of these factors, military spouses have a particularly high rate of entrepreneurship. Both Stephanie and Jaime were entrepreneurs with a passion for helping others, and the two were initially brought together by a mutual colleague who recruited first Stephanie and then Jaime to work on a Military Spouse Entrepreneur Task Force. It was while working on that task force that the idea of the Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce first came to Stephanie. “I one day said to Jaime and [another colleague], you know, we really need to have a military spouse chamber of commerce because I've been working on this certification for military spouse–owned businesses for a long time with USAA and we need a forum through which we can provide this certification and really change things for spouses and small business owners,” she recalls. Launching a network for military spouse entrepreneurs The two women launched the U.S. Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce in 2020. As Stephanie describes, gaining recognized certification of military spouse-owned business was a driving force. “So what we began doing is researching how other third parties and the Veterans Administration actually reviewed and certified veteran-owned service, disabled veteran owned, minority owned, women owned, et cetera. And so we took those best practices and narrowed it down and kind of customized it for the lifestyle of the military spouse.” Another key aim of the organization, Jaime explains, was to help military spouse entrepreneurs with essential business functions like setting up retirement plans and employee benefits for themselves and their employees. “Because the first thing you should be asking when you're self-employed is, how do I save for retirement?” she notes. “But most people are more worried about setting up their website and logo and getting their business off the ground and marketing it when they should be thinking about taking care of themselves.” Today, Jaime notes, the Chamber has 1,100 military spouse members spread across 35 states in five countries running businesses ranging from artisanal handmade products to multi-seven-figure firms. The organization is involved in several legislative initiatives, including a push to streamline occupational licensing for relocating spouses. But Stephanie says one of the biggest benefits has been the recognition of the value of the community. “I think we also are beginning to recognize that there is a huge network out there of other military spouse, business owners that we can turn to, to collaborate, to mentor, which is really kind of the secret sauce,” she says. In terms of how others can support military spouses (and, in turn, support veterans and active military members, who also benefit from their spouses’ success), the two suggest a two-pronged approach. First, doing business with certified military spouse–owned businesses, either as an individual or as a business hiring contractors, helps them succeed. And second, anybody can support military spouse–owned businesses by seeking them out and buying from them. Full transcript here

My end of year review is coming up and I would like to request more resources to elevate the impact of our organization next year. How can I negotiate for additional support and even compensation? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, looks back on her on 2021 interview with negotiation expert, Kathryn Valentine, as she advises on negotiating compensation and useful resources to have in your pocket. Full transcript here

Cécile Chalifour wants to see a big wave of advocacy for affordable housing. As Head of the West Region for Community Development Banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co., she works with partners across the spectrum to support the bank's racial equity commitment by helping to build additional affordable housing units in the Western United States. Here she joins Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her passion for the mission and her hope of seeing see more innovation in the housing sector. Finding her place in affordable housing Growing up in France, Cécile attended law school and planned to practice law in her home country. But when her father suddenly passed away at the age of 50, she changed course. Deciding that she didn’t want her life to be “the same,” she headed to the United States for what she thought would be a brief but exciting experience. Although she spoke French, German, and Russian, she knew no English. She rectified that via a book on how to learn English in 90 days. “And then because I was going for a job interview in affordable housing, I learned about low-income housing tax credits—I read a whole book about low-income housing tax,” she recalls. “My funny story is always that at the beginning, I was only able to talk about law and finance . . . and I could say nothing about everyday life.” With a family background in political activism and a personal belief in the common good, Cécile says the policy area of affordable housing was a natural fit for her. “Affordable housing is not just about brick and mortar . . . it’s about potentially changing somebody's life trajectory,” she tells Sam. “That means more opportunity, more ability to be healthy. Think about what it means for our communities. It means the better economy. It means all of us doing much better. Fundamentally, I believe that when you invest in affordable housing in our communities, we invest in ourselves—and that drives everything I do.” In her job in Community Development Banking, Cécile manages the company’s affordable housing platform for the Western U.S. region, including construction and permanent financing for large multifamily apartment buildings. They provide the conventional debt in a public and private partnership. Her focus is on deeply targeted housing which is rent restricted and income restricted. Technically that means housing that is below 60 percent of an area’s median income. “So there is an actual threshold,” she adds. “It can be homeless people. It can be people with a job. It happens to be a job that doesn't pay very well. A home for single mom, maybe her first home, a senior on fixed income who’s been living in car, a low income family . . . people with special needs or veterans. So that's what we do. We finance those projects.” Maintaining a focus on diversity and advocacy Coming from a racially diverse family, being a woman in the male-dominated field of commercial real estate, and as a mother to a neurodiverse child, Cécile says she strongly believes that diversity is imperative. She says that especially in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, she worked hard to focus on her own understanding of privilege and bias. “One of the hardest things I did as a leader was to have a conversation with my team, make myself vulnerable, having a very open conversation about race, what it meant to all of us,” she shares. As far as advocacy goes, she says she tries to encourage everyone to realize they can make a difference. “A lot of people react to affordable housing from a place of fear,” she says. “So please try to be an advocate when you can: don't be afraid to take risks, be willing to be uncomfortable.” Overall, she’s proud of the work the bank is doing to help people and communities thrive. “The bank is doing quite a lot,” she tells Sam. “And I'm very, very proud to work for a firm that's committing so much to my passion in many ways. Building on our investments, we are helping drive inclusive growth by committing 30 billion, by the end of 2025, to a variety of programs that are meant to encourage economy growth and opportunities for Black, Latino, and Hispanic populations.” “And that's the impact I'm hoping to have is to not just have been part of the status quo and deliver more projects,” Cécile concludes. “But to be part of the creative thinking on innovation to bring new tools.” Full Transcript here

I have been in my role for a while and I'm interested in being promoted. How should I talk with my manager about this and what do I need to do to prove that I'm ready for the next level?" Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, discusses what you should consider when asking for a promotion at work. Full transcript here

Catarina Rivera is on a mission to let people know it’s not just OK to talk about disability—it’s imperative to take action. Here she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her journey as a person with a disability, a successful entrepreneur, a public speaker, and a DEI consultant. Spreading awareness and smashing disability stigmas Catarina tells Sam that she’s Cuban and Puerto Rican, and grew up in Maryland speaking Spanish as her first language. She started wearing hearing aids as a toddler and was diagnosed with progressive vision disability called Usher Syndrome at age 17. Using a white cane to help her navigate the world, she graduated from college and started her career with Teach for America as an elementary school teacher, teaching bilingual education. Later she moved into nutrition and public health, earning an MPH degree and transitioning into roles in nonprofit organizations throughout New York City, focusing on food justice work, community engagement, and capacity building. In 2020, Catarina started her Instagram account @blindishlatina to share her story as a proud disabled Latina woman. “I started Blindish Latina because I wanted to see someone like me out there in the world,” she recalls. “I wanted to put myself out there as a professional, disabled Latina woman. I wanted to represent my story and create awareness among non-disabled people. It is said that knowing just one person of an identity group reduces prejudice and bias. So I wanted to be that disabled friend for people who don't have anyone in their life that's disabled.” Catarina says her goal with Blindish Latina is to raise awareness and help everybody become a disability ally who knows how to take action on behalf of disability issues. “I want people to look at the world and realize that if they're nondisabled, their world is not my world,” she explains. “It's not the same world for disabled people and it's not okay to just leave it how it is. It needs to be accessible, whatever your capacity is. Whatever your scope of influence is, you can make a difference, whether that's at your place of worship or at work or in your family? How can you create more accessibility and inclusion for everybody?” Inclusion in the workplace As a DEI consultant, the workplace is one of Catarina’s prime focus. She’s invested in helping people understand that people with disabilities are invaluable additions to the workforce. For one, they have extensive life experience as problem solvers and innovators. “It takes a lot of energy to be disabled in a world that's not designed for us, not adapted to us,” she says. Catarina has several simple suggestions for how to make the workplace more accessible. She tells Sam that her first goal is to make sure that a company is focusing on disability as part of diversity, equity, and inclusion work. Disability, she says, is absolutely a part of DEI, but it's not always seen that way, and it's not always prioritized. She notes that while there are more than a billion disabled people worldwide, 79 percent of disabled employees do not disclose their disabilities to HR. “There's a lot of people that are in the workforce and you don't know that they're disabled as well as another group of people who might not know themselves that they're disabled,” she ways. “All of this to say that in the workplace, disability needs to be talked about, there needs to be real inclusion built from the leadership standpoint.” Often, she says, companies focus on accommodations—but that’s not enough. “That's actually the bare minimum,” she tells Sam. Catarina emphasizes that to her, disability inclusion is strong when an organization has thoughtfully built inclusion and accessibility into every stage of the employee and customer experience. “The work has been done and employees don't have to ask for everything that they need,” she notes. “This means building in a lot of flexibility and choice and designing with accessibility in mind from the beginning.” As an example, she says, organizations can offer different ways during the hiring process for candidates to demonstrate their abilities—not just verbal interviews, but also a live activity or actionable task. She says she’s both hopeful for the future and has high expectations: “I would expect to see openly disabled executive leaders. I would expect there to be representation. I would also expect to see that accessibility is a mandatory part of all design processes, whether that's the design of an employee team-building experience or the design of a new product.” Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of JPMorgan Chase & Co and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of October 13th , 2022 and they may not materialize.” Full transcript here

What’s the key to successful leadership in times of fast-paced change? To Jen Piepszak and Marianne Lake, co-CEOs of Chase Consumer & Community Banking, it includes focusing on the customer and building and maintaining strong company culture. In this episode, the two leaders take the stage with Women on the Move Host Sam Saperstein as part of the sixth annual WOTM Leadership Day. As co-leaders, Marianne and Jen have split up the Consumer & Community Banking umbrella: Marianne runs consumer lending and connected commerce, and Jen heads up banking businesses and wealth management. Jen tells Sam that their successful partnership is built on a lengthy experience of mutual trust, respect, and friendship. And while they’ve split up the responsibilities, they spend a lot of time collaborating on issues that make all experiences easier for customers. “Be the CEO of whatever you’re running” When Sam asks Marianne about the traits she looks for in leaders and managers, Marianne shares that for her, this includes putting the customer first and communicating clearly with the team every step of the way. She says that being the CEO of whatever you’re working on includes understanding and focusing obsessively on customer needs and putting the customer—internal or external—at the center of all decision-making. “Oftentimes the best way you can obsess about the competition is obsessing about the customer,” she says. Once a leader has clarified their focus, Marianne says communication is key. “Whatever you have defined as success for your business or endeavor, you need to communicate it clearly, consistently, and often because people in the team can get behind what they understand,” she tells Sam. After that, she says, a keen attention to the data analytics is necessary: She recommends being very disciplined about showing data-driven decisions that people can understand. “Jamie [Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO] has said often and I agree with him: data analyze, rinse, repeat,” she says. “It takes the emotion out of decisions.” Building and maintaining culture Jen and Marianne discussed one of the largest changes they’ve managed over the past 18 months—the sudden move to remote and then hybrid work, which the company continues to pilot and test. Jen says that there’s a difference between the initial fast-paced move to remote work versus what flexibility will ultimately look like going forward. She notes that the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on women and that the flexibility coming out of it will likely have a disproportionately positive impact on women as well. “I think it was extraordinary what we were able to do in a weekend really, turn our entire workforce into a remote workforce,” she says. “I do think that we have proven that you can maintain culture in a remote environment. We have yet to prove that you can build culture in a remote environment. And so I think having an office-based culture is incredibly important to this company for a very, very good reason.” Jen and Marianne both agree that while remote work offers valuable flexibility, the in-person experience is critical to establishing team relationships and ultimately building culture and trust. “And I think that is a huge motivating factor for anyone,” Jen says. “In person, you have that opportunity to build that culture. And yes, you also have that opportunity to take a little bit more time to work through an issue or solve a problem, or run next door to Marianne's office and say, what do you think about this?” Full transcript here

This year most of my colleagues operated in a hybrid work environment, and that's how we'll continue into next year. I want to stay on track for a promotion and increased responsibility. How do I do that in a remote and in an in-person world? WOTM host, Sam Saperstein, gives advice on how to make the most of a hybrid work environment and showing up when and where it matters. Full transcript here

Silvana Montenegro was a college student in Brazil when she applied for an internship in human resources at JPMorgan Chase & Co. She had no idea what human resources even meant, but she knew she wanted to see the world, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. seemed like a good first step. It’s 25 years later, and today she’s the firm’s Global Head of Advancing Hispanics & Latinos, and was recently named by Latino Leaders magazine as one of the country’s top 100 Latinas. In this episode, Silvana sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to discuss her career, the importance of being curious and creating personal connections, and her thoughts on the future of the Hispanic and Latino community. Growing up in Brazil, Silvana was influenced by a father who wanted his children to see the world and appreciate history, and a social activist grandmother. She says she always dreamed of an international career, so she jumped at the chance to intern at JPMorgan Chase & Co. And although she started out knowing nothing about human resources, she was quickly drawn in when she realized it was all about lifting people up. “And because of my family background, I have always been very curious,” she tells Sam. “I went to university to study psychology. So the way I learn and I relate to the world is by learning about people's stories over the years, it gave me an appreciation of how can I be most impactful to lift people up.” Changing the narrative Silvana describes her role today as centered around creating access and opportunities for the Hispanic and Latino community. One critical factor to that mission, she says, is helping to change the narrative of how the community is perceived in the United States today. “I think we're probably better known for some of the barriers that we face and continue to face as well as the culture, right?” she notes. “When we see Latinos on TV, they're not presented in the most positive ones. I want to see more movies and more TV shows that actually portray the families as they are. The Latinos from the most affluent to those who actually face significant barriers.” She notes that she knows her team’s mission and the journey ahead is important, but for now it starts by portraying a more holistic narrative of the community. One key part of the narrative that she wants to emphasize is the Latino impact on the U.S. economy. She notes that Latinos make up nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population, and are also the youngest demographic. Providing the tools and services for community success A second component of Silvana’s goal is to do more to support Hispanics and Latinos to have the tools they need to grow and thrive. She says she sees opportunities in several areas. One is simple talent mobility and helping Latinos succeed at work. Another is promoting financial health education, particularly on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, with so many people working in the United States to provide for families in Mexico. “How can we think about cross-border products so that we can support the need?” she asks. “From the U.S. side, I think it's doing more to demonstrate to the community that we’re the bank for Hispanics. And it's the little things. It's being in the community, partnering with organizations that have trust in the community so that they can see and feel that we're there for them.” One product where Silvana sees big growth potential is digital account opening. “Because Latinos are very digital and that's how they engage,” she tells Sam. “And they tend to go to untraditional financial places to actually send money to their families. And the fees that they're paying are very high. So how can we help them send money to their families and do that banking seamlessly and not as expensively?” Looking forward, Silvana’s excited to build on the success of initiatives already underway both internally at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and with external partners such as the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “The funding that we provide actually enables the local chambers to provide coaching to the small businesses there,” she notes. “And we also have the opportunity to connect these businesses with our local business consultants. It's a very holistic approach. And right now we are in 11 markets, we're reaching 5,000 businesses, and we're making real change, giving them the tools they need to grow and thrive.” Disclaimer: The speakers’ opinions belong to them and may differ from opinions of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co and its affiliates. Views presented on this podcast are those of the speakers; they are as of September 16, 2022 and they may not materialize.” Transcript here

How would you advise people to get involved in Web3? What's the best way to get started? WOTM host, Sam Saperstein invites Jaime Schmidt, founder of Schmidt’s Naturals and co-founder of BFF, to share her thoughts on how to get involved and navigate the new Web3 space. Full transcript here

Jaime Schmidt began making natural care products in her kitchen, and in just seven years scaled her brand into 30,000+ stores and sold it to consumer goods giant Unilever. In this episode of Women on the Move, she sits down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss that journey as well as her newer interest in Web3 and blockchain. From kitchen sink to multinational Jaime says she was living in Portland and newly pregnant when she started being extra mindful of the products she was using on her skin. She was also searching for a new creative twist in her career path, but she didn’t know those two interests would collide at first. “I decided to make my own [products] because it was cheap and it was the cleanest way to do it—but not quite realizing the business potential in that and what my future would hold there,” she tells Sam. She started off making lotions, sunscreens, deodorants, and shampoos and selling them at farmers’ markets. “I started to get a lot of really positive feedback and realized, you know what, there's something here and I could maybe make a little money off it,” she recalls. The face-to-face interactions at those markets made her feel vulnerable but also helped her learn what was working, and what she needed to change. But Jaime had larger aspirations for her brand, Schmidt’s Naturals. Flash forward a few years and she was on the shelves at Target, CVS, and Walmart, “those distribution channels where you might not expect to find a handcrafted natural deodorant made by a woman in her kitchen,” she summarizes for Sam. “Those were the channels I was most excited to get into because I saw big opportunity there, because no other natural deodorant brands were going after these channels.” Her vision paid off, and in 2017 she sold Schmidt’s to industry giant Unilever. Moving forward in the Web3 space Jaime says she was thrilled to have Unilever acquire Shnmidt’s, but she didn’t want to step away form the company; in fact she remains involved with creative decisions. “Any time a brand gets acquired, there's the biggest fear of any founders—what are they going to change?” she tells Sam. “What was important for me to maintain was just the creative energy of the brand. I was a maker at heart, and I had stayed so close to the product throughout the growth. You know, our brand had fun energy that I wanted to make sure didn't go stale.” Meanwhile, Jaime has moved on to a variety of other interests including investment funds, crypto, NFTs, and even writing book. One of her goals is to help other women succeed—in the entrepreneurial space but also in the new Web3 space. Toward that end, she co-founded Blockchain Friends Forever (BFF) with the idea of opening up this new online world of investing to women and non-binary people. “When we had the idea to create BFF, we knew that the first thing we wanted to do was have this big kickoff, introduce people to everything we thought they needed to know on the most basic level, like what is an NFT? What is the blockchain?” she explains to Sam. They put together an introductory online event to introduce new audiences to the ideas of NFTs and blockchain, and they expected maybe 5,000 participants. When they got more than 20,000, they knew they were filling a need. Through BFF, she’s continuing to provide guidance and resources to people entering the world of Web3. “We're constantly looking at ways to keep the community engaged and to teach and to help connect and do some fun things too,” she says. “I think people need to understand what it is they want out of Web3 and this new technology,” she explains. “And so that's the first step—recognizing for yourself, what are the opportunities for me and what really resonates and gets me excited?” For more traditional emerging entrepreneurs, Jaime wrote her book Supermaker: Crafting Business on Your Own Terms. In it, she tells her story of founding Schmidt’s and growing it into a global brand, and sharing tips for launching and executing a successful business plan. “There's such a holistic culture right now. And the brands that are most sustainable are the ones that truly start from a solid foundation,” she says. “And then also just keeping an open mind to shifting gears when you need to, because not everything will go as you think it will.” Full transcript here

The question from our community of female founders is how do you balance being a founder and a caretaker or someone with other responsibilities outside of work? WOTM host, Sam Saperstein invites Pamela Aldsworth, Managing Director and Head of VC Coverage at JPMorgan Chase to discuss why there’s no such thing as work-life balance and how to get over the guilt of being a working mom. Full transcript here

Hair and skincare entrepreneur talks honoring the authentic middle-aged woman Angel Cornelius was 57 when she left her lifelong career in healthcare management to start her own premium beauty products company. Here, the founder and CEO of Maison 276 discusses how she built her business as a middle-age Black woman—and shares her dream that soon all women will come to appreciate the benefits of midlife rather than feel pressured to re-capture their youth. Angel tells Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein that she wasn’t looking to become an entrepreneur when she started inventing beauty products—she was just looking for something that would work better for her than the commercial products she kept cycling through. “Honestly, I was solving for personal pain points,” she says. When her hair turned grey early she soon got fed up with moving between “purple” products to make her hair more “vibrant” and other products to tone down that vibrancy. She started mixing her own hair products at home in her sink. “What I wanted was just one system, one set of products to just wash my hair, adding no unwanted color and also solving for the fact that our hair is just like our skin,” she recalls. “It changes as we mature and women often think there's something wrong and no, there's absolutely nothing wrong. It's just different hair.” Before long she was using her leftover haircare ingredients to make similar skincare products. And not too long after that she started sharing her products with friends and family and soon had to open an Etsy store to keep up with demand. Big breaks in the beauty biz Angel tells Sam that her first big break came when she was discovered by ESSENCE through one of her son’s friends, an original employee of the beauty subscription company Birchbox; they wanted to include one of her homemade beauty butters in a package. Angel said yes before she realized that they would need at least 10,000 units to start. “I tell people all the time, it's a good thing we didn't have zoom back then because the words coming out of my mouth did not match the look on my face because I knew that was not going to happen in my kitchen,” she jokes. Before she knew it, she was exploring the world of manufacturers (and learning that they “won't turn their machines on for less than 50,000 units”). Angel learned on the fly about formulations, white label products, boutique manufactures, and other ins and outs of the industry. Before long, Angel had branched out from skincare and was scaling up her original innovation: haircare products. That led to her next big break when a home shopping network called TJC invited her to showcase her three-step system for silver and blonde hair. The appearance was so successful, she was asked to appear again six hours later. Angel parlayed that success into winning a competition on QVC and suddenly her brand—Maison 276, an homage to her New Orleans roots—was erupting. A focus on authenticity for middle-aged women Angel says she’s always kept the needs of middle-aged women at the forefront of what she does at Maison 276. When she first started going to trade shows, she realized she was often the only older face behind a booth. “And so women would crowd around my table and yes, they loved the skincare moisturizers, but they were asking me questions all across the spectrum about beauty. They wanted to know about my hair. How did I keep it so white? How did I keep it so healthy?” she recalls. Today, she says, she’s focused on building the leading beauty brand for a diverse group of middle-aged women who want to embrace the naturally occurring changes that take place in their bodies with clean and innovative products while also celebrating the beauty and vibrancy of their lives. “The middle-aged woman is the most powerful consumer group in this country and in fact in the world, but she's also the most ignored, misunderstood, and the most misrepresented,” Angel says. “And when they do pay attention to us, it's often from a point of age correction, anti-aging wrinkle reduction, medications like incontinence products, like it's their mission to fix everything that they think is wrong with us. And I reject that as a woman and as an entrepreneur. Maison 276 really has been built by the power of community because we represent middle-aged women in a way that is beautiful, vibrant, energetic, and that's authentic to how she lives her life. She is super excited about this stage and really believes that she's in the prime of her life. And that is what we reflect, not only in our innovative products, but also in our messaging, in our representation.” Full transcript here

How do you stay motivated when venture capital is full of mostly men? WOTM host, Sam Saperstein invites Pamela Aldsworth, Managing Director and Head of VC Coverage at JPMorgan Chase to discuss how after being in the tech industry for over 20 years she remains motivated, and how women inventors and entrepreneurs are changing the game. Full transcript here

When Shelly Porges learned in 2017 that women were only receiving 2.7 percent of global venture capital, she started thinking about what she could do to change that. By 2018, she had co-founded the Billion Dollar Fund for Women (now Beyond the Billion), and within a year more than $1 billion was committed from over 80 funds globally. In this episode of Women on the Move, Shelly sits down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss her multisector background, why she’s so passionate about connecting funders with women, and how Beyond the Billion achieved success beyond her expectations. Multisector experience Shelly tells Sam that her varied experience across the corporate, government, and entrepreneurial sectors has been invaluable. “Each sector has its own rewards and its own challenges, things that you learned that you wouldn't have learned maybe doing the last thing you did,” she says. Starting out in the corporate sector, Shelly worked 10 years at American Express before spending three years at Bank of America as Chief Marketing Officer during an historic turnaround. She went on to found not one but six companies in the Bay Area. By 2005, she had moved to Washington, DC and become involved with Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. “I wasn’t doing it for money,” she tells Sam. I was doing it because I really believed in her as a candidate and her as a leader. And then I had the opportunity to join her at the state department as her senior advisor for global entrepreneurship.” Shelly is now working in her fifth sector, venture capital, having launched the Billion Dollar Fund for Women in 2018. Raising a billion for women Shelly says the inspiration for the Billion Dollar Fund for Women was the many female founders she worked with over the years at the Cartier Women’s Initiative, the largest women's business plan competition in the world. “I would see women from all over the world, innovating amazing technology or tech-enabled businesses that were helping people in the healthcare sector or any number of things, saving lives, educating more and more young people,” she says. “And then afterwards I would try to help get them funded. And so I knew those companies intimately and not being able to find them funding would drive me nuts.” Back in the private sector after the 2016 election, Shelly knew she wanted to focus on helping women entrepreneurs raise money. She found her path forward when a friend, a prominent Asian businesswoman, told her the World Bank was holding its annual meetings in Bali in 2018. The friend was working to mobilize a blended finance forum around the 17 UN sustainable development goals—but she couldn’t find a project partner for Goal #5: Gender Equality. “I said, well, send me your parameters and I'll see what I can do,” Shelly recalls. “I know a lot of people. And meanwhile I started getting obsessed with this notion. What if I offered to promote these venture funds to limited partner investors who would invest in them in exchange for which they would make a pledge to invest more into female founders? And that's where it all started.” “So now she had a project partner for number five and we were up and running,” she tells Sam. “By the time we got to the World Bank meetings, we had over $460 million pledged from initially at 23 funds. So [it was] the beginning of what we call our global consortium of funds; in under nine months we achieved and then surpassed the billion dollars.” Getting results Since then, Beyond the Billion has continued to exceed expectations. Shelly says that’s partly a reflection of the untapped value of women entrepreneurs; data shows that women are consistently getting better results than men.“Whereas when we invest in men, it's a normal carbon. It's the very definition of the normal curve because they represent the total universe practically of who gets invested in.” As far as advice to female entrepreneurs, Shelly is straightforward: “Do your homework, know who you're reaching out to,” she says. By doing your research upfront you can find the subset of funds that might be a good match for you in terms of stage, geography, mission, and other criteria, she notes. Full transcript here

The question from our community of female founders is how can we use having a diverse team as an advantage during pitch meetings? WOTM host, Sam Saperstein invites Pamela Aldsworth, Managing Director and Head of VC Coverage at JPMorgan Chase to share her take on using diverse teams to your advantage during pitch meetings and why it's important to have different opinions and voices in the room.

When Chelsea Woody, Danielle Black Lyons, and Martina Duran met online a few years ago, they had two things in common: they were all Black women, and they were all devoted to the sport of surfing. In this episode of Women on the Move, the three sit down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss their individual journeys toward surfing and how they all came together to found Textured Waves, a collective dedicated to promoting integrity, inclusion, and diversity in the water. Finding their space in the surf world Martine, Danielle, and Chelsea were all introduced to surfing as young adults, but they each had a different journey. Chelsea, a nurse, discovered surfing when she and her husband took a year off from their jobs in Seattle and traveled the world. During the trip, she learned to surf in Indonesia; once they returned home, they moved to California to more fully embrace the sport. Danielle grew up in the bay area in a family of swimmers and water-lovers, but didn’t discover surfing until a college trip to Hawaii. Later she studied abroad in Costa Rica where she cemented her love for the sport. Martina, from Florida, credits her parents enrolling her in a water-safety ocean program for her lifelong love of the water. She also didn’t surf until college, and took her first surfing lesson while studying abroad in Costa Rica. In their 20s, the three pursued careers while each also embraced surfing. All three share that by then they had developed a deep emotional connection not just with surfing, but with the ocean and water itself. They also all shared a feeling of not quite belonging, as women of color, in a sport usually branded with a blond-haired, blue-eyed aesthetic. “We all met each other online, just searching for our likeness,” Danielle recalls. “It’s hard to find other women of color in the water here in Southern California. Usually, I'm the only one who looks like me. So I think we were all looking for camaraderie and sisterhood and we found it in each other and on Instagram.” Textured Waves Once they met online, and eventually in person, the three women knew they wanted to share their experiences as women of color in surfing, and help other women feel more welcome in the surf community. Like the ocean, Black hair has both texture and waves, and so they settled on Textured Waves as the perfect name for their collective. “We all felt like we can't be the only ones out here,” Chelsea adds. “And I think that was the drive to find other women that looked like us that had similar experiences, similar shared experiences, and then form a community. So others wouldn't have to navigate the space with such difficulty. We wanted to make it easier for the next generation and women, and for our age as well.” The group is conscious of the history of the disadvantages experienced by the Black community and how segregation often kept Black Americans away from beaches and other water spaces. “I want to acknowledge that this is actually in our blood . . . when we came over from Africa we were coastal water people, and that has been lost through [racism and segregation],” Chelsea says. “There’s this stereotype that we aren't water people, and that's not true.” Looking forward In just a few years, Textured Waves has grown to be a force of change in the world of surfing. “I think the thing I'm most proud of is just when I see a Black woman or a Black girl enter the ocean for the first time and attempt surfing for the first time because they saw something on our page,” Martina says. For the most part, they agree, the wider surfing community has been receptive to what they’re trying to do, especially after the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. “I think what happened was a lot of people did some self-reflection of what it means to hold privilege in spaces and maybe how their privilege might unintentionally or intentionally have caused someone to be excluded,” Martina continues. A partnership with Chase and Marriot Bonvoy Boundless credit card has helped Textured Waves to spread their message of inclusion to a wider audience—and it also allowed them to host their first retreat in Hawaii last year. This fall, the collective will head back to that surfers’ paradise to host a second retreat where they hope to introduce more women of color to the sport and continue normalizing their presence. Full transcript here

After graduation, I began my career because it was the first job offer I received and was in the industry I was interested in. Since then I've continued to build my skills and career, but I'm more interested in a different role. How do I begin to make a switch and show the transferable skills that I have? Is there a right way to rebrand myself for this new trajectory? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, shares how she pivoted her career from journalism to business, and how you can do the same by advancing your education or transferring your core skills to the desired role. Full transcript here

What happens when two military spouses—a software developer and an entrepreneur—combine forces? In this episode of Women on the Move, host Sam Saperstein finds out, as she talks with Instant Teams founders Liza Rodewald and Erica McMannes. “Instant Teams is a remote team marketplace that builds remote workforces by tapping technology and the largest database of military connected workers in the industry,” Sam explains. “They are challenging the status quo and building a unique way for companies to diversify their workforce.” Common challenges Erica McMannes has been a military spouse for more than 20 years, moving 12 times in those two decades. Along the way, she experienced the challenges shared by military spouses in trying to build their own career amidst frequent moves. She eventually landed in “the Silicon Valley space” and put her varied experience to work launching start-ups. Liza Rodewald, meanwhile, had a career as a software developer before her husband decided to return to active duty military service. Like Erica, she soon understood the common challenges faced by her peers. “Every single military spouse I would meet would ask me the same questions,” she tells Sam. “How are you working from home? How have you maintained your career? And can you help me do the same?” Erica and Liza met and developed a relationship via a Facebook group, and only lived in the same place—Fort Lee, Virginia—briefly. But they kept up with each other, and when Erica came up with the basic idea of Instant Teams, she reached out Liza: “Am I crazy?” she wrote. “Is this an actual thing we could do?” Liza, who had always been a solo entrepreneur and was in the final stages of launching another business, didn’t take long to get excited about Erica’s idea. “It was just really clear to me that I wanted a partnership and to really do something for this [military spouse] community in the remote workspace,” she recalls. Within months, working remotely before the pandemic had made it the norm, the two were making the VC rounds and launching Instant Teams. A two-sided marketplace Liza and Erica talk about how, as a talent marketplace, they serve two clients and solve two problems: that of employers and that of employees. By focusing on skills-based hiring rather than the standard chronological résumé system, Instant Teams offers career opportunities to the military spouse community who often get overlooked because of résumé gaps and other byproducts of the military lifestyle. Employers get direct access to a pool of candidates without having to post jobs and screen candidates themselves. As a side benefit, skills-based hiring naturally promotes diversity in workplaces. “You're not just getting the same flavor of people when you're trying to hire, but you actually have diverse pipelines built in,” Liza says. Pioneering a remote work culture Erica and Liza founded Instant Teams with a focus on remote career opportunities before the pandemic even hit. As military spouses, they were both familiar with the benefits and challenges of working remotely. “I was doing gymnastics basically to try to create quiet spaces for myself, and closed one deal while I was in my car because my house was being packed up at the time,” Liza recalls. But once the pandemic normalized working from home, she says she began to realize she didn’t need to be so hard on herself for every little interruption. “We all have families,” she says. “We all have doorbells that ring or a dog that barks, and to see people as humans in the workforce I think was a really positive thing that came out of the pandemic.” Erica emphasizes that fostering a positive remote work environment was also paramount at Instant Teams. “One of the first documents we ever created was called our Ethos to Remote Communication,” she says. “And this was pre-pandemic, and I look back and I think, wow, we were like pioneers, like look at us, charging ahead with remote communication.” Today, they say, they’re proud of the work they’ve done to promote remote work opportunities to talented military spouses and others, as well as the opportunities they offer to employers to have a curated recruiting pipeline experience. “What we're building towards is something greater, not even just for the organization or for our teams or for our customers, but in a bigger sense of women in business and women in leadership,” Erica says. Full transcript here

As a student, we learn the ways of networking to get a job and initiate our career. But how does networking change once you've begun your career? What are the differences and tips to ensure you're always building a network as a professional? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, talks about how networking is a long-term job and gives you tips on building relationships once school ends and your career begins. Full transcript here

When Maëlle Gavet became CEO of Techstars last year, she brought a background in both entrepreneurship and consulting—and a commitment to diversifying tech funding. One of the largest seed investors in the world, Techstars has nearly 3000 companies in their portfolio this year, and Maëlle says the plan is to add up to 650 more. In this episode, she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to talk about Techstar’s approach, her commitment to supporting female and other founders, and her partnership with Women on the Move. An ecosystem approach Maëlle says she thinks about Techstar’s approach as an ecosystem, built on a framework of accelerators, or bootcamps, for entrepreneurs. “Young entrepreneurs join us, and for three months work with us to take their company to the next level,” she explains. “We also do a lot to build an entire environment around the entrepreneurs. We have things like startup weekends or catalyst programs where we basically help activate communities all around the world, bring wannabe entrepreneurs and mentors and alumni of our programs and potential investors and corporate partners and government institutions. So basically we really try to get a stronger ecosystem because no one succeeds alone.” An integral part of Techstar’s approach is the diverse founders they serve. Shying away from typical Silicon Valley start-ups, Maëlle says that Techstar regularly invests in women, in people of color, in people with disabilities, and in the LGBTQ community. This year Techstar will have 52 programs in 18 countries. They also have shorter catalyst programs in more than 50 countries. “The underlying philosophy is that talent and ambitions are distributed equally around the world, but opportunities are not,” she tells Sam. The power of sisterhood Maëlle says the power of sisterhood is phenomenal—making investing in their business endeavors a no-brainer. “I think women are strong,” she says. “Women are smart. Women have run the world for as long as I know—they've just done it in the back rooms rather than at the forefront. To me, this is more about unleashing and supporting existing potential than anything else.” She notes three key elements that Techstar’s programs can help unleash in the women they support. The first is helping with imposter syndrome. “It saddens me that it still exists, but the reality is we still have a lot of women who are not 100 percent sure that they’re worth it, that they can do it, that they have what it takes and going through these programs helps increase that confidence,” she tells Sam. The second element is an understanding that nobody succeeds alone. She notes: “Your chances of success increase proportionally to the network that you have, whether it's the network to find the first people you're going to hire, or the first customers that you're going to sign, or the mentors that you're going to surround yourself [with] or bring to your board, or ultimately the investors.” The final key element to building strong female entrepreneurs, Maëlle says, is simply money. “Ultimately it all comes down to money,” she notes. “Are you going to find a way to invest in this woman? And so I think for me, these programs are about making sure that these women are being funded, are being put in touch with the right investors.” Partnership with JP Morgan Maëlle and Sam talk about the importance of networking in getting women in touch with the investors they need. And they describe how a partnership between Techstar and Women on the Move is helping foster those relationships. A few months ago, J.P. Morgan announced an 80 billion fund that they’ll use to partner with Techstar and set up accelerator programs in several cities, as part of their commitment to racial equity in those areas of the United States. Sam mentioned that only 2 percent of venture capital money goes into female founders, and the two women talk about their commitment to moving that stat. “There is so much potential,” Maëlle asserts. “And so many things that can be done to unleash all this potential. As I say, talent and ambitions are equally distributed, but opportunities are not. And the partnership that we're doing with [J.P. Morgan] is basically trying to make this opportunity more equally distributed.” Full transcript here

Feedback is important to growth and the formal, mid and annual review process can be confusing. Could you speak to appropriate preparation for these reviews? What should you expect from each and what is the appropriate planning to do? Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein, stars how to make sense of your formal employee reviews, and how managers should also consider giving real-time feedback throughout the year. Full transcript here

Avery Akkineni wants you to know: It’s not too late, and you didn’t miss the boat. As president of VaynerNFT, Avery is a leader in the emerging NFT space. In this conversation with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein, she breaks down the NFT market, Web 3, and the ongoing opportunity for consumers and brands to participate in this fast-moving space. A marketing pioneer with a mission to bring other women along Avery began her career right out of college at Target Corp., but within a year or so she moved to Google, still a relatively new company in 2012. At Google she worked on products including AdWords, YouTube, Hardware Products, and Double Click, and she also learned about Vayner Media when Gary Vaynerchuk gave a motivational talk to her team. “I was incredibly impressed with how different Gary's perspective was, and about his passion around social media,” she recalled. “At the time, I didn’t know too much about social media. So, I thought I’m going to learn all about social from the guys who know it best at Vayner.” She joined Vayner in 2018 as a Vice President on the media team—her first experience of the agency side of marketing. “So, it was a totally new experience of learning a different side of the marketing coin,” she tells Sam. “And I learned a lot really quickly. Had the opportunity to help build out some teams. I then had the opportunity to actually go and start Vayner Media's presence in the Asia Pacific region.” By 2019, she moved to Singapore to start Vayner Media there. She soon opened offices in Tokyo, Bangkok, Sydney, and Hong Kong as well—all during the pandemic. “It was a very different type of working environment, where we were all pretty much remote and working across borders digitally,” she recalled. One benefit of working through the height of the pandemic was that she got to explore new ways of building teams, as well as new ways of thinking about technology. “We thought something very interesting might be happening in this world of NFTs,” she says. “At the time, I didn’t even know what that meant, what it was.” By July of 2021, she was heading up the new VaynerNFT, which she describes as “a Web 3 consultancy focused on helping enterprises navigate all things Web 3 and NFT.” Immersed in this new world, on thing struck Avery: Her colleagues and Web 3 leaders were mostly male. “Right now the community who's super active is very heavily men,” she tells Sam. “And I'm super passionate about helping to bring women into this space.” Breaking down NFTs for the uninitiated As an early leader in the world of NFTs and related Web 3 activities, Avery is skilled at de-mystifying the concept for others. She breaks it down for listeners: “What NFTs, non-fungible tokens, represent is really digital asset ownership. It can be a piece of art. It can be a ticket. It can be a utility. But fundamentally, that represents a digital asset that you own that is provable on the blockchain.” And while there’s currently a small community of people who are active in the NFT world, Avery says she believes there’s a place for everyone. She encourages small business owners and individuals—especially women—to get involved. And she offers three pieces of advice for those interested. First, she says, get started by jumping in in a hands-on way. “Get yourself a Discord and Twitter, and understand what's happening,” she advises. “I think really spending the time to shape your own perspective is incredibly important.” Next, she advises all business owners to figure out how they can develop something that would be interesting to their existing consumers. “I would maybe look into loyalty as an NFT mechanism, and finding a way to reward people who already come to your dry cleaner, or to your daycare, or whatever it is,” she offers. Her third piece of advice is to consider expanding your business’s payment options to include accepting crypto. “I think as a small business, you actually can move much quicker and navigate this world of Web 3 in a really cool way,” she adds. “And being able to operate without a ton of bureaucracies can be a huge advantage.” As for her goals for VaynerNFT, she’s looking forward to continuing work that’s game-changing, interesting, and long term: “I think our goals are really to help enterprises enter this Web 3 world in an authentic way that builds value for their communities and builds value for them.” Full Transcript here The podcast is not intended to provide legal, tax, or financial advice or to indicate the availability or suitability of any JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. product or service. JPMorgan Chase is not responsible for views expressed other than our own.

How do I go about taking on more responsibility at work? In today’s Mentor Moment, Women on The Move host, Sam Saperstein shares how to take on more responsibility at work without causing your current role & responsibilities to suffer. Transcript here

About two years ago Melissa Bernstein, co-founder of Melissa and Doug Toys, began a journey of self-discovery that eventually led her to a diagnosis of existential angst—and a commitment to uncovering her true self. In this episode of Women on the Move, the world-famous toy entrepreneur sits down with host Sam Saperstein to discuss that experience and how it led her to co-found LifeLines, her new company focused on wellbeing. Melissa says she knew she was different—and struggled intensely with life—since she was a child. “From my earliest recollection, I struggled with asking . . . Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?” she recalls. “And when I asked those around me these deep dark questions, people didn't really want to hear that from a little child.” She recalls being told that she was too deep, too emotional, and that she should go outside and play. Ultimately, her response was to bury herself in introversion, perfectionism, and creativity—three ingredients that helped create magic when she co-founded Melissa and Doug in her 20s. Toy Story Melissa recalls how she and her now-husband Doug, both working in finance at the time, decided that they would start a company. Both the children of educators, they initially honed in on something for children. After considering and rejecting the idea of opening an alternative school, they decided on the toy business. Melissa describes Melissa and Doug Toys as “open-ended” toys because they are aimed to be 90 percent about the child and 10 percent about the toy. In the first years of the business, Melissa says they “faced every single hurdle you could ever imagine.” They persevered to establish one of the most iconic toy companies. The success and creativity she found through the business allowed her to channel the darkness she still felt inside. “It was dark into light through Melissa and Doug in making these toys,” she tells Sam. “[But] ultimately about two years ago, that cry of my own soul to be seen authentically grew so loud. It was deafening. And I started to see that even though creating toys for 33 years had been like my salvation, my lifeline, and my reason for being, it was almost [a] façade I had created.” Channeling angst into lifelines Receiving a diagnosis of existential angst and coming to terms with her own truth was life-changing. She came to realize that there's a deep connection between those who have existential angst and those who are extra creative. “Because the very qualities that lead us to ponder these deep dark realities also lead us to experience the beauty and the joy and the wonder of the world,” she describes. “I always say both the beauty and the pain of the world are unbearable for me. I could vacillate between the profound highs and the devastating lows in a minute.” It was this journey of discovery that inspired Melissa to co-found LifeLines two years ago. The company is dedicated to her daily Practice, which she developed and continues to refine to help keep her grounded in the face of the extreme highs and lows she experiences. She describes three core tenets she learned in her journey and focused LifeLines on. First, that she isn’t alone anymore, after years of denying the truth of how she felt. After “coming out” with her diagnosis and her own truth, she heard from thousands who felt the same way. Her second tenet is a commitment to helping others who suffer from existential angst to unearth their unique form of self-expression or creativity to make meaning in their own lives. And third is recognizing that she needed help. The end result is accepting “that Melissa Bernstein is the full emotional spectrum from the lowest of lows . . . to the highest of highs, like unbounding limitless joy.” Melissa wraps up with one piece of advice for listeners: “We all have the ability to make meaning in our lives if we take responsibility for doing so. And that responsibility is a choice. So I think what I always want people to know is they may choose not to do it. They may choose to stay stuck and remain a victim, but it is a choice. And as long as they know that they have a choice to think differently and they have a choice to grab life by the horns and savor all there is to savor, then I feel like I've done my job.” Transcript here