The Purse Podcast: Recent Episodes
Jana Hlistova
We are changing the conversation for women about money and investing.
We focus on how women can manage and invest their money in the public and private markets and how they are the driving force behind the change we want to see in the world.
We talk to change makers, financial experts, wealth managers, angel investors, entrepreneurs and fund managers, who shine a light on the key trends in money and investing.
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Adeo Ressi is revolutionising global entrepreneurship and venture capital. As CEO of Decile Group, he helped launch nearly 50% of all new VC firms worldwide in 2023, and Adeo serves as Chairman and Co-Founder of the Founder Institute, which runs startup accelerators in over 300 cities worldwide and has over 7,000 portfolio companies. He is committed to solving the world's problems by having visionary limited partners back ethical investors to fund pioneering entrepreneurs. Adeo previously served on the Board of the X PRIZE, created the original SAFE note, drafted the Mensarius Oath for ethical investing, and founded companies with over $2bn in exits.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- How to invest ethically
- The impact of AI
- Investing in female founders
- How to invest in diverse founders
- Adeo's investment thesis
- And how to encourage more women with capital to invest in startups?
Linda Scott is Emeritus DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Oxford, as well as a visiting professor at Brown University where she teaches gender and economics. She is the author of The Double X Economy, a 2020 book that deeply documents the worldwide and historical pattern of women’s economic exclusion and makes a passionate argument for the economic and humanitarian reasons to eliminate this destructive inequality. Recognised as an outstanding work of science and economics, the book has been translated into 14 languages. Scott continues her work as a gender consultant for a wide range of major world institutions, such as USAID and the World Bank.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is sexism?
- UK: The Equality Act -how effective is it?
- Financial services industry: the 'Sexism in the City' report
- How sexism shows up for women:
- the gender pay gap, the motherhood penalty, women in leadership and as women entrepreneurs.
- Men becoming allies
- Startups: female founders vs male founders.
- Investing in AI vs fixing organisations for women
- Economies grow by investing in women.
Grace O’Brien is an award-winning Creative Director at AKQA, an international creative and innovation agency.
Over the last 10+ years Grace has worked with global clients such as Volvo, TikTok, Nike and Jordan. Her work has been recognised by Cannes Lions, the WARC Awards, Fast Company, the London Design Museum, The Earthshot Prize and more.
Beyond the creative industry Grace is an accomplished scholar with an academic background in economics and a passion for climate action and gender equality. In addition to building Pink Chip with colleague and founder Sam Rowlands, Grace leads communications for Generation Climate Europe, the region’s largest coalition of youth-led networks pushing for stronger climate action, and advises UN-led women’s economic inclusion projects in the global south.
Sam Rowlands is a Multi-awarded Creative Lead and Art Director at AKQA. She has worked with many local and global clients, such as Gucci, Nike, Toyota, and Tourism Australia, just to name a few. Her work has been recognised on the world stage, including at the Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show and Webbys. With a wealth of experience, Sam has also served as a judge at leading award shows across many categories, including creative excellence, innovation and visual storytelling.
Beyond her professional accomplishments, Sam mentors numerous female creatives, offering guidance and support in navigating the male-dominated industry. As the visionary founder of Pink Chip, an investment initiative challenging investor bias against female leaders, Sam is dedicated to enlightening businesses and investors about the economic power of having women at the helm.
The launch of Pink Chip and its US index on International Women's Day in partnership with UN Women has delivered exceptional performance.
Backdated for over three years, the Pink Chip US Index has outpaced US benchmarks like the S&P500 by over 80%. Featured on Bloomberg and in renowned publications such as Forbes, this milestone marks just the beginning of Pink Chip's journey toward challenging bias against female leaders. Sam has been on the path to creating Pink Chip for over four years.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- Investor gender bias
- The outperformance of female CEO leadership
- The Pink Chip Index -why we need it
- The journey to launch
- The criteria used for the Pink Chip index
- Performance vs standard indices
- The impact on promoting gender diversity and inclusion
- What's next for the Pink Chip?
- What do companies need to do to be included in the Pink Chip Index?
You can see more about Pink Chip via:
Website: pinkchip.org
Instagram:@pinkchipofficial
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pink-chip
Rachel Cook is the Founder of Seeds (seedsgives.com), a cryptocurrency mutual aid ecosystem which has helped people in need in 30 countries and counting, with a focus on women. When you help someone in need through Seeds, you receive SEEDS cryptocurrency in thanks, empowering people to build wealth through giving. Rachel was a career-profitable pro stock trader in Chicago and on Wall Street before the misogyny drove her to quit. She began buying Bitcoin at ~$90 a coin, and was extremely excited about blockchain technology's potential to transcend the discrimination baked into the old system. However, she was forced to sell her Bitcoin in 2013 to keep Seeds alive, largely because misogyny in venture capital means that 98.1% of investment dollars go to men. To help other women avoid this, anyone in need can redeem a single SEED to ask for the amount of funding they need, and receive it as a gift. Rachel hopes that one day Seeds will render venture capital obsolete. With the 4th Bitcoin Halving, the historical catalyst for the giant market surges we've seen in the past, she is working to help as many women as possible build wealth in cryptocurrency this market cycle.Rachel is nomadic, but recently built a tiny house from a kit, on land she owns in Western Massachusetts. Both the land and the house were purchased with cryptocurrency. Her travel buddy is her 9 year old rescue pup, Bowie.
We cover the following topics:
- Why did Rachel transition into crypto and Web3?
- Context: what is Web2 vs Web3?
- Bitcoin halving and the crypto market
- Seeds: building a new economic ecosystem based on abundance
- The challenges of being a female founder
- What is the future of Seeds?
- How do more women engage in Web3 and invest in crypto?
Sharon Lechter is internationally recognised as a financial literacy expert, keynote speaker and business mentor. She is a 5x New York Times Bestselling author, successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, and enjoyed a 35 year career as a licensed CPA. She has advised two US Presidents on the topic of financial literacy. Sharon co-authored the international bestseller Rich Dad Poor Dad and 14 other books in the Rich Dad series. In 2008, when the economy crashed, she was asked by the Napoleon Hill Foundation to help re-energise the teachings of Napoleon Hill.
Her best-selling books with the Foundation include Three Feet from Gold, Outwitting the Devil, Think and Grow Rich for Women and Success and Something Greater. She is also featured in the movie Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy and on the national television series World’s Greatest Motivators. In 2021, Sharon’s title, Exit Rich was released to support entrepreneurs in building value and scalability in their businesses so they can be in the position of greatest potential. Her newest title, How Money Works for Women was released in July in cooperation with WealthWave Media.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The importance of financial education
- Women's relationship with money
- What are the three biggest financial challenges for women?
- What is the money mindset?
- How money works for women
- Building financial resilience
- Creating multiple streams of income
- Investing in crypto and digital assets
- More+
Pierre N. Rolin is Founder and CEO of Ankh Impact Ventures. A Canadian entrepreneur with over 35 years of real estate investment advisory as well as venture capital experience, Pierre was previously based in London, Frankfurt, and New York and has closed more than 550 real estate investments valued in excess of $17 billion and delivered an average 20% net IRR for his clients. Pierre was appointed Global Head of Credit Suisse International Real Estate based in London at the age of 35. Following his career at Credit Suisse, Pierre founded a global real estate advisory firm where he managed assets of $6.4 billion including 125 direct properties and four customised private equity real estate funds.
Pierre is currently Chairman and CEO of Ankh Real Estate, Inc., an independent global real estate investment advisory firm whose clients include ultra-high net worth private investors, foundations, private equity firms, alternative managers, and property developers. Pierre also advises real estate owners and operators on strategic projects including M&A, capital allocation and recycling strategies, take privates, joint ventures, recaps, roll-ups, and platform investments.
In 2006, Pierre established a private nonprofit grant-giving foundation that promoted learning opportunities for gifted underserved youth through art, education, and cultural heritage programs. From 2015 to 2020, Pierre advised and invested in over 20 venture-backed early-stage, growth and late-stage technology companies. Based on these experiences and a desire to create sustainable social impact beyond philanthropic giving, Pierre established Ankh Impact Ventures in 2020 with a new philanthro-capitalist business model to foster impact entrepreneurship by diverse agents of change from all global geographies.
Pierre has shared his experiences at numerous conferences and events globally, such as The World Economic Forum in Davos, The Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, and the Young Presidents Organisation in London.
We cover the following:
- Why Pierre started Ankh Impact Ventures
- Investing in female and diverse founders
- Investment thesis- patient capital
- Female pitch competitions
- Female founders are a better investment
- Why male investors need to back women.
Vanessa Northway is the Deputy Vice-Principal for Learning and teaching at Heriot-Watt University Dubai. She has been working with the University since 2009. Over the years, Vanessa has directed the start-up and implementation of the Fashion, Fashion Marketing, and Interior design programmes. As part of her management role at SoTD, Vanessa has been responsible for resourcing and ensuring – along with the academic team in Dubai and Scotland – the development of programmes suitable for the market within Dubai and the MENA region and globally relevant skills.
We cover the following:
- Financial education as it relates to children, teenagers, and young adults.
- The role of schools and universities in teaching our kids about money.
- Why parents play a crucial role in how kids grow up thinking about money and how to manage it too.
- The impact of teaching girls about entrepreneurship and financial management.
- Why teaching financial independence and how to invest is crucial.
- How technology can be used to encourage children and young adults to become financially literate and financially confident.
David Fogel is a seasoned VC and startup operator that has spent the last 20 years working with and advising more than 1,000 founders across Europe, Asia and Africa. The startups David has supported have raised more than $500m over the years. David Co-founded Bramble Club, a boutique Startup advisory firm, working with founders and venture capital firms across EMEA.David was CCO and COO at Wefarm scaling it to 3.5m users and 150 Employees. Before that David co-founded ADV, a £150m VC fund focused on early stage startups. David led the corporate venture arm for Telefonica and worked on M&A deals across the globe. Before moving into venture David built Fintech and Telco products in Israel. Where he grew the team from 4 to 60 employees and reached 70% market penetration.
David also co-founded Alma Angels, a diverse community of more than 300 people dedicated to supporting ambitious female founders. Over the last four years, Alma Angels has backed more than 180 women-led startups which have raise $160m in follow-on funding.
We cover the following:
- Angel investing: US vs UK
- Male allies and eradicating 'bad behaviour' in VC
- Investing in female founders
- Gender bias in VC
- Raising capital as a female founder
- How to build a startup investment portfolio
Chloe Lin is an international speaker who has been invited to countries around the world, including Japan, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, and many others. She has partnered with Mary Buffett to establish the Buffett Online School, where she leads operations in Japan. Her extensive knowledge and success in the stock market have enabled her to become a full-time investor.
She has also been featured in Singapore’s official Chinese newspaper, Lian He Zao Bao, on radio stations like Money FM 89.3, and in the online magazine Zuu Online, sharing her experiences on how to invest safely as a female investor and how to achieve consistent results from the stock market.
You can follow Chloe's work at www.arigatoinvestor.com, and her social media channel @ArigatoInvestor on Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and Telegram.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Why investing in relationships is the key to a richer life
- Money mindset and money habits
- How Chloe invests her money
- Difficult but important investing lessons
- How do Millennials and Gen Z think about investing?
- And how do we encourage more women to invest?
Roxane Sanguinetti is an experienced investor, Head of Strategy at the quant fund GHCO and co-lead of Alma Angels, an inclusive community of investors actively supporting ambitious women founders. She is a trader by background but passionate about tech and entrepreneurship, Roxane previously held positions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and an early stage fintech called HUBX. Roxane is a fierce advocate for diversity & inclusion, Roxane also co-heads the London Chapter of Women in ETFs, a global community of 10,000 professionals.
Marla Shapiro is the Founder of the HERmesa angel syndicate. Marla launched the group in early 2020 with two distinct missions: a) to give more women a seat at the table as angel investors and b) to invest more money in women co-founded startups. She has grown the syndicate from 5 women to nearly 200 members and they have collectively invested in 29 rounds of financing in women led startups.
Prior to launching HERmesa, Marla worked for nearly 20 years for media & technology companies in operational roles as a strategist, business development director, sales lead and COO. The companies ranged from large multi -nationals, such as the Financial Times & Zee TV, to small media tech start-ups in the UK and Europe (companies ranged from pre-seed to Series A).
Marla spent the early years of her career working on Wall Street & the City at firms, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and NatWest in structured finance roles.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- Angel investing: how Roxane and Marla got started
- Why invest in female founders
- The difference between an angel syndicate and an angel network
- The changes to the Financial Promotion Exemptions
- How these changes will disproportionately impact women and ethnic minorities
- How can we encourage more women to invest in the startup ecosystem and back female founders?
*This podcast was recorded before the changes to the Financial Promotion Exemptions were introduced, ie before 31 January 2024.
David Hayman is a campaigner, policy specialist and strategy professional, with over a decade’s experience in the international development and climate sectors. David was the first employee at award winning campaign, Make My Money Matter, and now leads on the organisation’s public campaigning efforts; mobilising citizens across the UK to use their banks and their pensions to help tackle the climate crisis.
Previously, David was at the ONE Campaign, where he worked directly for the Co-Founder as a Special Advisor on Global Strategy and Campaigns. Prior to this, David spent 3 years working in India, supporting a range of foundations, philanthropists and charitable initiatives, including leading the expansion of Skoll Award Winning NGO, Educate Girls.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- The organisation: Make My Money Matter
- Where do banks and pensions put our money?
- How can you make your pensions green?
- And how can you become more active and hold these non-green businesses to account?
Vicky Pryce is an Economist and the author of her latest book 'Women vs Capitalism', which was published by Hurst in November of 2019. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality.
Victoria Ross is a Chartered Financial Planner for Progeny Wealth. Victoria has 18 years experience within financial services, during which she also completed the qualifications as a Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Managerial Accountant. As a Financial Planner, her key drivers are ensuring women reach out for and receive appropriate financial advice and that younger generations are financially informed.
This recording is from a webinar and we cover the following topics:
- What is the gender wealth gap?
- Why is closing the gender wealth gap important?
- How do we close the gender wealth gap?
- How can women manage their money to protect and grow their long term financial wealth?
- How can women engage more in long-term investing?
- What can the government and employers do to close the gender wealth gap?
- What books, blogs or podcasts can inspire or educate women on how to invest?
Nicole Sykes leads Pro Bono Economics' communications and influencing work, in addition to overseeing a number of key policy themes in relation to the effectiveness of civil society, philanthropy and relationships between civil society, business and government. She joined PBE in 2020 to help deliver the Law Family Commission on Civil Society, and is responsible for maintaining the successful delivery of policy change that ensures the Commission continues to deliver impact. Nicole has extensive experience influencing policy, and specialises in working across the public, private and charity sectors to build partnerships and systemic change.
Prior to joining PBE, Nicole led the CBI’s work on Brexit, and has worked at Microsoft, for MPs and in political campaigns. She has experience on boards of a charity and social enterprise, and a multi-year international research project run by Queen Mary’s University London. She is presently on the advisory board of leading think tank UK in a Changing Europe, and a volunteer with a local community garden.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Report: Women and the charity sector
- Why we need more funding of women and girls sectors
- Women giving more to the charity sector
- How the charity sector will be reshaped by women owning the majority of wealth in the UK in 2025+
Catherine Gray is the producer of the groundbreaking new documentary “Show Her The Money”- featuring rock -star female investors who invest in diverse women entrepreneurs with innovations that will change the world. Catherine is doing a 50 city grassroots tour of the film to encourage more women to invest in female founded funds to move the needle on women getting less than 2% of venture capital. She is also an author, TEDx speaker, podcast host, founder of She Angel Investors and co-founder of the non profit She Angels Foundation. Catherine also hosts and produces the popular podcast series Invest in Her, distributed on Apple, Spotify, IHeart Radio and wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catherine has produced, co-produced and directed several documentaries including I Can’t Marry You, with Ellen DeGeneres’ mom Betty as narrator for PBS, Millionaires True Stories and several LGBTQ films for LOGO. She also helped start a gay cable network and produced a series called Way-Off Broadway with trailblazing entertainers and recording artists. Currently, she is co-producing Millennials Are Killing Musicals, with plans to go to Broadway. This female driven show focuses on motherhood and the impact of social media. The team behind it is 80% women- and the show and music was created by a woman- Nico Juber.
Marcia Dawood is an early-stage investor who serves on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee, a venture partner with Mindshift Capital, a member of Golden Seeds, and the Chair Emeritus of the Angel Capital Association (ACA), the global professional society for angel investors. She is also an Associate Producer on the documentary film Show Her the Money, which debuted at the Women’s Film Festival in Philadelphia in September of 2023. She is a founding member and chair of the ACA’s Growing Women’s Capital Group, which is building syndication and collaboration among US investment groups focused on women-led companies.
A TEDx speaker and the host of The Angel Next Door Podcast, Marcia walks the talk and holds investments in over 50 early-stage companies and funds. She is committed to expanding support for diverse companies that overcome the world’s biggest problems and accelerate positive change. Her upcoming book, Do Good While Doing Well – Make A Difference, Get Financial Rewards and Increase Your Happiness, is due out in 2024.
Marcia is on a mission to empower and educate everyone to realise their potential to invest in positive change. She is passionate about bridging the gap from early-stage inception to building thriving, profitable companies.
Professor Dame Heather J. McGregor is the Provost and Vice Principal of Heriot-Watt University Dubai.
Professor McGregor was previously the Executive Dean of the Edinburgh Business School, having held the post since 2016. Her earlier career was in investment banking, and she has spent 17 years as an entrepreneur leading her own executive search firm prior to her move into higher education.
Professor Dame McGregor has a PhD from the University of Hong Kong in Structured Finance and an MBA from London Business School. She is a qualified chartered management accountant (CGMA) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Her undergraduate degree was a BSc in Agricultural Economics & Marketing from Newcastle University. She is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Sunderland.
Professor Dame McGregor is an experienced writer and broadcaster, including writing for the Financial Times for 17 years. She was the founder of the Taylor Bennett Foundation, www.taylorbennettfoundation.org which works to promote diversity in the communications industry, and a founding member of the steering committee of the 30% Club, which works to raise the representation of women at senior levels within publicly listed companies.
Furthermore, Professor McGregor is a non-executive director of two public companies, one listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and one listed on the London Stock Exchange. She is also a member of the UK Government’s Honours Committee for the Economy.
In 2021, Professor Dame McGregor was one of the first two people at Heriot-Watt University to be named a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She was awarded a CBE in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours List in UK for her services to business, especially diversity in the workplace.
In December 2022, she was made a Dame of the British Empire in the New Year’s Honours for services to education and business and heritage in Scotland.
She is among the first to be recognised with the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by King Charles III.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- COP 28: the UN Climate Summit (in Dubai)
- Climate finance: what is it and why should we care?
- What role do entrepreneurs play?
- How do female founders fare in this space?
- Why investing in climate change is also investing into gender equality
- How to start investing in climate change?
Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser and a board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). She was previously Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service.
Before that she was Partner at the accounting and consulting firm KPMG after senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector. She has held a number of academic posts and is a Fellow and Council member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Society of Professional Economists and a Companion of the British Academy of Management.
Her latest book, “Women vs Capitalism”, was published by Hurst in November 2019.. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality.
She is co-founder of GoodCorporation, a company set up to advise on corporate social responsibility, is a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London, was the first female Master of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants and has been sitting on the City’s Members Diversity Working Party.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The House of Lords report on the Bank of England inflation failures
- What could they have done differently?
- The UK economy in review
- What's ahead in 2024
- Crypto, bitcoin and CBDCs.
Alex Gessner is COO and Managing Director at ACI Diversity Consulting as well as a speaker and panelist. She spent 14 years as a senior executive in product and tech in the finance industry, at American Express and most recently Solaris, where she was responsible for innovative and disruptive projects in the digital and open banking space.
From chatbots to Buy Now Pay Later, product pitches in London and New York and testing Apple Pay at 4am at the Frankfurt train station, she's seen it all.
Her specialty is organisational design and building scalable teams and businesses. Finance disruptor by day, diversity activist by night: in this homogeneous industry, she has built several intersectional networks, including futura at Solaris, and conducted the first data collection in Europe focusing not only on "women and finance" but especially on trans* and migrant women.
She has been recognised for her achievements as a Future Maker by Business Insider, as Prout Executive #1 by Prout At Work and many more, including Global Digital Women, Beyond Gender Agenda, Impact of Diversity.
We discuss the following in our conversation:
- The financial services industry
- Financial inclusion
- The report: 'Finance is for Everyone'
- What women look for in financial services products
- How to engage more women in investing products?
- Why increasing financial literacy is key
- How can women engage more around their money?
Kristine Beese is the CEO of Untangle Money. Her goal is to get an affordable, unbiased financial plan into the hands of every woman in the world. Equipping women to close the gender wealth gap, thereby improving global gender equity.
Kristine talks about the unintended consequences of a financial system built for the typical male. She shares captivating stories about what women need to know about money and what women can do differently to align their day-to-day spending with their long-term goals so that women can make the best financial decisions for themselves.
Equipped with research, insights, and experience, Kristine is a credible and compelling resource that regularly educates audiences on why gendered financial equity is critically important.
As a woman and a mother, Kristine learned through her experience in male-dominated industries that women experience the world differently from men, especially regarding wealth and finance. As a result, her work is developed for women using women-specific data.
Kristine is a former national pairs figure skater who brings tenacity and bravery to her role as a founder. A problem solver by nature, her international experience in engineering, capital markets and wealth management helps her look at problems from a first-principles perspective. Kristine holds an MBA from the Ivey School of Business and an engineering physics degree from Queen's University.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- Women's experience with money
- Why language is important
- Why Kristine started Untangle Money
- Her journey as a founder
- The vision for Untangle Money
- And how we do encourage more women to invest in the startup ecosystem.
Sarah Courtney Dockett is Managing Director at Citi Private Bank, Head of Women in Wealth, EMEA. She is passionate about Diversity and Inclusion. She is also a Senior Private Banker in the UK Ultra High Net Worth Team based in London. Sarah is responsible for managing 30 client and Family Office relationships. While they may be resident in the UK, Sarah’s clients span the globe and she has a specialism in dealing with US connected clients. Sarah has 23 years of experience working with Private Clients, 12 of which she has spent with Citi.
We cover the following in the interview:
- Sarah's most memorable experience with money growing up
- Why is money a taboo topic, especially in the UK?
- Women's growing economic power
- The financial services industry and what needs to change
- Citi's approach to gender diversity and inclusion
- The rise of female investors
- Female founders and raising capital
- Women's relationship to money
- And how can women engage more with their money?
Kathleen Burns Kingsbury is an internationally published author, coach and consultant. Her firm, KBK Wealth Connection, delivers confidence-building negotiation programs specifically designed for women.
Kathleen knows what it means to struggle with negotiating and has learned what it takes to shift fear into focus so that women advisors, coaches and consultants can charge for their value, make more sales, and feel great about it.
She is currently working on her sixth book, Unleash Your True ValueTM: How to Shift Your Negotiation Mindset, Boost Your Confidence. and Close More Sales.
Kathleen has a unique blend of business negotiating experience and expertise in financial psychology that makes her programs extremely effective in changing mindsets and behaviours to achieve better results.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- Why is money a taboo topic, especially for women?
- Common money mistakes
- Gender norms and how this holds women back
- Financial services and the wealth management industry
- What is a financially successful life?
Anam Parvez Butt is a Pakistani feminist economist who currently works as the Head of Research at Oxfam GB where she works with others to develop and implement Oxfam’s research agendas on care and informal work, fragility and conflict and climate justice.
In particular, the focus areas of her research include gender and macroeconomic policies, the care economy, feminist economic alternatives including metrics that challenge the neoliberal logic of growth, social norms and ending violence against women and girls (eVAWG).
She is deeply committed to integrating intersectional feminist and decolonial approaches in research, learning from and supporting others to do so.
She has co-authored two of Oxfam’s flagship inequality reports including “Time to Care”, the “Care Policy Scorecard” and recently published paper on “Radical Pathways to move beyond GDP”.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- The GDP measure: what is it?
- Why this is problematic for women and for women's wealth
- Why Oxfam has added its voice to move beyond the GDP
- The recently published report called Radical Pathways Beyond GDP
- Why and how we need to pursue feminist and decolonial alternatives urgently
- And how do we accelerate the pace of change?
Jana Hlistova is the Founder of The Purse and The Purse Podcast. Jana's focus is on women-centred innovation and closing the gender investing gap.
She stands for women's financial empowerment, gender lens investing, women investing in women, entrepreneurship, technology and social impact.
Her personal mission is to level the playing field for women. She believes that women, women founders and women investors are reshaping the future of business and innovation.
Jana has 18years+ experience in senior business development and commercial management in tech, digital, media and professional services.
She has a MSc from the London School of Economics. And she is a gender lens investor and invests in crypto.
To celebrate 100 podcasts, Jana talks about:
- Her background
- Women's economic empowerment
- Why start The Purse and The Purse Podcast
- Fund-raising as female founder
- Women, money & investing
- Startup failure
- The financial services industry
- Women investors
- Money lessons learnt
Maya Ghosn is a Lebanese/Brazilian investor and advisor to purpose-driven organisations with a focus on mental health and sexual health.
After studying industrial engineering at Stanford in the USA, she worked at McKinsey for four years where she managed client projects for their Social Sector Practice.
She then moved to California to help build out the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropy started by Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg focused on building technology for social good.
She is now an active angel investor, investing personally and through Sequoia's scout program, as well as a Principal at Bridge Builders Collaborative, a US-based investment group focused on mental health.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- Female angel investors
- The UK vs US startup culture
- Maya's investment thesis
- How Maya invests in startups
- Angel investment networks and syndicates
- How female founders raise funding
- Toughest investing lessons
- How do we level the playing field for female founders
- How do we encourage more women to invest?
Shaun Richards is an independent economist who specialises in inflation measurement and monetary economics. This follows a career in the City of London where he specialised in derivatives (mainly options) on interest rates and bonds.
Shaun has also worked in Tokyo. He is a Bank of England watcher which covers the issues of monetary policy and money printing or quantitative easing (QE). Shaun also traded as a local on the London International Financial Futures Exchange where he mostly traded futures and options on future and present UK interest rates.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The Bank of England (BoE)-are they credible?
- Rising interest rates
- The cost of living crisis
- The energy debate
- CBDCs (digital currency)
- What can we be optimistic about in the UK economy?
Triin Linamagi is the Founding Partner of Sie Ventures backing early stage female-led companies, and running a Capital Platform to drive more funding to diverse founding teams.
Formerly she was Vice President at The Venture Collective, investing in companies across US and UK.
She was also an early-stage investor at Founders Factory and Startupbootcamp.
Before her career in investments, she was a founder and operator in three companies across FinTech and Future of Work.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- Sie Ventures: the backstory
- Why is it still difficult for female founders to raise funding?
- Female founders generate higher returns
- The vision for the fund & thesis
- Investing in diversity
- Female investors-how do they differ in how they invest?
- How do we ensure gender lens investing goes mainstream?
Bernadette Joy is the rich auntie you didn't know you needed. She launched Crush Your Money Goals® in 2020, a money media company to serve up practical and fun educational content.
In that short time, she's taught thousands across the country her simple strategies to pay down debt, save more money, invest with confidence and pursue financial peace.
Agree with her strategies or not, there’s no denying her cred: Joy paid off $300,000 of debt in three years and built her first $1 million of net worth in her 30s as a first generation Filipina-American, the eighth of her father's nine kids.
She's been featured as a money expert on CNBC, Good Morning America, Business Insider and named to The 25 Most Influential New Voices of Money by NextAdvisor in partnership with TIME magazine.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- Why commit to financial independence
- Money scripts and why mental health drives wealth
- Why renting is better than homeownership
- Growing personal wealth through other investment vehicles
- Why women need to become financially independent.
Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser and a board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
She was previously Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service. Before that she was Partner at the accounting and consulting firm KPMG after senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector.
She has held a number of academic posts and is a Fellow and Council member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Society of Professional Economists and a Companion of the British Academy of Management. She was until recently on the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and is a member of the Advisory Board of the central banking think-tank OMFIF and of the Economic Advisory Group of the British Chambers of Commerce. She is also a Patron of the charities Pro-Bono Economics and Working Chance.
Her books include: “Greekonomics: The Euro crisis and Why Politicians Don't Get It”; “It's the Economy, Stupid- Economics for Voters”, with Ross and Urwin; “Redesigning Manufacturing”, with Nielsen and Beverland”; and “Why Women Need Quotas”.
Her latest book, “Women vs Capitalism”, was published by Hurst in November 2019. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality. She is co-founder of GoodCorporation, a company set up to advise on corporate social responsibility, is a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London, was the first female Master of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants and has been sitting on the City’s Members Diversity Working Party.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Inflation and getting back to the target 2%
- UK inflation-energy prices and food prices
- Brexit and the impact on inflation
- Rising interest rates and mortgages
- Cost of living crisis
- Wealth inequality
- What's ahead for 2023 and 2024
Eva Pascoe is a digital leader who has pioneered the Internet, e-payments, ecommerce fashion solutions and CRM.
Eva is co-founder of a non-profit digital think-tank Cybersalon.org, she also co-founded the world's first Internet cafe called 'Cyberia Internet Cafe' in 1994. And she developed fashion web shops for (including) Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Racing Green and Burton.
After a successful Crowdcube fundraising campaign in January 2017, Eva joined Bluebella as a non-executive director, overseeing the brand's digital acquisition and international ecommerce strategy.
Since 2013 her ecommerce consultancy The Retail Practice has been advising the largest pan-European lingerie brand Hunkemoller.
In her role as Charity Trustee for Trading Group, Eva has also advised one of the largest UK military charities, Help4Heroes, supporting the charity team since 2013 in their online trading activities on digital acquisition, CRM and transition to new e-commerce platform.
She has co-authored digital retail policy papers on Re-imagining The High Street and a new policy for West End of London in her “Surf and Turf” contribution to a recent publication commissioned by the Centre for London and New West End Company.
She regularly speaks at key retail industry events run by the Retail Institute and runs a weekly digital innovations blog The Retail Bytes.
Eva is also an active angel investor with a focus on female founders. She is also a mentor at Block Dojo, the global blockchain incubator.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The future of money
- What are CBCDs? How does this differ to cryptocurrencies?
- Why is government, around the world, looking into CBDCs?
- What are the issues vs the benefits?
- Plans to introduce the digital pound.
- A multi-currency world: can CBDCs and crypto co-exist?
- London: the emerging crypto hub
- Where will CBDCs and the crypto market be in 5-7 years?
Holly Morphew, AFC® is an award-winning financial coach based in Denver, Colorado. She the Founder of Financial Impact, a specialised financial coaching practice that helps entrepreneurs and professionals create personal wealth and financial independence.
A pioneer in the personal finance industry, Holly’s work has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, FemFounder, and more. Host of The Wealth Trifecta podcast, Holly’s professional background in finance, real estate investing, and entrepreneurship are the foundation of Financial Impact’s transformational programs.
Her book Simple Wealth was on Bankrate’s top ten personal finance books of 2022 and is a #1 best-seller on Amazon in nine categories including personal finance, wealth management, credit repair, personal transformation, real estate, and women & business.
Holly began teaching personal finance in 2006 as a service project with Rotary International, and received the prestigious “Rotarian of the Year” award for her work in financial literacy. She has also been recognised for “Bridging the Gap” for outstanding work in private practice as an Accredited Financial Counsellor®.
Holly has a B.A. from the University of Colorado in International Affairs and Japanese with a Minor in Business.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- How Holly achieved financial independence early on in life
- Why money is often a complicated subject
- The money mindset and why money habits are a key part of wealth building
- What to consider if as a woman you are single or unattached
- What women should consider before getting married so their finances are secure
- How to think about money and investing if you have kids
- And how to divorce well financially
- Why working with a financial coach is a good idea
- And Holly shares her final thoughts on how women should build wealth and why this is important.
Julie A. Nelson is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She was a founding member of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and co-edited (with Marianne Ferber) the book Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics (sometimes called the “manifesto” of our field), published in 1993.
Her most recent books are Economics for Humans (2nd edition) and Gender and Risk-Taking: Economics, Evidence, and Why the Answer Matters. Her shorter pieces have been published in journals ranging from Econometrica and the Journal of Political Economy to Hypatia: Journal of Feminist Philosophy and Ecological Economics. She is editor of the Business Ethics and Economics section of the Journal of Business Ethics, and was the 2019 President of the Association for Social Economics.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Women and risk taking
- Gender bias in economics and the impact on women
- Why economics is about people
- The need to be open to diverse views and perspectives
- How the field of economics should address 'real world problems'
- Why economists need to be more radical.
Angela Atherton (CFA, FRM) is the Co-founder and Principal of Parallelle Finance. Her commitment to financial inclusion and impact investing began at the start of her career when she managed screening and performance analysis for two ESG indexes.
She structured private equity deals at American Capital Strategies. She led risk analysis and management functions at Fannie Mae and Calvert Impact Capital, a non-profit investment firm.
As the Chief Operating and Financial Officer at The Global Good Fund, a social enterprise, she ran day-to-day operations and led commercial expansion.
Angela is an experienced entrepreneur, she co-founded a female-led fintech, Capital Market Exchange, and launched an independent consulting practice with a global reach, including emerging and developed markets in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- An update on gender lens investing since end of 2021
- The $1.4trn investment into the Japan focused Gender Diversity Index
- The launch of the Indxx Equileap's US Women in Technology Index
- How have gender lens equity funds and fixed income funds performed over this period
- Are we seeing a change in sentiment towards gender lens investing?
Sabrina del Prete is the founder and CEO of Kore, a Financial Technology company based in London. She has over 25 years’ experience in financial markets, business transformation and application of new technologies in banking. Throughout her career, Sabrina has held senior roles at JP Morgan Chase, Barclays, Coutts and RBS.
She is actively involved in the entrepreneurial and FinTech community, both as a strategic adviser and as an investor.
She currently sits on the Board of Governors of the London Institute of Banking and Finance. Sabrina holds a Masters in Finance from the London Business School and a degree in Business and Economics from the University of Turin. She has won a number of innovation awards for her work and she has been included in the Timetric Power 50 list of the most influential digital innovators in Europe
Sabrina is an Italian national, she lives and works in London.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- Sabrina talks about her scale-up
- Her journey from the corporate world in financial services to the world of startups
- Why start the business
- How Sabrina was able to get her startup off the ground
- Fundraising and her experience as a female founder
- Sabrina shares her vision for success
- Finding investors who align with your values and goals
- Female investors
- And how women can start angel investing.
Edith Kuiper is Associate Professor and Chair of the Economics Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz, updates New York. She edited (with Drucilla Barker) Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Economics (Routledge, 2003) and Feminist Economics and the World Bank (Routledge, 2006), and the Routledge Major Works Series Feminist Economics. Critical Concepts (2010).
She also published 3 volumes of Women’s Economic Thought in the Eighteenth Century (Routledge, 2014) and recently A Herstory of Economics (Polity Press, 2022). She has been a long-time, active member of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and was President of IAFFE in 2006.
Her research has been in feminist economics and in the history and philosophy of economics. She is currently a visiting researcher at the Centre of Resilience and Sustainable Development at the University of Cambridge.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- Edith's book: a Herstory of Economics
- The field of economics and the lack of attention to women, their economic issues and interests
- How this has a lasting impact on women's pay and their personal wealth to this day
- Women's work, often undervalued and underpaid
- The world of finance and why women have been largely absent
- And why we need more women in economics and how women can be made to feel more welcome.
Tracy Lewis is a Global Brand CEO, Chair, NED, investor, advisor, mentor, and award winning entrepreneur. Her career has spanned the fashion, consumer, retail, beauty, recruitment, employability, marketing services and impact investment sectors and she has proven experience of establishing and growing profitable business across Europe, North America, Australasia and the Middle and Far East. Working with private equity as both CEO and NED, Tracy has achieved successful business exits, realising significant shareholder value.
We cover the following this our conversation:
- How to build a global lingerie brand
- Working with a private equity partner
- ESG and impact investing
- How women are changing business
- Women in the workplace
- Some of the toughest business moments and what it takes to overcome them
- How Tracy started angel investing
- And how more women can start investing in early stage businesses.
Shaun Richards is an independent economist who specialises in inflation measurement and monetary economics. This follows a career in the City of London where he specialised in derivatives (mainly options) on interest rates and bonds.
Shaun has also worked in Tokyo. He is a Bank of England watcher which covers the issues of monetary policy and money printing or quantitative easing (QE). Shaun also traded as a local on the London International Financial Futures Exchange where he mostly traded futures and options on future and present UK interest rates.
This podcast was recorded on Wednesday morning, 22 March 2023. Since then the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England (BoE) have hiked rates by 0.25%. And Janet Yellen, US Secretary of the Treasury has 'blurred the lines on bank depositors'.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The banking crisis: how did we get here?
- How are the central banks and governments responding?
- Inflation & interest rates
- And what's ahead?
Michele Wucker is a strategist, speaker and best-selling author. She coined the term 'Gray Rhino' as a call to take a fresh look at how we respond to obvious probable and impactful risks.
She founded the Chicago-based advisory firm Gray Rhino & Company and is a former media and think tank executive. Her four books include the influential global bestseller THE GRAY RHINO: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore and the recently released sequel, YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World.
Barbara Stewart is a Chartered Financial Analyst with 30 years of investment industry experience, five years as a foreign currency trader, more than two decades as a portfolio manager for high net worth entrepreneurs, and for the past six years doing interview driven research from multiple global financial institutions.
Thirteen years ago, Barbara saw a need to challenge outdated financial industry stereotypes and share positive messages about women and money. Today, Barbara is recognised worldwide as one of the leading researchers in women and finance. Rich Thinking, global research papers quote smart women and men of all ages, professions, and countries, and are released annually on International Women's Day on March 8th. To find out more about Barbara’s research, visit www.barbarastewart.ca.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- We talk about risk: why we need to understand it
- How it relates to women specifically around money and investing
- Negative stereotypes and money myths
- The impact on women- how they invest and how they are perceived by the financial services industry
- How women can overcome systemic risk in order to ensure their financial resilience and their financial security
- Investing in yourself.
Vicky Pryce is an Economist and the author of her latest book 'Women vs Capitalism', which was published by Hurst in November of 2019. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality.
Victoria Ross is a Chartered Financial Planner for Progeny Wealth. Victoria has 18 years experience within financial services, during which she also completed the qualifications as a Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Managerial Accountant. As a Financial Planner, her key drivers are ensuring women reach out for and receive appropriate financial advice and that younger generations are financially informed.
This recording is from a webinar and we cover the following topics:
- What is the gender wealth gap?
- Why is closing the gender wealth gap important?
- How do we close the gender wealth gap?
- How can women manage their money to protect and grow their long term financial wealth?
- How can women engage more in long-term investing?
- What can the government and employers do to close the gender wealth gap?
- What books, blogs or podcasts can inspire or educate women on how to invest?
Abby Davisson is a social innovation leader and career development expert. Most recently, she spent nine years at global retailer Gap Inc., where she served as president of the Gap Foundation and a senior leader on the ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) team.
Abby also co-founded the company’s employee resource group for working parents, which has been featured as a best practice for how employers can support dual-career couples. Abby's expertise in career development comes from serving as an alumni career coach at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and from forging her own non-traditional career path (across the public, private, and non-profit sectors).
Abby holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University. She lives with her husband and their two sons in San Francisco.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Money and love: how relationships impact our money decisions
- How to communicate and negotiate effectively
- The 5C decision making framework and how this applies to 3 key life scenarios:
- a) choosing a mate or choosing whether to marry, b) combining family and career and c) deciding whether to break up or indeed to divorce your partner
- How gender norms play into these decisions
- And how to create that win-win situation for yourself and for your loved one.
Alix Lebec is the founder and CEO of Lebec Consulting, a women-owned and led company working across philanthropy, impact investing, and ESG.
Alix is a seasoned entrepreneur and strategic advisor with a global perspective and two decades of experience. Her career began at the World Bank in Paris and Southeast Asia, followed by the Clinton Global Initiative and Water.org. There, she mobilised $60 million in philanthropy before launching WaterEquity alongside co-founders Gary White and Matt Damon. As a founding member, she built a winning team and developed an innovative organizational and capital blueprint—mobilising +$200 million in investment capital and philanthropy, alongside developing and launching blended finance fund structures. Her leadership, strategy, and expertise transformed the organisation from an $11 million pilot fund to a successful global impact investment manager.
Alix is an iDE board member, a member of 100 Women in Finance, and a regular contributor on ESG, impact investing, philanthropy, and the urgency of investing in women in emerging markets. She holds a Master of Science in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Business from the American University of Paris.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Investing in emerging markets
- Why we need more women and diversity in corporate and financial institution boardrooms
- The paradigm shift needed in mainstream finance to make this happen
- How women lead and invest differently
- Female founders raising funding in emerging markets
- And where financial services will be in 2030.
Diana van Maasdijk is the Co-Founder & CEO of Equileap, an ESG data provider specialised in gender data.
Headquartered in Amsterdam, Equileap is the leading provider of data and insights on gender equality in the corporate sector. Equileap researches and ranks 4000 public companies around the world using a unique and comprehensive Gender Equality Scorecard™ with 19 criteria, including the gender balance of the workforce, senior management and board, as well as the gender pay gap, parental leave, and sexual harassment.
Prior to launching Equileap, Diana worked as Head of Philanthropy at ABN AMRO Private Bank and Director of Development at Mama Cash, the world's oldest international women's fund.
She has a BA from Hamilton College and an MA in international development from American University.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Gender equality at work
- The challenges we see in companies around gender data
- Equileap's Gender Equality Scorecard
- Why gender lens investing is still considered a niche market
- The role investors play
- Euronext's partnership with Equileap
- Where will gender equality in the workplace be in 2030?
- How can more women invest?
Patricia Lizarraga is an experienced independent corporate board director, Audit Committee Chair, Risk Committee member and Financial Expert for NYSE listed companies. She is a Wall Street executive with over 25 years of international mergers & acquisitions, capital markets, private equity and valuation experience.
Patricia founded Hypatia Capital in 2007, as a corporate finance advisory firm, and currently is an asset manager and sponsor of the Hypatia Women CEO ETF (NYSE: WCEO) and owner of the Hypatia Women Hedge Fund Index (HWIX) – Powered by Wilshire and the Hypatia Women CEO Index (HWCEO).
Her current board experience includes John Hancock Group of Funds, where she serves on the Audit Committee, as well as Credicorp Ltd. (NYSE:BAP) and Banco de Credito del Peru, the largest financial services company and largest bank in Peru, respectively.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The Female Factor: why invest?
- The launch of the Hypatia Capital's Women CEO ETF (WCEO)
- How it came about and why invest in the ETF?
- How women and men can align their values with investing?
- Patricia shares her advice for women who are starting out on their investment journey
- And we talk about how to close the gender investing gap.
Tatum Getty has built her career in marketing, working with brands such as Mattel, SoulCycle, Barry’s Bootcamp, and Tonal for the past 10+ years scaling them across the US and in the UK.
She has an MBA from the University of Southern California and an undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis. While helping build brands from the inside, she began angel investing in early staged startups focused on health and wellness, which were the building blocks for launching a venture capital fund with her two business partners in 2022 called THENA Capital.
THENA Capital is a UK Medical Technology fund focused on investing in early stage digital and device companies in the health sector, adding significant value to founders as they build their go-to-market strategy and commercialise in this space and helping them scale into the US market.
Tatum is passionate about closing the gender healthcare gap, and THENA’s foundation incorporates a gender smart investment strategy ensuring capital is supporting gender balanced teams and considering women’s needs as a customer segment.
The businesses they support address key need spaces such as chronic conditions, women’s health, oncology, mental health, and care service delivery with the mission to transform patient experiences.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- How Tatum set up THENA Capital with her two co-founders
- Why they're applying a gender smart strategy to how they invest
- Raising investment: finding the right investors
- Working with mentors and advisors
- Lessons learned
- How women can start to invest in the startup ecosystem via a fund.
Barbara Clarke is the Co-Founder of The Impact Seat LLC and Chair of the Board of The Impact Seat Foundation.
Launched in 2021, The Impact Seat Foundation strives to create a world in which women, particularly women of color, succeed as business leaders. Barbara’s vision of full stack philanthropy melds impact investing, advocacy and grantmaking to accelerate an expanded and equitable economy for all.
As one of the top U.S. individual investors in women-led innovative tech startups, Barbara’s iconic investment strategy has inspired many others around the world. Currently, she serves on a variety of boards, including Founders First Capital Partners, an innovative revenue based financing firm formed to support diverse small businesses around the country.
She is also a founding member of Astia Angels who invest in impactful high-growth companies led by inclusive teams with women leaders.
In addition, Barbara served as one of the founding members of the Portfolia, Inc Board of Directors. Portfolia is a venture fund focused on investing in the solutions women want in the world. In 2022, Barbara released her Amazon best-selling book, “Build Your Board, Build Your Business”.
A polyglot, Barbara speaks five languages and splits her time between New England and Berlin.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Women's relationship with money
- Why Barbara decided to start investing in female founder startups
- How she started on her journey as an angel investor
- How she invests in early stage businesses
- The value add that female investors can provide
- Barbara's favourite startup investment
- Startup lessons learned
- Wy we need more female investors
- The role that wealth managers have to play
- Barbara talks to us about how women can start on their own journey to become angel investors.
Julie Castro Abrams is the founder and Managing Partner of How Women Invest, an early stage venture firm focussed on high growth, tech enabled women-founded enterprises. The firm is a culmination of her lifetime of work propelling women founders to launch and find success with training, capital and networks.
Julie brings her extensive experience identifying and supporting early stage entrepreneurs and twenty years as a CEO and board director. She is bringing her extensive networks, leadership and entrepreneurship experience to disruption of the venture landscape.
An active investor and advisor to start-ups, and as the leader of the nation's largest microenterprise and microfinance organisation for 11 years, Julie has helped launch over 6,000 women into successful businesses.
Today she is advising the SBA, White House and Congress on national legislative initiatives to address economic opportunities for women. She serves on the California First Partners Project as an advisor regarding corporate board diversity. In her role as Founder and CEO of How Women Lead, she has been a driver of legislative initiatives and transformation in the US and California.
Julie serves as an Advisor to financial services firms including the fin-tech start-up LENDonate and Nia Capital. She previously served as an advisor to Beneficial Bank and as the Governance Chair for the Association for Enterprise Opportunity and the Women’s Funding Network.
As the CEO of How Women Lead, she is at the centre of the movement to disrupt antiquated, unequal systems by propelling women into even greater leadership roles and increasing opportunities for all women. Julie has been an essential driver of the ecosystem for women on corporate boards in California. Julie has been a national leader in the movement and drove the successful passage of the groundbreaking Senate Bill 826, requiring public companies to have women on their boards.
The recipient of many accolades, she has been awarded the More Jobs Genius Award, the Morgan Stanley Innovation Award, Cisco’s Innovation in Technology Award.
We cover the following on our conversation:
- The early stage VC fund, How Women Invest
- Julie's journey for setting up the fund
- And how she has raised funding from female investors.
Anna Sofat, known as the Voice of Women’s Wealth, is passionate about money being a force for good in business and beyond. As an award winning and highly qualified financial planner until recently, she had advised private clients for over 20 years.
She is a regular contributor to national press and TV and has been a judge for various industry awards over the years. In the past she has chaired the Nucleus Financial Services Advisory Board and was non-executive director at Fair Finance, the micro finance social business.
Anna is a graduate of Hull University and has a Masters from LSE. She holds the Chartered Financial Planning and Certified Financial Planner qualifications. She has been awarded the Unbiased.co.uk’s Financial Adviser of the year and was recognised as the Top female Adviser by Financial Adviser. In 2019, she was awarded the Women Financial Adviser of the Year by Professional Adviser and voted its Personality of the Year in 2020.
Anna founded Addidi, a financial services boutique for women. Addidi was regularly featured as one of the Top 100 Advisory firm by the New Model Adviser and won the Money Marketing Small Adviser of the Year Award in 2018. The firm was sold to Progeny Wealth in 2019. Prior to founding Addidi, Anna was the MD at Fiona Price & Partners, providing financial advice for women by women.
Having founded Addidi Angels, UK’s first women business angel, she is an angel investor in a number of businesses and an advocate for female founders.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- How Anna started her business, Addidi
- How Anna grew the business
- Taking outside investment and finding the right investors
- Media's obsession with unicorns
- Building a business and investing for social impact (nor just financial returns)
- The exit: how to sell your business
- Women's wealth
- Why we need more women investing and more women investing in the startup ecosystem.
Julia Elliott Brown is a highly respected entrepreneurial advisor working exclusively with female founders, with a wealth of experience in inspiring, coaching and supporting high-growth potential businesses.
As a serial entrepreneur working in the start-up industry for over 25 years, Julia has built, funded, and grown several successful companies from fashion-tech, consumer data, publishing, e-commerce to consultancy, and is highly experienced in raising investment finance. Julia is an advisor, mentor, workshop leader, accomplished public speaker, and a long-standing judge at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards. She is the founder and CEO of Enter The Arena, providing investment expertise and business coaching for female founders, host of leading business podcast Fundraising Stories with Female Founders and author of RAISE: The Female Founder’s Guide To Securing Investment.
Supporting start-ups every step of the way, Julia is committed and highly involved with her clients as they progress through their growth journey. As strategic advisor, she helps clients to navigate the scaling and investment process effectively, developing fundraising skills, leadership skills, business acumen and the confidence needed to enter the arena and smash down the barriers to success.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- The UK startup ecosystem and startup investing since the pandemic started in 2020
- Julia'a new book, Raise: The Female Founder's Guide to Securing Investment
- How to successfully raise as a female founder
- How to do due diligence on potential investors and when to walk away
- Female angel investors and why we need more men to invest
- How to encourage more women to invest.
Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser and a board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
She was previously Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service. Before that she was Partner at the accounting and consulting firm KPMG after senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector.
She has held a number of academic posts and is a Fellow and Council member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Society of Professional Economists and a Companion of the British Academy of Management. She was until recently on the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and is a member of the Advisory Board of the central banking think-tank OMFIF and of the Economic Advisory Group of the British Chambers of Commerce. She is also a Patron of the charities Pro-Bono Economics and Working Chance.
Her books include: “Greekonomics: The Euro crisis and Why Politicians Don't Get It”; “It's the Economy, Stupid- Economics for Voters”, with Ross and Urwin; “Redesigning Manufacturing”, with Nielsen and Beverland”; and “Why Women Need Quotas”.
Her latest book, “Women vs Capitalism”, was published by Hurst in November 2019. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality. She is co-founder of GoodCorporation, a company set up to advise on corporate social responsibility, is a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London, was the first female Master of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants and has been sitting on the City’s Members Diversity Working Party.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The UK bond market: what are gilts?
- Why are gilts so volatile at the moment?
- Why did the Bank of England (BoE) have to intervene after the 'mini budget' in September?
- What are LDI strategies and should pensions be using them?
- The problem with UK growth
Victoria Ross is a Chartered Financial Planner for Progeny Wealth.
Progeny bring together independent financial planning, asset management, tax, HR and private and corporate legal services, under one roof. Victoria has 18 years experience within financial services, during which she also completed the qualifications as a chartered financial analyst and chartered managerial accountant.
As a financial planner, her key drivers are ensuring women reach out for and receive appropriate financial advice and that younger generations are financially informed.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- Women's relationship to money
- Why the cost of living crisis is more of a concern for women
- What women can do to protect and grow their money during this time
- Index funds vs ETFs
- The new tax incentives for investing in startups and smaller companies
- Progeny research: women's aspirations and concerns about transferring money onto their loved ones
- Tips for finding a good financial planner
- How to start working with a financial planner.
Sally Mueller is the Co-founder and CEO of Womaness.
Womaness is a high-performance collection of modern menopause products developed for women, by women that offer solutions from head to toe (and everything in between). With community, education, and inspiration, Womaness sparks the power of menopositivity.
Sally is a consummate business builder specialising in retail and brand innovation. Her trend-forecasting Midas touch has benefited companies such as Target, Who What Wear and VERSED skincare, among others.
She is a seasoned executive with impeccable entrepreneurial acumen. Sally spent over two decades of her career at Target Corporation, first in Apparel Merchandising and then in Marketing, helping to build the bullseye from a regional discount retailer to one of the world's most recognized and influential global brands. She developed and implemented Target’s designer program and Design for All platform, transforming the regional discount retailer into a global phenomenon.
Previously, Sally launched her own company, Whyse Branding, where she formed a licensing relationship with Who What Wear and successfully launched the consumer products line in Target stores and ultimately achieved international distribution.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- The menopause and why is it a taboo topic?
- What are some of the challenges women face as a result?
- Reclaiming the narrative around the menopause
- Womaness: building a menopause startup
- Building a new consumer brand
- The importance of community
- How to find the right investors
- How to start investing
Shaun Richards is an independent economist who specialises in inflation measurement and monetary economics. This follows a career in the City of London where he specialised in derivatives (mainly options) on interest rates and bonds.
Shaun has also worked in Tokyo. He is a Bank of England watcher which covers the issues of monetary policy and money printing or quantitative easing (QE). Shaun also traded as a local on the London International Financial Futures Exchange where he mostly traded futures and options on future and present UK interest rates.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The UK bond market (and near collapse)
- The Bank of England's QE intervention. And will they continue printing money?
- Can we have rising high interest rates and QE?
- The housing market
- What's in store for Q4 and 2023?
Listen to previous interviews with Shaun Richards here: episode #68, episode #47 and episode #29.
Ruth Shaber, MD is the Founder and President of the Tara Health Foundation, which promotes health, well-being, and opportunity for women and girls through innovative evidence-informed programs. She is also the Co-founder and Board Chair of Rhia Ventures, a group of foundations and investors that collaborate to bring new types of capital and enterprise to the field of reproductive health in the United States.
Ruth had a robust career as an Obstetrician and Gynecologist at Kaiser Permanente from 1990 to 2012.
Ruth was featured in Forbes 2020 Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit—and Pushing for Change for her contributions to the field of impact investing.
Ruth holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Yale University.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- The women's health market in the US
- Why the market is underinvested and underserved
- Tara Health Foundation & Rhia Ventures
- Investing in women's reproductive and maternal health
- What the market will look like 50 years+ from now
- How more women can engage as investors.
Anna Poberezhna is a sustainable development and technology entrepreneur. She is the founder for ClearHub which is reimagining resources, industrials & infrastructure to rebuild peace, security & prosperity. Anna is a mentor, published author, speaker, life-lover and daughter.
She is a Fellow; part of the Sustainable Finance Live initiative, Blockchain Climate Institute; and a mentor at SWAN.
*Women in Mining, Responsible materials, Minerals diplomacy, TEDx, Responsible Finance, IWWA, UN COP24 (SIF Forum), Bloomberg Environment, Global Water Intelligence, The Water Report UK and EBRD publications and discussions. *
Anna is the first Ukrainian woman recognised for her exceptional digital talent by the UK Government (1 out of 3000 in 2016).
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Cleantech and why we should care
- The underlying values and principles that guide the Cleantech industry
- How this differs to traditional business and why it matters
- Investors and what it's like raising money as a female founder
- How women as founders, investors, and stakeholders are reshaping this industry on a global scale.
Patience Marime-Ball has more than two decades of investment experience across capital markets, including debt and equity financing, large scale infrastructure, distressed assets, as well as venture stage opportunities.
Previously, Patience was Principal Investment Officer and Global Head of Banking on Women at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) where she developed the Banking on Women business; Patience co-developed the first-ever gender bond issued on the Uridashi market. She is the founder/CEO of Women of the World Endowment, an investment nonprofit focused on centralizing women as economic, environmental, and social changemakers while delivering market-rate, risk adjusted returns and impact at scale.
Patience holds a JD from the Pritzker School of Law and an MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University.
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Ruth Shaber, MD is the founder and president of the Tara Health Foundation, which promotes health, well-being, and opportunity for women and girls through innovative evidence-informed programs. She is also the co-founder and board chair of Rhia Ventures, a group of foundations and investors that collaborate to bring new types of capital and enterprise to the field of reproductive health in the United States.
Ruth had a robust career as an Obstetrician and Gynecologist at Kaiser Permanente from 1990 to 2012.
Ruth was featured in Forbes 2020 Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit—and Pushing for Change for her contributions to the field of impact investing.
Ruth holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Yale University.
In this conversation we cover the following:
- Why women need to take centre stage in financial decision making and investing
- How women invest
- Why investing in female led innovation is key
- How we can put more money into the hands of women in order to drive better outcomes and create more wealth for women.
Shaun Richards is an independent economist who specialises in inflation measurement and monetary economics. This follows a career in the City of London where he specialised in derivatives (mainly options) on interest-rates and bonds.
Shaun has also worked in Tokyo. He is a Bank of England watcher which covers the issues of monetary policy and money printing or quantitative easing (QE). Shaun also traded as a local on the London International Financial Futures Exchange where he mostly traded futures and options on future and present UK interest rates.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Why we're seeing a surge in inflation in the UK and globally?
- Why is inflation data inaccurate and often misleading?
- What will curb inflation: monetary & fiscal policy
- How bad can it get?
- What will it take for the UK to recover from this cost of living crisis?
Listen to previous interviews with Shaun Richards here: episode #47 and episode #29.
Rebecca Chesworth is an equities strategist, a thought leader and a conference speaker.
She loves to share a passion for equities investment built on extensive market and client knowledge from 30 years as a fund manager, an analyst and an investment specialist.
Rebecca is an advocate of active investment selection and integration of ESG principles utilising cheap, flexible instruments such as exchange traded funds (ETFs).
Rebecca is a lead strategist on sectors and ESG for SPDR ETFs at State Street Global Advisors.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is happening in the markets today?
- How to think about a difficult or a bear market?
- Rebecca shares her outlook for the rest of 2022 and for 2023.
- What actions European investors are taking?
- And how you should be thinking about investing at this time?
Gillian Fleming's expertise includes Advisor, Investor and Non-Exec to start-up and spin-out companies with 20 years’ experience in the entrepreneurial ecosystem advising and nurturing early-stage ideas through to company creation. Specialising in technology commercialisation her expertise covers energy, oil and gas, infrastructure, engineering, biotech and food & drink sectors.
With a grounding in sales and marketing within the energy and engineering sector across Europe she progressed into the University commercialisation and has successfully developed numerous startup / spinout companies from the Universities of Strathclyde, West of Scotland, Heriot Watt and Dundee.
Currently, Gillian is Founding Director and CEO of Mint Ventures (Syndicate) Ltd, an angel group focused on investing in women led and diverse teams with a social ethical or environmental purpose. She also represents Kero Developments Partners in Scotland, a private VC that invests in early-stage engineering related start-up companies.
She is also Entrepreneurial Scotland Saltire Fellow, a mentor for Women’s Enterprise Scotland (WES) as well as being an active angel investor.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Female founders
- Why access to capital continues to be a challenge.
- Female investors and why more women investing into female led innovation is key.
- Mint Ventures: the angel syndicate and what they invest in.
- And how we encourage more women to invest.
Cindy Gallop is the founder and CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn (MLNP) launched at TED 2009 – ‘Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference’.
In 2013 she turned MLNP into the world’s first user-generated, human-curated social sex video-sharing platform, socialising and normalising sex in order to make it easier to talk about, to promote consent, communication, good sexual values and good sexual behaviour. MakeLoveNotPorn is spearheading the Social Sex Revolution (the revolutionary part isn’t the sex, but the social). Given the challenges Cindy has faced finding investors, she is raising the world’s first dedicated sextech fund, All the Sky Holdings.
She speaks at conferences globally and consults, describing her approach as ‘I like to blow shit up. I am the Michael Bay of business.’
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Cindy talks to us about what she's been up to since she was last on the show ie an update on MLNP and her journey as a female founder.
- Sextech: the trillion dollar market opportunity
- Building a new market and new categories
- The challenges in the industry
- Raising $20m for MLNP
- Female investors
- Cindy's view on the overturning of Roe vs Wade (US) and where do we go from here?
Michele Wucker is a strategist, speaker, and best-selling author. She coined the term “gray rhino” as a call to take a fresh look at how we respond to obvious, probable, impactful risks. She founded the Chicago-based advisory firm Gray Rhino & Company and is a former media and think tank executive.
Her four books include the influential global bestseller THE GRAY RHINO: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore and the recently released sequel, YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Risk: what is it and how do we perceive it differently based on our own risk fingerprint?
- The gray rhino: how we can apply it to the global economy and the financial markets today?
- How women and men think and act on risk?
- Systemic risk and how women can protect themselves?
- Women: their finances, investing and building their net worth: what are some of the key risks?
- What are the gray rhinos the retail investor needs to watch out for?
Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser and a board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
She was previously Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service. Before that she was Partner at the accounting and consulting firm KPMG after senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector.
She has held a number of academic posts and is a Fellow and Council member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Society of Professional Economists and a Companion of the British Academy of Management. She was until recently on the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and is a member of the Advisory Board of the central banking think-tank OMFIF and of the Economic Advisory Group of the British Chambers of Commerce. She is also a Patron of the charities Pro-Bono Economics and Working Chance.
Her books include: “Greekonomics: The Euro crisis and Why Politicians Don't Get It”; “It's the Economy, Stupid- Economics for Voters”, with Ross and Urwin; “Redesigning Manufacturing”, with Nielsen and Beverland”; and “Why Women Need Quotas”.
Her latest book, “Women vs Capitalism”, was published by Hurst in November 2019.. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality. She is co-founder of GoodCorporation, a company set up to advise on corporate social responsibility, is a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London, was the first female Master of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants and has been sitting on the City’s Members Diversity Working Party.
This interview was conducted on Tuesday, 7th June 2022. Since then, the BoE has increased interest rates again by 0.25% (to 1.25%) and the US Federal Reserve has increased their base rate by 0.75%, the sharpest rise in 28 years.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The UK and global economy
- The surge in inflation-is it out of control?
- Will monetary policy will be effective in controlling inflation?
- Slower economic growth & stagflation
- Are we headed for a UK and global recession?
Mary Ellen Iskenderian is President and CEO of Women's World Banking, a global nonprofit devoted to giving more low-income women access to financial tools and resources they need for both security and prosperity.
Prior to Women’s World Banking, Mary Ellen worked for 17 years at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank. She had previously worked for the investment bank Lehman Brothers. Mary Ellen is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the Women’s Forum of New York, and the UN’s Business and Sustainable Development Commission.
A 2017 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellow, Mary Ellen holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in International Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Most recently, she was recognized in the Forbes 50 over 50: Investment list, which highlights female investors and financial leaders. Her upcoming book, There’s Nothing Micro About a Billion Women: Making Finance Work for Women will be published by MIT Press in March 2022.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Women's lived experience as it relates to money and power
- Why women's property rights and building women's wealth is important
- Financial inclusion, how big this opportunity is
- Mary Ellen talks to us about her new book
- And how banking institutions need to change in order to serve the female customer better.
Sara Zulkosky is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Recast Capital, a 100% women-owned platform investing in and supporting emerging managers in venture, with a focus on diverse partnerships.
Sara previously served as a Venture Partner at Greenspring Associates (now StepStone Group), where she was responsible for sourcing and due diligence efforts across the platform, managing and supporting evaluation committees and existing investments, and leading the firm's impact investing initiative. Prior to joining Greenspring, Sara served as a Principal with CNF Investments, a private investment firm affiliated with Clark Enterprises, Inc., focusing on fund and direct venture capital and private equity opportunities in technology, life sciences and energy. Prior to that, Sara participated in Foundation Capital's Young Entrepreneurs Program, where she helped identify promising investment opportunities in the Washington, DC area. Sara was also the Director of Product Management for SkyBuilt Power, Inc., a venture-backed clean-tech company that provided rapidly-deployable renewable energy solutions to the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Intelligence Community, and telecommunications industry. She was with the business from its inception, also supporting it as a Project Engineer, Project Manager, and its Director of Engineering.
Sara received a M.B.A from Georgetown University, and a M.S. in Engineering Management and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The George Washington University. Sara is also a Kauffman Fellow.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- The emerging fund manager market
- Women-led funds: why are we starting to see a massive shift now?
- Recast Capital: investment thesis and key criteria used to invest
- Investing in top performing emerging fund managers
- How to diversify and manage risk across the portfolio
- Raising investment & engaging with female LPs
- Breaking into the VC industry
- 50 years from now: what will the VC industry looks like? And how will this impact the market?
- How do we encourage more female LPs to invest?
Marypat Smucker is a Co-Founder and Principal at Parallelle Finance, a gender lens investment research firm founded in 2019. Prior to founding Parallelle, Marypat was a consultant in investment communications and editorial services for global asset management firms. She began her consultancy following a role as Managing Editor of Institutional Investment Communications at T. Rowe Price. Before that Marypat worked in transaction services for KPMG.
She started her career in finance working as an analyst at Emerging Markets Partnership, a firm which managed the first emerging markets infrastructure private equity funds. Her focus there was on Asia.
With an undergraduate degree in Chinese, during her early career she spent several stints living and working in China. She holds an MA in Economics from American University and an MS in Finance from George Washington University.
She is a CFA charter holder. Through Parallelle Finance, Marypat has published numerous analyses on gender lens and ESG investing.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Gender lens investing.
- The gender lens scorecard: what is it, why we need one and how investors might use this tool, including VCs.
- What funds and corporates need to do to close the gender equality and equity gap.
Dr Louann Brizendine MD, completed her degree in Neurobiology at UC Berkeley, graduated from Yale School of Medicine, and did her internship and residency at Harvard Medical School. She has also served on both the faculties of Harvard University and the University of California at San Francisco. She founded the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic at UCSF. Her NY Times bestseller: The Female Brain and its follow-up, The Male Brain continue to be read around the world.
Her new book THE UPGRADE: How the Female Brain Gets Stronger and Better in Midlife and Beyond released on April 19, 2022. Now as the Lynne and Marc Benioff endowed professor of clinical psychiatry at UCSF, Dr Brizendine continues to speak, write, research, and consult.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The menopause
- What happens to the female brain as women transition in their forties, fifties, and sixties?
- How hormones can be a positive influence on women's cognition, memory and mood.
- How can women protect themselves from dementia and increased longevity?
- How do these changes affect a woman's financial life and financial well-being?
- How can women prepare for the transition so their wellbeing and finances stay on track?
Jill Pay is a former Serjeant at Arms in the House of Commons and she was the first woman to hold this position in 600 years. Her appointment was unusual in that her predecessors all came from a military background, whereas Jill’s experience has been in business management. She retired in January 2012.
Since leaving Parliament, Jill has held a number of senior roles for organisations including the children’s literacy charity Coram Beanstalk, the women’s business network Savvitas Global and the Women and Enterprise All Party Parliamentary Group chaired by Craig Tracey MP.
Jill leads The Gender Index, the largest ever study into female entrepreneurship in the UK. She is a major driving force behind the growth and empowerment of female entrepreneurs.
Jill is a Non-executive Director of mnAI, the data platform that powers The Gender Index.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- Female entrepreneurship in the UK vs US
- The Gender Index and the story behind it
- The key stakeholders in the startup ecosystem and investors: who needs to do more
- What needs to be done differently so more female founders have access to capital and can scale their business?
Kisha Mays is a successful serial entrepreneur, visionary global business development strategist, a best-selling author, an angel investor and a philanthropist.
Her primary focus is on helping to scale 1 million fearless female entrepreneurs generating a minimum of $1 million in annual revenue, turning them into unicorn global businesses through the HerStory Made Angel Fund, which is a fund exclusively for female founded companies. She pays it forward by supporting nonprofits worldwide that specifically support and empower women and girls.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- Female founders
- How to generate a 7 figure business
- Working on your mindset
- Just Fearless and the global $100 million initiative aimed at female founders
- Investing in female founders
- How to invest in female-led innovation
- Cryptocurrencies
- and more
Jordan Dargue is a founding director, non-executive director, Women Angel of the North, investor, talent & business growth consultant supporting start up, early stage and scaling organisations to reach their potential.
She is a senior business leader operating across the investment, finance and business growth landscape. Jordan is also a mentor and advisory board member, helping start-ups, early-stage and high-growth businesses across the UK connect with the right investors and then supporting those businesses with commercialisation, marketing recruitment and retention to ensure the very best strategies are implemented to and grow and scale commercially.
Passionate about growing the Northern SME economy, Jordan helps the North reach its potential by supporting SME's access funding from regional and national investors. Using her innovation and enterprise expertise. Jordan has a proven ability to drive start-up and business growth through experience of taking advisory and consultant positions. She uses her experience as an entrepreneur to support them in their growth strategies, building an external marketing profile and sales plan, working efficiently, building management and leadership capacity and identifying future product opportunities.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The startup ecosystem for female founders in the UK and in the north of England
- What's changed as a result of the pandemic
- Fund Her North
- How to invest as an angel investor
- Why we need more female investors
- Advice for female founders who are about to embark on their seed fundraising journey.
Anna Raptis is the Founder and CEO of Amplifica Capital.
Amplifica Capital is the first female focused VC firm in Mexico. They make investments that have a positive impact on the lives of women to increase their opportunities and participation in the economy.
Anna is an investor with over 25 years of experience. Her guiding principle is invest in the change you want to see. Anna’s experience includes investing across sectors and geographies in international equities, funds, energy, real estate and as an angel investor and limited partner in venture capital funds in Mexico and the United States. She was recognized as one of the top female investors by the Latin American Venture Capital Association.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The startup ecosystem in LATAM
- How the VC landscape is changing due to geopolitics
- Investing in female founders
- Emerging female fund managers
- Investing in startups through an ESG lens
Sharon Vosmek is the CEO of Astia and Managing Partner of the Astia Fund. Astia is a global organisation that works to level the investment playing field for startups that include women. Ms. Vosmek developed Astia’s creative, proven approach to investment – called the Astia Expert SiftTM - that eliminates bias in the investment screening process and contributes to the success of female entrepreneurs and their ventures. Well-regarded around the globe, Ms. Vosmek is known for her opinions, research and commentary on the importance of women leaders as integral to innovation and high-performing entrepreneurial teams. She has spoken at the United Nations and given lectures at numerous universities on the topic of building inclusive ecosystems. She is an Advisory Board Member to two venture Funds, E²JDJ Venture Fund and Illuminate Ventures and serves on the Boards of Ozo Innovations and Pagedip. Ms. Vosmek lives and works in San Francisco.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- Investing in black female founders
- Sharon shares her journey to changing how many black female founders the Astia fund invests in
- Traditional VC firms and the need for change in the industry
- Sharon shares a message for black female founders who are yet to embark on their fundraising journey.
Ella Chase Hyland is the co-founder of Wellth Works, which cultivates and develops authentic feminine leaders, showing women that they create success while integrating balance and fun. Ella is a dynamic and innovative speaker, facilitator, and mentor. She is a recognised authority on the psychology of leadership, negotiations, and organizational turnaround.
Before launching Wellth Works, Ella spent a decade in sales consulting Fortune 200 companies and private enterprises on disaster recovery and business continuity strategy via emerging technology platforms (think about the “cloud” before it was commonplace), closing over $1 Billion in sales.
Ella is a certified CTI professional coach, and is a Northeastern University alumnus, having graduated summa cum laude with dual bachelor’s degrees. You can find Ella traveling the globe, exploring new cultures and adventures, especially those that involve being in, or on, water.
We cover the following in this converation:
- The definition of wealth
- Female inheritors: defining women's relationship with money
- Key dynamics and challenges around female family inheritance and wealth
- Female led family offices
- Female inheritors vs female entrepreneurs
- Gender lens investing: why is this smart for the economy and business?
- How can we encourage more women to invest in female-led startups vs donate to charity?
- How can women engage much more around their money?
Merryn Somerset Webb is Editor in Chief of Moneyweek, the best selling financial magazine in the UK. She is also a contributing editor to and weekly columnist for the Financial Times. She has just published her second book, Share Power: How Ordinary People Can Change the Way That Capitalism Works - and Make Money Too.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- How have we become a nation of share owners and what does this give us the ability to do?
- What are the stats on the number of women who invest in the stock market? What has been the increase in/from 2020?
- Share Power: can you explain the main premise of your book?
- Should companies have a purpose and should they have a social responsibility?
- The fund industry: what role does it play in the markets and in representing the share owner?
- Are they doing a good job? How can we judge whether they are or not?
- Women's wealth is growing. More women are investing in the stock market than ever before: what does this mean for businesses and institutional investors?
- What are the steps I need to take to become an active share owner in the companies I hold shares in?
- What are your final words to women investors who want to become much more active or activist even, in helping to build they world they want to see by voting with their money and exercising their vote?
Marcia Dawood is an investor in over 200 early stage private companies. In addition to her own investing, she is a Venture Partner with Mindshift Capital and a part of the investment committee for Next Wave Impact Fund. She also serves as a board member and advisor to Zive and Misfits Bakehouse. SheEO is an organization Marcia actively supports.
She currently serves as the Chair of the Board of the Angel Capital Association (ACA). The ACA is the professional society for angel investors in the US and globally. Marcia also is a founding member and current chair of the Growing Women’s Capital group building syndication and collaboration among US investment groups focused on women-led companies.
She received an MBA from the Global Executive program at UNC’s Kenan Flagler’s School of Business, OneMBA.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Investing in women and diverse teams
- Angel investing
- Venture capital
- Female investors
- What makes a good investor
- How do investors start caring about making a good return and building a better world?
Professor Heather Jane McGregor, CBE is the Executive Dean of Edinburgh Business School, Heriot Watt University. She is a non-executive director on several boards and received the IoD Scotland Chair’s Award in 2020. She is the author of the ‘Mrs Moneypenny’ column (Financial Times 1999-2016) and presented the Superscrimpers show on Channel 4.
An earlier career in investment banking preceded 17 years as an entrepreneur. In 2008, she established the Taylor Bennett Foundation, which supports the careers of minority ethnic graduates. She was a founding member of the 30% Club in 2010. Heather is an alumnus of the London Business School (MBA) and the University of Hong Kong (PhD). She has an honorary degree from the University of East London and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- Money and how women can build their net worth
- How women can take charge of their money
- Heather's own strategy for investing and growing her net worth
- Female investors
- Funding female founders
- ESG investing
- Heather shares her advice for women who may have suffered a (financial) loss and how to get back on track.
Ann Badillo is a leading business strategist and advisor to executives, entrepreneurs and organizations. She incubates and accelerates startup ventures and ecosystems around the world. Her expertise helps leaders understand new innovative design and leadership frameworks for the 21st century.
Ann is an investor in Portfolia (US based) which designs investment funds for women to invest in the innovative companies they want to see in the world through returns and impact.
We cover the following in the conversation:
- How did you start your investing journey?
- How would you describe Portfolia to someone who is new to investing?
- The Femtech Fund and Rising America Fund
- What is the investing process and due diligence process like?
- Why should women invest?
- What can women do to start investing in female-led innovation and startups?
Angela Atherton (CFA, FRM) is the Co-founder and Principal of Parallelle Finance. Her commitment to financial inclusion and impact investing began at the start of her career when she managed screening and performance analysis for two ESG indexes.
She structured private equity deals at American Capital Strategies. She led risk analysis and management functions at Fannie Mae and Calvert Impact Capital, a non-profit investment firm.
As the Chief Operating and Financial Officer at The Global Good Fund, a social enterprise, she ran day-to-day operations and led commercial expansion.
Angela is an experienced entrepreneur, she co-founded a female-led fintech, Capital Market Exchange, and launched an independent consulting practice with a global reach, including emerging and developed markets in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is gender lens (equity) investing?
- How does gender lens investing relate to ESG?
- The business case for investing in women
- Gender lens equity funds performance vs traditional funds performance
- The challenges regarding gender lens investing
- How do we accelerate the pace of change?
- How to start investing in gender lens equity funds?
Shaun Richards is an independent economist who specialises in inflation measurement and monetary economics. This follows a career in the City of London where he specialised in derivatives (mainly options) on interest-rates and bonds.
Shaun has also worked in Tokyo. He is a Bank of England watcher which covers the issues of monetary policy and money printing or quantitative easing (QE). Shaun also traded as a local on the London International Financial Futures Exchange where he mostly traded futures and options on future and present UK interest rates.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- An overview of the global economy: rising inflation, interest rates, slowing economic growth
- Why are the central banks slow to raise interest rates?
- How does money printing or quantitative easing (QE) affect global currency & its value?
- Buying assets to hedge inflation including bitcoin
- Can central banks ever stop printing money?
- What affect does an aging population, technology, indebtnesses have on the economy over the long-term?
- What's in store for 2022/this decade?
Shelly Porges is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, a global consortium of venture funds pledged to invest in female-founded firms and Beyond the Billion, mobilising LP investors into TBDF funds. She is also a Board Member of the Financial Alliance for Women and on the Advisory Board for Mindshift Capital, Different Funds and Global Invest Her.
Shelly is a globally recognised expert on gender-lens venture investing and a leader in fostering global entrepreneurship. She was honoured as one of the Inaugural Forbes 50 Over 50 in Investment in 2021.
She served as President of the North American Jury for Cartier Women’s Initiative for over a decade and as the former Senior Advisor, Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP) at the U.S. State Department, a program she expanded to almost 150 countries, under Secretary Hillary Clinton.
Prior to that, she had a distinguished career in the private sector, including both corporate and entrepreneurial ventures.
We cover the following in this conversation:
- Female founders and access to capital
- How more institutional investors can start to invest with a gender lens.
- Why gender lens investing is smart business
- Female investors and why this is key
- How women who have access to capital can start investing.
Fiona O'Donnell McCarthy is a Principal at True Ventures. For more than a decade, she has partnered with founders to drive product innovation and help them to create the futures they envision. Her experience spans product management, strategy, and business development for both consumer and B2B companies.
Most recently, Fiona was the VP of product for direct-to-consumer food company Daily Harvest, where she built and led teams responsible for the digital customer experience, data products, and internal business systems.
Fiona studied human biology and published research on cognitive development at Stanford University, which influenced her distinct perspective on how technology shapes human behavior and vice versa. She accredits her competitive swimming career, which led her to Olympic Trials in 2008, for igniting her curiosity around breakthroughs in human performance — and how innovation can bolster wellness.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- How do you define the world of crypto and Web 3.0?
- Size of the market and potential for growth
- What is going on in this space right now?
- What are you seeing in terms of women & diversity in this space in the US/globally?
- How can we encourage more women in this space? Why is that important?
- How do you decide who to invest in and what process do you go through?
- How will having more female VCs change the early stage investing landscape for women?
- How do you invest your own money?
- Final message for women: how can more women get involved?
Dr. Kate Levinson, PhD, licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT), is the author of Emotional Currency: A Women’s Guide to Building a Healthy Relationship with Money, published by Random House. Her work focuses on the emotional, psychological and symbolic nature of money.
She assists others in making connections between their money behaviors and the meanings money holds for them, including the generational money beliefs, habits and racism they have inherited.
Kate consults with individuals, families with adult children, and couples on money issues. In addition to her work with clients she most recently was the co-owner of Point Reyes Books, an independent community serving bookstore in Northern California.
Her website is www.katelevinson.net. She can also be reached at klevinson@gmail.com.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is emotional currency?
- The relationship women have with money
- Money beliefs, including the shame women feel around money
- Racism and impact
- Why understanding our history with money intimately is important
- And how women can breakthrough struggle and hardship around their money-especially as a result of the pandemic
- Kate shares a message for women who want to shift their relationship with money.
Cathy Curtis, CFP® is the founder and CEO of Curtis Financial Planning, a full-service financial planning firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area serving clients in the US. Cathy’s mission is to be a fiduciary financial partner for independent women, so they can feel confident about their finances while pursuing what they love and do best.
As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council, Cathy is a frequently sought-after author and contributor. For more than a decade, she’s shared her unique financial planning insights via her award-winning blog, Of Independent Means, and widely followed Twitter feed (@CathyCurtis). In 2020, Cathy launched the Financial Finesse podcast to showcase successful, interesting women and provide actionable advice for her listeners.
For the last five years, Cathy has been named an Investopedia 100 Top Financial Advisors. Investment News also recognized Cathy as one of its 2020 Women to Watch for her contributions to the profession and financial literacy, and support of women inside and outside the industry.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Financial advice for women
- Common money mistakes
- The pandemic: how women manage and invest their money
- Why women are the driving force behind ESG investing
- Cryptocurrencies and how to invest
- Investing in female-led startups
- The superstar Wall Street investor, Cathy Wood
- Advice for women who want to engage much more around the money and investing.
Christina (CJ) Juhasz is the Chief Investment Officer of WWB Asset Management (WAM,) a subsidiary of Women’s World Banking, responsible for raising and investing private equity funds with a gender lens.
Prior to joining Women's World Banking, CJ served in increasing positions of responsibility in Deutsche Bank’s fixed income group in New York and London and Merrill Lynch’s capital markets group in New York. CJ began her career as a military police platoon leader in the United States Army, serving in Germany and the US.
CJ holds a BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an MBA from Stanford University. She is a 2013 Eisenhower Fellow.
To date, WAM has $125M in asset under management through two private equity funds -WWB Capital Partners, LP and WWB Capital Partners II, LP –that provide growth capital, and research-driven market and organizational solutions to guide portfolio companies in reaching more women as customers and workforce assets.
WAM leverages its influence as an investor to encourage its portfolio companies to increase women’s access to financial services and to increase the recruitment, advancement and equal pay of women as staff and leaders of those companies. These are winning strategies for gaining market share and the upper hand in the war for talent.
The funds have invested in 13 portfolio companies covering Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South-and South-east Asia. The companies offer financial products and services to under-served populations, especially women, including micro-enterprise, small business, agriculture and affordable housing loans; savings and payments services and micro-insurance products.
Women’s World Banking
Women’s World Banking designs and invests in the financial solutions, institutions, and policy environments in emerging markets to create greater economic stability and prosperity for women, their families and their communities. They work with 56 institutions in 31 countries to reach more low-income women with financial services.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Impact investing
- Why invest in women, how big is this opportunity?
- WWB Asset management: their investment thesis and how they choose to invest
- What is gender lens investing and why should we care?
- Measuring social impact
- Why transparency is important
- And how we can encourage more investors to allocate their capital for impact?
Helene Guillaume is the founder and CEO of WILD.AI. She studied mathematics and financial risks, she was a quant in a hedge fund and management consultant to Fortune500 companies in AI.
She's an ultra-marathon runner, a triathlete, and a surfer. Her favourite combined skillset is vitality+brains.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Women's health
- The gender data gap
- Helene's startup Wild AI and the technology that underpins it
- Helene's fundraising journey and her experience with investors
- Female investors
- Where women's health will be 50 years from now.
Isabel Oriol Bastos is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Head of Business Development at ADA Impacto, a female-founded fintech startup.
Isabel spent 10 years in the social impact sector. She started her career in Brazil and Chile, working at the UN and social startups. After studying a Masters in International Development at the London School of Economics (LSE), she founded Ánima Soluciones, a consultancy for social entrepreneurs from which she spent 5 years actively involved in the micro-finance sector in Latin America.
At ADA Impacto, women at the bottom of the pyramid get control over their microcredit. They do this through an AI Chatbot via WhatsApp, where women apply, receive and repay their loan, while partaking in a mentorship program for their business.
ADA launched in Mexico this year and aims to expand across Latin America.
They have recently won the Fintech Innovation Challenge Female Founder Award from the Women's World Banking Organisation.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Female entrepreneurship
- Social impact startups
- The startup: ADA Impacto
- Engaging with micro-lending institutions in the emerging markets
- Why providing financial education and emotional support to women around their finances is important
- And Isabel shares a message to investors who are new to social impact startups or indeed to gender lens investing.
Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser and a board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). She was previously Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service.
Before that she was Partner at the accounting and consulting firm KPMG after senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector. She has held a number of academic posts and is a Fellow and Council member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Society of Professional Economists and a Companion of the British Academy of Management.
Her latest book, “Women vs Capitalism”, was published by Hurst in November 2019. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality.
She is co-founder of GoodCorporation, a company set up to advise on corporate social responsibility, is a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London, was the first female Master of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants and has been sitting on the City’s Members Diversity Working Party.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The global economy from a macro perspective
- The narrative from the central banks and the UK government
- Money printing and what this means for the global currency
- Are we headed for a market crash?
- The impact of Brexit
- Should we be worried about stagflation?
- Why investing in startups and especially climate change innovation is so crucial
- And why investing and female led startups can help drive the very economic growth we need
- What is the light at the end of the tunnel?
Paulina Tenner is an entrepreneur, an angel investor, an author, a TEDx speaker and a founder of GrantTree, which started with a purpose to help tech startups navigate the complex world of government funding. Since 2010 the team grew organically from 2 to 50 and raised over £200M for more than 600 technology startups and scaleups using solely government funding schemes such as R&D tax credits and Innovate UK grants.
GrantTree is also an open culture company which pioneered a self set salary scheme, and an empowering culture governed by holacracy.
Paulina is also a seed investor, a startup mentor and an author of 'Laid Bare: what the business leader learnt from the stripper' describing leadership lessons she learnt as a burlesque dancer.
Pre-order: http://www.paulinatenner.com/book
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The world of startups
- How to launch a venture fund
- Engaging with investors
- The startups she is likely to invest in
- Investing for social impact
- Paulina's journey as an angel investor
- How she personally invests her money (outside of angel investing)
- Advice for women who want to become an angel investor or a fund manager
Mary Waring is the founder of Wealth for Women Ltd, an award winning financial advisory firm, working with midlife women to help them leap into the next stage of their life: whether that be moving on from divorce, reducing working hours to enjoy more free time, or starting a new business.
She uses her coaching skills to help clients determine what they want the next stage of their life to look like and her financial planning skills to determine whether they have sufficient assets to fund the desired lifestyle.
Her aim is to help you find true abundance, which is so much more than just money! As Coco Chanel said: “There are people who have money, and people who are rich”
We covering the following in our conversation:
- The common mistakes women make when it comes to their money
- Knowing the difference between your income and your net worth
- How to think about your money, if you're getting married and what women need to watch out for, if getting divorced
- Financial advisors, how they can help and how to find the right financial advisor for you
- How women are managing and investing their money
- Advice for women who want to engage much more around their money and investing
Gloria Feldt is an acclaimed expert on women, power, and leadership with frontline leadership experience, a bestselling author, and in-demand keynote speaker. She is co-founder and President of Take The Lead, whose mission reflects her life’s passion: to prepare, develop, inspire, and propel women to take their fair and equal share of leadership positions across all sectors by 2025 by providing breakthrough training, mentoring and coaching role modeling, and thought leadership.
She is the bestselling author of four books; No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, plus her own real world experience, forms the core of Take The Lead’s programs.
Gloria's forthcoming book Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics and How Women Will Take The Lead is available by September 28, 2021.
She is formerly president and CEO of the world’s largest reproductive health and advocacy organization, Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She was named by Vanity Fair one of “America’s Top 200 Women Leaders, Legends, and Trailblazers,” Glamour’s “Woman of the Year,” She Knows Media Inspiring Woman, Women’s eNews 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, Women Economic Forum Circle of Light award, Texas Monthly’s Texas 20, Martin Luther King Living the Dream Award, and Forbes 40 Over 40.
She teaches “Women, Power, and Leadership” at Arizona State University. Feldt has been widely quoted and published, including by the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, The Daily Beast, Forbes, Fast Company, Time, Huffington Post, Glamour, Elle and Ms. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, the Today Show, Good Morning America and The Daily Show, and an infinite number of podcasts. Her own podcast is “Power TO You.”
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Women and power
- What does 'intentioning' have to do with power?
- What has been women's experience during the pandemic? And what has it taught us?
- Women's relationship to money: what does power have to do with it?
- Women investors: how critical are they to the future we want to see?
- How do we encourage more women to invest?
- Gender parity and women in leadership: what would you do to affect change immediately?
- What message do you have for women of today about stepping into their power? And stepping into power with money?
Judy Piatkus is an entrepreneur, publisher and business coach specialising in conscious leadership. She founded Piatkus when she was in her 20s and grew the company to become an international brand, before selling it in 2007, just before the global financial crash that she had shrewdly foreseen. She is now a keynote speaker, an angel investor, and a coach and mentor to start-ups.
In 2011 she founded Conscious Café, a network that brings people together for connection and discussion. Find out more at: judypiatkus.com
We cover the following in our conversation:
- How Judy built her publishing business from the ground up
- Self-funding a business to growth
- Women's relationship with money
- Financial independence
- Angel investing
- Investing in female led innovation
- Building wealth
- Conscious leadership
- And Judy's book: Ahead of Her Time: how a one-woman startup became a global publishing brand
Barbara Stewart is a Chartered Financial Analyst with 28 years of investment industry experience; five years as a foreign currency trader and then more than two decades as a portfolio manager investing on behalf of high net worth entrepreneurs. For the past five years she has been on the Advisory Board of Kensington Capital Partners.
12 years ago Barbara saw a need to challenge outdated financial industry stereotypes and share positive messages about women and money. Today, Barbara is recognised worldwide as one of the leading researchers in women and finance. Her Rich Thinking® global research papers quote smart women from all ages, professions and countries and are released annually on International Women’s Day, March 8. Barbara is a columnist for CFA Institute, Canadian Money Saver, and Golden Girl Finance.
Barbara is a keynote speaker for CFA Societies, banks and stock exchanges around the world, and conducts interview driven research for financial institutions in Canada and globally.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Key data points and research on women and money (since the pandemic)
- Women and ESG investing
- Why are women risk aware vs risk averse?
Sergey Young is a longevity investor and visionary with a mission to extend healthy lifespans of one billion people. To do that, Sergey founded the Longevity Vision Fund to accelerate life extension technological breakthroughs and to make longevity affordable and accessible to all.
Sergey is on the Board of Directors of the American Federation of Aging Research (AFAR) and the Development Sponsor of AGE REVERSAL XPRIZE global competition designed to cure aging. Sergey is also a Top-100 Longevity Leader, who is transforming the world, one workplace at a time, with Longevity@Work – the first non-profit corporate longevity program of its kind.
Sergey Young has been featured as a top longevity expert and contributor on CNN, Fox News, and Forbes. As the author of books such as ‘The Science and Technology of Growing Young’ and the mastermind behind the online life extension platform SergeyYoung.com, Sergey is passionate about sharing news from the exciting world of longevity.
We cover the following topics:
- Why invest as a VC?
- The definition of longevity
- Is there a difference in how men and women think about longevity?
- Women's health: an underserved market
- Gender-lens investing and female investors
- The Longevity Visionary Fund: Sergey's investment thesis
- Why invest in disruptive businesses?
- How is data and technology enabling this disruption?
- How to diversify risk in a fund
- Investing for impact and the collaborative vs competitive mindset
- What makes a good investor?
- Sergey's personal plan to living until 200 years of age
- 2050: what is possible as a result of Sergey's work and investments?
Heather Jackson is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for social movement and extensive experience in the field of diversity and talent management.
The former CEO and founder of An Inspirational Journey, Heather has supported more than 150 organisations, with over 15,000 women influenced by her programmes and initiatives. An active media advocate, Heather is a regular keynote speaker and contributor to regional and national media.
She is also Chair of The Hundred’s Northern Superchargers.
Heather is perimenopausal as diagnosed by her co-founder and good friend Sam Simister.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is perimenopause and the menopause?
- How big is this market? And why is it underserved?
- What are the 48 symptoms of menopause?
- Gen M: the menopause partner connecting brands and organisations
- What can businesses and employers do to support women going through this transition?
- What is the opportunity for businesses?
- Heather's approach to starting her business and investment.
- Advice for women and how their loved ones can support them.
Bridget Greenwood is the founder of The Bigger Pie, an organisation focused on supporting women in blockchain and emerging tech.
As women represent less than 10% of those involved in this sector, The Bigger Pie focus their efforts on supporting the incredibly talented and pioneering #womeninblockchain.
Bridget is a firm believer in having more women involved with the design, development and deployment and decommissioning of tech solutions.
Bridget has worked with different actors in the blockchain economy since 2017, both retail facing and servicing institutional clients, gaining an insight into the market place, challenges, pitfalls, regulation and breadth of projects and businesses in this rapidly evolving space.
She is also co-founder with Dr Amber Ghaddar at The 200bn Club, an accelerator programme to help female led start ups match successfully with investors.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is blockchain and DeFi (decentralised finance)?
- Why is this space so hot right now?
- Women and crypto
- Gender diversity: why it is crucial to building new technology and solutions
- Blockchain projects led by women from The Bigger Pie Community
- The 200bn Club: matching female-led starts with investors
Connect with Bridget here:
bridget@thebiggerpie.io
www.thebiggerpie.io
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridgetgreenwood/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bridget_TBP
Angelo Robles is the Founder and CEO of the Family Office Association (US/global).
He helps the world’s most successful families create modern, multi-generationally dynamic, international family offices, that are digitally savvy, identify exponential opportunities and hazards in becoming truly anti-fragile.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is a single family office?
- The definition of wealth
- Women's wealth and the effect on wealth management and the world of investing
- Investing trends family offices are tracking right now
- How engaged are female family members in making financial and investing decisions?
- How do women think about money and investing?
- Gender-balance in decision-making
- ESG and gender-lens investing
- How do we encourage more women to invest in female-led startups and female innovation?
- How should investors think about allocating their capital so they help to build a better world?
Shaun Richards is an independent economist who specialises in inflation measurement and monetary economics. This follows a career in the City of London where he specialised in derivatives (mainly options) on interest-rates and bonds. He has also worked in Tokyo. He is a Bank of England (BoE) watcher which covers the issues of monetary policy and quantitative easing (QE).
Shaun has also traded as a local on the London International Financial Futures Exchange where he mostly traded futures and options on future and present UK interest rates.
We cover the following topics in this conversation:
- What has happened to the global/US and UK economy as a result of the pandemic?
- What is money printing and what is the impact on the economy?
- Should we be worried about the rising level of global and UK government debt?
- We're hearing a lot about UK inflation: can you explain what inflation is? What is driving inflation? What is the rate of inflation and looking ahead to H2 and 2022/23?
- Interest rates: what do we expect to see in the US/UK in 2021/22/23?
- Unemployment & productivity: what are we seeing in the UK? What's ahead? (eg structural changes)
- What is the economic outlook for the global/UK economy?
- Ray Dalio, the billionaire and hedge fund manager, says that he'd rather buy bitcoin than a bond. Do you agree?
Victoria Pynchon is the co-founder of She Negotiates, a consulting firm and training workshop for women that nests today’s most effective negotiation strategies in the gender culture in which women do business. Although Victoria's focus is now on closing the wage and income gap for women, she has been training lawyers and business people of both genders in mutual benefit negotiation strategies since 2005.
The work of She Negotiates has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, the New York Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and dozens of smaller news outlets.
As a lawyer, mediator and author, Victoria turns 25 years of commercial litigation into the collaborative possibilities of interest-based negotiation. Since earning her legal masters degree in dispute resolution, she has published two books, The Grownups’ ABCs of Conflict Resolution and Success as a Mediator for Dummies.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is negotiation?
- What is the cost of women not negotiating?
- Why is negotiation more challenging for women (or is it)?
- How do women negotiate: a) a job offer b) with their male partner regarding money c) as a female founder
- How do women overcome systemic bias in a negotiation?
- What books or blogs about negotiation do you recommend?
Marina Spindler is a Business Strategy and Communications Consultant.
She worked at the oldest American think tank founded by Andrew Carnegie, and reported directly to the editor of the award-winning Foreign Policy Magazine. Her role was business development, not writing. But she received her Masters in Public Policy from NYU when she was 40 and all these experiences taught her to ask deeper questions.
In this case, is crypto just about the money? And why were most surveys so narrow and short sighted, focussed mostly on the US and the UK market when crypto is a global revolution.
So she teamed up with a financial inclusion expert from Mexico and interviewed one-on-one 60 women from 31 countries with diverse education and socioeconomic backgrounds.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is crypto and is this the future of money?
- We discuss the key findings in the report about women in crypto
- Why are these women changing the status quo and seeking financial freedom?
- Why is self-directed learning in blockchain and crypto so key?
- How does Marina invest?
- And how can you start investing in crypto?
Donna Griffit is a corporate storyteller. Shehas worked globally for over 16 years with Fortune 500 companies, startups and investors in a wide variety of industries. She has consulted and trained clients in over 30 countries, helping them create, edit and deliver verbal and written presentations, pitches and messages.
Donna has the ability to magically spin raw data into compelling stories that captivate audiences and drive to results. Through her guidance clients have raised over $1bn.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Why is having a story crucial as an entrepreneur?
- What are the key components of a good pitch?
- How do you build the right mindset?
- How can female entrepreneurs overcome gender bias in the fundraising process?
- Female investors & how can women engage much more in the startup ecosystem?
Rebecca Chesworth is an equities strategist, a thought leader and a conference speaker.
She loves to share a passion for equities investment built on extensive market and client knowledge from 30 years as a fund manager, an analyst and an investment specialist.
Rebecca is an advocate of active investment selection and integration of ESG principles utilising cheap, flexible instruments such as exchange traded funds (ETFs).
Rebecca is a lead strategist on sectors and ESG for SPDR ETFs at State Street Global Advisors.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Exchange traded funds (ETFs) & ESG ETFs
- What are sectors and why invest based on sectors
- Cyclical vs value stocks (vs growth stocks)
- Should we be worried about inflation?
- Why is a higher percentage of women and millennials investing responsibly?
- How can women engage much more around their money and investing?
Jessica Espinoza is Vice President at DEG, the German Development Finance Institution (KfW Group) and the Chair of the 2X Challenge, a global initiative that has mobilised over $4.5 billion of gender lens investments since its launch at the G7 Summit in 2018.
Jessica has extensive experience sourcing, structuring and executing debt, mezzanine and equity deals in emerging markets with a strong focus on social impact. She serves on the Board of Directors of AlphaMundi Foundation and of the Mexican financial institution Mega as well as on the Advisory Board of several private equity funds.
She is the Founder of the edtech venture Xoco, empowering adolescent girls in the Global South to leapfrog to digital jobs of the future. As a mentor for Endeavor, she supports high impact companies as they scale up.
Jessica is a PhD candidate at University of Siegen, researching the transformative potential of gender lens investing.
Prior to joining DEG, Jessica was a Member of the Management Board at ProCredit Bank Nicaragua and part of the Group Funding team at ProCredit Holding. She managed the Africa Regional Office of MicroFinance Transparency in Ghana and led a flagship program to promote responsible finance across Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Gender lens investing and why is more capital flowing into this area?
- Why should we invest in women & women entrepreneurs?
- What is the 2X Challenge is and why is your work important?
- What tools do you make available to make it easier for organisations to invest through a gender lens?
- What is the investment criteria?
- How do you measure the gender impact of investments?
- How can investors including VCs and angel investors apply this approach to the startup ecosystem?
- What are your views on how 'impact conscious' investors are becoming or need to become in order to address some of the world's biggest problems or challenges?
- How are women the driving force behind impact investing?
- What are the key takeaways for folks who want to start investing through a gender lens?
Foong Ng is the founder and CEO of impact startup, Matchable.
Foong was previously a Director at PwC advising on structuring M&A deals for Private Equity and Real Estate Funds.
She also founded Suit & Pie, a blog and community for and about inspiring women (and men!) inspired by the Lean In / Sheryl Sandberg movement, and the Suits & Startups community, bringing together City workers and entrepreneurs.
She read Law with French Law at Cambridge University before becoming the accountant her parents always wanted her to be. In 2019, she left accounting to become the founder of Matchable.
She would do most things for cake and coffee, and when not working she can usually be found double-timing to big beat drops on a spin bike or treadmill!
We cover the following topics in the podcast:
- The impact startup Matchable: what is the pitch?
- What were the early days like?
- Fundraising: what was it like as a female founder and as a female founder for an impact startup?
- Have investors changed their approach to investing for impact (as a result of the pandemic)?
- Female investors vs male investors
- How do we encourage more women to invest?
Ulla Huotari is an Investment Manager at Finnfund, a Finnish development financier and professional impact investor. Ulla focuses on origination and execution of Financial Sector investments and projects with gender initiatives. Ulla has been one of the driving forces of Finnfund’s Gender Strategy and Finnfund has since April 2019 invested over €121 million in companies that promote women’s empowerment in developing countries.
Ulla’s background is in asset management with a special focus on micro-finance. She has also been responsible for Finnfund’s treasury.
Prior to joining Finnfund in 2012, Ulla worked as a treasury professional at a global company Kemira Plc and in different roles in commercial banks. Ulla holds an MSc in Accounting from Helsinki School of Economics.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What are some of the key problems or challenges in the developing world?
- Gender equality and how big an opportunity this is in the developing world?
- FinnFund and what is the key criteria used to invest?
- Measuring impact.
- Gender lens investing and what this looks like on a practical level.
- Female entrepreneurship.
- What will the future look like 10 to 15 years from now in the developing world?
- And how can women can engage much more as impact investors?
Katica Roy is a gender economist and the CEO and founder of Pipeline, an award-winning SaaS company that leverages artificial intelligence to identify and drive economic gains through gender equity. Pipeline launched the first gender equity app on Salesforce's AppExchange. The Pipeline platform was named one of TIME Magazine's Best Inventions of 2019 and Fast Company's 2020 World's Most Innovative Companies. Katica was named the 2020 Colorado Entrepreneur of the Year.
In 2017, Katica was named a Luminary by the Colorado Technology Association, in 2018 a Colorado Governors' Fellow, in 2019 a Top 25 Most Powerful Woman in Business and a Stevie Entrepreneur of the Year, Gold Award. She is also an industry entrepreneur, thought-leader and frequent editorial contributor and speaker. Katica’s articles have been published by World Economic Forum, NBC, Fast Company, Fortune, Financial Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, The Hill, The Advocate, Salesforce, and Morning Consult. In 2020, her articles garnered over 1 billion impressions.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Definition: the gender equity gap
- Why should organisations care more about closing the gender equity gap?
- Intersectional gender equity
- How does the Pipeline platform help organisations close the intersectional gender equity gap in the US & globally?
- How has the pandemic changed the landscape for female founders?
- The investment allocation problem for female founders and how can we solve this problem?
- Why government policy is crucial and the role female investors play in closing the funding gap (for women)
- What needs to change to close the gender equity gap by 2030?
Barbara Huson (previously known as Barbara Stanny), is the leading authority on women, wealth and power. As a bestselling author, financial therapist, teacher & wealth coach, Barbara has helped millions take charge of their finances and their lives.
Barbara's background in business, her years as a journalist, her Master's Degree in Counselling Psychology, her extensive research, and her personal experience with money give her a unique perspective and makes her the foremost expert on empowering women to live up to their financial and personal potential.
Barbara is the author of 6 books and her 7th book, Rewire for Wealth has recently been published.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- The key steps to women changing their relationship with money
- How to deal with shame around money
- Why we need to get used to being uncomfortable for financial growth
- Why understanding risk is what makes you wealthy
- Impact investing and ESG
- How to manage your money.
Diana Biggs is CEO of Valour, the issuer of exchange-traded products providing investors with exposure to innovations such as digital assets. Their first product, Bitcoin Zero, is listed on the Nordic Growth Market stock exchange in Sweden. In additional to her role at Valour, Diana is an Associate Fellow with Said Business School, University of Oxford and a Board Member for the World Economic Forum Digital Leaders of Europe initiative.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is bitcoin? And why do we need to understand bitcoin as a technology as well as a digital monetary system?
- What are the key events or markers (if you like) in the last 3-6months, which have accelerated not just the bitcoin price, but the adoption of bitcoin?
- How has the pandemic and the global economic crisis around the world played into the growing adoption of bitcoin, crypto & digital assets? And why is this important?
- Speculators see an inevitable bubble bursting. Others regard long-term interest from investors as evidence that the asset is durable ie bitcoin is here to stay. What's your view?
- What is decentralised finance?
- What is ethereum and how does it enable DeFi?
- Why have DeFi projects exploded recently?
- What are exchange-traded products? What's ahead for Valour?
- How do we encourage more women to invest in crypto & digital assets?
- What does the world look like in 2050 and what's happened to the global monetary system?
- What's your take on Dogecoin?
Julia Angeles joined Baillie Gifford in 2008 and is the Portfolio Manager of the Health Innovation Strategy.
Prior to Baillie Gifford, Julia worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co advising firms in Denmark, Russia and Hungary. Since joining Baillie Gifford Julia has worked on a number of regional and global investment strategies. Julia has a passion for the transformation taking place in healthcare, and it was this passion which led to the establishment of the strategy.
She believes that over the next 10 years healthcare systems around the world will experience a monumental change and we will witness a move away from reactive medicine to a world where prevention and cure will become an integral part of healthcare driven by technology.
Julia is also a member of the International Growth portfolio construction group.
Julia obtained a BSc, MSc and PhD in Economics from the University of Aarhus, Denmark and speaks fluent Russian and Danish.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- How do you define biotech and healthcare?
- How are we on the cusp of a revolution in healthcare?
- Moderna Inc: investing in the biotech firm which developed the first COVID-19 vaccine.
- How do you think about the companies you invest in and what is the key criteria you use?
- Why do you identify disruptive businesses in the healthcare sector and why is this important?
- Being part of an all-female team, how might your approach in how you invest differ (to say an all-male team of fund managers in the same industry)?
- As more women lead investment funds and drive investing decisions at the institutional level, how do you think this will shape the market on a global scale?
- 'The nature of asymmetry is such that investment returns are driven by a few big winners...The main constraint to us appreciating that potential is our imagination': can you elaborate what you mean by that?
- What would you advise women who want to become investors?
Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser and a board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). She was previously Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service. Before that she was Partner at the accounting and consulting firm KPMG after senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector.
She has held a number of academic posts and is a Fellow and Council member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Society of Professional Economists and a Companion of the British Academy of Management. She was until recently on the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and is a member of the Advisory Board of the central banking think-tank OMFIF and of the Economic Advisory Group of the British Chambers of Commerce.
She is also a Patron of the charities Pro-Bono Economics and Working Chance. Her books include: “Greekonomics: The Euro crisis and Why Politicians Don't Get It”; “It's the Economy, Stupid- Economics for Voters”, with Ross and Urwin; “Redesigning Manufacturing”, with Nielsen and Beverland”; and “Why Women Need Quotas”.
Her latest book, “Women vs Capitalism”, was published by Hurst in November 2019.. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality. She is co-founder of GoodCorporation, a company set up to advise on corporate social responsibility, is a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London, was the first female Master of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants and has been sitting on the City’s Members Diversity Working Party.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What does the field of economics help us to understand?
- Why can't women 'have it all' in a free-market economy?
- What is the fallout of the pandemic on women?
- How is Brexit in the UK adding to this negative and detrimental impact on women?
- According to research, an estimated 22% of employed women in the United Kingdom could find their jobs displaced by automation by 2030. What needs to happen to ensure that these women don't get left behind?
- What role do you see female entrepreneurs play in driving more growth, prosperity and innovation in our economy in the UK, US and globally?
- We are in the midst of a massive transfer to wealth globally to women. What impact will this have on the world we live in?
- What needs to change to ensure we reverse these negative trends on women and accelerate change for the better?
- If we had more women sitting at the table, for example, making decisions in government, how much more likely is it that we would see change happen a lot more quickly?
- What message do you have for government and policy-makers out there in order to help correct the market failure and gender inequalities we have talked about?
- And what would you say to women, right now, who are having to deal with so much and are simply not getting the support they need? What should they think about?
Cindy Gallop is the founder and CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn launched at TED 2009 – ‘Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference’.
In 2013 she turned MakeLoveNotPorn into the world’s first user-generated, human-curated social sex video-sharing platform, socialising and normalising sex in order to make it easier to talk about, to promote consent, communication, good sexual values and good sexual behaviour. MakeLoveNotPorn is spearheading the Social Sex Revolution (the revolutionary part isn’t the sex, but the social). Given the challenges Cindy has faced finding investors, she is raising the world’s first dedicated sextech fund, All the Sky Holdings.
She speaks at conferences globally and consults, describing her approach as ‘I like to blow shit up. I am the Michael Bay of business.’
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Cindy talks to us about MakeLoveNotPorn and the journey she's been on as a female founder in an entirely new category.
- Why the next big thing in tech is disrupting sex.
- Why founders from underrepresented groups are uniquely able to design and build safe spaces on the web.
- Cindy's experience in fundraising for her startup.
- What she looks for in her investors.
- Why we need more women to back female and underrepresented founders.
- And Cindy talks to us about her vision for creating and launching her $200 million sextech fund.
Katrine Marçal is an award-winning author, journalist and keynote speaker. Her first book “Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner” has been translated into more than 20 languages and was hailed by Margaret Atwood as “a smart, funny, readable book on economics, money and women”.
It was named one of The Guardian’s Books of the Year in 2015.
Katrine works for Dagens Nyheter, the largest broadsheet newspaper in Sweden and she was one of only a handful of European journalists to get an exclusive interview with Michelle Obama before the publication of the Former First Lady’s memoir Becoming in 2018.
In her role as a financial journalist Katrine has interviewed many of the world’s most respected economic thinkers like Nouriel Roubini, Nassim Taleb and Yanis Varoufakis.
Her book “Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored In An Economy Build For Men” became a bestseller in Sweden in 2020 and will be published in English in 2021.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is feminist economics?
- How has modern economics failed us and what needs to change?
- How do we value women's work?
- Women's innovation and why it has been largely ignored?
- Why investing in women and the female market will drive innovation.
Heather Ettinger is the CEO and Founder of Luma Wealth Advisors (US).
As a champion for women and girls for over 30 years, Heather Ettinger is widely recognised for her unique experience and dedication to helping women build their financial acumen and wealth, culminating in the founding of Luma Wealth Advisors in 2017. She specialises in helping clients and their families create strategic financial plans to guide them through life transitions, such as the loss of a spouse, divorce and job changes and to align their resources around family values and impact in their communities.
Heather has a bestselling book entitled, Lumination: Shining a Light on A Woman’s Journey to Financial Wellness and she has co-authored two research studies about women and wealth.
Heather has been featured in many publications including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and Bloomberg.
She has served on numerous non-profit and private company boards across a wide range of industries including technology, financial services and healthcare.
Heather considers raising her three children with her husband, Jeff to be her greatest and most rewarding accomplishment.
Her favourite activities include playing ice hockey, skiing and hiking.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What is financial wellness?
- What role do emotions play in how we manage our money?
- How do we move from the 'fear zone' to the 'confidence zone'?
- ESG & impact investing.
- Why invest in female-led start-ups?
- How does the financial services industry to change?
- And what will the world look like in 2075 when women own the majority of private wealth globally (& women make the majority investing decisions?)
Eva is a digital leader who has pioneered the Internet, e-payments, e-commerce fashion solutions and e-CRM.
Eva co-founded the world's first Internet cafe in 1994. And she developed fashion web shops for (including) Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Racing Green and Burton.
After a successful Crowdcube fundraising campaign in January 2017, Eva joined Bluebella as a non-executive director, overseeing the brand's digital acquisition and international ecommerce strategy.
Since 2013 her ecommerce consultancy The Retail Practice has been advising the largest pan-European lingerie brand Hunkemoller.
In her role as Charity Trustee for Trading Group, Eva has also advised one of the largest UK military charities, Help4Heroes, supporting the charity team since 2013 in their online trading activities on digital acquisition, CRM and transition to new e-commerce platform.
She has recently co-authored digital retail policy papers on Re-imagining The High Street and a new policy for West End of London in her “Surf and Turf” contribution to a recent publication commissioned by the Centre for London and New West End Company.
She regularly speaks at key retail industry events run by the Retail Institute and runs a weekly digital innovations blog The Retail Bytes.
Eva is also an active angel investor with a focus on female founders.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Can you talk to us about the time you set up the world's first internet cafe?
- How has being an entrepreneur shaped how you choose to invest in early stage businesses?
- How do you decide what startup businesses to invest in?
- What are some of the differences in what women and men choose to invest in and how they invest?
- What role do networks play in how you invest?
- What are you excited about in terms of investing in 2021?
- What advice do you have for women who want to engage much more around their money and invest?
Tina Weeks is the founder of Serenity Financial Planning, a unique financial planning company that aims to deliver Financial Life Planning to as many people as possible in the UK. Tina has been a financial adviser since 1996 and specialises in Financial Life Planning. This is a new technique that encourages and inspires clients to identify what is most important to them and what they really want to do in their life. She then works with them over the long term to ensure they have enough money to do it and are confident about their financial planning.
She advises her clients on pensions, investments, insurance, estate planning and every other aspect of their financial planning. In addition, Tina will help clients get a clearer understanding of their relationship with money and teach them tools to better manage their finances on a day to day basis.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Can you think back to a pivotal moment or experience growing up, which has had a profound impact on your relationship with money?
- What's your view on the global & UK economy right now and the fact that there is a stock market/economy disconnect?
- Tina, you're a financial life planner: can you explain what you do and how it differs from financial advice?
- You work with female clients, do you see any differences in how women choose to manage and invest their money compared to men?
- The gender pension gap: how should women think about their pension to ensure they have saved enough for retirement?
- What do you think needs to change in the financial services industry to be more inclusive of women?
- A lot of people are feeling very uneasy about their money. Women in particular have been hard hit during the pandemic ie reduced hours, job loss as they struggle with more childcare and homeschooling responsibilities. What would your advice be to women who are feeling very uncertain about their money right now?
- What would you advise women who are keen to engage around their money and investing, but are short on time?
Matthew Stafford has worked with startups since 2010 and is the co-founder of 9others, a global entrepreneurs network, and Dot Matrix Group, an angel investment syndicate.
9others was established in 2011 and is now a global network of 4,000+ entrepreneurs in 45+ cities who meet over dinner to help each other solve the challenges of business and life. Established in 2016 Dot Matrix Group is an angel syndicate that invests in seed stage technology startups in the UK.
Matthew is a patient investor and typically gets to know and contributes to entrepreneurs over many months and even years before investing.
Before all that, Matthew worked in technology for RBS, The Bank of New York and others, studied Computer Science at Durham University and has an MBA from Imperial College Business School.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- How did you get started as an angel investor?
- What is an angel syndicate?
- What's the criteria and process for an angel investor joining?
- How do you decide what startups to invest in?
- How do we get more women and underrepresented groups more involved in angel investing?
- What do you say to people who assume that because startup investing is risky, they shouldn't go anywhere near it?
Katie Donovan is one of the leading pay-equity experts and advocates in the US. She innovated and authored the widely praised and quickly adopted restrictions on the common question of salary history in hiring and compensation decisions. In doing so, she proved the processes are biased. Katie's innovation has led to 34 laws and executive orders within four years to be passed on the state and local levels.
And more importantly for women to earn starting salaries that are 8% higher and Black job changes to earn starting salaries that are 13% higher where such restrictions exist.
Since 2011, Katie has been consulting with individuals on negotiating their pay and on changing the processes within their organisations through her firm Equal Pay Negotiations.
Katie's roles in the fight for pay equity have included founding member of the Massachusetts Equal Pay Coalition and advising pay-equity advocates on strategy, tactics, and testimony throughout the country.
Katie has spoken and conducted workshops on equal pay, salary negotiations, and unintended biases in hiring at hundreds of venues including Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the NASDAQ. She is a sought-after commentator on pay equity and women in business including the BBC and CNN.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- Why are you so passionate about this topic?
- What are some of the challenges or difficulties women and minorities face when it comes to negotiating a fair salary or a fair package?
- Systemic bias: what is it and how is this holding women back?
- What are the implications for women and their net worth?
- What is negotiation and why is it important?
- How can women prepare for a salary package negotiation? What are the key steps they need to take to be ready?
- If you experience discrimination or unconscious bias when you're negotiating your salary or package-what can you do?
- What is the gender equity gap and what can women do to close it?
- What can employers do and who is getting this right?
Vicki Saunders is an entrepreneur, award-winning mentor, advisor to the next generation of change makers and leading advocate for entrepreneurship as a way of creating positive transformation in the world. Vicki is Founder of #radical generosity and SheEO, a global community of radically generous women supporting women-led Ventures working on the World’s To Do List. Vicki has co-founded and run ventures in Europe, Toronto and Silicon Valley and taken a company public on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Vicki was named one of the 100 most influential leaders of 2015 from “EBW – Empowering A Billion Women”. In 2001, Vicki was selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.
We cover the following in our conversation:
- What does radical generosity mean to you and why is it important?
- Why should women invest; why is it important? And why should women fund female founders?
- Why do we need to build new systems for change?
- Can you talk to us about SheEO and the unique business model?
- What are you excited about in the world of investing?
- What advice do you have for female founders raising during the pandemic?
- And how can women become activators?
Shelley Kuipers is building the world she wants to live in. As an activist in business, entrepreneurship and investment, she is hell bent on defeating the status quo one project at a time, and replacing it with options that are more equitable, feminist and ecologically sustainable; revolutionary options that drive greater value for both business and consumer.
Shelley is a co-founder of IOVIA and Adventure Capital. She previously founded crowd-sourcing company, Chaordix and was a founding member of Stormworks. She is also co-founder of financial feminist platform, The51 and sustainable direct to consumer clothing brand Harris Kuipers, all in addition to championing the entrepreneurs she has chosen to invest in.
Shelley loves to travel for business and adventure but also questions the sustainability of it all - in fact she knows it isn't. When on a break Shelley finds herself revelling in nature with family and friends in Canada.
We cover the following topics in this podcast interview:
- How you got started on the journey as an investor and why you have decided to focus on the female market?
- What trends are you seeing now with regards to female wealth and women investing?
- Why do you think women tend to be more interested in investing for social good or impact?
- We know that women's wealth is on the rise: how do you think we can encourage more women to invest?
- What would you say to female founders who are raising capital right now?
- What advice would you have for women who want to engage much more around their money & investing but are short on time and/or money right now?
Julia Elliott Brown, CEO and Founder of Enter The Arena, is the UK's leading fundraising and growth advisor working exclusively with women entrepreneurs.
With 20+ years commercial experience developing, building and funding high-growth start-ups, including the award-winning online shoe design brand Upper Street, and internet pioneer UpMyStreet.com, Julia's mission and passion is to bring her wealth of expertise to support women entrepreneurs on their own journeys to raising finance and scaling their businesses.
Alongside her coaching and advisory work, Julia mentors female founders at Natwest Entrepreneurial Spark and Virgin Startup. She is a judge at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and also hosts the ground-breaking podcast Fundraising Stories with Women Entrepreneurs.
We cover the following topics in the podcast:
- What were some of biggest lessons from running your start-up and raising capital?
- How would you describe the landscape for female entrepreneurs raising capital-what are some of the challenges and how can female entrepreneurs overcome them?
- How has this changed for female entrepreneurs since pandemic?
- What's your view on the Future Fund?
- What are some of the way female entrepreneurs can raise funding today?
- Have you noticed any differences how women and men invest in start-ups? And how might female entrepreneurs apply that in how they raise funding?
- What are you excited about in the world of investing in 2020 and beyond?
- What would you advise women who want to engage more around money and investing-but don't have time?
Lauren Winfield is the founder and CEO of Signum City, a mobile app that illuminates the power of money through gamifying the stock market.
She aims to democratise investing and financial literacy, especially for Gen Z. After watching herself and her peers struggle to find their footing financially, she knows firsthand the perils and power of money. She graduated from Belmont University with a BBA in Music Business and International Business and completed a thesis on the trend of Social Capitalism.
With over 10 years of immersing herself in SMBs in Austin, TX, Lauren is passionate about pushing Signum City forward with her strategic leadership and keen skills in Operations and Marketing. She completed the SputnikATX accelerator program for Signum City in 2019, and she's excited to continue to illuminate the power of money for the next generation.
We cover the following topics in the podcast:
- How would you describe the market for women investors today?
- What are some of the challenges women face in becoming more engaged and frequent investors?
- How does learning and investing within a community help?
- How can technology help women and Gen Z invest?
- Why is mental health key to investing well?
- How did you become a long term investor?
- Do you have any tips for female founders running a start-up at this time?
Gail Wong is the General Partner for Her Capital: a venture capital fund with a laser focus on female founders. They believe in the strength, drive and potential of female entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia, the world’s largest emerging market.
Gail is also a certified coach enabling abundance for women; a SheEO activator and gender-lens investor.
She describes herself as a whole-brained multi-hyphenate who defies easy definition: she is an investor, coach, a cappella performer, yogi, empath, global citizen.
We cover the following topics in the podcast:
- How do you raise a venture capital fund?
- Why have you decided to focus on female entrepreneurs?
- How has Covid-19 impacted the fundraising and entrepreneurial landscape in South East Asia?
- Is there a difference in how men and women invest?
- What are you excited about in the world of investing in 2020?
- How do you personally invest your money?
- What advice do you have for women who want to start investing in startups?
- And what would you say to women who want to engage much more around their money and investing?
Connect with Gail Wong and Her Capital here.
Veronica Mihai Das is one the of founding partners at Bloomwater Capital, a hedge fund based in the British Virgin Islands that employs quantitative algorithmic trading strategies for traditional cryptocurrency markets.
With over 15 years experience in management consulting for enterprise programmes in non-for-profit organisations, private corporations and the public sector in the UK and Europe, Veronica now concentrates her skills and knowledge in the blockchain space. She has invested in blockchain and women-led start-ups and has owned an enterprise grade cryptocurrency mining farm. She believes in inclusion, diversity and gender equity in the blockchain space, technology and beyond and works to build a future world that her children will thrive in.
Bloomwater Capital offers the opportunity for professional investors to diversify their portfolio whilst adhering to traditional business principles of regulation, transparency and trust.
We cover the following topics in the podcast (60mins)-recorded 21 March & 10 May 2020
- Why are you interested in blockchain and the crypto market?
- As a founder & investor in the blockchain & crypto industry, why did you decide to build a start-up in this industry?
- For those of us who are new to the space: can you explain what the blockchain is and what crypto is?
- How would you describe the crypto marketplace?
- Investors such Warren Buffet criticise cryptocurrencies and warn against investing in them. Why is that? And could Warren Buffet be wrong?
- For women who are new to crypto but want to invest, what is the best way to get started today?
- In order to become long term investors, how can women think about investing in crypto or digital assets?
Additional interview about bitcoin halving which took place May 11, 2020:
- What is Bitcoin halving?
- Why is it important and how should we think about it?
Anna Sofat is the founder of Addidi, a financial services boutique for women. Anna sold the business to the Progeny Group who are spearheading a move to bring all your wealth, tax and legal advisers into one room.
Prior to founding Addidi, Anna was the managing director at Fiona Price & Partners, the first business set up specifically to provide financial advice for women by women. She graduated from Hull University and has a Masters from the London School of Economics. She is a chartered financial planner, won Unbiased’s financial adviser award in 2014, and was ranked No 1 female adviser by Financial Adviser in 2015.
Anna was also awarded the Woman IFA of the year in 2019. Away from work, she is married and a mother of two girls. She has served as councillor on Rochester City Council, her local parish council and was a non-executive director for the social enterprise, Fair Finance from its inception in 2005 to 2014.
We cover the following topics in the podcast:
- How are you 'the voice of women's wealth'?
- What was your experience of money and investing growing up?
- Why do we need the wealth management industry to change and how does the industry need to change?
- How does Addidi/the Progeny Group differ in the market?
- What do financial planners do and how can working with one help make a difference to your financial future?
- How can women invest for social impact?
- What are you excited about in the world of investing in 2020?
- How do women become more engaged around their money & investing?
Sarah is a technologist, entrepreneur and angel investor. In 2014 she co-founded the fast-growing and award-winning angel network, Angel Academe. Their mission is to introduce more women to angel investing and to invest in women founded and co-founded technology startups with high growth potential. Investments include: Provenance, which uses the blockchain to provide supply chain transparency; Raremark which uses AI to help patients with rare diseases make informed choices about treatment; and Fiskl, a fintech for micro-businesses.
Sarah is also on the board of the UK Business Angels Association.
We cover the following questions in the podcast:
- What sparked the idea to start an angel network aimed at women?
- Why do we need angel networks aimed at women, like Angel Academe?
- What makes Angel Academe a unique proposition in the market?
- What is an angel investor?
- How do you become an angel investor?
- What is the criteria & where do you start?
- What is the process for investing in a start-up and what does an angel investor have to do?
- At a very high level, how does the maths work?
- What is Sarah excited about in the world of investing?
- How do we encourage more women to become angel investors?
Barbara Stewart is a Chartered Financial Analyst with 28 years in the investment management industry, five years as a foreign currency trader and then two decades as a portfolio manager investing on behalf of high net worth entrepreneurs.
Ten years ago Barbara saw a need to challenge outdated financial industry stereotypes and share positive messages about women and money.
Today, Barbara is recognised worldwide as one of the leading researchers in women and finance. Her Rich Thinking® global research papers quote smart women from all ages, professions and industry.
Barbara is a keynote speaker for CFA Societies, banks and stock exchanges around the world, and conducts interview driven research for financial institutions in Canada and globally.
The key topics we discuss in the podcast include:
- Why is the world waking up to women investors now?
- What does the financial services industry need to do differently in order to engage more women?
- Why are women 'risk aware' as opposed to 'risk averse'?
- How do women invest differently to men?
- How can more women engage around their money & investing?
This podcast was recorded on 8 February 2020.