Abby Davisson is an award-winning Fortune 200 leader-turned-author and entrepreneur. Prior to founding the Money and Love Institute, her social impact career included nearly a decade at global retailer Gap Inc., where she served as president of the Gap Foundation and co-founded the company’s employee resource group for working parents.

Abby’s prior professional experience includes strategy-focused roles across the public, private, and non-profit sectors, as well as a stint (alongside her day job) as an alumni career advisor and coach at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Abby holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University.

We cover the following in our conversation:

02:37 Why focus on money and love?

08:09 A lesson learned the hard way

10:46 Why decisions feel zero sum

12:57 Clarity and the "Five Cs"

16:41 Scenario 1: choosing a mate

23:09 Scenario 2: family and career

34:54 Scenario 3: breakup or divorce

39:02 Courage and better communication

44:46 Final advice.

****

Shaz Bishop is a wealth manager at RBC Brewin Dolphin. With over 21 years of expertise in financial services, Shaz advises private clients on comprehensive wealth strategies, including tax-efficient investments, pension planning, inheritance tax mitigation, trusts, and international investments.

Her holistic approach empowers individuals and families to navigate complex financial landscapes with confidence.

Beyond her advisory role, Shaz is a dedicated advocate for financial literacy and women’s empowerment in wealth management.

As a mother to two young daughters, she champions diversity and inclusion in the industry, striving to create a future where equitable representation is the norm.

She’s passionate about educating underserved communities and breaking down barriers to financial access, ensuring the next generation inherits a more inclusive financial ecosystem.

We cover the following in our conversation:

02:22 Money origins story

03:24 Cash ISA changes explained

05:04 Women and investing shift

08:05 Retirement barriers for women

10:37 Choosing the right adviser

11:45 One size policy limits

13:50 Cashflow planning tool

15:18 Risk and advice framing

17:57 Reviews and life events

18:59 Family planning and pensions

22:37 Measuring success beyond markets

24:02 Industry gaps and wealth transfer

26:54 Closing

***

 Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Advisor at the Centre for Economics and Business Research and Visiting Professor at King's College London.

She was previously Director General for Economics at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and Joint head of the UK Government Economic Service. Vicky has held senior roles across the private sector, including senior managing director at FTI consulting, Partner and Chief Economist at KPMG, and Partner at London Economics, following earlier positions in banking and the energy sector.

She's also co-founder of Good Cooperation, a frequent media commentator, and the author of many books, including Women versus Capitalism. Her latest book, Mismanaged Decline, co-authored with Andy Ross, will be published by Biteback in November of 2025.

We cover the following:

01:15 Current state of the UK economy

02:28 Business confidence and investment

06:17 Employment trends and challenges

13:29 Impact of AI on productivity

19:57 Inflation and monetary policy

22:41 Domestic price issues in the UK

23:06 Energy costs and market structure

25:42 Trade, global headwinds, and tariffs

30:06 Pensions for growth

32:42 Autumn budget concerns

39:42 Risks and hopes for the UK economy.

***

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?

***

Derek Shaw is Director of Entrepreneurship and Investment, where he leads the teams supporting Scotland's spinouts, startups, and scaling companies with wrap-around support and commercial investment. Under his leadership, Scottish Enterprise co-invests more than £50 million annually, making it Scotland’s most active early-stage investor, and the UK’s fourth largest by volume.

The portfolio includes around 330 high growth companies, valued at approximately half a billion pounds.

Alison Loveday is part of the extended management team and leads the National High Growth Entrepreneurship team. She focuses on ecosystem development, partnerships, and leadership programs for founders — including Pathways to Scale, a flagship initiative inspired by the 2023 Pathways Report, which supports female founders by upskilling leadership and investment readiness.

Together, they're helping to shape Scotland's innovation economy.

We cover the following:

00:11  Meet Derek Shaw and Alison Loveday

02:16  Overview of Scottish Enterprise

03:08 Scottish Enterprise's strategic missions

07:03 Supporting ambitious Scottish businesses

12:06  Collaborations and female founders

14:28  Challenges for deep tech companies

20:31  Case Study: ZOEX and Ash Penley

26:04 Working with universities and research centres

28:21  Metrics and measuring success

30:12  Supporting female founders

35:17  Lessons from recent successes

43:27 The future of Scotland's innovation economy.

****

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. 

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.

 Lorine Pendleton is a seasoned venture capital investor and former media and entertainment lawyer with deep expertise across sports, media, entertainment, and technology.

In 2024, she launched 125 Ventures, a New York based VC fund, investing in women's sports, media and tech at the intersection of AI, data and the creator economy. Previously, a partner at Portfolia, she co-launched the Rising America Funds, top performing VC funds with net IRRs in the top 5% of their vintage, and has invested in more than 35 innovative companies as both an angel and VC.

We cover the following:

00:10 Meet Lorine Pendleton

02:17 Lessons from Prince: The power of ownership

04:59 Launching 125 Ventures

10:30 The solo GP Experience

15:01 Barriers in venture capital

24:20 Female founders and investment strategies

24:41 Unique perspectives of female investors

25:16 Learned experiences

27:27 Due diligence in investment

29:11 The rise of women's sports

30:40 Media rights and market growth

31:25 Challenges and opportunities in women's sports

33:31 The future of women's sports investment

37:48 Engaging with LPs and shifting capital

40:25 Encouraging women to invest

44:05 Final thoughts

***

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?

 Ashley Penley is the founder and CEO of ZOEX, the UK's only female founded wave energy company. She transitioned from 15 years in offshore oil and gas complex installation projects to marine renewables, where she developed a modular wave energy converter that tackles the sector's biggest challenge, high cost.

She's also a mother of two, Zoe and Alex, and became a British national after moving to Scotland 25 years ago for her original oil and gas career.

We cover the following in our conversation:

00:11 Meet Ashley Penley

01:45 The challenges of wave energy

03:30 The 'Aha moment': Realising the gap in wave energy

05:29 Innovative solutions for wave energy

07:55 The business model and market potential

12:32 Designing ZOEX for real-world conditions

19:49 Partnerships and raising capital

23:02 Trials and commercial rollout in Turkey

25:22 Project setback and recovery

27:17 Validation and success

27:35 Global attention and future plans

28:30 Challenges and personal sacrifices

30:08 Company vision and funding

31:56 Navigating a male-dominated industry

33:29 Balancing family and career

37:12 Advice for entrepreneurs

***

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. She has 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?

***

Tiffany Irving joined Mesirow Wealth Management in 2021 and has 25 years of financial experience. She is a Senior Vice President, Wealth Adviser and a member of the Mesirow Inclusion Council. She provides comprehensive wealth management planning and advice to high-net-worth individuals, families and non-profit organisations.

Tiffany is a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners, and Legacy Partners, an association of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Foundation. She is a Board Member for the Caring Place and the Women’s Impact Fund for the Porter County Community Foundation. She is a frequent speaker on the WGN radio show “Your Money Matters.”

Tiffany earned her degree in Finance from DePaul University and her MBA from the University of Phoenix. She is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA®) and holds FINRA licenses.

We cover the following:

• 02:09 Tiffany's early money experience
• 03:28 Generational differences in financial perspectives
• 09:28 Financial literacy and confidence among women
• 11:39 Common misconceptions about women and money
• 17:01 Challenges in the financial services industry
• 23:01 The Great Wealth Transfer: are we ready?
• 25:13 The importance of high EQ in financial advisory
• 25:20 Building trust with female clients
• 26:18 Legacy planning and generational wealth
• 29:33 Values-based and impact investing
• 35:42 Female investment in female founders
• 43:05 Closing the gender wealth gap
• 47:15 Final thoughts

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.