SHESpeaks, the Young&BosSHE podcast Young&BosSHE

With the holiday season among us, this month we’re focused on hospitality and the building of authentic, real connections. Our guest, Elizabeth Eichhorn, is the Founder and CEO of Ampersand Dinners, an organization dedicated to creating authentic opportunities for professional connections around the dinner table that seed the potential for future partnerships and collaborations. Elizabeth discusses her approach to networking, which completely flies in the face of the business card swap let’s grab coffee dance we’re used to, the beauty of life-giving dinner experiences, the art of hospitality in leadership, the value of storytelling to building meaningful connections and more. 

This month, we’re focusing our content on SHEsSurviving, a theme dedicated to the SHEs we know and love who are actively surviving, recovering and living. Today’s guest, Lindsey Hall, is an incredible writer, blogger, social media influencer and recovery advocate who is dedicated to transparency throughout her own journey of recovering from disordered eating. Lindsey discusses her own experience, the science behind eating disorders and restriction, how to support people you love who might be navigating similar journeys, the ways you know you’re in recovery and the importance of never letting something like disordered eating steal the joys that accompany the one and only life we have.

This month, we’re kicking off the school year by featuring SHEsInCollege and today’s guest, Zaniya Lewis, is making big moves. In high school, she won an essay competition where she shared her story about the adversities that came with being the only African American in her private school class and won the chance to meet First Lady Michelle Obama, discuss the importance of overcoming challenges to get an education and even appear on the cover of Seventeen Magazine. That experience launched her dreams of sharing stories of overcoming adversity with others and since then, she’s launched the Yes She Can Campaign, an initiative to support young women and girls on their journey to accessing education. And she’s just getting started. The most amazing part? She’s done all of this while being a full time student at George Washington University. We discuss her work, her dreams, the adversity she continues to overcome and her advice to other CollegeSHEs, and beyond, who have the inkling of a dream, but aren’t sure how to bring it to reality. 

This month we’re featuring our first global guest -  Kat Brendel, Co-Founder and Head of Communication at Co-Women, a community club and co-working space in Berlin, Germany. Dedicated to re-imagining co-working for women as a function of community, Co-Women’s approach includes mentoring, networking, active relationship building, master classes, weekly wine nights (yes, please) and more. Kat discusses her team’s road to abandoning their full time gigs and jumping straight into Co-Women, the “empire” they’re building, one of their simple mottos — collaboration over competition and the science behind the value of a SHE-based network. 

This month, in honor of PRIDE, we’re celebrating LGBT+Shes and this month’s guest, Shovann Staton-Backus, better known to many as The Stiletto Chef, has dedicated her entrepreneurial venture to celebrating the crazy, fun, flavorful and sexy side of cooking and food. Though she teaches women how to meal prep through viral cooking videos, her business is about much more than that. As a member of the LGBT community, Shovann sees her work as an opportunity to truly see all people and encourage those around her that they are ok, whole and accepted. Shovann tells us about the significance of her work with the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce which recently resulted in a historic Executive Order that affirmed inclusion for LGBT-owned businesses as a recognized category for Metro procurement. She goes on to discuss her work as an entrepreneur, the intersection of her identity, the importance of transparency in business and her dedication to living in her own truth and encouraging those around her to do the same. 

This month, we’re focusing our content on SHEsFounders, a theme dedicated to the SHEs in our world who are building their own futures. I’m speaking with Claire Smith, the founder and owner of Teffola, a fresh teff granola made from ancient grains grown on a farm that has been in Clarie’s family for 7 generations. Though she spent her childhood focused on becoming a pediatric cardiologist, her time in college put her on a different path. Now, Claire works alongside her family, turning they Teff grain they grow into her granola - and her entrepreneurial ventures have only developed from there. She tells us about how growth strategy, how she continues to honor tradition through her business, advice for fellow SHEFounders, ignoring the sneaky hate spiral, the importance of building a mental foundation of strength for herself and more.