Badass Women in Business

Aggie & Cristy
  • 5.0 (16)
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Welcome to The Badass Women in Business Podcast, where real women share the unfiltered stories behind their success. Hosted by Cristy O’Connor and Aggie Chydzinski, this podcast brings you inside the minds of founders, CEOs, and changemakers who have built, rebuilt, and redefined what leadership looks like. Each week, you will hear how these women turned obstacles into opportunity, silence into strategy, and ambition into impact. These are not highlight reels. They are hard-earned lessons from women who built empires, challenged norms, and did it all on their own terms. If you are building something, leading something, or dreaming of more, this show will light the fire that keeps you moving. Subscribe now and join the movement of women rewriting the rules of business, one badass story at a time.  New episodes drop every Tuesday.

  1. JAN 20

    Rebecca Todd: Building a Purpose Driven Photography Business Through Relationships

    Send us a text In this episode of the Badass Women in Business podcast, Aggie sits down with Denver-based photographer and TruBlu Images founder Rebecca Todd. Rebecca shares her journey from studying photography at LSU to rebuilding her business after relocating from New Orleans to Denver. They talk about carving out a niche working with mission-driven brands and nonprofits, why relationships matter more than marketing tactics, and how Rebecca has built a sustainable creative business while navigating imposter syndrome, seasonality, and growth. Rebecca also shares powerful behind-the-scenes stories from nonprofit work and offers practical advice for creatives who want to build a business that lasts. Key Topics Discussed • Building a photography business rooted in purpose • Rebranding and niching without limiting growth • Moving a business to a new city and rebuilding relationships • Why relationships drive repeat business and referrals • Imposter syndrome and seasonality in creative work • Hiring contractors and outsourcing as a working parent • Growing a creative business beyond one-off projects • Long-term vision for scaling TruBlu Images nationally About the Guest Rebecca Todd is a Denver-based photographer and the founder of TruBlu Images. A New Orleans native, Rebecca works with mission-driven brands and nonprofits to tell meaningful, value-led stories through photography. She is known for building long-term client relationships, finding a clear niche, and creating a creative business rooted in impact and sustainability. Connect with Rebecca Website: https://www.trubluimages.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trubluimages/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-todd-27216269/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trubluimages Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/trubluimages/ Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TruBluImages --- Subscribe and Review If you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

    38 min

  2. JAN 13

    Anna Perks: Building a Business by Taking Houses Apart, Not Burning Out, and Rethinking Waste

    Send us a text Anna Perks is the founder of Perks Deconstruction, a Denver based company proving that sustainability and profitability can coexist. What started with walking her dog past a bulldozed historic home turned into a seven year journey building a 20 plus person company that diverts massive amounts of construction material from landfills. In this episode, Anna shares how she built a business in an industry she did not come from, why entrepreneurship is often romanticized, and what it really takes to lead, delegate, and grow without burning out. This is a grounded, honest conversation about circular economy, leadership stress, learning by doing, and why keeping things out of the trash is everyone’s responsibility. Episode Notes / Key Takeaways • How a single moment sparked the idea for Perks Deconstruction • What deconstruction is and why demolition is one of the biggest waste problems we ignore • Why Anna chose to start a business instead of going to business school • How research, informational interviews, and mentorship shaped her first year • The reality of slow starts, early mistakes, and painful learning curves • Why culture, policy, and infrastructure keep us from becoming a zero waste society • What consumers and homeowners can do today to support reuse and recycling • When Anna knew the business was actually going to work • Leadership challenges, stress, and the loneliness of being at the top • Learning what to delegate and trusting others to run parts of the business • Growing from a solo founder to a 20 plus person team • Long term vision for expansion, technology, and policy driven change • The importance of resilience, relationships, and just keeping going Contact Anna Perks Website: www.perksdeconstruction.com Reclaimed Materials Store: www.perksreclaimed.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perksdeconstruction/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/perks-deconstruction-ltd/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/perksdeconstruction/ --- Subscribe and Review If you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

    48 min

  3. JAN 6

    Maria Onesto Moran: Being Where Your Feet Are and Building a Values-Driven Business

    Send us a text Maria Onesto Moran, founder and CEO of Green Home Experts, joins the Badass Women in Business podcast to share the real story of building a sustainable, values-driven company through recession, pivots, leadership challenges, and motherhood. Maria started Green Home Experts in 2007 as a green building supply showroom just before the housing market crashed. What followed was not failure, but evolution. Today, Green Home Experts is a WBE-certified energy efficiency logistics and fulfillment company serving utilities and program implementers across the Midwest. In this episode, Maria talks about mindfulness as a leadership practice, trusting your gut without a business degree, learning through mistakes, and building a strong company culture rooted in integrity, flexibility, and excellence. This is an honest conversation about entrepreneurship without the highlight reel. Key Topics Discussed • Mindfulness and the mantra of being where your feet are • Starting a business right before the Great Recession • Pivoting from retail to warehousing and logistics • Building Green Home Experts into an energy efficiency partner for utilities • Pick and pack, product distribution, and kitting services explained • Workforce development and inclusive hiring practices • Leadership lessons learned by doing every job first • Balancing business ownership and motherhood • Trusting your gut and learning through failure • Creating a values-driven company culture • Setting expectations without micromanaging • Redefining success beyond revenue and growth About the Guest Maria Onesto Moran is the founder and CEO of Green Home Experts, a WBE-certified energy efficiency logistics company based in the Chicagoland area. Green Home Experts supports high-performing energy efficiency programs for utilities and implementers throughout the Midwest through pick and pack, product distribution, and kitting services. Maria holds a degree in Sociology from DePaul University and has nearly two decades of experience in sustainability, green building, and energy efficiency. She is known for building a people-first workplace rooted in integrity, versatility, and excellence. Maria is married to her high school sweetheart and is raising three eco-fabulous sons. Connect with Maria - Website: https://ghexperts.com - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-onesto-moran-b68a756/ --- Subscribe and Review If you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

    46 min

  4. 12/30/2025

    Molly McCartan: Why Working Moms Are Leaving and What It Says About Leadership

    Send us a text Molly McCartan, Founder and CEO of The Mom Pact, joins Aggie and Cristy for a direct conversation about why nearly half of working moms are leaving the workforce and why this is not a motivation or confidence issue. This episode looks at leadership, incentives, and systems that were never built to support real life transitions. Maternity leave, flexibility, childcare, career gaps, and return to work are not fringe topics. They are core business and leadership decisions with long term consequences. If companies care about talent, retention, and performance, this conversation makes one thing clear. The problem is not working moms. The problem is how work is designed. In this episode, we unpack: Why high performing women exit the workforce after becoming mothersWhat the 44 percent statistic actually reveals about leadership failureWhy flexibility outperforms salary increases in retentionThe cost of rigid work structures on productivity and trustWhy career gaps should be viewed as capability, not riskWhat most companies misunderstand about maternity leave and reintegrationWhy the system pushes women out instead of pulling them back inHow community and strategy rebuild confidence after time awayWhat leadership looks like when policy has not caught up to realityCore idea: Working moms are not opting out. They are being pushed out by inflexible systems. About the Guest Molly McCartan is the Founder and CEO of The Mom Pact, a career driven network supporting working moms through major professional transitions. With more than a decade of experience in strategy, operations, and business development, Molly brings a business and policy lens to a problem often framed as personal. Connect with Molly Website: https://www.themompact.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollymccartan52/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themompact/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/molly.owens/--- Subscribe and Review If you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

    46 min

  5. 12/23/2025

    Dr. Laura James ND: Why Modern Healthcare Overwhelms Women and What Actually Helps

    Send us a text This episode is about health in the real world, not textbook medicine. Aggie and Cristy sit down with Dr. Laura James ND, a naturopathic oncologist with more than twenty years of experience working with women inside an overwhelmed healthcare system. Together, they explore why modern healthcare leaves so many women confused, exhausted, and unsupported, especially while they are managing work, family, caregiving, and their own health. Dr. Laura explains how rushed appointments, fragmented care, and authority driven medicine limit understanding and undermine trust. She shares why education, inquiry, and listening are essential to better health outcomes, and how integrative approaches can support conventional care without replacing it. They also discuss supplements, misinformation in the wellness industry, menopause, energy depletion, and why fewer, well designed tools often work better than endless advice. This is a grounded conversation about resilience, boundaries, and how women can protect their health and capacity in systems that were never designed to support them. Notes: Overwhelm is often more damaging than the diagnosis itselfSeven minute doctor visits do not leave room for real understandingWomen need guides in healthcare, not just authority figuresAsking better questions leads to better decisionsMidlife women are often caring for everyone while neglecting themselvesSupport only helps when it matches what someone actually needsLearning to ask for specific help reduces stressBoundaries are a health strategy, not a personal failureThe supplement industry is confusing and poorly regulatedFewer, targeted supplements work better than long listsMenopause during illness adds another invisible layer of strainEducation is one of the most powerful forms of careThe healthcare system is breaking under capacity pressureResilience is built through clarity, support, and agencyGuest Contact Dr. Laura James ND Website: https://www.laurajamesnd.comSupplement line: https://bestforbreast.com--- Subscribe and Review If you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

    44 min

  6. 12/16/2025

    Hon. Leela Sharon Aheer: How a 15-Year-Old Targeted by Hate Became a National Leader

    Send us a text The Honourable Leela Sharon Aheer shares the story that shaped her life and leadership. Growing up in Alberta as the daughter of an Indian immigrant father and a Canadian mother, Leela learned early what it meant to stand out, speak up, and build community. At just 15 years old, she was directly confronted by white supremacist hate. Instead of shrinking, that moment became the catalyst for using her voice and stepping into leadership. In this episode, Leela walks through her unconventional path from music and teaching into politics, winning her first election by just 260 votes and later serving as Alberta’s Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism, and Status of Women. She shares grounded lessons on women’s leadership, servant leadership, and why real change is built through small, consistent actions rather than power or position. This conversation is a reminder that you do not need permission to lead. You just need to activate yourself. Episode Notes In this episode, we cover: • Leela’s early life and how identity and community shaped her leadership  • Being targeted by hate at 15 and choosing to speak up instead of stay silent  • Why she left political science for music and later returned to politics  • Winning her first election by 260 votes and navigating imposter syndrome  • Why women’s rights must be protected in legislation  • How to build bridges with people you strongly disagree with  • Why momentum matters more than burnout  • Her vision for global collaboration, trade, and women’s leadership  • The simple lesson she believes every woman needs to hear Guest Information The Honourable Leela Sharon Aheer, ECA Email: eventswithleela@outlook.com  Twitter: @LeelaAheer  Instagram: leelasharonaheer  LinkedIn: Hon. Leela (Sharon) Aheer --- Subscribe and Review If you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

    55 min

  7. 12/09/2025

    Sarah Angello: The Startup Founder Rebuilding Trust in Philanthropy

    Send us a text Most people donate because they want to help. Few ever find out what actually happens to their money. Philanthropy has a trust problem. Nonprofits have a transparency problem. Donors want clarity but rarely get it. And donor-advised funds have become a quiet holding place for billions of untapped charitable capital. After fifteen years working inside philanthropy, Sarah Angello could not ignore the friction anymore. She saw the outdated systems. She saw the lost potential. She saw how giving had become complicated when it should feel meaningful. So she left a stable career, stepped into tech, and cofounded Daffodil, a fintech platform designed to rebuild trust in the nonprofit sector by making charitable giving transparent, simple, and accessible. In this conversation, Sarah explains the gap no one was addressing, how donor-advised funds actually work, why impact reporting is broken, and how she is solving a systemic problem with zero-burden, real-time data. She opens up about raising capital as a woman, choosing cofounders, navigating risk, and the lesson that shaped her leadership: almost everything is fixable. If you have ever given to a nonprofit, wondered where your money went, or thought about starting something meaningful, this episode will change the way you see philanthropy and the business behind it. Chapters this episode explores: The moment Sarah realized philanthropy needed a complete resetWhy donor-advised funds hold more than 250 billion dollars that rarely reaches nonprofitsWhat the GoFundMe controversy revealed about trust in the sectorHow Daffodil built a system to deliver real-time impact reporting with zero burden on nonprofitsWhy transparency is the next frontier in charitable givingWhat she learned moving from nonprofit bureaucracy to tech speedHow she chose her cofounders and why their history mattersThe reality of raising money as a woman in a male-dominated funding environmentWhy she believes fear of being copied is fear of weak executionThe early mistake that taught her that almost everything is fixableKey lessons: Transparency is not optional; it is the foundation of impactGood ideas are everywhere; execution is the differentiatorDonors do not stop giving because they lack generosity but because they lack visibilityFounders should build in public, not hide in fearCareers are long, and mistakes rarely ruin themContact Website: www.getdaffodil.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/getdaffodil/ Email: sarah@getdaffodil.com --- Subscribe and Review If you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

    50 min

  8. 12/02/2025

    Rachael Wonderlin: How She Built a Thriving Consulting Business, Broke Out of Her Niche, and Learned to Trust Her Gut

    Send us a text Rachael Wonderlin built a national dementia consulting firm from a Tumblr blog, three Johns Hopkins books, and a decade of hands-on work inside senior living communities. But the real story is what she learned along the way about boundaries, burnout, and trusting her intuition long before the data caught up. In this conversation, Rachael shares the full arc of building Dementia By Day from a one-woman hustle into a recurring revenue business that now operates like fractional operations for senior living companies. She talks about the early years when she said yes to everything, the moment she realized she needed a different model, and the systems she created to stop chasing one-off gigs. She also opens up about being pigeonholed as “just” a dementia expert, the tone deaf advice she received while pitching her fourth book, and the unregulated coaching industry that inspired her business memoir, I Can’t Hustle Any Harder Than This. If you’re building a business, struggling with boundaries, or fighting your way out of a niche that people keep trying to trap you in, this episode gives you the clarity you need to move forward with confidence. In this episode, Rachael shares:  • How she turned a blog into a national consulting firm  • The moment she learned to stop saying yes to everything  • How she built recurring revenue and stopped chasing the next gig  • The difference between coaching and consulting, and why clarity matters  • Why the coaching industry can harm entrepreneurs who are just getting started  • The story of the agent who told her to write a “funny dementia book”  • How she is repositioning herself as a business leader, not only a dementia expert  • The evolution of dementia care and why public awareness has changed  • Why she refuses to use AI to create content  • How her viral web comics reached hundreds of thousands of people  • What hiring mistakes taught her about leadership and trust  • The one lesson she wants every business owner to learn: if your gut says no, believe it Key quote:  “If your gut reaction is ‘oh hell no,’ that is the answer. Stop arguing with yourself. Say no and move on.” CONTACT INFORMATION Rachael Wonderlin Founder and CEO, Dementia By Day Website: dementiabyday.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rachaelwonderlin Instagram: @dementiabyday and @cant_hustleanyharder Substack: Can’t Hustle Any Harder --- Subscribe and Review If you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

    46 min
See All (135)

5
out of 5
16 Ratings

About

Welcome to The Badass Women in Business Podcast, where real women share the unfiltered stories behind their success. Hosted by Cristy O’Connor and Aggie Chydzinski, this podcast brings you inside the minds of founders, CEOs, and changemakers who have built, rebuilt, and redefined what leadership looks like. Each week, you will hear how these women turned obstacles into opportunity, silence into strategy, and ambition into impact. These are not highlight reels. They are hard-earned lessons from women who built empires, challenged norms, and did it all on their own terms. If you are building something, leading something, or dreaming of more, this show will light the fire that keeps you moving. Subscribe now and join the movement of women rewriting the rules of business, one badass story at a time.  New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Information

  • Creator
    Aggie & Cristy
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    135
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Badass Women in Business
  • Show Website
    Badass Women in Business