The Purse Podcast

Alex Gessner is COO and Managing Director at ACI Diversity Consulting as well as a speaker and panelist. She spent 14 years as a senior executive in product and tech in the finance industry, at American Express and most recently Solaris, where she was responsible for innovative and disruptive projects in the digital and open banking space.

From chatbots to Buy Now Pay Later, product pitches in London and New York and testing Apple Pay at 4am at the Frankfurt train station, she's seen it all.

Her specialty is organisational design and building scalable teams and businesses. Finance disruptor by day, diversity activist by night: in this homogeneous industry, she has built several intersectional networks, including futura at Solaris, and conducted the first data collection in Europe focusing not only on "women and finance" but especially on trans* and migrant women.

She has been recognised for her achievements as a Future Maker by Business Insider, as Prout Executive #1 by Prout At Work and many more, including Global Digital Women, Beyond Gender Agenda, Impact of Diversity.

We discuss the following in our conversation:

• The financial service industry
• Financial inclusion
• The report: 'Finance is for Everyone'
• What women look for in financial services products
• How to engage more women in investing products?
• Why increasing financial literacy is key
• How can women engage more around their money?

***

Kristine Beese is the CEO of Untangle Money. Her goal is to get an affordable, unbiased financial plan into the hands of every woman in the world. Equipping women to close the gender wealth gap, thereby improving global gender equity.

Kristine talks about the unintended consequences of a financial system built for the typical male. She shares captivating stories about what women need to know about money and what women can do differently to align their day-to-day spending with their long-term goals so that women can make the best financial decisions for themselves.

Equipped with research, insights, and experience, Kristine is a credible and compelling resource that regularly educates audiences on why gendered financial equity is critically important.

As a woman and a mother, Kristine learned through her experience in male-dominated industries that women experience the world differently from men, especially regarding wealth and finance. As a result, her work is developed for women using women-specific data.

Kristine is a former national pairs figure skater who brings tenacity and bravery to her role as a founder. A problem solver by nature, her international experience in engineering, capital markets and wealth management helps her look at problems from a first-principles perspective. Kristine holds an MBA from the Ivey School of Business and an engineering physics degree from Queen's University.

We cover the following in the conversation:

• Women's experience with money
• Why language is important
• Why Kristine started Untangle Money
• Her journey as a founder
• The vision for Untangle Money
• And how we do encourage more women to invest in the startup ecosystem.

***

Sarah Courtney Dockett is Managing Director at Citi Private Bank, Head of Women in Wealth, EMEA. She is passionate about Diversity and Inclusion.  She is also a Senior Private Banker in the UK Ultra High Net Worth Team based in London.  Sarah is responsible for managing 30 client and Family Office relationships. While they may be resident in the UK, Sarah’s clients span the globe and she has a specialism in dealing with US connected clients.  Sarah has 23 years of experience working with Private Clients, 12 of which she has spent with Citi.

We cover the following in the interview:

• Sarah's most memorable experience with money growing up
• Why is money a taboo topic, especially in the UK?
• Women's growing economic power
• The financial services industry and what needs to change
• Citi's approach to gender diversity and inclusion
• The rise of female investors
• Female founders and raising capital
• Women's relationship to money
• And how can women engage more with their money?

***

Kathleen Burns Kingsbury is an internationally published author, coach and consultant. Her firm, KBK Wealth Connection, delivers confidence-building negotiation programs specifically designed for women.

Kathleen knows what it means to struggle with negotiating and has learned what it takes to shift fear into focus so that women advisors, coaches and consultants can charge for their value, make more sales, and feel great about it.

She is currently working on her sixth book, Unleash Your True ValueTM: How to Shift Your Negotiation Mindset, Boost Your Confidence. and Close More Sales. 

Kathleen has a unique blend of business negotiating experience and expertise in financial psychology that makes her programs extremely effective in changing mindsets and behaviours to achieve better results.

We cover the following in the conversation:

• Why is money a taboo topic, especially for women?
• Common money mistakes
• Gender norms and how this holds women back
• Financial services and the wealth management industry
• What is a financially successful life?

***

Anam Parvez Butt is a Pakistani feminist economist who currently works as the Head of Research at Oxfam GB where she works with others to develop and implement Oxfam’s research agendas on care and informal work, fragility and conflict and climate justice. 

In particular, the focus areas of her research include gender and macroeconomic policies, the care economy, feminist economic alternatives including metrics that challenge the neoliberal logic of growth, social norms and ending violence against women and girls (eVAWG).

She is deeply committed to integrating intersectional feminist and decolonial approaches in research, learning from and supporting others to do so.

She has co-authored two of Oxfam’s flagship inequality reports including “Time to Care”, the “Care Policy Scorecard” and recently published paper on “Radical Pathways to move beyond GDP”.

We cover the following in this conversation:

• The GDP measure: what is it?
• Why this is problematic for women and for women's wealth
• Why Oxfam has added its voice to move beyond the GDP
• The recently published report called Radical Pathways Beyond GDP
• Why and how we need to pursue feminist and decolonial alternatives urgently
• And how do we accelerate the pace of change?

***

Jana Hlistova is the Founder of The Purse and The Purse Podcast. Jana's focus is on women-centred innovation and closing the gender investing gap.

She stands for women's financial empowerment, gender lens investing, women investing in women, entrepreneurship, technology and social impact.

Her personal mission is to level the playing field for women. She believes that women, women founders and women investors are reshaping the future of business and innovation.

Jana has 18years+ experience in senior business development and commercial management in tech, digital, media and professional services.

She has a MSc from the London School of Economics. And she is a gender lens investor and invests in crypto.

To celebrate 100 podcasts, Jana talks about:

• Her background
• Women's economic empowerment
• Why start The Purse and The Purse Podcast
• Fund-raising as a female founder
• Women, money & investing
• Startup failure
• The financial services industry
• Women investors
• Money lessons learnt

***

Maya Ghosn is a Lebanese/Brazilian investor and advisor to purpose-driven organisations with a focus on mental health and sexual health.

After studying industrial engineering at Stanford in the USA, she worked at McKinsey for four years where she managed client projects for their Social Sector Practice.

She then moved to California to help build out the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropy started by Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg focused on building technology for social good.

She is now an active angel investor, investing personally and through Sequoia's scout program, as well as a Principal at Bridge Builders Collaborative, a US-based investment group focused on mental health.

We cover the following in the conversation:

• Female angel investors
• The UK vs US startup culture
• Maya's investment thesis
• How Maya invests in startups
• Angel investment networks and syndicates
• How female founders raise funding
• Toughest investing lessons
• How do we level the playing field for female founders
• How do we encourage more women to invest?

***

Shaun Richards is an independent economist who specialises in inflation measurement and monetary economics. This follows a career in the City of London where he specialised in derivatives (mainly options) on interest rates and bonds.

Shaun has also worked in Tokyo. He is a Bank of England watcher which covers the issues of monetary policy and money printing or quantitative easing (QE). Shaun also traded as a local on the London International Financial Futures Exchange where he mostly traded futures and options on future and present UK interest rates.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• The Bank of England (BoE)-are they credible?
• Rising interest rates
• The cost of living crisis
• The energy debate
• CBDCs (digital currency)
• What can we be optimistic about in the UK economy?

***

Triin Linamagi is the Founding Partner of Sie Ventures backing early stage female-led companies, and running a Capital Platform to drive more funding to diverse founding teams.

Formerly she was Vice President at The Venture Collective, investing in companies across US and UK.

She was also an early-stage investor at Founders Factory and Startupbootcamp.

Before her career in investments, she was a founder and operator in three companies across FinTech and Future of Work.

We cover the following in the conversation:

• Sie Ventures: the backstory
• Why is it still difficult for female founders to raise funding?
• Female founders generate higher returns
• The vision for the fund & thesis
• Investing in diversity
• Female investors-how do they differ in how they invest?
• How do we ensure gender lens investing goes mainstream?

***

Bernadette Joy is the rich auntie you didn't know you needed. She launched Crush Your Money Goals® in 2020, a money media company to serve up practical and fun educational content.

In that short time, she's taught thousands across the country her simple strategies to pay down debt, save more money, invest with confidence and pursue financial peace.

Agree with her strategies or not, there’s no denying her cred: Joy paid off $300,000 of debt in three years and built her first $1 million of net worth in her 30s as a first generation Filipina-American, the eighth of her father's nine kids.

She's been featured as a money expert on CNBC, Good Morning America, Business Insider and named to The 25 Most Influential New Voices of Money by NextAdvisor in partnership with TIME magazine.

We cover the following in this conversation:

• Why commit to financial independence
• Money scripts and why mental health drives wealth
• Why renting is better than homeownership
• Growing personal wealth through other investment vehicles
• Why women need to become financially independent.

***

Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser and a board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

She was previously Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service. Before that she was Partner at the accounting and consulting firm KPMG after senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector.

She has held a number of academic posts and is a Fellow and Council member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Society of Professional Economists and a Companion of the British Academy of Management. She was until recently on the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and is a member of the Advisory Board of the central banking think-tank OMFIF and of the Economic Advisory Group of the British Chambers of Commerce. She is also a Patron of the charities Pro-Bono Economics and Working Chance.

Her books include: “Greekonomics: The Euro crisis and Why Politicians Don't Get It”; “It's the Economy, Stupid- Economics for Voters”, with Ross and Urwin; “Redesigning Manufacturing”, with Nielsen and Beverland”; and “Why Women Need Quotas”.

Her latest book, “Women vs Capitalism”, was published by Hurst in November 2019. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality. She is co-founder of GoodCorporation, a company set up to advise on corporate social responsibility, is a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London, was the first female Master of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants and has been sitting on the City’s Members Diversity Working Party.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Inflation and getting back to the target 2%
• UK inflation-energy prices and food prices
• Brexit and the impact on inflation
• Rising interest rates and mortgages
• Cost of living crisis
• Wealth inequality
• What's ahead for 2023 and 2024

***

Julie A. Nelson is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She was a founding member of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and co-edited (with Marianne Ferber) the book Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics (sometimes called the “manifesto” of our field), published in 1993.

Her most recent books are Economics for Humans (2nd edition) and Gender and Risk-Taking: Economics, Evidence, and Why the Answer Matters. Her shorter pieces have been published in journals ranging from Econometrica and the  Journal of Political Economy to Hypatia: Journal of Feminist Philosophy and Ecological Economics. She is editor of the Business Ethics and Economics section of the Journal of Business Ethics, and was the 2019 President of the Association for Social Economics. 

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Women and risk taking
• Gender bias in economics and the impact on women
• Why economics is about people
• The need to be open to diverse views and perspectives
• How the field of economics should address 'real world problems'
• Why economists need to be more radical.

***

Angela Atherton (CFA, FRM) is the Co-founder and Principal of Parallelle Finance. Her commitment to financial inclusion and impact investing began at the start of her career when she managed screening and performance analysis for two ESG indexes. 

She structured private equity deals at American Capital Strategies. She led risk analysis and management functions at Fannie Mae and Calvert Impact Capital, a non-profit investment firm.  

As the Chief Operating and Financial Officer at The Global Good Fund, a social enterprise, she ran day-to-day operations and led commercial expansion.

Angela is an experienced entrepreneur, she co-founded a female-led fintech, Capital Market Exchange, and launched an independent consulting practice with a global reach, including emerging and developed markets in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• An update on gender lens investing since end of 2021
• The $1.4trn investment into the Japan focused Gender Diversity Index
• The launch of the Indxx Equileap's US Women in Technology Index
• How have gender lens equity funds and fixed income funds performed over this period
• Are we seeing a change in sentiment towards gender lens investing?

***

Sabrina Del Prete is the founder and CEO of Kore, a Financial Technology company based in London. She has over 25 years’ experience in financial markets, business transformation and application of new technologies in banking. Throughout her career, Sabrina has held senior roles at JP Morgan Chase, Barclays, Coutts and RBS.

She is actively involved in the entrepreneurial and FinTech community, both as a strategic adviser and as an investor.

She currently sits on the Board of Governors of the London Institute of Banking and Finance. Sabrina holds a Masters in Finance from the London Business School and a degree in Business and Economics from the University of Turin. She has won a number of innovation awards for her work and she has been included in the Timetric Power 50 list of the most influential digital innovators in Europe

Sabrina is an Italian national, she lives and works in London.

We cover the following in this conversation:

• Sabrina talks about her scale-up
• Her journey from the corporate world in financial services to the world of startups
• Why start the business
• How Sabrina was able to get her startup off the ground
• Fundraising and her experience as a female founder
• Sabrina shares her vision for success
• Finding investors who align with your values and goals
• Female investors
• And how women can start angel investing.

****

Edith Kuiper is Associate Professor and Chair of the Economics Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She edited (with Drucilla Barker) Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Economics (Routledge, 2003) and Feminist Economics and the World Bank (Routledge, 2006), and the Routledge Major Works Series Feminist Economics. Critical Concepts (2010).

She also published 3 volumes of Women’s Economic Thought in the Eighteenth Century (Routledge, 2014) and recently A Herstory of Economics (Polity Press, 2022). She has been a long-time, active member of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and was President of IAFFE in 2006.

Her research has been in feminist economics and in the history and philosophy of economics. She is currently a visiting researcher at the Centre of Resilience and Sustainable Development at the University of Cambridge. 

We cover the following in this conversation:

• Edith's book: a Herstory of Economics
• The field of economics and the lack of attention to women, their economic issues and interests
• How this has a lasting impact on women's pay and their personal wealth to this day
• Women's work, often undervalued and underpaid
• The world of finance and why women have been largely absent
• And why we need more women in economics and how women can be made to feel more welcome.

***

Tracy Lewis is a Global Brand CEO, Chair, NED, investor, advisor, mentor, and award winning entrepreneur. Her career has spanned the fashion, consumer, retail, beauty, recruitment, employability, marketing services and impact investment sectors and she has proven experience of establishing and growing profitable business across Europe, North America, Australasia and the Middle and Far East. Working with private equity as both CEO and NED, Tracy has achieved successful business exits, realising significant shareholder value.

We cover the following this our conversation:

• How to build a global lingerie brand
• Working with a private equity partner
• ESG and impact investing
• How women are changing business
• Women in the workplace
• Some of the toughest business moments and what it takes to overcome them
• How Tracy started angel investing
• And how more women can start investing in early stage businesses.

***

Shaun Richards is an independent economist who specialises in inflation measurement and monetary economics. This follows a career in the City of London where he specialised in derivatives (mainly options) on interest rates and bonds.

Shaun has also worked in Tokyo. He is a Bank of England watcher which covers the issues of monetary policy and money printing or quantitative easing (QE). Shaun also traded as a local on the London International Financial Futures Exchange where he mostly traded futures and options on future and present UK interest rates.

This podcast was recorded on Wednesday morning, 22 March 2023. Since then the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England (BoE) have hiked rates by 0.25%. And Janet Yellen, US Secretary of the Treasury has 'blurred the lines on bank depositors'.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• The banking crisis: how did we get here?
• How are the central banks and governments responding?
• Inflation & interest rates
• And what's ahead?

***

Vicky Pryce is an Economist and the author of her latest book 'Women vs Capitalism', which was published by Hurst in November of 2019. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality.

Victoria Ross is a Chartered Financial Planner for Progeny Wealth. Victoria has 18 years experience within financial services, during which she also completed the qualifications as a Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Managerial Accountant. As a Financial Planner, her key drivers are ensuring women reach out for and receive appropriate financial advice and that younger generations are financially informed.

This recording is from a webinar and we cover the following topics:

• What is the gender wealth gap?
• Why is closing the gender wealth gap important?
• How do we close the gender wealth gap?
• How can women manage their money to protect and grow their long term financial wealth?
• How can women engage more in long-term investing?
• What can the government and employers do to close the gender wealth gap?
• What books, blogs or podcasts can inspire or educate women on how to invest?

***

Abby Davisson is a social innovation leader and career development expert. Most recently, she spent nine years at global retailer Gap Inc., where she served as president of the Gap Foundation and a senior leader on the ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) team. 

Abby also co-founded the company’s employee resource group for working parents, which has been featured as a best practice for how employers can support dual-career couples. Abby's expertise in career development comes from serving as an alumni career coach at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and from forging her own non-traditional career path (across the public, private, and non-profit sectors). 

Abby holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University. She lives with her husband and their two sons in San Francisco.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Money and love: how relationships impact our money decisions
• How to communicate and negotiate effectively
• The 5C decision making framework and how this applies to 3 key life scenarios:
• a) choosing a mate or choosing whether to marry, b) combining family and career and c) deciding whether to break up or indeed to divorce your partner
• How gender norms play into these decisions
• And how to create that win-win situation for yourself and for your loved one.

***

Alix Lebec is the founder and CEO of Lebec Consulting, a women-owned and led company working across philanthropy, impact investing, and ESG.

Alix is a seasoned entrepreneur and strategic advisor with a global perspective and two decades of experience. Her career began at the World Bank in Paris and Southeast Asia, followed by the Clinton Global Initiative and Water.org. There, she mobilised $60 million in philanthropy before launching WaterEquity alongside co-founders Gary White and Matt Damon. As a founding member, she built a winning team and developed an innovative organizational and capital blueprint—mobilising +$200 million in investment capital and philanthropy, alongside developing and launching blended finance fund structures. Her leadership, strategy, and expertise transformed the organisation from an $11 million pilot fund to a successful global impact investment manager.

Alix is an iDE board member, a member of 100 Women in Finance, and a regular contributor on ESG, impact investing, philanthropy, and the urgency of investing in women in emerging markets. She holds a Master of Science in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Arts in International Business from the American University of Paris.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Investing in emerging markets
• Why we need more women and diversity in corporate and financial institution boardrooms
• The paradigm shift needed in mainstream finance to make this happen
• How women lead and invest differently
• Female founders raising funding in emerging markets
• And where financial services will be in 2030. 

***

Diana van Maasdijk is the Co-Founder & CEO of Equileap, an ESG data provider specialised in gender data.

Headquartered in Amsterdam, Equileap is the leading provider of data and insights on gender equality in the corporate sector. Equileap researches and ranks 4000 public companies around the world using a unique and comprehensive Gender Equality Scorecard™ with 19 criteria, including the gender balance of the workforce, senior management and board, as well as the gender pay gap, parental leave, and sexual harassment.

Prior to launching Equileap, Diana worked as Head of Philanthropy at ABN AMRO Private Bank and Director of Development at Mama Cash, the world's oldest international women's fund.

She has a BA from Hamilton College and an MA in international development from American University.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Gender equality at work
• The challenges we see in companies around gender data 
• Equileap's Gender Equality Scorecard
• Why gender lens investing is still considered a niche market
• The role investors play
• Euronext's partnership with Equileap
• Where will gender equality in the workplace be in 2030?
• How can more women invest?

***

Patricia Lizarraga is an experienced independent corporate board director, Audit Committee Chair, Risk Committee member and Financial Expert for NYSE listed companies.  She is a Wall Street executive with over 25 years of international mergers & acquisitions, capital markets, private equity and valuation experience.  

Patricia founded Hypatia Capital in 2007, as a corporate finance advisory firm, and currently is an asset manager and sponsor of the Hypatia Women CEO ETF (NYSE: WCEO) and owner of the Hypatia Women Hedge Fund Index (HWIX) – Powered by Wilshire and the Hypatia Women CEO Index (HWCEO).

Her current board experience includes John Hancock Group of Funds, where she serves on the Audit Committee, as well as Credicorp Ltd. (NYSE:BAP) and Banco de Credito del Peru, the largest financial services company and largest bank in Peru, respectively.  

We cover the following in our conversation:

• The Female Factor: why invest?
• The launch of the Hypatia Capital's Women CEO ETF (WCEO)
• How it came about  and why invest in the ETF?
• How women and men can align their values with investing?
• Patricia shares her advice for women who are starting out on their investment journey
• And we talk about how to close the gender investing gap.

***

Tatum Getty has built her career in marketing, working with brands such as Mattel, SoulCycle, Barry’s Bootcamp, and Tonal for the past 10+ years scaling them across the US and in the UK. 

She has an MBA from the University of Southern California and an undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis. While helping build brands from the inside, she began angel investing in early staged startups focused on health and wellness, which were the building blocks for launching a venture capital fund with her two business partners in 2022 called THENA Capital. 

THENA Capital is a UK Medical Technology fund focused on investing in early stage digital and device companies in the health sector, adding significant value to founders as they build their go-to-market strategy and commercialise in this space and helping them scale into the US market. 

Tatum is passionate about closing the gender healthcare gap, and THENA’s foundation incorporates a gender smart investment strategy ensuring capital is supporting gender balanced teams and considering women’s needs as a customer segment.  

The businesses they support address key need spaces such as chronic conditions, women’s health, oncology, mental health, and care service delivery with the mission to transform patient experiences.

We cover the following in the conversation:

• How Tatum set up THENA Capital with her two co-founders
• Why they're applying a gender smart strategy to how they invest
• Raising investment: finding the right investors
• Working with mentors and advisors
• Lessons learned
• How women can start to invest in the startup ecosystem via a fund.

***

Barbara Clarke is the Co-Founder of The Impact Seat LLC and Chair of the Board of The Impact Seat Foundation. 

Launched in 2021, The Impact Seat Foundation strives to create a world in which women, particularly women of colour, succeed as business leaders. Barbara’s vision of full stack philanthropy melds impact investing, advocacy and grant making to accelerate an expanded and equitable economy for all. 

As one of the top U.S. individual investors in women-led innovative tech startups, Barbara’s iconic investment strategy has inspired many others around the world.  Currently, she serves on a variety of boards, including Founders First Capital Partners, an innovative revenue based financing firm formed to support diverse small businesses around the country. 

She is also a founding member of Astia Angels who invest in impactful high-growth companies led by inclusive teams with women leaders. 

In addition, Barbara served as one of the founding members of the Portfolia, Inc Board of Directors. Portfolia is a venture fund focused on investing in the solutions women want in the world. In 2022, Barbara released her Amazon best-selling book, “Build Your Board, Build Your Business”. 

A polyglot, Barbara speaks five languages and splits her time between New England and Berlin.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Women's relationship with money
• Why Barbara decided to start investing in female founder startups
• How she started on her journey as an angel investor
• How she invests in early stage businesses
• The value add that female investors can provide
• Barbara's favourite startup investment
• Startup lessons learned
• Why we need more female investors
• The role that wealth managers have to play
• Barbara talks to us about how women can start on their own journey to become angel investors. 

***

Julie Castro Abrams is the founder and Managing Partner of How Women Invest, an early stage venture firm focussed on high growth, tech enabled women-founded enterprises. The firm is a culmination of her lifetime of work propelling women founders to launch and find success with training, capital and networks. 

Julie brings her extensive experience identifying and supporting early stage entrepreneurs and twenty years as a CEO and board director. She is bringing her extensive networks, leadership and entrepreneurship experience to disruption of the venture landscape.

An active investor and advisor to start-ups, and as the leader of the nation's largest microenterprise and microfinance organisation for 11 years, Julie has helped launch over 6,000 women into successful businesses.

Today she is advising the SBA, White House and Congress on national legislative initiatives to address economic opportunities for women. She serves on the California First Partners Project as an advisor regarding corporate board diversity. In her role as Founder and CEO of How Women Lead, she has been a driver of legislative initiatives and transformation in the US and California. 

Julie serves as an Advisor to financial services firms including the fin-tech start-up LENDonate and Nia Capital. She previously served as an advisor to Beneficial Bank and as the Governance Chair for the Association for Enterprise Opportunity and the Women’s Funding Network.

As the CEO of How Women Lead, she is at the centre of the movement to disrupt antiquated, unequal systems by propelling women into even greater leadership roles and increasing opportunities for all women. Julie has been an essential driver of the ecosystem for women on corporate boards in California. Julie has been a national leader in the movement and drove the successful passage of the groundbreaking Senate Bill 826, requiring public companies to have women on their boards.

The recipient of many accolades, she has been awarded the More Jobs Genius Award, the Morgan Stanley Innovation Award, Cisco’s Innovation in Technology Award.

We cover the following on our conversation:

• The early stage VC fund: How Women Invest
• Julie's journey for setting up the fund 
• And how she has raised funding from female investors.

***

Anna Sofat, known as the Voice of Women’s Wealth, is passionate about money being a force for good in business and beyond. As an award winning and highly qualified financial planner until recently, she had advised private clients for over 20 years.

She is a regular contributor to national press and TV and has been a judge for various industry awards over the years. In the past she has chaired the Nucleus Financial Services Advisory Board and was non-executive director at Fair Finance, the micro finance social business.

Anna is a graduate of Hull University and has a Masters from LSE. She holds the Chartered Financial Planning and Certified Financial Planner qualifications.  She has been awarded the Unbiased.co.uk’s Financial Adviser of the year and was recognised as the Top female Adviser by Financial Adviser. In 2019, she was awarded the Women Financial Adviser of the Year by Professional Adviser and voted its Personality of the Year in 2020.

Anna founded Addidi, a financial services boutique for women. Addidi was regularly featured as one of the Top 100 Advisory firm by the New Model Adviser and won the Money Marketing Small Adviser of the Year Award in 2018. The firm was sold to Progeny Wealth in 2019. Prior to founding Addidi, Anna was the MD at Fiona Price & Partners, providing financial advice for women by women.

Having founded Addidi Angels, UK’s first women business angel, she is an angel investor in a number of businesses and an advocate for female founders.

We cover the following in this conversation:

• How Anna started her business, Addidi
• How Anna grew the business
• Taking outside investment and finding the right investors
• Media's obsession with unicorns
• Building a business and investing for social impact (nor just financial returns)
• The exit: how to sell your business
• Women's wealth 
• Why we need more women investing and more women investing in the startup ecosystem. 

***

Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser and a board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

She was previously Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service. Before that she was Partner at the accounting and consulting firm KPMG after senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector.

She has held a number of academic posts and is a Fellow and Council member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Society of Professional Economists and a Companion of the British Academy of Management. She was until recently on the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and is a member of the Advisory Board of the central banking think-tank OMFIF and of the Economic Advisory Group of the British Chambers of Commerce. She is also a Patron of the charities Pro-Bono Economics and Working Chance.

Her books include: “Greekonomics: The Euro crisis and Why Politicians Don't Get It”; “It's the Economy, Stupid- Economics for Voters”, with Ross and Urwin; “Redesigning Manufacturing”, with Nielsen and Beverland”; and “Why Women Need Quotas”.

Her latest book, “Women vs Capitalism”, was published by Hurst in November 2019. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality. She is co-founder of GoodCorporation, a company set up to advise on corporate social responsibility, is a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London, was the first female Master of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants and has been sitting on the City’s Members Diversity Working Party.

***

We cover the following in our conversation:

• The UK bond market: what are gilts?
• Why are gilts so volatile at the moment?
• Why did the Bank of England (BoE) have to intervene after the 'mini budget' in September?
• What are LDI strategies and should pensions be using them?
• The problem with UK growth

***

Victoria Ross is a Chartered Financial Planner for Progeny Wealth. 

Progeny bring together independent financial planning, asset management, tax, HR and private and corporate legal services, under one roof. Victoria has 18 years experience within financial services, during which she also completed the qualifications as a chartered financial analyst and chartered managerial accountant. 

As a financial planner, her key drivers are ensuring women reach out for and receive appropriate financial advice and that younger generations are financially informed.

We cover the following in this conversation:

• Women's relationship to money
• Why the cost of living crisis is more of a concern for women
• What women can do to protect and grow their money during this time
• Index funds vs ETFs
• The new tax incentives for investing in startups and smaller companies
• Progeny research: women's aspirations and concerns about transferring money onto their loved ones
• Tips for finding a good financial planner
• How to start working with a financial planner.

***

Sally Mueller is the Co-founder and CEO of Womaness. 

Womaness is a high-performance collection of modern menopause products developed for women, by women that offer solutions from head to toe (and everything in between). With community, education, and inspiration, Womaness sparks the power of menopositivity.

Sally is a consummate business builder specialising in retail and brand innovation. Her trend-forecasting Midas touch has benefited companies such as Target, Who What Wear and VERSED skincare, among others.

She is a seasoned executive with impeccable entrepreneurial acumen. Sally spent over two decades of her career at Target Corporation, first in Apparel Merchandising and then in Marketing, helping to build the bullseye from a regional discount retailer to one of the world's most recognized and influential global brands. She developed and implemented Target’s designer program and Design for All platform, transforming the regional discount retailer into a global phenomenon.

Previously, Sally launched her own company, Whyse Branding, where she formed a licensing relationship with Who What Wear and successfully launched the consumer products line in Target stores and ultimately achieved international distribution.

We cover the following in this conversation:

• The menopause and why is it a taboo topic?
• What are some of the challenges women face as a result?
• Reclaiming the narrative around the menopause
• Womaness: building a menopause startup
• Building a new consumer brand
• The importance of community
• How to find the right investors
• How to start investing

***

Ruth Shaber, MD is the Founder and President of the Tara Health Foundation, which promotes health, well-being, and opportunity for women and girls through innovative evidence-informed programs. She is also the Co-founder and Board Chair of Rhia Ventures, a group of foundations and investors that collaborate to bring new types of capital and enterprise to the field of reproductive health in the United States.

Ruth had a robust career as an Obstetrician and Gynecologist at Kaiser Permanente from 1990 to 2012.

Ruth was featured in Forbes 2020 Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit—and Pushing for Change for her contributions to the field of impact investing.

Ruth holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Yale University.

We cover the following in this conversation:

• The women's health market in the US
• Why the market is underinvested and underserved
• Tara Health Foundation & Rhia Ventures 
• Investing in women's reproductive and maternal health
• What the market will look like 50 years+ from now 
• How more women can engage as investors.

***

Anna Poberezhna is a sustainable development and technology entrepreneur. She is the founder for ClearHub which is reimagining resources, industrials & infrastructure to rebuild peace, security & prosperity. Anna is a mentor, published author, speaker, life-lover and daughter.

She is a Fellow; part of the Sustainable Finance Live initiative, Blockchain Climate Institute; and a mentor at SWAN.

*Women in Mining, Responsible materials, Minerals diplomacy, TEDx, Responsible Finance, IWWA, UN COP24 (SIF Forum), Bloomberg Environment, Global Water Intelligence, The Water Report UK and EBRD publications and discussions. *

Anna is the first Ukrainian woman recognised for her exceptional digital talent by the UK Government (1 out of 3000 in 2016).

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Cleantech and why we should care
• The underlying values and principles that guide the Cleantech industry
• How this differs to traditional business and why it matters
• Investors and what it's like raising money as a female founder 
• How women as founders, investors, and stakeholders are reshaping this industry on a global scale.

***

Patience Marime-Ball has more than two decades of investment experience across capital markets, including debt and equity financing, large scale infrastructure, distressed assets, as well as venture stage opportunities.

Previously, Patience was Principal Investment Officer and Global Head of Banking on Women at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) where she developed the Banking on Women business; Patience co-developed the first-ever gender bond issued on the Uridashi market. She is the founder/CEO of Women of the World Endowment, an investment nonprofit focused on centralizing women as economic, environmental, and social changemakers while delivering market-rate, risk adjusted returns and impact at scale.

Patience holds a JD from the Pritzker School of Law and an MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University.

**

Ruth Shaber, MD is the Founder and President of the Tara Health Foundation, which promotes health, well-being, and opportunity for women and girls through innovative evidence-informed programs. She is also the Co-founder and Board Chair of Rhia Ventures, a group of foundations and investors that collaborate to bring new types of capital and enterprise to the field of reproductive health in the United States.

Ruth had a robust career as an Obstetrician and Gynecologist at Kaiser Permanente from 1990 to 2012.

Ruth was featured in Forbes 2020 Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit—and Pushing for Change for her contributions to the field of impact investing.

Ruth holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Yale University.

In this conversation we cover the following:

• Why women need to take centre stage in financial decision making and investing 
• How women invest 
• Why investing in female led innovation is key 
• How we can put more money into the hands of women in order to drive better outcomes and create more wealth for women.

***

Rebecca Chesworth is an equities strategist, a thought leader and a conference speaker.

She loves to share a passion for equities investment built on extensive market and client knowledge from 30 years as a fund manager, an analyst and an investment specialist.

Rebecca is an advocate of active investment selection and integration of ESG principles utilising cheap, flexible instruments such as exchange traded funds (ETFs).

Rebecca is a lead strategist on sectors and ESG for SPDR ETFs at State Street Global Advisors.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• What is happening in the markets today?
• How to think about a difficult or a bear market?
• Rebecca shares her outlook for the rest of 2022 and for 2023. 
• What actions European investors are taking?
• And how you should be thinking about investing at this time?

***

Gillian Fleming's expertise includes Advisor, Investor and Non-Exec to start-up and spin-out companies with 20 years’ experience in the entrepreneurial ecosystem advising and nurturing early-stage ideas through to company creation. Specialising in technology commercialisation her expertise covers energy, oil and gas, infrastructure, engineering, biotech and food & drink sectors.

With a grounding in sales and marketing within the energy and engineering sector across Europe she progressed into the University commercialisation and has successfully developed numerous startup / spinout companies from the Universities of Strathclyde, West of Scotland, Heriot Watt and Dundee.

Currently, Gillian is Founding Director and CEO of Mint Ventures (Syndicate) Ltd, an angel group focused on investing in women led and diverse teams with a social ethical or environmental purpose. She also represents Kero Developments Partners in Scotland, a private VC that invests in early-stage engineering related start-up companies.

She is also Entrepreneurial Scotland Saltire Fellow, a mentor for Women’s Enterprise Scotland (WES) as well as being an active angel investor.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Female founders 
• Why access to capital continues to be a challenge.
• Female investors and why more women investing into female led innovation is key. 
• Mint Ventures: the angel syndicate and what they invest in. 
• And how we encourage more women to invest.

***

Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser and a board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). 

She was previously Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service. Before that she was Partner at the accounting and consulting firm KPMG after senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector. 

She has held a number of academic posts and is a Fellow and Council member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Society of Professional Economists and a Companion of the British Academy of Management. She was until recently on the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and is a member of the Advisory Board of the central banking think-tank OMFIF and of the Economic Advisory Group of the British Chambers of Commerce. She is also a Patron of the charities Pro-Bono Economics and Working Chance. 

Her books include: “Greekonomics: The Euro crisis and Why Politicians Don't Get It”; “It's the Economy, Stupid- Economics for Voters”, with Ross and Urwin; “Redesigning Manufacturing”, with Nielsen and Beverland”; and “Why Women Need Quotas”. 

Her latest book, “Women vs Capitalism”, was published by Hurst in November 2019. She is a frequent contributor to media broadcasts and debates on the economy and on the economic rationale for gender equality. She is co-founder of GoodCorporation, a company set up to advise on corporate social responsibility, is a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London, was the first female Master of the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants and has been sitting on the City’s Members Diversity Working Party.

***

This interview was conducted on Tuesday, 7th June 2022. Since then, the BoE has increased interest rates again by 0.25% (to 1.25%) and the US Federal Reserve has increased their base rate by 0.75%, the sharpest rise in 28 years.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• The UK and global economy 
• The surge in inflation-is it out of control?
• Will monetary policy will be effective in controlling inflation?
• Slower economic growth & stagflation
• Are we headed for a UK and global recession?

***

Mary Ellen Iskenderian is President and CEO of Women's World Banking, a global nonprofit devoted to giving more low-income women access to financial tools and resources they need for both security and prosperity.

Prior to Women’s World Banking, Mary Ellen worked for 17 years at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank. She had previously worked for the investment bank Lehman Brothers. Mary Ellen is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the Women’s Forum of New York, and the UN’s Business and Sustainable Development Commission.

A 2017 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellow, Mary Ellen holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in International Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Most recently, she was recognized in the Forbes 50 over 50: Investment list, which highlights female investors and financial leaders. Her upcoming book, There’s Nothing Micro About a Billion Women: Making Finance Work for Women will be published by MIT Press in March 2022.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Women's lived experience as it relates to money and power
• Why women's property rights and building women's wealth is important
• Financial inclusion, how big this opportunity is
• Mary Ellen talks to us about her new book
• And how banking institutions need to change in order to serve the female customer better.

***

Sara Zulkosky is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Recast Capital, a 100% women-owned platform investing in and supporting emerging managers in venture, with a focus on diverse partnerships.

Sara previously served as a Venture Partner at Greenspring Associates (now StepStone Group), where she was responsible for sourcing and due diligence efforts across the platform, managing and supporting evaluation committees and existing investments, and leading the firm's impact investing initiative. Prior to joining Greenspring, Sara served as a Principal with CNF Investments, a private investment firm affiliated with Clark Enterprises, Inc., focusing on fund and direct venture capital and private equity opportunities in technology, life sciences and energy. Prior to that, Sara participated in Foundation Capital's Young Entrepreneurs Program, where she helped identify promising investment opportunities in the Washington, DC area. Sara was also the Director of Product Management for SkyBuilt Power, Inc., a venture-backed clean-tech company that provided rapidly-deployable renewable energy solutions to the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Intelligence Community, and telecommunications industry. She was with the business from its inception, also supporting it as a Project Engineer, Project Manager, and its Director of Engineering.

Sara received a M.B.A from Georgetown University, and a M.S. in Engineering Management and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The George Washington University. Sara is also a Kauffman Fellow.

We cover the following in the conversation:

• The emerging fund manager market
• Women-led funds: why are we starting to see a massive shift now?
• Recast Capital: investment thesis and key criteria used to invest
• Investing in top performing emerging fund managers
• How to diversify and manage risk across the portfolio
• Raising investment & engaging with female LPs
• Breaking into the VC industry
• 50 years from now: what will the VC industry looks like? And how will this impact the market?
• How do we encourage more female LPs to invest?

***

Marypat Smucker is a Co-Founder and Principal at Parallelle Finance, a gender lens investment research firm founded in 2019. Prior to founding Parallelle, Marypat was a consultant in investment communications and editorial services for global asset management firms. She began her consultancy following a role as Managing Editor of Institutional Investment Communications at T. Rowe Price. Before that Marypat worked in transaction services for KPMG. 

She started her career in finance working as an analyst at Emerging Markets Partnership, a firm which managed the first emerging markets infrastructure private equity funds. Her focus there was on Asia. 

With an undergraduate degree in Chinese, during her early career she spent several stints living and working in China. She holds an MA in Economics from American University and an MS in Finance from George Washington University. 

She is a CFA charter holder. Through Parallelle Finance, Marypat has published numerous analyses on gender lens and ESG investing.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Gender lens investing.
• The gender lens scorecard: what is it, why we need one and how investors might use this tool, including VCs. 
• What funds and corporates need to do to close the gender equality and equity gap.

***

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.