Championing Diversity and Making Waves in Interior Design at Wayfair

Hello listeners, and welcome to another exciting episode of Tech Forward! This week, we're rebroadcasting my covnersation with award-winning comedian Ana-Marija Stojic. Over the last several years, she’s participated in numerous comedy competitions, and been featured in the NBC Showcase at the Women in Comedy Festival Boston 2018. She was also a recipient of Netflix's 2018 Diversity of Voices fellowship at the Banff World Media Festival. On her latest project, “Artificial, the Podcast,” Ana-Marija will be joined by a unique co-host: a functioning AI chatbot. Today, we’ll be talking about her plans for the show, what it’s like to co-host with a chat bot, and some of the important topics they plan to tackle together.

A self-described nerd, Ana-Marija has always been fascinated by the idea of collaborating with artificial intelligence. In recounting the inspiration behind the show, she touches on the story of a  chess tournament that paired humans with robots. Rather than the “top” performers of each category, the winning duo consisted of a human and a robot who worked well together. “I’ve used this approach when working with anyone, human or AI. The success of a collaboration is based on the least amount of friction.” Together on the show, Ana-Marija and her co-host will tackle politics and the human paranoia towards artificial intelligence, all through a lens of comedic absurdity.

So what makes this format a good fit to uniquely and effectively address such important topics? According to Ana-Marija, the answer lies in the powerful combination of comedy and imagination. “Comedy is the best way to get people’s guards down and get them thinking about alternatives, really challenging their beliefs. ...Suddenly, anything is possible. Everything is based on the limits of our imagination. If you can expand someone’s imagination, you can change the world.” Currently, she sees her target audience as a mix of comedy lovers and AI enthusiasts, and hopes to someday evolve the podcast into a fully produced talk show.

While the process of crowdfunding to get the show started was a stressful one, Ana-Marija came away from the experience with valuable feedback from potential investors involved in the AI community. The proof of concept video, which she shot just days after our interview, was a key missing piece that has since played a role in moving the project forward. Ana-Marija has also been quick to adapt the project over time, and incorporate new information in the show’s evolution. She realized fairly early on that the campaign’s success could not be accurately measured by the amount of money raised, and shifted her focus to engagement with the idea and the content around it.

Ana-Marija, thank you so much for coming onto the show to share your fascinating project with our listeners. I can’t wait to see where this podcast takes you and your co-host. Thank you, also, to everyone out there listening, sharing, and reviewing the show. See you next week!

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Hello listeners, and welcome back to Tech Forward! This week, we're rebroadcasting my conversation with Aishwarya Balaji, Founder and CEO of Impact Chain Lab. By using blockchain technology, Impact Chain Lab is focused on building equitable communities around the globe. Aishwarya became interested in the disruptive power of blockchain in her previous roles as a consultant and leader at Build Academy, and now identifies ways to apply this technology to create solutions in the global development landscape. On this episode, we discussed her entrepreneurial journey, and the various ways Impact Chain Lab uses blockchain technology to drive positive social impact.

As someone who knew from a young age that she wanted to go into business, Aishwarya’s entrepreneurial spirit is imbued with her natural curiosity and affinity for calculated risks. Her role as employee #1 at Build Academy gave her real time insights into the process of building a company from the ground up. That, combined with her firsthand experience in the venture capital and angel investing sphere, played a significant role in the creation of Impact Chain Lab. Aishwarya noticed that while support for impact investing has been growing, that increased interest has so far not been reflected in the flow of capital. With Impact Chain Lab, Aishwarya wants to use blockchain to funnel funds to social enterprises in a meaningful way.

Impact Chain Lab’s main focus right now is a project called Bystander, which Aishwarya summarizes as “a cross between Reddit and Wikipedia.” Bystander allows users to retain and to benefit from the digital assets that they create — a power that users of the largest crowdsourced platforms generally lose the moment they hit “submit.” Users on Bystander can share and discuss information around a variety of topics, and when the community decides that information is valuable to them, individual users are rewarded for collecting and sharing high integrity, reliable data. “On our platform, the people producing the data are also the people consuming it.”

Currently, the team at Impact Chain Lab is more than 50% female — which Aishwarya says was an intentional choice. “I’d like to keep building a team that is very diverse in all ways. In building any company, and especially a consumer facing one, it’s critical to have people on the team who represent the people you want using the platform. I want to make sure that we do that.” Her advice to other entrepreneurs who are ready to grow their team is to hire slowly. “Bring in people who are aligned with your business goals as well as your personal mottos and morals.”

Aishwarya, thank you so much for joining me on the show to talk about your work with Impact Chain Lab and some of the exciting potential of blockchain technology. Thank you as always to our listeners for sharing and reviewing the show. See you next week!

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Welcome back to Tech Forward, listeners! For this week's rebroadcast, we're featuring my conversation with Leslie Jump, founder and CEO at DifferentFunds, which is the first platform designed and built for investing in venture funds. Leslie has spent the bulk of her career building, advising, and investing in new companies, both in the US and worldwide. Most recently, she served as a Partner in Sawari Ventures, LLC, a Cairo-based early stage venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs across the Middle East and North Africa. Today, Leslie will share her inspiration for launching DifferentFunds, and how she’s helping a diverse network of more than 800 funds access the resources they need to support entrepreneurs globally.

DifferentFunds began as Startup Angels in 2013, with the initial goal to match angel investors with startup investment opportunities. Eventually, however, Leslie and her team realized something critical: venture capital has a math problem. While the vast majority of venture funds have a median size of $60 million, most investors don’t consider funds under $100 million. What was really needed was a product that would allow the two sides of the marketplace to interact and transact with each other. On the DifferentFunds platform, qualified individuals and institutions can find, research, and invest in venture capital funds. The platform has a database of 900 highly diverse US-based firms, investing in everything from AI, to blockchain, to robotics, and more. In Leslie’s words, “Our job isn’t trying to guess who’s going to be the top of the top performers. We’re not trying to find the needle in the haystack that is the “best possible” fund. We’re building the haystack.”

The diversity on DifferentFunds is also reflected in the makeup of the funds themselves: 65% of the funds have a woman, a person of color, or both at the helm. Rather than a unique outlier, Leslie asserts that the diversity is a reflection of reality, and the fact that, both in the US and globally, society is shifting towards true multiculturalism. With multiple studies showing that diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams, performance is a key benefit to highlight to the limited partners. “You want your investment to be high performance? This is how. These folks have a propensity to outperform others, they see opportunity where others might not. They are dialed in.” Venture capital is a young industry, which has historically relied on pattern matching in lieu of true business intelligence. Leslie and her team are aware of this, and actively collecting data and building models that will better equip investors to make smarter decisions.

Thank you so much for coming onto the show this week, Leslie! I loved hearing about the work you’re doing with DifferentFunds, and your keen insights into the world of venture capital investing. Thank you also to everyone out there listening, reviewing, and sharing the show. See you next week!

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Hello listeners! Welcome back to another episode of Tech Forward. This week, I hope you'll enjoy the rebroadcast of my conversation with Kevin Dedner, Founder and CEO of Henry Health. Henry Health's mobile app provides self-care and mental health support through culturally sensitive teletherapy, serving the population with the lowest life expectancy in the U.S. — black men. Kevin is an experienced public health leader, and through Henry Health, he is committed to leveraging the power of technology to add 10 years to the life expectancy of black men in the next 25 years by focusing on their emotional and mental health. Today on the show, Kevin will be sharing with us some of the challenges black men face when receiving mental health support, and how his product helps address that need.

“There is a weight,” Kevin says, “a stress associated just with being a black man.” Unaddressed, that stress in combination with untreated mental health issues plays a significant role in the low life expectancy of black men in the U.S. While they do seek solutions, black men face considerable hurdles in receiving culturally competent mental health care. Behind Henry Health is Kevin’s vision of a trusted source for providing mental health services and self care support for black men. At first, Kevin approached this issue from an academic angle, drawing on his experience working in public health and researching the social determinants of health. Along the way, however, he had his own experience with depression, through which he discovered “that my suffering could be helpful to others.”

Kevin’s first hand experience with depression has been crucial in the development of a product that truly addresses the emotional and mental health needs of black men in the U.S. In fact, he brings many facets of both his personal and his professional life to his work with Henry Health, because he sees his entrepreneurship journey as a mirror of life. “My entire career has prepared me for the work I’m doing now. But when I first started to think about what I could do to address the mental health needs of black men, I met a lot of resistance. As an entrepreneur, you know this happens, and you’re more in tune with it. If you can push through that initial resistance, you will find what you need to advance your idea.”

Through Henry Health, users have access to teletherapy with professionals who have undergone training to understand the unique experiences of black men in America. They also have the option to participate in moderated groups where they can discuss issues related to stress in the workplace, single parenting, relationship issues, and self care. Also offered within the app are daily motivational messages from lecturer and researcher Dr. Dennis Kimbro. When it comes to utilizing social media in a positive way, “sharing these messages and affirmations really does play a tremendous role in people’s current condition and mental state.”

Kevin, thank you so much for coming onto the show this week to share the important work you’re doing through Henry Health with our listeners. Thank you as well to everyone out there listening, reviewing, and sharing the show. See you next week!

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Hello listeners, and welcome back to Tech Forward! This week, we're featuring a rebroadcast of my conversation with Catherine Wigginton Greene, Executive Director of content and engagement at Point Made Learning. She directed the feature documentary I’m Not Racist… Am I? (INRAI) which followed a diverse group of teens through a yearlong exploration of race and racism. From there, she led the development of Point Made’s newest offering – INRAI Digital – which uses the documentary as the foundation for a 3.5-hour online antiracism course. She also travels the U.S. leading workshops and facilitating dialogue about race and racism. Today we’ll be talking about some of the insights she has uncovered about race relations through her work, and how companies can improve their diversity training initiatives.

Catherine’s work with Point Made Films began as a side project during her years as a freelance journalist, but she found herself quickly swept up in both the world of filmmaking, and the work the company was doing. She focuses now on topics related to race and racism, having felt called to that path for much of her life. After switching from a predominantly White Catholic school to a more diverse public school setting in the 5th grade, she noticed even then that her family reacted differently to some of her new friends. This began her internal work of unlearning the unspoken messages she had received throughout her childhood — a process reflected in the efforts currently made by Point Made Learning.

I’m Not Racist… Am I? follows 12 teenagers over the course of a school year as they engage in discussions about unconscious bias, systemic racism, and other race issues. Despite the prevailing belief that racist attitudes will disappear with generational shifts, growing up in a racial hierarchy will still influence the beliefs of young people — even those living in diverse areas like New York City. “If you don’t explicitly discuss the factors of how we got to this place, you start to make assumptions about who belongs where, and who deserves to be there.” In showing the film at schools all over the country, Catherine and the team at Point Made noticed a common trend: students couldn’t stop talking about the film, and not only to each other. They brought the  discussion to their teachers and their parents!

Upon seeing the film for themselves, these parents then wanted to arrange showings in the workplaces as a supplement to diversity training. In an effort to create a platform for companies to engage with this work in a meaningful way, Point Made Learning was born. This consulting and programming extension combines an online course with interactive exercises and facilitated discussions for an immersive and engaging experience. Rather than simply “checking a box,” the goal here is a nuanced exploration into identifying and interrupting patterns of bias.

Catherine, thank you so much for coming onto the show and sharing your work with Point Made Learning — and some of the noteworthy results you’ve witnessed firsthand at the corporate level. Thank you also to those of you out there listening, sharing, and reviewing the show. See you next week!

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Welcome back to Tech Forward, listeners! For our rebroadcast this week, we're featuring my first double interview: Gerri Kahnweiler and Cayla Weisberg, co-founders of Chicago-based InvestHER Ventures. InvestHER is an early stage investment firm that partners with and invests in female entrepreneurs. As a strong leader in philanthropy and civic engagement, Geri has a track record for empowering women and girls to reach their full potential. Her mission is to create funding opportunities for women who are focused on technology-enabled business services and data driven solutions for large markets. With her background in sales and a focus on people over products, Cayla offers hands-on thought leadership on startup scaling, pivoting, and operation excellence for InvestHER’s portfolio companies. We’ll be digging into the catalyst behind launching InvestHER, and how they’re working to level the playing field for female entrepreneurs across the country.

Cayla and Gerri joined forces to launch InvestHER Ventures in 2016, a year when female founders received only 2.19% of venture funding. Considering one third of Chicago’s entrepreneurs are women, those numbers clearly aren’t the result of a pipeline problem. Recognizing this massive opportunity, Gerri and Cayla decided to focus on supporting female founders in the post-product, pre-revenue phase. They also assist these companies with customer acquisition, building a scalable sales funnel, and account management. “We have the easy job, really. The entrepreneurs have the hard job, and we’re there to support them. We admire each and every woman we connect with and evaluate.”

When it comes to working closely with a co-founder, Cayla and Gerri stress the importance of communication, clear division of duties, and presenting a united front. With their very different backgrounds — Gerri in philanthropy, and Cayla in sales and entrepreneurship — they make an effective and efficient team. “All our decisions are made together. I would not make an investment in a company unless Cayla was on board.” They strongly encourage other female founders to “find the yin to your yang,” a partner whose strengths and opportunities complement their own.

Both Gerri and Cayla have advice to share for women looking to get into investment. For anyone who already has funds to invest, Gerri recommends finding a local angel group, and working to understand the entire process from pitch to investment. Having witnessed this process play out many times, Cayla wants would-be female investors to know “there is no traditional path to investing anymore. A lot of funds are looking to hire people who have taken non-traditional capital risks in one way or another. Just because you didn’t go to business school doesn’t mean you can’t get into investing.”

Cayla and Gerri, thank you so much for joining me on the show today to share the exciting work you’re doing with InvestHER Ventures. Thank you also to all of you out there listening, sharing the show, and reviewing. See you next week!

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Welcome back to Tech Forward, listeners! For this week’s rebroadcast, I’m excited to share my conversation with Sean McKenzie, Co-Founder and Director of Driver Engagement at Steereo. By combining the power of music streaming with the popularity of ridesharing, Steereo is a music discovery app that gives emerging artists exposure and valuable data, while compensating rideshare drivers. Sean is an award-winning entrepreneur and a 3-time founder with a strong background in brand strategy, consumer insights, and market forecasting. He also serves as an advisory council member at Fund for Public Housing. Today on the show we’ll be discussing his career path, his approach to hiring at Steereo, and some of the ways he uses his experience to give back to his community.

The idea for Steereo came from a chance meeting between Sean and his team, and a Lyft driver with excellent musical taste. Realizing that rideshare drivers often act as DJs for their clients, Sean proposed the idea for a platform where up-and-coming artists could allow drivers to stream their music. The benefits are twofold. Along with the exposure to a larger audience, artists on the Steereo platform also gain access to a wealth of data, including where, when, and even how loudly it gets played. Drivers are compensated for this airtime in turn, accumulating funds over time much like a fare meter. When it came to creating the app, Sean noted, “People of color are great at creating content that lives on these innovative platforms, but they aren’t necessarily creating those platforms where that content lives. If there’s a demand for this, why not us? Why can’t we build it?”

This passionate attitude has been a common thread throughout Sean’s career trajectory. As a 3-time founder, he cites every step of the journey as an important part of where he is today. For any listeners out there considering pursuing their own ambitions of entrepreneurship, Sean has two key pieces of advice. First and foremost, don’t wait for a perfect product to launch — “When it comes to building tech products, great can be the enemy of good enough. Don’t let great slow you down. Get your core function nailed down, put it out, let your users break it and then iterate from there.” Furthermore, he recommends maintaining that lean, early-stage passion as much as possible as the business grows. “Even when you have more resources, treat your product as if you don’t.”

In addition to his work at Steereo, Sean is also a member of the advisory council for New York City’s Fund for Public Housing. At a time when more people than ever are in need of affordable housing, federal funding for these programs has unfortunately dwindled. “My entire existence can be attributed to affordable public housing. I am a direct result of these programs and they just aren’t really there anymore. It’s important for me to give back in this way, because our experiences shape who we are and how we view the world. If I can shape a kid’s viewpoint and their confidence, then that is my life’s work, beyond anything else I do in the tech industry.”

Sean, thank you so much for coming onto the show and sharing with us the work you’re doing both with Steereo, and with the Fund for Public Housing. Thank you as well to everyone out there listening, reviewing, and sharing the show. See you next week!

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Hello, listeners! Welcome back to Tech Forward. For this week’s rebroadcast, we're featuring my conversation with Wes Kao, a marketing strategy and product launch expert who works as a consultant and advisor to multiple consumer brands and tech startups. She serves as a mentor to entrepreneurs through her roles with WeWork Labs and Backstage Capital. Previously, Wes was the founding Executive Director of Seth Godin's altMBA. Today on the show, we’ll be talking about the leadership lessons she’s learned during her career, and her advice to other managers on how to adequately encourage and support women in the workplace.

After years of working in the corporate retail space, Wes found herself drawn to the rigorous thinking and problem solving aspect of the tech sector. She worked with Seth Godin to launch altMBA, an online leadership and management workshop which under her leadership grew from zero to 550 cities in 45 countries over a three year period of high-growth. She brings her wealth of experience to the table when mentoring entrepreneurs through Backstage Capital and WeWork Labs, advising founders and CEOs on effective leadership and avoiding the pitfalls of bias.

One key piece of advice Wes has for other managers is to conduct regular self-checks for bias. “The minute we think we’re above bias, or prejudice, or discrimination, that’s when we get into a dangerous spot.” Often, workplace culture permits pushback from white male employees — but punishes women or people of color for the same resistance, marking them as selfish or uncooperative. Though managerial roles often require split-second calculations in order to optimize the workday, Wes encourages managers to ask this question: “Would I react the same way to a white/male employee in this situation?” She also encourages similar self-checks when it comes to using language that reflects equitable treatment of employees. “Our automatic reaction might be to criticize, but those criticisms add up to a place where employees might not feel safe to lead, to challenge authority, and to ask questions.”

Wes also emphasizes that it’s not solely the responsibility of leadership to effect change: “We can always positively influence the lives of our coworkers.” She cites moments from her own  career journey when her allies have taken seemingly small, but powerful actions to support her. When clients assumed her male colleagues were in charge, those men redirected the conversation both verbally and physically — asserting that Wes was at the helm, and turning to face her. In situations where you suspect bias or discrimination, Wes advises, “Go to your allies in the company first. They probably notice it too. When you do talk to the person, bring it up in a respectful way. Above all, don’t suffer in silence! If you don’t feel comfortable and confident to do your best work, nobody is winning.”

Wes, I’ve really enjoyed hearing your insights and your stories, and I know that our listeners will too. Thank you again for coming onto the show this week. Thank you also to all of you out there listening, subscribing, and sharing the show. See you next week!

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Welcome back to Tech Forward, listeners! Continuing our summer rebroadcasts, we're featuring my conversation with Alli Young, Founder and CEO of The Forem. The Forem is a professional training organization that develops the next generation of leaders while promoting gender equity. Through her work with The Forem, Alli focuses on helping women advance their careers and building healthy organizations as a key lever in driving innovation and revenue. Today, we’ll be talking about how she came to found the Forem, and the critical skills she believes all professionals — but especially women — need to successfully progress in their careers.

Though she enjoyed her role as a Google leader, Alli found that it was difficult to pursue her passion for building and trying new things within such a large organization. She wanted to align her professional life with what she truly cared about: working with other women to develop and progress their careers. “Women have been failed by corporate America. How can I get more women into leadership roles where they have the power to affect change?” She took the leap and founded The Forem, which works at the individual as well as the organizational level to foster working environments where everybody can thrive and grow and fulfill their potential.

At the individual level, The Forem offers one-on-one coaching for emerging leaders, with a strong focus on 5 critical skills. Those skills include negotiating, building a personal brand, growing a robust and responsive network, financial fluency, and leadership skills — many of which can be a struggle for women. For women early in their careers, Alli stresses the importance of first focusing on negotiating and networking. “The first step is being able to self-advocate. A lot of women do not negotiate, and when we do we ask for less. [...] As for networking, 85% of our opportunities come from our network. Investing in people is always worth your while.”

Even within companies whose CEOs and board members recognize the value of diversity, making the change at the organizational level can be difficult. “What do you do if 80% of your existing team is male? Even with good intentions, these roles won’t open up tomorrow.” That’s why the team at The Forem work with CEOs on strategy and succession planning, preparing qualified women to step into a leadership role as soon as it’s available. They also work directly with leadership teams to identify, address, and solve for areas of unconscious bias. Working collaboratively and forming partnerships transforms how people in leadership roles interpret and identify bias. Alli also emphasizes the value of frequent, consistent top-down messaging about diversity and equality, highlighting both current statistics and future goals.

Alli, thank you so much for coming onto the show and sharing your work through The Forem. I look forward to the upcoming book about the 5 critical skills, and seeing that message continue to spread. Thank you also to all my listeners tuning in, reviewing, and sharing the show. See you next week!

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Hello listeners, and welcome back to Tech Forward! Kicking off our summer rebroadcasts, we're featuring the second episode of our November 2018 job seeker series, when I spoke with Michele Heyward, founder of PositiveHire. PositiveHire is a tech company engineered to bridge the gap between employers and women of color STEM professionals. Michele’s vision is to not only help experienced women of color find inclusive workplaces, but to help enterprises recruit them. PositiveHire does this via matching experienced women of color STEM professionals to relevant management positions within organizations. In this episode, we discussed Michele’s plans and aspirations for her business, as well as her advice for women and companies on how to begin to narrow the gender pay gap.

PositiveHire grew, in part, from Michele’s previous experience in career coaching. Having heard similar stories of career struggles from many female engineers, she wanted to help as many women in STEM as possible — and as quickly as possible. “What I want PositiveHire to do is enable women from different races to understand what a company’s culture provides each one of them. Each race can and will be discriminated against differently. So, what is it about the company culture that may benefit one woman of color, but not another? The ability to determine fit based on cultural background, gender, and race would help so many women.”

When it comes to externally determining a company or organization’s culture, Michele has a few tips for job seekers. First and foremost, look at upper management: less diversity at that level may indicate a cultural issue. For instance, it’s not uncommon for the responsibility of leadership to rest of the shoulders of Black women, but not the title. Connecting with former employees of the company on services such as LinkedIn can also be helpful, as they are often willing to be candid about their experiences within the company.

Michele also has words of wisdom to share as far as closing the wage gap. For women, especially women of color, she emphasizes the importance of knowing when to say no, and keeping concrete, quantitative documentation of how you’ve helped your company, team, or group. At the employer level, she notes, “You have the information you need to go through and equalize pay in your organization. How long are you willing to gamble that your employees won’t find out they’ve been underpaid?” Course correcting isn’t just about avoiding short-term negative consequences, however. There are plenty of long term benefits to making this effort, including positive press, and improving the bottom line.

Michele, thank you so much for coming onto the show and discussing the important work you’re doing with PositiveHire. Thank you also to all of you out there listening, subscribing, and sharing the show. See you next week!

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