Cage Free Voices Radio

Raya Bidshahri works with governments, investors, EdTech companies, and education providers to ideate and execute revolutionary education models for the 21st-century world.

Featured by the BBC as one of the most influential and inspiring women globally, she is a global thought-leader on the future of work and education.

Karen Fleshman is a mentor, activist, entrepreneur, attorney, author, educator, proud San Franciscan, and a single soccer mom. In 2014, she founded Racy Conversations, a workplace workshop facilitation company, to inspire the antiracist generation. Hundreds of workplaces nationwide have benefitted from Racy Conversations workshops. She is currently seeking a publisher for her first book White Women We Need to Talk: Doing Our Part to End Racism.

 

As a white woman, Karen experienced sexual harassment, wage gap, and glass ceiling from white men in the workplace, but she noticed the most harmful workplace behavior came from white women who viewed her as a threat to their proximity to white men in power. She worked for diverse organizations leading diverse teams, largely reporting to women of color, who were excellent mentors and role models. Emulating them, she learned how to relate across difference as equals and build relationships based in trust.

 

Mentoring young adults of color launching corporate careers in tech, Karen came to understand that racism is the underlying problem in our society, everything she had learned growing up about race and racism was harmful and inaccurate, she was part of the problem, and she needed to change.

 

Inspired by Mike Brown, BlackLivesMatter, and her mentees, in 2014, Karen vowed to stop preparing young adults of color for the workplace and start preparing the workplace for young adults color by sharing what she had learned. This was the genesis of Racy Conversations.

 

Karen's passion projects are police accountability activism, building interracial sisterhood and raising antiracist children. She serves on the workgroup overseeing implementation of the US Department of Justice recommendations for ending bias at SFPD. She hosts interracial sisterhood events throughout the United States. Her 2018 video Dear White Women: No More Permit Patties received 7MM views. Alongside her Women’s March sisters, she was arrested five times disrupting the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. In June 2020 he was featured on Nightline speaking to other white moms about how she talks with her kids about race.

 

She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College (BA), the University of Texas (MA) and New York Law School and is admitted to practice in New York.

*Sensitive content discussed.  Parental Discretion advised.

 

Allison Kugel is a syndicated entertainment columnist, author of the memoir, Journaling Fame: A Memoir of a Life Unhinged and On Record, and owner of communications firm, Full Scale Media. As a writer, Allison has published articles on women's interests and business that have appeared in various international publications and in University newsletters.

Allison has also conducted, published and syndicated in-depth interviews with newsmakers from: film, television, recording, politics, publishing, health and international affairs. Her articles, essays and excerpts from her many interviews have been re-published by: Yahoo omg!, MSN Wonderwall, San Francisco Chronicle, LA Times Blog, HollywoodReporter.com, DrudgeReport.com, Toronto Sun, W.E.N.N., Seattle Post-Intelligencer, UCLA FEM Magazine, Jewish Living Magazine, Social Life Magazine.

Allison has written feature stories on and promotional pieces for Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Obama advisor David Plouffe, Oscar winning actress Mo’Nique, rock legends Gene Simmons and Bret Michaels, model turned-author Jenny McCarthy, spiritual guru Deepak Chopra and renowned Harvard Professor and bestselling author, Dr. Andrew Weil to name just a few. She has been quoted in The New York Daily News and notable personalities like Giuliana Rancic, Kristin Chenoweth, Busy Philipps and Kourtney Kardashian have all tweeted and blogged about Allison’s written work as a journalist. Political figures like Ron Paul and Ralph Nader have re-published their interviews with Allison on their official websites. Allison’s prolific public relations career has included client bookings and media placements in/on: Good Morning America, Nickelodeon News, The Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, US Weekly, The New York Post, The Tyra Banks Show, Redbook Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, Mashable, Fox Business News, and MSNBC.

 

Find out more about Allison Kugel by visiting: https://www.allisonkugel.com/