Clover: Conversations with Women in Leadership on Visibility, Authority & Owning the Room

Being the only woman in the room is rarely just a professional experience. It is a psychological one.

In this episode of Clover, we explore what happens internally when women navigate leadership spaces that were not designed with them in mind, and what it actually takes to stay steady inside those dynamics.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why being the only woman in the room creates a constant layer of self-monitoring and internal labor
• How awareness can quietly drain your energy when it gets turned inward as self-criticism
• The survival strategies many women develop, and how over-adaptation slowly erodes self-trust
• How to stay grounded before, during, and after high-stakes meetings in non-neutral rooms
• Practical ways to manage mixed signals and stop internalizing structural inconsistency
• What power actually looks like when you are outnumbered, and how to build it over time

If you have ever left a meeting feeling unsettled, questioned your readiness despite strong performance, or wondered whether you were imagining the dynamic, this conversation will resonate.

You are not too early. You are not too much. And you do not need to contort yourself to belong. I'm glad you're here.

As January begins, many leaders feel pressure to move quickly; setting goals, making plans, defining the year ahead.

In this solo episode of Clover, I pause that momentum and turn toward discernment. I share the habits, expectations, and patterns I’m choosing to leave behind, and how releasing what no longer fits creates capacity for clearer leadership.

You’ll hear reflections on over-carrying, availability, certainty, and urgency, along with practical prompts to notice where weight has quietly accumulated in your own work and life.

This episode invites you to start the year by choosing deliberately: what you continue carrying, what you set down, and how that choice shapes the season ahead.

Between Christmas and New Year, time feels different. The structure disappears, the pressure eases. And for many of us, especially leaders, that quiet can feel both relieving and unsettling.

In this solo episode of Clover, I talk about that strange, floaty week we rarely name and why it feels so uncomfortable when the noise finally drops. I explore what happens when our nervous system exhales, why stillness can bring up more than we expect, and how our identity as leaders is often tied to momentum and productivity.

Instead of rushing into planning or goal-setting, I invite you to treat this week as a pause; a portal between what was and what’s next. I share simple reflections to help you notice what feels complete, what quietly drained you this year, and what you’re ready to have less of moving forward.

You don’t need a plan yet. You’re allowed to let the year end before starting again.

More than a decade ago, I wrote The Snow Globe, a middle-grade novel about courage, belonging, and discovering strength you didn’t know you had. I wrote it before I had kids, before many of the leadership experiences that now shape my life. For years, the manuscript sat quietly as my life changed around it.

Two years ago, I was ready to self-publish. The book had been edited. The cover was complete. And then someone asked me a single question: Is it your best work? The honest answer forced me to slow down, revisit the story, and give it the time it deserved.

In this episode, I share the long arc of writing The Snow Globe, the decision to wait instead of rushing toward closure, and what finishing well has taught me about leadership, integrity, and honoring creative work — especially at the end of the year.

If you’ve ever carried a project longer than you expected, this episode is an invitation to reflect on what it means to finish with intention.

If you’d like to check out The Snow Globe, you can find it here.

If you’d like to follow along behind the scenes, you can find me on Instagram at @erinpatriciageiger.

The latest episode of Clover went live today, and this one is just me, naming something I think a lot of us are feeling, especially in December, but rarely talk about out loud.

In this episode, I unpack what I’ve been calling the leadership hangover. It’s not burnout or a breakdown. It’s that quieter, harder-to-explain exhaustion that shows up after a long year of leading, deciding, carrying responsibility, and being “on” for everyone else, even when things look good from the outside.

I talk about:

• Why leadership hangover often goes unnoticed when you’re still functioning and capable
• How emotional fatigue, decision fatigue, and constant responsibility actually show up day to day
• Why December amplifies this feeling; reflection, pressure, goals, gratitude, and zero time to exhale
• The guilt we carry when we’re exhausted but also proud of what we’ve built
• The different ways leadership hangover can look: numbness, irritability, avoidance, or emotional flatness
• Why this isn’t a personal failure, but a nervous system that’s been carrying a lot for a long time

Most importantly, I share what not to do right now — no panic, no reinvention, no aggressive goal-setting — and offer a gentler reframe. A leadership hangover isn’t a sign that something is wrong with you. It’s a signal that you’ve been leading, often quietly and competently, without much space to set the weight down.

If you’re ending the year tired in a way you can’t quite explain, this episode is your permission slip: you don’t need clarity yet, you don’t need to fix yourself, and you don’t need to end the year energized. You’re not behind, you’re human and you’ve been leading.

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with fellow Austinite, community builder, and multi-pivot queen Heather Trumpfheller for a conversation that hits on career, identity, sobriety, boundaries, and what it really means to build community with intention.

We talk about:

• Her winding career path & permission to pivot
  • Growing up a storytelling-obsessed kid in Dallas, studying broadcast journalism at Mizzou, and working at an NBC station
  • The scary identity shift of leaving journalism, trying PR, and then being “discovered” in the Central Market checkout line and pushed into sales
  • Working 11 years for the same leader, getting moved to Boston, and realizing she had outgrown a company she deeply loved
• That “make it obvious” moment & walking away from misalignment
  • The gut-check prayer the morning she asked for a sign to quit
  • The wild 1:1 where her boss suggested a new role and she realized the real answer was: “I quit.”
  • How she took six months to get clear on her values, not her job title
• Networking, mentorship & operationalizing relationships (without feeling icky)
  • Why you should never wait until you need a job to start networking
  • Building “relationship capital” with systems: calendar-blocked Friday follow-ups, notes on people, and being intentional about second-degree connections
  • Her take on mentorship as seasonal, specific, and often most powerful outside your current company
  • How to make a compelling outreach ask that actually gets answered
• Sobriety, boundaries & redefining worth beyond achievement
  • Hitting her two-year sober anniversary and realizing how much she’d been numbing with alcohol
  • Recognizing when your self-worth is tied to numbers, titles, and likability
  • Using how you feel after events and interactions as data to set better boundaries
  • Why she now sees boundaries as a gift—to herself and to the people around her
• Leading Austin Women in Tech & building true community
  • Moving to Austin not knowing anyone and finding Austin Women in Tech through a random Meetup
  • Starting as membership director, then becoming president, and helping grow the org to hundreds of members
  • What it’s like to motivate and lead in a volunteer-only environment
  • Why volunteering is a low-risk way to practice leadership, test new skills, and expand your network
• Her current work: community, referrals & women-owned businesses
  • Her role as Chief Growth Officer at Switchboard, a platform connecting skilled virtual volunteers with global mission and ministry organizations
    Switchboard+1
  • Her work with What She Said and the RFRL app, a referral platform that routes everyday recommendations (CPAs, lawyers, favorite coffee shops) to women-owned businesses and rewards the people making referrals
    What She Said, Inc.+1
  • Why she believes abundance follows alignment—and how these roles line up perfectly with the life she actually wants
• Influence without the title
  • How to lead before you have the formal authority
  • Why influence isn’t always the loudest person or the biggest title—it’s consistency, clarity, and alignment

Links & resources mentioned:

• Connect with Heather on LinkedIn
• Austin Women in Tech (AWT) – the nonprofit community Heather led as president
  • Website: awtaustin.org 
• Switchboard – virtual volunteering platform connecting skilled volunteers with

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with the brilliant and wildly accomplished Tina Sharkey for a conversation that honestly feels like three masterclasses in one: community-building, career design, and the future of human connection in an AI-driven world.

Tina walks me through her very non-linear career path—from hanging out in her mom’s New York fashion office as a teen, to an unexpected pivot into tech and investing, to co-founding iVillage, bringing Sesame Street online, scaling BabyCenter globally at Johnson & Johnson, and launching community-first CPG brand Brandless. Through it all, she shares how she’s always brought the same “toolkit” with her: storytelling, community, curiosity, and a deep belief in creating products and experiences with people, not just for them.

We also dig into her current work at USC, where she’s teaching and backing Gen Z founders, experimenting with GenAI in the classroom, and thinking deeply about what makes us “divinely human” in a world of powerful machines. Tina is both optimistic and clear-eyed: AI can unlock a new kind of renaissance—but only if we protect literacy, critical thinking, and real human connection. And for women in leadership, she shares some tough-love truths about putting your hand up before you feel “ready,” finding hidden doors, and making your career a relay race—not a solo sprint.

Conversation highlights:

• From fashion floors to technology boardrooms
  How growing up with a single, career-focused mom in New York’s fashion world gave Tina early exposure to women in leadership—and how one moment in an investor’s office completely rerouted her from fashion into tech, media, and investing.
• Inventing “social media” before it had a name
  Tina shares the early days of iVillage, why chat rooms and message boards were so revolutionary, and how she coined the term social media to explain this new kind of community-driven content to advertisers and partners.
• Building iconic brands through community
  We walk through her roles bringing Sesame Street onto the internet, scaling BabyCenter into a global platform (including the birth clubs so many of us relied on), and designing Brandless as a community-led, access-first CPG brand.
• Serendipity, hidden doors, and saying yes
  Tina talks about the role of serendipity—from chance meetings in offices and delis to unexpected board roles—and how being open, curious, and willing to ask respectful questions has shaped every major career inflection point.
• Humanity as our moat around the machines
  Tina shares her framework for thinking about AI: why she uses it as a collaborator, not a replacement, and why our empathy, soul, and lived experience are the “moat” that machines can’t cross.
• Gen Z, consciousness, and going “punk” on attention
  From her vantage point teaching at USC, she talks about how Gen Z is already pushing back on screen addiction, what excites her about their creativity, and why reclaiming our own consciousness is non-negotiable in an AI world.
• Literacy, equity, and the stakes of this moment
  Tina opens up about the crisis of literacy in the U.S., how reading levels are tied to incarceration rates, and why democratizing access to education and healthcare is a core part of her mission.
• Real talk for women in leadership
  We close with tactical guidance: stop waiting until you’ve “done the job” to go for it, bring your authentic self everywhere you go, surround yourself with people who are brilliant at what they do, and remember that careers are built in teams and relay races—not through hero moments.

Connect with Tina on LinkedIn (her most active platform), Instagram,

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with my former teammate Jordan Lea, now VP of Customer Experience at Plum, to talk about bold career leaps, people-first leadership, and building a meaningful career on your own terms. Jordan shares her journey from a tiny town in North Carolina with dirt roads and cornfields to moving to New York City with no job lined up, flying standby for interviews, taking an unpaid internship in fashion, becoming employee #5 at a fashion tech startup, and eventually finding her sweet spot in HR tech and customer experience.

We dig into what it really looks like to grow up inside startups; wearing every hat, building resilience, and learning to say “give me whatever you’ve got” instead of “that’s not my job.” Jordan talks about how she evaluates new opportunities by looking beyond the job description and title to the company’s mission, timing in her personal life, and whether there’s true alignment with what she cares about. We also get into culture (beyond the buzzword), psychological safety, and her “skill vs. will” framework for coaching and developing people. She shares practical advice for women who feel boxed in or underestimated at work, how to make intentional career pivots into new industries, and how AI can actually free CX teams to be more human, not less.

You’ll hear us talk about:

• Taking big leaps: moving to a new city with no safety net, changing industries, and asking “What’s the worst that could happen?”
• Startups as a career accelerator: why being early-stage employee #5 shaped her leadership, adaptability, and ability to “Sherpa” others through growth.
• Skill vs. will: how she decides when to invest in someone’s potential versus when there’s a true mismatch.
• Building real culture: trust, authenticity, and psychological safety as non-negotiables, not just slide-deck values.
• Career pivots with intention: how to research new fields, show up prepared to conversations, and decide if an opportunity is a “go” or “no-go” for your life.
• AI + Customer Experience: using AI to streamline the boring parts so humans can focus on relationships, storytelling, and proactive support.
• Her surprisingly fun productivity hack (involving a giant medicine ball) 

If you’re a woman in leadership, or aspiring to be one, who feels ready for your next leap but isn’t sure what it looks like yet, this conversation with Jordan will give you both the mindset and the practical tools to start moving.

Connect with Jordan on LinkedIn!

In this episode of Clover, I get to catch up with my longtime friend and powerhouse media executive, Tracy Kaplan, and her “hodgepodge” career that turned out to be a masterclass in building a bold, non-linear path in media, tech, and podcasts.

Tracy walks us through her journey from WGBH and ABC News to CBS Interactive, SnappyTV, Twitter, TuneIn, Patreon, Tenderfoot TV, and now Courier Newsroom, all while launching her own company, Small But Mighty Media, and creating The 10 News, an award-winning news podcast for kids. Along the way, she shares how she spots the real inflection points in media (from mobile video to podcast subscriptions to now AI), builds durable partnerships with platforms like Apple and Spotify, and refuses to let imposter syndrome keep her from jumping into the next big thing.

We also dig into the business side: subscription models, monetization beyond ads, what actually grows a podcast audience, and how to lead high-pressure teams through constant change without burning everyone out.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to turn a “hodgepodge” career into a strategic advantage and deliberately collect the skills and experiences you’re missing instead of chasing a straight line.
• How to spot the next wave in media and tech by staying curious, observing real people’s behavior (hello, commuters watching video in Japan), and forcing yourself to experiment with new tools like AI before you feel “ready.”
• Practical ways to move into a new lane—before you’re an expert, including how Tracy taps her network, asks smart questions, and leverages subject-matter experts to fill her own gaps.
• A clear breakdown of podcast monetization today—ads, Apple/Spotify subscription channels, Patreon-style membership, and even donations and fiscal sponsorship—and how to think about diversifying your revenue so you’re not at the mercy of one market.
• How Tracy built and scaled The 10 News for kids, including the real origin story (NPR in the school pickup line + political ads on YouTube) and the tactics she used to secure high-caliber guests like Dr. Fauci.
• What makes a partnership last in a fickle industry, from being radically responsive and direct, to making every deal a “win-win” instead of a zero-sum transaction.
• Tracy’s leadership philosophy in high-pressure environments—how she pushes her team to grow while still rolling up her sleeves, taking on grunt work when needed, and making sure no one is left to fail alone.
• Hard-won career advice for women in media and podcasting, including why allies inside and outside your company matter, how to recognize when it’s time to leave a role you once loved, and why tearing other women down is a long-term losing strategy.
• Her big blue-sky vision for helping kids and families better understand the world—and why she dreams of a “domestic Peace Corps” style program that gets people outside their bubbles and into each other’s communities.

If you’ve ever worried that your career looks “messy” on paper, or felt behind on the latest shifts in media, this conversation will give you both a roadmap and a serious permission slip to build something beautifully non-traditional.

In this episode, I sit down with mortgage industry veteran and coach Carrie Guarrero to trace a three-decade career built on service, community, and relentless growth. Carrie shares how an 11-year-old’s flyer route in her mom’s mortgage office became a billion-dollar origination career—and why the trophies eventually mattered less than the names and stories behind each loan. She opens up about a career “pause” that didn’t go as planned, the humbling return that led her to Fairway, and how that detour became the on-ramp to launching Fairway Ignite, an internal coaching organization now serving 600+ teammates with 80 coaches.

We also get into how Carrie is building a multigenerational legacy; handing portions of her book of business to her daughter and longtime partner, and what “effective coaching” really looks like inside a high-performance culture: individualized matches, data-driven accountability, and an always-on community. Beyond business, Carrie reflects on being an Army mom (and former Army spouse), holding pride and fear at the same time, and the leadership lessons that come from service, ambiguity, and letting go. She previews her forthcoming guided journal Discovering WISE: Women in Search of Excellence—a 52-week journey designed to help women define success on their own terms—and shares the daily non-negotiables that keep her grounded in faith, family, gratitude, sweat, and stillness.

Discussion Highlights:

• How a “failed” pivot can become the exact path you need next
• The core ingredients of coaching that actually moves numbers (and people)
• Why legacy leadership means empowering others, even before you feel ready to let go
• Navigating male-dominated rooms without dimming your light or your voice
• The power of holding two truths (proud and scared) and leading through uncertainty
• A simple morning framework: gratitude, sweat, and reflective thinking

Links & Mentions:

• Connect with Carrie Guarrero:  Instagram • LinkedIn 
• Book: Discovering WISE: Women in Search of Excellence — 52-week guided journey - grab your copy here!

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