Conversations w/ Women Who Lead: A Business Podcast for Female Founders and Executives

Mel Wiltsey and Alex Santos didn't meet as business partners. They met when Mel, working as a postpartum doula, came into Alex's home to help her family survive months of sleepless nights with a newborn.

In this episode, the founders of Honey & Bro Co share how that relationship turned into a children's sleepwear brand built on bamboo and eucalyptus fabrics, inspired by their own kids, and tested nightly by their toughest critics: their toddlers. They talk candidly about starting a business with almost no background in fashion or manufacturing, the expensive inventory mistakes that came with learning as they went, and what it actually takes to build trust fast enough to become business partners after knowing each other for only a few months.

We also get into what makes their partnership work, thick skin, open communication, and a shared vision that mattered more than experience, plus why they believe emotion and passion are strengths in leadership, not liabilities. This is a conversation about building something real, staying rooted in family even as the business grows, and choosing connection over scale.

In this episode:

• From postpartum doula to business partner: how Melissa and Alex's relationship began
• Learning to manufacture clothing with zero fashion background, mistakes included
• Why they'd rather be someone's favorite brand than the biggest one
• Using their own children as product testers, and the honest feedback that follows
• Navigating conflict and building trust as co-founders and friends
• Why they see emotion and passion as leadership strengths, not weaknesses

Find them:
Social Media: @thehoneyandbroco
Website: https://thehoneyandbroco.com/

Alice Kao didn't set out to build a climbing empire. She set out to survive a breakup.

In this episode, Alice, co-founder and CEO of Sender One Climbing, shares the story behind one of the fastest-growing climbing gym brands in the country, and the winding, honest path that got her there. From investment banking to international toy sales to a chance visit to a climbing gym in London during one of the hardest seasons of her life, Alice walks through the moments that shaped her, including a childhood spent largely on her own after immigrating from Taiwan at fourteen, three years of unpaid work while building the business, and an unexpected reconciliation with an ex-boyfriend who became one of her largest investors.

We talk about what it actually looks like to co-own a business with your spouse, why she considers "relentlessly asking for help" her biggest advantage, and how she's learned to let herself cry in meetings without losing her ability to lead. Alice also opens up about what she's had to unlearn (winning at all costs), what she's still working on (slowing down enough to be present), and why she believes women are natural leaders, especially the ones raising kids at the same time.

This is a conversation about ambition without the performance. About building something meaningful while still figuring yourself out. And about what happens when you decide to be brave instead of certain.

In this episode:

• How a breakup in London led to a business now expanding into new markets every year
• Why Alice calls asking for help her superpower, and what most people get wrong about it
• Running a company with your husband: the good, the hard, and the honest
• What changed when Alice stopped chasing passion and found a deeper purpose
• Crying at work, leading with empathy, and why she stopped apologizing for either

Connect with Alice:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-kao-ca/
https://vimeo.com/1194015726/5a86e89d48?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

Bonnie Phillips has built three businesses: a photography studio serving female founders and families, a fine art portrait brand for schools, and a new venture still in its early stages. In this episode, Bonnie sits down with Ann Marie to talk about what it actually looks like to grow a business while raising a family, including the parts that don't make it onto social media.

Bonnie gets honest about the isolation of solo entrepreneurship, why it took her ten years to become an "overnight success," and how she's learned to say no to the wrong clients. She and Ann Marie dig into a question every ambitious person eventually asks: is success about ambition, or about contentment, and can you have both?

This conversation covers finding your ideal client, building community outside the screen, and knowing your worth after years of chasing the wrong metrics.

Find Bonnie at bonniephillipsphotography.com and on Instagram @bonniephillipsphotos.

Lisa McJunkin, LMFT and co-owner of Daydream MD, joins Ann Marie to talk about running multiple businesses, over-functioning, and what actually regulates a nervous system on a normal Tuesday. Lisa has specialized in complex trauma for two decades and now blends executive coaching with integrative health work, including ketamine-assisted therapy, functional medicine, and trauma recovery. She and Ann Marie get into why business owners run their companies with more structure than their marriages, how high-achieving people mistake action for the whole job, and why over-functioning so often gets mistaken for a personality trait instead of a pattern.

They also dig into what the nervous system actually is, why three conscious exhales a day can shift how intense a moment feels, and why Lisa believes you don't have to choose between taking care of your business and taking care of yourself.

What we cover:

• Why we run our businesses with more structure than our relationships
• The difference between compassion fatigue and burnout, and how to tell them apart
• Over-functioning: what it actually is and how to recognize it in yourself
• A plain-language breakdown of the nervous system and how it drives behavior
• Proactive vs. reactive breathing, and why three exhales a day matters
• Why "get yourself together first, then handle the business" is the wrong order

Lisa McJunkin is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, executive coach, and co-owner of Daydream MD, an integrative health and wellness clinic in San Diego: daydreammd.com

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

Guest: Lisa McJunkin, LMFT and Executive Coach: daydreammd.com

Alexa Gusman (née Efraimson) spent eight years as a professional runner with Nike, signing at 17 and competing against women years older than her for her entire career. Today she's a registered dietitian with a master's in nutrition and nutrigenomics, working with athletes and everyday clients on performance nutrition, body image, and their relationship with food.

In this episode, Alexa opens up about the body image and confidence struggles that shaped her career and never fully disappeared after she retired. She and Ann Marie talk about the myth that leaner means faster, what actually happens in the body when we under-fuel, and why rest is often the missing piece in performance, not the enemy of it. They also get into the outside comments about weight and bodies that stick with us for years, and how Alexa rebuilt her relationship with food, movement, and confidence on her own terms.

In this episode:

• Why leaner doesn't mean faster or fitter
• What under-fueling really does to the body and brain
• Grind culture, rest, and redefining productivity
• The lasting impact of comments about our bodies
• Rebuilding confidence from the inside out

Guest: Alexa Gusman, Registered Dietitian, M.S. Nutrition and Nutrigenomics
Instagram: @alexagefraimson | Website: fuelingforward.com

In this candid conversation, Laura Sudano is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant® and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist describes a career spent at the intersection of high pressure and high performance. A former collegiate volleyball player, she's worked with collegiate and professional athletes, coaches, and sports medicine teams, including serving as Director of Behavioral Science at Wake Forest Baptist Health. She's also a coach at Rose & Stone, and this episode is an introduction to the work she does with our clients.

In this conversation, Laura breaks down what mental performance actually means and why it's different from general coaching: it's the set of tools, like emotional regulation, visualization, and somatic work, that help people execute under pressure when the margin for error is small. She and Ann Marie talk about why success can hide the exact skills that created it, why the off-season is often the best time to build mental performance habits, and why athletes moving up a level often get exposed in ways that force them to adapt.

Laura also talks about identity, from the shift that comes with being injured or retiring from sport, to the parallel identity shift that comes with becoming a parent. She shares how she brings the same mental performance framework to postpartum and peripartum support, and why she believes the emotional demands of new parenthood deserve to be taken as seriously as those of professional athletes.

What we cover:

• What mental performance actually is, and how it's different from typical coaching
• Why success can obscure the process that created it
• The identity shift that comes with injury, retirement, or becoming a parent
• Supporting high performers through the demands of peripartum and postpartum life
• Why humor and honesty matter as much as skill in coaching

Laura is also a coach at Rose & Stone LLC, specializing in mental performance coaching for executives, athletes, and high performing professionals.

Connect with Laura through Rose & Stone at roseandstonellc.com.

Dr. Brittany Chidley talks about running a generalist private practice instead of niching down, and why the "pick one specialty" advice she got in grad school never fit how she likes to work. She and Ann Marie get into what it's actually taken to build and lead a team of therapists, including the ongoing challenge of holding standards like punctuality with grace, and why her team has ended up being all women without ever setting out to make it that way.

They also talk about the harder logistical side of running a therapy practice, like whether to keep taking insurance, and Brittany shares what she's building with EI Corkboard, a free resource hub connecting the community to emotional health resources and connecting providers to each other.

What we cover:

• Why Brittany chose to stay a generalist instead of niching into one specialty
• Leading a team of therapists and navigating accountability with empathy
• The insurance dilemma facing therapists today
• Building EI Corkboard, a resource hub for emotional health
• Why everyone has emotional health, just like physical health

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

Guest: Dr. Brittany Chidley, licensed psychologist, LMFT, and owner of Trails Therapy: https://trailstherapy.com/ founder of EI Corkboard: andwefeel.com | eicorkboard.com

Katherine Flechaus reframes people-pleasing, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome, not as flaws, but as safeguard strategies we built to cope with something we didn't understand at the time. She and Ann Marie talk about where these patterns actually come from, why they stuck around even after they stopped being useful, and how to recognize the strength underneath them.

They also get into what it looks like to bring these patterns into corporate spaces and leadership roles, why women are so often taught to shrink their instincts for connection, and Katherine's approach to building a resiliency plan instead of expecting a pattern to disappear for good.

What we cover:

• Why people-pleasing, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome are safeguard strategies, not flaws
• Where these patterns actually start, and why they worked at the time
• The difference between fixing someone and taking away their ability to learn
• Why women's relational strengths often get undervalued in corporate spaces
• Building a resiliency plan instead of expecting old patterns to disappear

Katherine Flechaus is an LCSW and founder of Aligned Core Life Coaching, where she helps ambitious women recognize the protective patterns shaping their careers and relationships.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

Guest: Katherine Flechaus, LCSW and Core Belief Strategist: alignedcorelifecoaching.com

Dr. Bluma Sapir on Pairs, Acknowledgement, and Why No One Grows Up in the Same Household

Dr. Bluma Sapir has spent her career studying what happens in the space between two people. As a psychologist who's worked with couples, parent-adult child relationships, siblings, and even workplace pairs, she's built a framework she calls "pair work," the idea that so much of our suffering and our healing happens not within one person, but in the dynamic between two.

In this conversation, Bluma traces her own path into this work back to her childhood, where she became the emotional bridge in her family long before she had language for it. She and Ann Marie talk about why one partner in a relationship often carries the emotional labor while the other struggles to express themselves, and the skill it takes to learn both. Bluma introduces her concept of "acknowledgement, not apology," a way of validating someone's pain without taking on blame for intent, and unpacks why she believes respect between parents and adult children has to be earned rather than assumed.

They also get into the cultural moment around family estrangement and "no contact," what Bluma sees in her own practice about who's actually seeking help, and her nightly practice of forgiveness that lets people rebuild the capacity for connection after being hurt.

What we cover:

• Why Bluma calls relationships "pairs" instead of just couples
• The difference between apologizing and truly acknowledging someone's pain
• Why parent-adult child conflict often isn't about what actually happened
• Her honest take on estrangement, respect, and what actually helps repair a relationship
• A simple nightly practice for building the capacity to trust again

Dr. Bluma Sapir is also a contractor at Rose & Stone LLC, serving as the team's in-house relationship expert, specializing in family, sibling, and couples dynamics.

Connect with Dr. Bluma Sapir on Instagram and Facebook, and at thepairinstitute.com (coming soon).

Kayla Shurson never planned on owning a business. She was five years into working at a small tax and accounting firm when the founder decided to retire and offered to sell it to her. Kayla said yes, took over ownership on January 1, 2020, and then spent the next several months learning what it actually means to lead a team through a global crisis while running a seasonal business that depends on cash flow discipline all year round.

In this conversation, Kayla talks about the early scramble of those first six months as an owner, why she sought out business coaching almost immediately, and the slower, harder transition of becoming the boss to people who used to be her peers. She and Ann Marie get into what it actually looks like to build a family-style team culture while still holding people accountable, why Kayla doesn't like saying sorry (and what she's learned about doing it anyway), and how she's grown her team from six people to seventeen.

They also talk candidly about money: the gender gap in financial confidence, why so many business owners avoid looking at their numbers, and Kayla's own advice for anyone who feels behind on understanding their finances. Kayla shares what she needs support with right now, even after nearly doubling her team and building a brand-new office space for her firm.

In this episode:

• Buying an existing business versus building one from scratch
• Learning to lead a team that used to be your peers
• Building a family-style culture while holding boundaries as a leader
• Why proactive communication is Shurson Group's top value
• Advice for business owners who avoid looking at their numbers

Connect with Kayla at shursongroup.com or @shursongroup.
Connect with Ann Marie at roseandstonellc.com or @roseandstonellc.
Kayla's Podcast Recommendations: Her Money w/ Jean Chatzky; Netwoth and Chill w/ Vivian Tu; Financial Feminist w/ Tori Dunlap
Kayla's Favorite IG Financial Gurus: Haley Sacks - Mrs. Down Jones; Tori Dunlap - Her First 100k; Vivian Tu - Your Rich BFF
Shout-out to our Executive Leadership Coach Kris Plachy who's guided both Kayla and Ann Marie through many twists and turns in their businesses.
Photos of Kayla by https://www.1210.photography/ and https://mckenziellaphotography.mypixieset.com/