How I Got Here

Veronica Armstrong, Co-founder and CEO of Isle de Nature, shares her career story. Veronica has one of the most varied careers of anyone we’ve featured on the podcast – she was a telemarketer, a legislative aide in the government, a successful mommy blogger, marketer, general manager, entrepreneur and more. 

Sometimes her career moves were a result of following her passion… Other times, they were the result of making sacrifices for those she loved. Despite frequently moving across multiple roles and organizations, one thing remained consistent throughout every single role she had: her positive attitude. 

Listen to Veronica share how she sees the good in any circumstance even when the odds are stacked against her, why she holds onto and revisits every single performance evaluation ever written about her, and how she’s currently building what she hopes will become the next billion dollar company.

Ever since Emily Heyward was young, she has loved advertisements. Instead of hanging posters on her bedroom wall when she was growing up, she hung up framed ads that she loved. It is no surprise then that Emily went to work for big ad agencies after graduating from Harvard. And she was thriving. Until she found herself working at a company that made her question whether advertising was her calling, after all.  

Listen to Emily share how she bounced back from a job that was not right for her and rediscovered her love of helping people craft and tell compelling stories – a love that led her to found and build Red Antler, the brand agency behind Casper, Allbirds, Rent the Runway and more.

Steve Cook, Executive Managing Director at LFM Capital shares his journey from the military into manufacturing and then finally into private equity. After his time as a Navy pilot, Steve was looking to create value in the world, not just working his way through a bureaucracy. He found this in a role as a leader in charge of Dell Computer’s manufacturing out of Tennessee. He quickly dedicated more and more of his time and energy towards this endeavor. 

And then a natural disaster hit and it fundamentally shifted how he approached his work and his life.

On this episode, we chat with Nicole Alvino, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of SocialChorus. Nicole started her career at one of the most infamous companies in the world, Enron. In fact, she worked on the SWAT team for the CFO, Andrew Fastow who was ultimately charged with fraud and sent to prison. You'll hear how this experience deeply impacted Nicole's career. In the aftermath of the bankruptcy, she first swore off business entirely, but after some soul searching she came across another idea and dove back in.

In this episode we speak with Andrew Noh, co-founder and COO of Finch Therapeutics. Andrew tells us about how, after a couple years at Bain, he went to business school to get more confident sharing and defending his ideas and opinions in front of others. After one year at MIT Sloan though, he decided to drop out and even give up his sponsorship commitment to Bain so that he could create and grow an organization, OpenBiome, with his co-founders. What’s more is that Andrew didn’t have any fear or doubt in making this huge decision. In this episode, listen to Andrew tell us what made him so confident about his decision, why he likes being "the guy behind the guy" in his role as COO, and how he’s conquered the Sunday Scaries, something I know we all aspire towards.

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In this episode, we speak with Ming Zhao, CEO and Co-Founder of PROVEN Skincare. Ming describes her career journey from roles in management consulting and investing to eventually founding and building her own skincare company, PROVEN Skincare, which was recently featured on Shark Tank! During our conversation you’ll hear Ming describe adjusting to the US after moving from China to South Florida as a child, freeing herself from the feeling of needing to prove her worth to society, and eventually finding true happiness in her career - something we all aspire towards.

On this episode, we talk with Austin Martin, Vice President of Strategy and Operations at Snyk. I actually first met Austin by cold messaging him for a class assignment where we needed to interview people who were more advanced in their career. I had a good sense that Austin was going to be thoughtful about his career because he outlines five principles that he uses to guide his career. As we learned more about Austin's path, we learned how he came up with a few of those principles. One of those principles focuses on how Austin takes sole responsibility for his career. During our conversation you'll hear how Austin lived that principle by talking to an admissions officer in a liquor store and initiating a nerve wracking conversation with his boss to stay a year longer than planned at one of his first jobs.

Miro Kazakoff, Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan, shares how he ended up becoming a lecturer at the very business school he graduated from a few years earlier. On this episode, we talked with Miro about his whole career journey which includes, we kid you not, a year living on a converted bus traveling the country. He also recounts some of his most challenging experiences like when he made the tough decision to quit being the CEO at his start up. If you ever wanted to hear an honest reflection about what happens to a founder who didn't "succeed" in this role, this is your chance.