I ALSO Want Money

Crypto is volatile, risky, and not as regulated as traditional markets. So how should individuals and institutions think about the micro and macro risks when it comes to investing in crypto? In this episode, U.S. and UK qualified lawyer Paige Berges, who specialises in anti-money laundering, sanctions and anti-bribery and corruption compliance, shares her outlook on risks in cryptocurrency, the extent to which it is regulated, and answers timely questions around crypto’s role in the Ukraine-Russia war. 

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Speaker Bio: 

Paige Berges is a U.S. and UK qualified lawyer with broad cross-border experience conducting internal investigations, enforcement and defence working. She focuses in particular on all aspects of anti-money laundering, sanctions and anti-bribery and corruption compliance, from programme building and monitoring, to issues management. Paige also has a strong background in public international law and regularly advises on human rights, humanitarian law and the intersection between financial crime, ESG, and financial inclusion.

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Sport is arguably the biggest arena in the fight for equal pay: in a milestone victory last week and after a six-year legal battle, the US Women’s National Soccer Team reached an agreement with USSF to equalise compensation, bonuses, and work conditions between the women's and men's national teams through 2028.

But in the history of gender-based pay discrimination, the tennis court pre-dates the soccer field.

In this special episode, we flashback to Summer 2021 and the unique opportunity to cover The Original 9’s story as told during their induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.  

In 1970, nine female professional tennis players rebelled against the United States Lawn Tennis Association due to the wide inequality in prize money paid to male vs. female tennis players. Their strike led to the creation of the WTA and laid the groundwork for other female athletes. Today, tennis has the smallest gender pay gap in sport.

Please note the source material for this episode was recorded June 2021.

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About The Original 9:

Nearly 51 years ago, nine brave women banded together to take a first-of-its kind stand against a growing disparity in prize money and playing opportunities for women in professional tennis. As a result of their courage, women’s professional tennis was launched on September 23, 1970 when the Original 9 stood with promoter Gladys Heldman in Houston and held aloft symbolic dollar bills notes.

The nine women were Americans Peaches Bartkowicz, Rosie Casals, Julie Heldman, Billie Jean King, Kristy Pigeon, Nancy Richey, Valerie Ziegenfuss, and Australians Judy Tegart Dalton and Kerry Melville Reid, and together with Heldman they were committed to creating a better future for female athletes.

Faced with the threat of expulsion by the sport’s traditional governing bodies – which meant being stripped of their rankings and eligibility to compete at the Slams or on national teams – the Original 9 held their nerve, signing $1 contracts to play in Heldman’s alternative, non-sanctioned Virginia Slims Invitational. 

The Original 9 and their colleagues working tirelessly to cultivate relationships with promoters and sponsors and market their league to the media and the public. 

As the threatened penalties were shown to be ill-judged, the Original 9 recruited more players to the cause, building a momentum that would eventually lead to the formation of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) in 1973 and inspire the fight for equal prize money for decades to come.

Today, women's tennis thrives through as the world’s leading global sport for women. This success is built on the Original 9’s enduring vision that girls and women around the world deserve equality of opportunity, in tennis and in all walks of life.
Source: International Tennis Hall of Fame. 

Audio and images courtesy of International Tennis Hall of Fame
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Careers in tech can be a means of security, wealth, professional development, opportunity, and more. But women in tech have a unique experience. What is it like leading (and thriving) at a high-growth tech startup? Roshni Sondhi, VP of Customer Experience at Grafana Labs, shares how working at a high-growth tech startup does not require deprioritizing other aspects of life. We discuss ruthless prioritising, setting boundaries at work, negotiations, and explore the question: is being called ‘ambitious’ a good thing? 

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Speaker Bio: Roshni Sondhi leads the Customer Experience organization at Grafana Labs, which includes professional services, customer success, technical Support and customer education. Her team is responsible for ensuring customers have a great experience from implementation through many years of renewals. 

Roshni has spent the last 15 years at technology companies, including joining Zendesk pre-IPO, and has focused on the post-sales experience. She enjoys cooking, travelling, and spending time with her family.

Grafana Labs is a is a multi-platform open source analytics and interactive visualisation web application that provides charts, graphs, and alerts for the web when connected to supported data sources. The startup closed a $240M Series D round in April with GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund as the lead investor. Other investors include J.P. Morgan, Sequoia Capital, Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Lead Edge Capital.

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Crypto could exponentially increase nonprofits’ fundraising capacity and accelerate the speed with which nonprofits are able to deliver support. Maggie Burke is head of strategic partnerships and Web3 projects at New Story, a nonprofit to end global homelessness. In this episode, Maggie talks writing a crypto policy for New Story’s donor, fundraising, and family-support strategy and her observations around crypto & Web3’s success in generating new funding for social good.

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Speaker Bio: Maggie Burke is on the strategic partnerships team at New Story, focusing entirely on Web3 opportunities for her organization. Maggie is inspired by leveraging technology as a tool to reduce inequality and democratize resources, which has led her to the most innovative companies in the world: Microsoft, Facebook, and now New Story. From Web2 to Web3, Maggie thrives in navigating the ambiguity of emerging technologies and always views these tools through the lens of, "how can I use this to make our world better?".

New Story is a non-profit organization that seeks to build a world without homelessness. Their mission is to ensure everyone has a safe place to call home.

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Could blockchain and the decentralized web mean the end of surveillance capitalism? Maybe! In this episode, Perkins Coie partner Charlyn Ho defines digital identity, explains how blockchain empowers users to take control of their data, and shares how Web3 could dismantle Big Tech’s monopoly on Big Data - if it’s built the right way. 

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Speaker Bio: Perkins Coie Technology Transactions and Privacy Partner, Charlyn Ho counsels clients on legal issues related to technology and privacy, including those affecting artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML), blockchain and digital identity, e-commerce sites, mobile devices and applications, virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR) and augmented reality (AR) platforms, cloud services, enterprise software, cryptocurrency platforms and Internet of Things devices. Charlyn serves as the co-lead of the firm’s Immersive Technology vertical. She provides strategic advice and counselling to all types of technology companies throughout their lifecycle, from startup to established enterprises. 

Charlyn has been advising digital identity clients since 2016 and co-authored two white papers: Self-Sovereign Identity and Distributed Ledger Technology: Framing the Legal Issues in 2017, and more recently, COVID-19 as a Catalyst for Advancement of Digital Identity in late 2021. Charlyn presents regularly on this and other topics related to her practice including teaching courses to in-house counsel and non-lawyers on negotiating technology agreements and transactions. 

Prior to becoming an attorney, Charlyn served as an active duty supply corps officer in the U.S. Navy, where she gained firsthand experience negotiating with some of the world’s largest defense contractors and extensive project management skills. Charlyn was a lead business manager for shipbuilding contracts in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. In her role, she was responsible for developing, negotiating and implementing budgets and contracts to refuel nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines, which required collaboration with senior level policymakers and technical experts.

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The status quo of investment in Black founders needs to change: BrainTrust and BrainTrust Founders Studio CEO & founder Kendra Bracken-Ferguson is building the catalyst. Kendra talks about her journey from corporate intrapreneur to an entrepreneur, shares lessons from a career that spans public relations, brand strategy, beauty, wellness, and entrepreneurship, and why she loves leading ad supporting founders through the challenging path of entrepreneurship. 

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Speaker Bio: Kendra Bracken-Ferguson is a transformative brand builder, connector and launcher. With a career that spans brand development, strategic planning, operations, investing, board membership and C-suite leadership, she has helped create, build and monetize over 200 influencer-driven brands that have generated more than $100 million in revenue.

Kendra has made it a business practice to build data-first businesses around niche influencers and talent primarily focused on lifestyle, beauty, and wellness. 

Before starting her journey as an Entrepreneur, Kendra helped create the social media footprint for fashion behemoth, Ralph Lauren, where she was the company’s first Director of Digital Media. Kendra's work during and since her time at Ralph Lauren was informed by her years as Vice President of Digital at Fleishman-Hillard, New York, where she led the digital consumer team in developing social media strategies for clients including AT&T, DKNY, and P&G.  

Allowing her mantra, “Carpe Diem” to guide her, in 2010 Kendra took a leap of faith and along with Karen Robinovitz created Digital Brand Architects (DBA), the first blogger management agency evolving into a global company that upon exit to UTA in 2019, had a collective reach of 200 million. Post DBA, Kendra founded BrainTrust, a social media, and brand development agency that drives the digital brand strategy and online media presence for talent and global brands such as Halle Berry, Kelly Ripa Home, Dear Drew by Drew Barrymore, Revelations Entertainment by Morgan Freeman, Sally Beauty, Under Armour and many more. 

After a long-standing relationship as Halle Berry’s Business Partner, the two launched rē•spin in 2020 to democratize the health and wellness industry. Kendra is the co-founder of BeautyUnited, a nonprofit focused on diversifying the beauty and wellness industry and is the host of Business of the Beat, a beauty and wellness podcast available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify. 

Her latest endeavour, the BrainTrust Founders Studio focuses on increasing inclusive economic opportunities for Black beauty and wellness founders connecting them with resources, capital and strategic guidance to help them accelerate their businesses and build sustainable growth.   

She resides in LA with her Husband, Daughter, English Bulldog & Turtle.

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Art NFTs are disrupting the art market as we have known it, says Playform CEO Jennifer Chang in our first episode of 2022. In this episode, we explore how NFTs could solve the traditional art industry’s homogeneity and gatekeeper problem. We also unpack how blockchain and AI technology are bridging the gap between artist and supporter like never before, with the potential for economic upside. 

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Speaker Bio: Jennifer Chang is the CEO of Playform, a no-code generative AI art platform for creating and selling NFTs. Playform was founded by Dr. Ahmed Elgammal, the founder of the AI and Art Laboratory at Rutgers University, with investment from Khosla Ventures. Prior to Playform, Jennifer started two successful companies in the creator/influencer industry and held roles at Apple, Disney and KPMG. In between startup ventures, she travels as a digital nomad and has worked with startups in South Korea, Singapore and India. Jennifer received an MBA from USC, an MA in Cultural and Creative Industries from King's College London, and a BS in Business Administration at UC Berkeley.

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Actor, producer, and activist Alysia Reiner joins us to revisit her film Equity, discuss the stories that surround women & money and get candid about her relationship to wealth. We learn more about Alysia’s outlook on investing in ideas and people that drive social and environmental change, and explore why making art and making money are often at ideological odds. 

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Speaker Bio: Alysia Reiner is best known as "FIG" on all 7 seasons of Orange Is the New Black, for which she won a SAG AWARD. You can also catch her as Sunny on all 4 seasons of  Peabody Award-winning Better Things on F/X x HULU (she just wrapped season 5), and Kiki Rains on HBO's The Deuce. Most recently, she wrapped filming opposite Courteney Cox and Greg Kinnear in an upcoming horror comedy series, Shining Vale, for STARZ, premiering March 6th 2022, and starring in Stampede Ventures' feature film, Going Places. 

She both starred in and produced the Sundance Film Festival feature film hit, Equity, and Tribeca Film Festival favorite, Egg, which is 100% fresh on ROTTEN TOMATOES. A few other filmed adventures include getting naked in an Emmy Award winning episode of  Broad City, going head to head against Annalise on How To Get Away with Murder, and an upcoming secret project in the Marvel Universe…

She loves working as a change maker for women and is an advocate for women's rights and climate change initiatives. She is on the board and an ambassador for Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and started the eco-fashion initiative, Livari. 

As a champion of all things eco-friendly, she and her husband used their home as a way to share information about building green. Their brownstone eco-renovation in Harlem was featured on television's "World's Greenest Homes" and "Renovation Nation," and in various magazines like Dwell, Gotham, Origin and The Nest; and they allowed the environmentally friendly construction process to be chronicled on websites such as Dwell.com and Kohler.com.  

Alysia has been invited to speak and keynote at The White House, The United Nations, Google, Cannes Lion, Women's Media Summit, Collision, and countless film festivals and events about breaking barriers for women in all fields, specifically the entertainment industry. 

@alysiareiner on instagram & twitter

www.alysiareiner.com

Attention: American listeners!

Did you know Health Savings Accounts are investment accounts? These often-underutilized financial tools offer the opportunity to passively grow your wealth, even if allocated to health expenses until the age of 65. Diana Health Chief of Staff Karen Doster joins to share an HSA 101. Whether you’re coming up on open enrollment or just finished, this mini-episode is a quick but important listen! 

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Speaker Bio: Karen Doster is Diana Health’s Chief of Staff and leads a range of strategic and operational priorities, having spent the majority of her career in the healthcare industry. Diana Health is a network of modern women's health practices working in partnership with hospitals to reimagine the way maternity and women's healthcare is delivered. Learn more. 

Prior to joining Diana, she held marketing and general management roles at Groups: Recover Together and Cove, a network of co-working spaces. She has a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

In America, it is easier to lose money to banks, credit cards, and lenders than it is to earn and grow it. In this episode, author and financial sector reform activist Elena Botella explains exactly why that is and exposes the American financial system for its exploitative structures. With years of experience in the credit card industry, Elena shares her expertise in America’s unique and dangerous way of using the financial sector to transfer money from those with less to those with more. 

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Speaker Bio: Elena Botella is the author of Delinquent: Inside America's Debt Machine, forthcoming from UC Press in Fall 2022. She worked as a senior manager at Capital One, before becoming an advocate for financial sector reform. Elena has been featured in Netflix’s Money, Explained, HillTV, and The Majority Report. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Vice, The New Republic, and elsewhere.

Learn more about Elena’s work and follow her on Twitter. 

Guest Host Bio: Mia Brabham is a writer, digital personality, speaker, and content creator based in Washington DC who just published her debut book, Note to Self. In addition to her role as staff writer at Shondaland, Mia’s writing has been published in the Huffington Post, The Financial Diet, Thought Catalog, Gardy Loo Literature & Arts Magazine, and Harness Magazine. Mia has over 18,000 followers and two million video views on her YouTube channel YOURS TRULY, MIA — the home to her recent web series, Hot Mess Confessions — with a successful blog by the same name. She is also the creator of A YEAR OF LESSONS, a 365-day-blog project in which she wrote and accepted lessons every day for a year. Mia has hosted and delivered speeches in front of an assortment of crowds, from university commencements and NBA arenas filled with 20,000 sports fans to intimate TEDx events. Before embarking on her current journey as a freelance writer, designer, and entertainment host, she held positions at NBCUniversal, E! News, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, 60 Second Docs, and Smithsonian. She is a graduate of James Madison University. You can follow Mia’s life and work on Instagram (@yourstrulymia) and Twitter (@hotmessmia), or say hello at bymiabrabham.com. 

Subscribe and listen to Mia’s podcast Two in the Morning.

Listen to Mia’s interview with I Also Want Money podcast from 2020.