At 26-years-old, Paula Schwarz is a serial entrepreneur working on the frontlines of the international immigration crisis. This Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree is developing innovative solutions to the unique needs of refugees, and then testing them in camps around the world through her company, StartupBoat.

In this episode, Paula walks us through her leadership strategies and how to stay focused in the face of adversity. She shares:

• How to attract partners like Facebook, UBS, Bayer, UNICEF, and Aspen Institute

PLUS, stay tuned for a guest Q&A between Paula and Classy engineer Morgan Snyder, another Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.

It’s been a whirlwind year for Jeffrey Martín. In February he signed his first big client deal, in May he brought on a team of interns, in September was his big fundraiser, and in October he won the Forbes $1M Change the World Entrepreneurship Competition as part of the Forbes Under 30 Summit. He always said starting his organization honorCode was a risk for him, until things started to fall in place at the end of 2016.

honorCode is a new social enterprise that’s feeding K-12 classrooms in Atlanta web development training and curriculum. As the CEO and Founder, Martín envisions Atlanta becoming the Silicon Valley for the South and is closing opportunity gaps with modern technical education. He wants Atlanta's next generation to be educated as coders and able to compete for lucrative jobs in their hometown.

Born into poverty, Martín is the epitome of the students he aims to empower today. With education from the Wharton School, grad studies at Brown University, teaching for Teach for America and a stint at Goldman Sachs, he’s now lived many lives. His experiences converge into one timely interview, as we speak to Jeff on his 26th birthday.

In this episode, Jeffrey shares:

• The growth levers that took honorCode from an idea to a business

In Classy's first ever podcast panel discussion, and in honor of World Water Day, we speak with two cutting-edge leaders in the WaSH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) sector, Jason Kass and Natalie Relich. 

Natalie is the Executive Director at O’Horizons, a nonprofit developing solutions that are characterized as Low-Tech, High-Thinking. Most notably, they've created a wood mold bio-sand filter that makes it cheaper, faster, and easier to get safe drinking water. Jason is the president and founder of Toilets for People, a social enterprise that designs and manufactures waterless bathroom products and trains NGO partners in the developing world how to build, install & maintain them. Their signature sanitation solution is an affordable, self-contained waterless toilet that uses technology to safely treat human waste.

In this episode, Natalie and Jason share:

• How to stay forward-thinking at your own social startup

Erica Williams Simon grew up watching her father transform people’s lives through stories. It didn’t take long to realize that she had a similar calling.

Today, after a stint in politics, dozens of TV appearances, numerous conferences, advising the White House and several Fortune 500 companies, and serving as Creative Director for Upworthy.com, Erica has honed her voice and built a platform that uses storytelling to affect change across generations, with a particular focus on millennials.

In this episode of the Classy Podcast, Erica shares the work she is doing to create and share messages that help generation Y thrive and radically change the world. She revisits the experience of discovering her strengths, the moments and people that shaped who she is today, and how she approaches journalism and storytelling in very different ways.

In this episode, Erica discusses:

• How to have a great personal and working relationship with millennials

Renuka Kher is the managing director of Tipping Point’s research and development engine, located in the heart of San Francisco.

On a path to medical school, Renuka’s life takes an interesting turn after participating in a design program. Her experience in science, design, and community-focused nonprofits inform her refreshing take on the social sector. Renuka is a passionate problem solver, and this conversation will ignite you to be one too.

Each leader in the social sector has their own winding (and sometimes surprising) path to their present influence. For Jackie Roshan, the director of transparency and data innovation at Pencils of Promise (PoP), this journey has included childhood adversity; studies in South Africa, Peru, and Thailand; and a life-changing move to New York City. This path has brought Jackie to Pencils of Promise, where she now leads the vital effort to maximize impact and transparency at the high-profile organization.

Pioneers of peer-to-peer fundraising, Pencils of Promise partners with local governments and education ministries in Ghana, Guatemala, and Laos to change public education systems. They work within communities to build schools, train and support teachers, and implement water sanitation and health programs.

Jackie and PoP are also leading the way toward new heights of impact evaluation and transparency in the sector. Intent on identifying and optimizing programs that change lives, she and her team are using the power of data and accountability to unlock the potential of more than 33,000 students.

“I think ultimately my biggest takeaway from watching [the publishing industry] unfold over 15 years was really a lesson in understanding that we cannot sit still.”

Sitting still was never a hallmark of Charina Lumley’s career.

The first 15 years of her professional life, she worked in print and publication in the city that never sleeps, New York.

Then, she committed what many would call “career suicide.”

She left behind the stability and glam of the Big Apple and followed an itch. She became a parks ranger for the National Parks Service–a position that ultimately led her to the action sports industry and her active lifestyle. Ten years later, trusting the opportunities presented to her along this jagged journey, she now straddles the for-profit and nonprofit worlds: she serves as both the head of growth for a startup SaaS company and the COO of the Movemeant Foundation, an organization empowering women and girls to lead active lifestyles.

Forty minutes with Charina flew by thanks to a multitude of life lessons and advice peppered among stories of her own professional development.

Sarah Storey decided to leave a 19-year career in the for-profit world because of her personal experiences as the daughter of a breast cancer survivor. In 2014, she officially signed on as the President of Bright Pink.

One of Sarah’s top priorities at Bright Pink is making bold, measurable changes in the world of breast and ovarian cancer. A big part of this goal is encouraging women to take proactive measures when they’re young and healthy. If you wait until you’re diagnosed, the fight gets that much harder.

“There are plenty of efforts that are put into treatment, advancing the cause for folks who are actually fighting the disease,” says Storey. “Those efforts are really meaningful, but we’re not satisfied to wait until that point.”

The more you know now, the better prepared you are to take action and reduce your risk of breast cancer. If Bright Pink didn’t attempt to reach these young women, they feel it would be a missed opportunity to save lives.

That sense of duty influenced the development of Bright Pink’s self-assessment tool, assessyourrisk.org. Launched in 2015, over 500,000 women have taken the comprehensive, 19-question risk assessment for both breast and ovarian cancer.

“I believe we all have a role to play, not only in our own successes, but in the successes of others, and I believe we must come together to make these changes.”

As the President of the Caterpillar Foundation and Director of Corporate Social Innovation for Caterpillar, this sense of responsibility motivates and inspires Michele Sullivan on a daily basis.

Caterpillar was founded in 1925, the Caterpillar Foundation opening years later in 1952. Over time however, these two parts of Caterpillar have been united as a strategic, influential company that gives back to society in order to improve our world.

In this episode, Michele discusses: • Societal and human infrastructure working together as one • Caterpillar’s evolution as a company • Solving problems as a business and as a nonprofit • The future of corporate philanthropy

“How do we leverage the knowledge and expertise we have and couple it with philanthropic dollars?”

As the president of the GE Foundation and the Chief Diversity Officer of GE, Deborah Elam is responsible for answering this question for one of the largest companies in the world. In her 30 years of work at GE, she identified an overlap between her efforts to provide employees with equal opportunity and the foundation’s philanthropic areas of focus.

One of the oldest philanthropic organizations today, the GE Foundation has developed a longstanding reputation for its programs in health, education, developing skills, and public policy. Deborah’s dual role works to empower both GE employees and the beneficiaries of the foundation to contribute to society and achieve their dreams. Under her direction, corporate responsibility goes far beyond the contribution of dollars and becomes an effective strategy other organizations can mirror to engage their employees in meaningful work.

Previously a Leadership Council member of the 2016 Collaborative + Classy Awards, Deborah recently joined us again to discuss corporate responsibility, her unique role at GE, and her personal leadership experience.