The Conversation

Ekaterina Dobrokhotova was born in Moscow, and moved to Quebec when she was eight. She learnt magic as a teenager via the internet, practised every day for hours, and soon began to perform in public. Ekaterina is now the most watched female magician on YouTube. She specialises in the art of card manipulation, and believes the true secret of magic is not how good you are, but about how you make people feel.

Adeline Ng is the only practising female magician in Singapore. She incorporates elements of her Chinese culture into her illusion stage show, which she has performed across Asia and Australia. When she started out, she struggled to get respect from the male theatre technicians, so took courses in sound and lighting and now feels more confident to say what she wants.

(Photo: Ekaterina Dobrokhotova (L), with permission from E. Dobrokhotova. (R) Adeline Ng. Credit: Arron Teo)

Presenter Gemma Cairney gets behind the decks with two female DJs who get dance floors pumping in America and South Africa.

DJ Lady Lea got hooked on house music and the Cape Town dance scene as a teenager in the early 1990s. She started taking her record box to clubs and playing early morning sets. Now rated as one of South Africa's top female DJs, Lea plays electro, funky, deep, tech, minimal and progressive house. She started an all-women DJ agency called Divas on Decks, which promotes up and coming talent and dishes out essential advice for being a success in this industry.

DJ Tatiana Alvarez was obsessed with making mix tapes and cutting tracks growing up near Los Angeles. But her DJ career got off to a rocky start when her agent said he could not promote her to the serious underground clubs she wanted to play in, because she is a woman. So with the help of a make-up artist friend, some shoulder pads and breast tape Tatiana decided to pose as a man for a year to see if she could get bookings. The promoters loved her music.

(Photo: DJs Lea Barrett (left) and Tatiana Alvarez (right). Credit Robert John Kley)

A celebrity nanny from Australia and a Brazilian nanny who works in the US tell Kim Chakanetsa what it's like to look after other people's kids 24/7.

Australian nanny to the stars Philippa Christian has worked for actors, singers and Middle Eastern royalty. Even though she won't name names the 'Nanny Confidential' author reveals what it's like to work for Hollywood employers. Philippa loves the challenge of helping 'difficult' children, and there are definite perks, including the pay, but the downsides include rarely getting a day off, being routinely spied on, and having to avoid being 'papped' holding the baby on family outings.

Tatiane Dias de Oliveira who is from Brazil chose nannying over teaching, because she says it is far more satisfying to watch one child grow with her full attention, than try to divide herself between a class full of kids. Thaty has now been a nanny for the past 17 years. Currently based in Boston, she is passionate about training and advising other nannies, who she says can often be in vulnerable situations with their employers, and lack the confidence to negotiate good terms and conditions.

Image: Tatiane Dias de Oliveira (l) and Philippa Christian (r)

Clothes designers from Trinidad and Greece get together with Kim Chakanetsa, to talk about the killer combination of creativity and business sense you need to make it in the competitive world of fashion.

Anya Ayoung Chee is from the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago. Always interested in fashion, but too scared to study it at college, she started making her own outfits when competing to represent her country at Miss Universe. Anya later entered the US reality TV show Project Runway, and came out the surprise winner, having only learnt how to sew weeks before! She's had her own labels, but is currently leading a collective of 30 local designers with the aim of putting the Caribbean region firmly on the global fashion map.

Christina Economou is a rising star of the European fashion scene. She studied in Paris and won the 2011 International Award at London Graduate Fashion Week, then returned to her home city of Athens to fulfil her dream of launching her own luxury label. Christina has a love of bright colours and bold prints, and sources much of her production and fabric locally, for example in the historic Greek silk town of Soufli. She says fashion school did not prepare her for how to combine her design skills with running a business, so she's had to learn the hard way.

Image: Anya Ayoung Chee (l) and Christina Economou (r)

Kim Chakanetsa brings together top female football referees to discuss their passion for the game, the demands of rigorous fitness training and how they handle aggressive players.

Melissa Borjas Pastrana was inspired to follow in her uncle's footsteps to become a referee. Melissa, who lives in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, referees men's games in Honduras and women's games at Fifa level. Melissa reveals how you have to be good at psychology to succeed as a referee, because you are managing 22 players on the pitch as well as the support staff and the fans in the stadium.

Sandra Serafini grew up in a football obsessed household in Canada and from a young age was a keen player. When she discovered that her talents lay more with officiating rather than playing she began to referee at men's and women's games at an amateur level, until eventually she turned professional and joined Fifa in 2006. For much of her career she has combined refereeing football matches with neurosurgery, her work as a neuroscientist helps her to understand why things can go wrong in a game and how to try and fix them. She now works with the Professional Referee Organisation where she coaches the next generation of female referees.

(Photo: Melissa Borjas Pastrana (L) Credit Omar Martinez. Sandra Serafini (R) Credit Dominic Chan)

Women make better city traders than men according to research, but most trading floors are dominated by men. Kim Chakanetsa explores why this might be and meets two traders from Russia and the Philippines who are helping to redress the balance.

Currency trading is Louise Dispo's area of the market. Originally from the Philippines, Louise work's in London now. She says she's used to being one of the only females on the trading floor and thinks it's the high pressure, risk and unpredictable hours that put other women off choosing this as a career. Chocolate, coffee and nuts get Louise through the day and she says the office is filled with high screens, people shouting and phones ringing.

Lucy Shitova has traded base metals, such as aluminium and steel, for 10 years. She began her career in Russia and also works in London now. Lucy says she was drawn to this profession because of the buzz, the "pay-off" and the fact it's like getting paid to gamble in a casino with someone else's cash. Lucy admits that it hits hard when you lose money, but you've got to be confident in your decisions and move on.

Image: City Traders Louise Dispo (L) and Lucy Shitova (R)

Kim Chakanetsa brings together leading women vets from Uganda and Sri Lanka to talk about their careers and their trickiest challenges.

As a new vet graduate, Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka was made chief veterinary officer of the Ugandan Wildlife Service. She set about restocking her country's national parks with giraffes and lions following years of civil war, but it was the endangered mountain gorillas that really captured Gladys' heart. She now leads her own charity Conservation Through Public Health, which looks after both the health of the gorillas and the people who live near them, who are crucial to their survival.

Sri Lankan vet Dr Nalinika Obeyesekere prefers to treat smaller creatures such as cats and dogs. Nalinika grew up looking after her parents' adopted animals, everything from fish to a leopard cub! But she soon decided that working with wildlife was not for her, and instead started up her country's first multi-doctor veterinary practice. Nalinika is passionate about improving training and education around animal care, and she uses a portion of her profits to provide free treatment for Colombo's huge stray dog population.

(Photo: (L) Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka. (R) Dr Nalinika Obeyesekere)

Patrice Banks says she was an 'auto airhead' before she fell in love with fixing vehicles. She was an engineer for a big chemicals company, but despite her passion for problem solving she avoided her own car maintenance and preferred to pay a man to do it. The Philadelphia born mechanic discovered that many other women felt the same way and decided to do something about it. Patrice started work in a garage, went back to school and set up Girls Auto Clinic to help women feel more connected with their cars.

Nigerian Sandra Aguebor got her first job in a car repair shop aged 13 and has never looked back. Sandra did not let the jokes and jeers about being a girl doing this job get to her. Now Sandra is famous for being Nigeria's first female mechanic and has run her own garage, Sandex Car Care, for 20 years. She also leads the Lady Mechanic Initiative, which trains women to work with cars.

(Photo: (L) Patrice Banks. Credit: Girls Auto Clinic. (R) Sandra Aquebor. Credit: Lady Mechanic Initiative)

Kim Chakanetsa travels to the Global Philanthropy Forum conference in California to speak to two philanthropists and finds out why they give so much money away.

Amy Rao grew her Silicon Valley tech company, Integrated Systems Archive, during the dotcom bubble of the 1990s and says she started giving large amounts of money to causes close to her heart as soon as she launched the business. Amy grew up in a household where helping others and entrepreneurship were a priority, even when they were broke her parents still helped those less fortunate in the community. Today, Amy's philanthropy is focussed on human rights and the environment and she is the chair of the Human Rights Watch Voices for Justice events in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and is on the board of the Schmidt Family Foundation, as well as being the president of the 11th Hour Project.

It took determination and defiance for Tsitsi Masiyiwa and her husband Strive Masiyiwa to build their telecoms empire following a lengthy legal battle with the Zimbabwean government who had a monopoly. Tsitsi also grew up in a community where helping others was important. She says as soon as she realised they might make money with their company, Econet, she committed to giving some of it away because "you can only sleep in one bed, drive one car and have one home". Today Tsitsi is the co-founder and co-chair of the Higherlife Foundation, which has sent tens of thousands of children to school and university in southern Africa.

(Photo: From left, Amy Rao, Kim Chakanetsa and Tsitsi Masiyiwa. Credit: Noah Stout of Stout Film)

Kim Chakanetsa quizzes two heavy metal bass guitarists about their roles in their bands, how they learnt to head-bang, and juggling the music with their day jobs.

Doris Yeh tours all over the world with best-selling Taiwanese metal band Chthonic. She says she only got into heavy metal by accident, but now loves it. Being the only woman in the band can have its down-sides - at performances her male colleagues used to expect her to get changed in the toilet while they occupied the one dressing room! However, Doris learnt to assert herself, and says when she gets on stage and starts playing, she is just excited to be able to treasure that moment with the audience.

Slovenian Sasha Zagorc formed the heavy metal/hard rock band Hellcats with her sister ten years ago. She's always been a metal-head so just wears her own black leather clothes in their videos and on stage. Initially the band had to deal with quite a lot of criticism as the first all-female band on the Slovenian metal scene, but they just kept going and now have fans all over the world. For Sasha having a band provides much needed relaxation, and she loves going on tour with her best friends.

(L) Photo: Sasha Zagorc. Credit: Simon Podgorsek.