The Femme Futurists Society Podcast

Money isn’t just about numbers, it’s about power, perception, and the stories we’ve been told about who gets to build wealth… and how.

As Libby Rodney, Chief Strategy Officer at The Harris Poll, makes clear: the narrative that women lack financial confidence isn’t just outdated—it’s fundamentally flawed. “Confidence,” she suggests, depends entirely on how we define it… and for too long, the definition itself has been biased.

Drawing on years of global research, including work with PIMCO, Libby reframes how women think about money, investing, and ambition. What emerges is a far more nuanced (and powerful) picture: women as holistic, strategic decision-makers who balance short-term realities with long-term impact—not just for themselves, but for their families, communities, and the systems they’re part of.

At a moment when more women are building significant wealth, whether through business, investing, or cultural influence, this conversation feels like an important economic wake-up call.

Tune in to hear Libby explore:
 … why the “confidence gap” narrative misses the point
 … how women’s holistic thinking makes them exceptional investors
 … the truth about ESG, returns, and why it’s not a trade-off
 … how women are redefining ambition around autonomy, flexibility, and financial power
 … why the future of business may depend on “orchestrators” and why women are uniquely positioned to lead

We hope it shifts your perspective as much as it did ours 🌟

 It is 100% unacceptable that globally, black women face a nine times higher risk of maternal death than their white counterparts, regardless of wealth. And that the United States is the most dangerous and expensive high-income country for childbirth, especially for Black and Indigenous women.

💫 Lailah Kara Newton, an MD with a successful UK practice specializing in women’s health who experienced her own childbirth trauma, and Fifi Kara, a fulbright scholar and B2B investment entrepreneur who supported Meta's Health & Fitness team, decided to take their experiences and change that, once and for all.

🙌🏻 This dynamic duo put all their heart and energies into four years developing an app that provides continuous at-home monitoring for mothers pre and post-natal, 24/7 support, and accessible clinical guidance = radically better, women’s health game changer.

🔥 Fifi and Lailah represent a new vanguard of women who will not sit on the sidelines and wait for change. Instead, they’re doing something about it.

Such an honor to speak with these two trailblazers!! We invite you to listen to this amazing origin story and journey toward globally changing women’s health - and if your provider/doula/midwife/friends haven’t yet heard of them - please share. You could literally save a life. 

👩‍⚕️Learn more about Astercare: https://astercare.com/

👩🏻‍💻 Our Website: www.FemmeFuturists.com

Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY

Design is not just about products and things; it applies to systems, to life, it is human. As Carissa Carter, Stanford d-school Academic Director says, “if you care about what you put out there into the world you are a designer. Everyone has the capacity to create positive change”. 

A former geo-scientist, Carissa teaches courses on the intersection of data and design for multiple sectors including climate change, emerging tech, and her work on designing with machine learning and blockchain has earned multiple design awards. 

Her just launched second book — co-authored with creative director Scott Doorley and titled: Assembling Tomorrow: a guide to designing a thriving future — is a thoughtful read (whether you consider yourself a designer or not), that offers us all a path to both “mend the mistakes of our past and shape our future for the better”. Bonus: it weaves in many speculative short stories and the most beautifully crafted illustrations.

Tune in to hear Carissa delve into: 

… the forces changing the design world

… how everything breaks but it’s what we learn from the cracks that matters

… the importance of intuition

… how there are no absolutes and embracing the in-between is key to building better

We hope it inspires you as much as it inspired us 🙌🏻

Love what you hear? Please consider sharing, liking, commenting and subscribing to our podcast.

👩‍⚕️Learn more about Carissa Carter here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carissalcarter/

📖 Learn more about Carissa’s book here: https://dschool.stanford.edu/book-collections/assembling-tomorrow

👩🏻‍💻 Our Website: www.FemmeFuturists.com   Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY

“By 2050 there will be more plastics in the ocean than fish”. That headline and more were what spurred Nuha Siddiqui & Kritika Tyagi to tackle what they saw as a massive opportunity: to reimagine the building blocks of plastic by pioneering new regenerative biomaterials that are now revolutionizing the plastics industry. 

This is not a new story - other companies have attempted sustainable materials to rival their conventional counterparts - however, erthos stands out for having made mind-blowing strides forward as a beacon of innovation and progress in an extremely short amount of time. Using proprietary ML/AI technology along with their team & expertise, they’ve managed to:

• exponentially change the trajectory of sustainable materials
• develop industry-wide, rapidly scalable design solutions that cut time to market by 5x compared to conventional plastics
• commit to the relentless pursuit of cutting-edge materials and renewable and regenerative resources that put the planet first 

At some point we’ll stop talking about the fact that they’ve accomplished all of this at the age of 28 yrs-old but it really is such an extraordinary achievement that it has to be said!! So we hope you’ll share, like, comment and celebrate this incredible leap forward along with us. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

www.femmefuturists.com
www.planeterthos.com 

We’re honored to introduce you to the beautiful, smart and deeply heart-centered Robyn O’Brien. Whether you know it or not, you’ve probably been impacted by her work transforming the food industry, after her life changed irrevocably when her daughter had a life-threatening reaction to food, that then turned into a movement, that then changed the entire food industry. Amazing.
 
In our conversation Robyn’s wisdom after wisdom became like a handbook from a wise friend and advisor, as we talk about everything from:
 
💃🏻 How courage is her personal mantra and the extraordinary changes that happen when you commit to being even 20% braver.
 ✨ How if you are out there driving change, fear will be riding shotgun, but fear can be an extraordinary North Star.
 🔥 How vulnerability is a strength.
 🙌🏻 The need to flip the script on imposter syndrome; especially because as women we are pushing against a system that was not, and is not, built for us.
 🧡 And the massive economic advantages of the history-making transfer of $30 trillion (more than the national U.S. GDP) in wealth to women, by 2030. 
 
There is so much more we cover from being a producer on the just released documentary, Common Ground, to how she now has her sights set on the finance industry (look out!!!), so tune in and listen to get the full story… 
 
Love what you hear? Please consider sharing, liking, commenting and subscribing to our podcast.
 
▶️ Watch Us on YouTube
👩🏻‍💻 Visit Our Website at www.FemmeFuturists.com
 
Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY

Everything we do digitally is controlled or facilitated by third parties who then aggregate and monetize our data and interactions without any benefit to us. How then, do we build something that gives the person using it complete control? How do we create a more human internet?

Mary Camacho is CEO for Holo + Holochain, championing the integration and adoption of innovative peer-to-peer application infrastructure to facilitate truly independent communication that transforms how we interact digitally. Think of it as a blockchain alternative, only spectacularly better across the board; for energy consumption, for business applications and for the humans using it.

Heads up… this topic is pretty lofty but don’t be intimidated. Mary has an ability to clearly and simply describe what the next digital revolution looks like and by the end of our conversation you understand why it’s infinitely more appealing than what we have now. So the only question left to ask is, how fast can we get there?! 🤩💃🏻

Love what you hear? Please consider rating our podcast!

👩‍⚕️Learn more about Mary: https://www.holochain.org + https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryfcamacho/
👩🏻‍💻 Our Website: www.FemmeFuturists.com

Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY

In our Femme Futurist Video Podcast series with extraordinary women, we explore the role of new technologies in creativity with Brooke Hopper. Brooke Hopper is Principal Designer for Machine Intelligence and Emerging Technologies at Adobe, working to deepen and enhance the creative process and allow all humans to more fully realize their creative visions. 

FemmeFuturists.com 

Ila Colombo has always pushed boundaries. Whether her younger self as a medal-winning gymnast or member of the National Italian swimming team, to her current roles as global citizen and cutting-edge design innovator, she is a next-level, multi-tasking powerhouse, somehow managing to juggle the demands of a new practice, a new life in Dubai, her own design-art installations and conceptual creative works (which are stunningly beautiful and can be found on Instagram - link below), as well as the needs of her small daughter – all with grace and fluidity. 

Co-Founded by Ila Colombo and her partner, world-renowned product designer Ross Lovegrove, DEOND, an AI & 3DPA practice in Dubai, are revolutionizing what’s possible in design and architecture by combining technology with human expertise and creativity to craft cutting-edge, innovative environments and advanced designs that are not only functional and beautiful, but also sustainable and responsibly tech-driven.

A deeply thoughtful and beautiful human (inside and out!), we hope you’ll check out this conversation and find yourself as inspired as we were getting to know Ila and her multifaceted life!  

🌎 More about DEOND: https://www.deond.com/

📸 Instagram: ilacolombo.ai

In this episode, we sit down with Sun (Kagami) Brown for a wide-ranging conversation on the art of Deep Self Design — exploring everything from the Doodle Revolution and gamestorming to collaboration literacy, inner engineering, juicy messiness, and the practice of becoming your own best friend.

One of our favorite ideas Sunni shares is shoshaku jushaku — a Zen Buddhist concept often translated as “one continuous mistake.” While it might sound negative, Sunni reframes it as a philosophy of joyful trust in productive discomfort — a mindset that can transform how we approach both our inner and outer worlds.

Named one of the “100 Most Creative People in Business” and “10 Most Creative People on Twitter” by Fast Company, Sunni has sparked a global movement around visual thinking and is widely credited with popularizing doodling as a tool for deeper inquiry. Her TED Talk has been viewed more than 1.6 million times, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, WIRED, Entrepreneur, and more. She’s been featured on CBS Sunday Morning (twice!) and The TODAY Show, and now leads as CEO of the Center for Deep Self Design.

Listen in for a rich, inspiring conversation about the intersection of our inner and outer worlds — and why, as Sunni reminds us, “a good life is an inside job.”

Listen to Our Previous Conversations: 
 🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-femme-futurists-society-podcast/id1680532882 
 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7xr5S27ZG3DzoHkNsOtxFN

Learn more about Femme Futurists Society at https://femmefuturists.com/
Learn more about Sun at http://nothingintheway.substack.com/

Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend 
License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY

#femmefuturists

Most of us are likely very familiar with the ideas of dystopia and utopia as framing for what the future might look like, but Monika Bielskyte would submit they are still two sides of the same coin. Instead, she wants us to consider the in-between space that embodies all of the living world and consciousness—nature and human—where a different narrative takes place; a Protopian future that embodies livable & inclusive visions and is ever evolving.

As a positive world builder, speculative designer and futurist, Monika has traveled and engaged with unfolding futures in more than 100+ countries - having left her homeland that no longer exists to explore the world that does. Being blessed (and cursed) with what she describes as “pathological curiosity”, her fascinating journey spans academia (CCA, CSM, Lund to name a few), to Hollywood (helping world-build the vision for Wakanda & working with directors like Ridley Scott), to time in Silicon Valley, where she experienced and witnessed dysfunctional and exploitative behaviors over and over again and realized the huge knowledge gaps among those shaping our current futures. Believing that there is a better way, she founded Protopia Futures, a platform for showcasing how transcultural, interdisciplinary and life-centric design approaches alongside disability and neurodivergence inclusion, can help us design a better world for most of humanity, and foster regenerative economies of the future. 

Monika is not only fascinating, but in spending time with her you quickly realize that her vision of a Protopian future is one we all need; and in our case, want. Love what you hear? Please consider sharing, liking, commenting and subscribing to our podcast.

👩‍⚕️Learn more about Monika: https://za.linkedin.com/in/monikabielskyte👩🏻‍💻 Our Website: www.FemmeFuturists.com

Music from Uppbeat: uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/transcend License code: D5M95QR3OT6UNHQY