The Purse Podcast

Katie Donovan is one of the leading pay-equity experts and advocates in the US.  She innovated and authored the widely praised and quickly adopted restrictions on the common question of salary history in hiring and compensation decisions. In doing so, she proved the processes are biased. Katie's innovation has led to 34 laws and executive orders within four years to be passed on the state and local levels.  

And more importantly for women to earn starting salaries that are 8% higher and Black job changes to earn starting salaries that are 13% higher where such restrictions exist.

Since 2011, Katie has been consulting with individuals on negotiating their pay and on changing the processes within their organisations through her firm Equal Pay Negotiations.

Katie's roles in the fight for pay equity have included founding member of the Massachusetts Equal Pay Coalition and advising pay-equity advocates on strategy, tactics, and testimony throughout the country.

Katie has spoken and conducted workshops on equal pay, salary negotiations, and unintended biases in hiring at hundreds of venues including Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the NASDAQ. She is a sought-after commentator on pay equity and women in business including the BBC and CNN.

We cover the following in our conversation:

Jessica Robinson is the Founder of Moxie Future - the world’s first education, insights and community platform empowering women as sustainable investors and financial feminists. She also has a day-job, working as a strategic advisor to institutional investors, think tanks and governments on all things relating to green finance, sustainability, responsible investment and gender.  Having lived and worked all over the world, she is now based in the UAE along with her three children and ever-growing tribe of adopted animals.

We cover the following in our conversation:

Vicki Saunders is an entrepreneur, award-winning mentor, advisor to the next generation of change makers and leading advocate for entrepreneurship as a way of creating positive transformation in the world.  Vicki is Founder of #radical generosity and SheEO, a global community of radically generous women supporting women-led Ventures working on the World’s To Do List. Vicki has co-founded and run ventures in Europe, Toronto and Silicon Valley and taken a company public on the Toronto Stock Exchange.  Vicki was named one of the 100 most influential leaders of 2015 from “EBW – Empowering A Billion Women”. In 2001, Vicki was selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.

We cover the following in our conversation:

Shelley Kuipers is building the world she wants to live in. As an activist in business, entrepreneurship and investment, she is hell bent on defeating the status quo one project at a time, and replacing it with options that are more equitable, feminist and ecologically sustainable; revolutionary options that drive greater value for both business and consumer.

We cover the following topics in this podcast interview:

Julia Elliott Brown, CEO and Founder of Enter The Arena, is the UK's leading fundraising and growth advisor working exclusively with women entrepreneurs.

With 20+ years commercial experience developing, building and funding high-growth start-ups, including the award-winning online shoe design brand Upper Street, and internet pioneer UpMyStreet.com, Julia's mission and passion is to bring her wealth of expertise to support women entrepreneurs on their own journeys to raising finance and scaling their businesses.

Alongside her coaching and advisory work, Julia mentors female founders at Natwest Entrepreneurial Spark and Virgin Startup. She is a judge at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and also hosts the ground-breaking podcast Fundraising Stories with Women Entrepreneurs.

We cover the following topics in the podcast:

Lauren Winfield is the founder and CEO of Signum City, a mobile app that illuminates the power of money through gamifying the stock market. 

She aims to democratise investing and financial literacy, especially for Gen Z. After watching herself and her peers struggle to find their footing financially, she knows firsthand the perils and power of money. She graduated from Belmont University with a BBA in Music Business and International Business and completed a thesis on the trend of Social Capitalism. 

With over 10 years of immersing herself in SMBs in Austin, TX, Lauren is passionate about pushing Signum City forward with her strategic leadership and keen skills in Operations and Marketing. She completed the SputnikATX accelerator program for Signum City in 2019, and she's excited to continue to illuminate the power of money for the next generation.

We cover the following topics in the podcast:

Gail Wong is the General Partner for Her Capital: a venture capital fund with a laser focus on female founders. They believe in the strength, drive and potential of female entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia, the world’s largest emerging market.

Gail is also a certified coach enabling abundance for women; a SheEO activator and gender-lens investor.

She describes herself as a whole-brained multi-hyphenate who defies easy definition: she is an investor, coach, a cappella performer, yogi, empath, global citizen.

We cover the following topics in the podcast:

Connect with Gail Wong and Her Capital here.

Veronica Mihai Das is one the of founding partners at Bloomwater Capital, a hedge fund based in the British Virgin Islands that employs quantitative algorithmic trading strategies for traditional cryptocurrency markets.

With over 15 years experience in management consulting for enterprise programmes in non-for-profit organisations, private corporations and the public sector in the UK and Europe, Veronica now concentrates her skills and knowledge in the blockchain space. She has invested in blockchain and women-led start-ups and has owned an enterprise grade cryptocurrency mining farm. She believes in inclusion, diversity and gender equity in the blockchain space, technology and beyond and works to build a future world that her children will thrive in.

Bloomwater Capital offers the opportunity for professional investors to diversify their portfolio whilst adhering to traditional business principles of regulation, transparency and trust.

We cover the following topics in the podcast (60mins)-recorded 21 March & 10 May 2020

Additional interview about bitcoin halving which took place May 11, 2020:

Anna Sofat is the founder of Addidi, a financial services boutique for women.  Anna sold the business to the Progeny Group who are spearheading a move to bring all your wealth, tax and legal advisers into one room.

Prior to founding Addidi, Anna was the managing director at Fiona Price & Partners, the first business set up specifically to provide financial advice for women by women. She graduated from Hull University and has a Masters from the London School of Economics. She is a chartered financial planner, won Unbiased’s financial adviser award in 2014, and was ranked No 1 female adviser by Financial Adviser in 2015.  

Anna was also awarded the Woman IFA of the year in 2019. Away from work, she is married and a mother of two girls. She has served as councillor on Rochester City Council, her local parish council and was a non-executive director for the social enterprise, Fair Finance from its inception in 2005 to 2014.

We cover the following topics in the podcast:

Sarah is a technologist, entrepreneur and angel investor. In 2014 she co-founded the fast-growing and award-winning angel network, Angel Academe. Their mission is to introduce more women to angel investing and to invest in women founded and co-founded technology startups with high growth potential. Investments include: Provenance, which uses the blockchain to provide supply chain transparency; Raremark which uses AI to help patients with rare diseases make informed choices about treatment; and Fiskl, a fintech for micro-businesses. 

Sarah is also on the board of the UK Business Angels Association.

We cover the following questions in the podcast: