Woman Inc.

Happy Friday our Woman Inc. listeners! Our guest this week is @BeatriceDixon , CEO and Founder of @thehoneypotcomany.

After curing her own bacterial vaginosis with an herbal formula that came to her in a dream from one of her ancestors, Beatrice formulated the first Honey Pot product. She went from selling out at an Atlanta Hair Show to meetings with Target buyers. Bea founded The Honey Pot Company to support humans around the world through her inclusive, plant-derived vaginal wellness brand.

Camilla Marcus is a chef, entrepreneur and advocate dedicated to rethinking what it means to be a good neighbor through the lens of hospitality. Named one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business”, she is the Chef/Founder of west~bourne, a pioneering hospitality business that began as a zero-waste restaurant in SoHo, Manhattan. Since closing the restaurant’s doors in September 2020 due to COVID-19, Camilla has grown the brand to include online retail, packaged provisions and curated culinary experiences. She is additionally co-founder of Restaurants Organizing Advocating Rebuilding (ROAR), and The Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC), both started to advocate for restaurants and hospitality workers during the pandemic.

Hello our Woman Inc. Listeners! Our guest this week is Helen Reavey, CCO and Founder of Act+Acre.

Act+Acre is the first modern hair wellness brand that encourages you to 'treat your hair like you treat your skin.' The cutting-edge, vegan, natural haircare line is sulfate, silicone, paraben, gluten and cruelty-free and environmentally friendly. We are not about quick fixes. We are about expertise, caring, and thinking things through. We are committed to creating products with the long-term wellbeing of your scalp and in turn, your hair, in mind. Act+Acre was founded by husband-and-wife team Helen Reavey, founder and celebrity hairstylist, and Colm Mackin, founder and CEO. The brand launched with three essential Cold Processed products: Hair Cleanse, Hair Conditioner and their hero product, the Scalp Detox. Each product delivers nutrients to your scalp and strands without any harsh chemicals that can strip away the oils the scalp needs for healthy hair growth. The founders have created a patented cold-process technique to create their plant-based products, skipping the traditional heat-based production, which can lessen the potency of seed oils. As Act+Acre products continue to evolve and expand, the potency of products and scalp-first approach will stay a priority. 

Helen Reavey knows a thing or two about the link between scalp health and hair vitality. As a veteran of hairstylist Sam McKnight’s backstage team and with over 15 years as the go-to stylist for the world’s leading fashion brands, celebrities, and media outlets, Helen wanted to create a new playbook for hair wellness. Having worked worldwide on all races, genders, nationalities, the one thing that Helen noted as being common across the board was poor scalp health. Her curiosity resulted in a realization that the industry was serving up a selection of sub-par products that do not serve to nourish, balance and stimulate the scalp… enter Act+Acre

I hope you enjoy!

Kathryn Minshew is The Muse’s CEO and co-Founder as well as co-author of “The New Rules of Work: The Modern Playbook to Navigating Your Career.” (https://www.kminshew.com/book-the-new-rules-of-work)Kathryn has spoken at MIT and Harvard, appeared on The TODAY Show and CNN, and contributes on career and entrepreneurship to the Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review. She has also been named to SmartCEO’s Future50 Visionary CEOs, Forbes 30 Under 30 and Inc.’s 35 Under 35. Her startup, The Muse, a value-based job search and career advice site, has been named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. Before founding The Muse, Kathryn worked on vaccines in Rwanda and Malawi with the Clinton Health Access Initiative and was previously at McKinsey.  

Happy Friday our Woman Inc. listeners! Our guest this week is Jess Conroy, Founder and CEO of Carats & Cake, a financial operating system for the events industry.

Carats & Cake connect their highly-engaged community with top venues, properties, and industry professionals. Founded in 2013 as a marketing and discovery platform, Carats & Cake has the fastest-growing online and social community in the $100B events industry. They continue to innovate with tools that empower businesses to run more efficiently by seamlessly connecting their marketing foundations with the sales and financing solutions venues and property groups need most.

Prior to founding Carats & Cake, Jess worked as an Associate at Burch Creative Capital where she helped manage investments and brand development for the firm’s portfolio. Jess is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in Economics and Spanish and earned her MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business.

Now, let's get over to my conversation with Jess.

Hello my beautiful Woman Inc. listeners! My guest this week Amy Errett, Founder and CEO of Madison Reed, an at-home and in-salon hair-dye company with over 50 locations and 55+ color shades, free of Parabens, Ammonia, Phthalates, and more. 

Amy has over 30 years of business and operating expertise as a four-time entrepreneur, venture capitalist and social-mission visionary. Amy is a Venture Partner at True Ventures, focusing on investments in consumer and e-commerce startups.  Prior to founding Madison Reed, Amy was a general partner at Maveron, a leading venture capital firm co-founded by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz - focused on investments in consumer facing companies. She also previously served as Chief Asset Gathering Officer at E*TRADE, where she ran a $200 million business. She was also featured on Fast Company’s first ever Queer 50 list of LGBTQ women and nonbinary innovators in business and tech in 2020. 

Hello my beautiful Woman Inc. listeners! My guest this week is Zara Terez Tisch, CEO and Founder of Terez, a fashion lifestyle brand that specializes in vibrant, high performance activewear and everyday styles for girls + women. Terez was created to celebrate connection, heart, and female empowerment, which is reflected through the brand's ethos and flashy + dynamic leggings, sports bras, biker shorts, loungewear and beyond. Zara originally launched Terez in 2008 in her parent's basement in New York City with handbags.

After a few years, she shifted gears to create ready to wear and launched active, which makes 2022 the 10th Anniversary of Active. When Terez launched leggings in 2012, they only had one style with six colors and now - Terez has over 530+ products on the site! The brand's name is inspired by Zara's middle namesake, which was created by her mother and is a combination of her two grandmothers’ names. A mother of 3 + a forever optimist, Zara is a ball of energy with a vibrant creative streak and believes in embracing life to the fullest - which is apparent through Terez's brand ethos. Terez is loved + frequently worn by many celebrities including: Lisa Rinna, Vanessa Hudgens, Addison Rae, and many more!

Ok this may have been the most fun interview I’ve done so far. If I could bottle up Zara’s energy in just keep it around me every day, I absolutely would. She is a beautiful human who has been through a lot and built an incredible business and I am honored to be able to share her story. 

Now, let’s get over to my conversation with Zara. 

Hello my beautiful Woman Inc. listeners! My guest this week is Tracey Warner, CEO of the high growth billion-dollar+ brand, Vital Proteins. Tracey has been with Vital Proteins since the inception of the company in 2014, first serving as a board member, then as Senior Vice President of Sales and Chief Revenue Officer. Prior to Vital Proteins, Tracey spent 20 years in management in the technology industry working for Fortune 100’s like IBM, Dell, as well as other Silicon Valley startups. Vital proteins was partially acquired by Nestle Health Science in 2020. Tracey graduated with a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan and did post graduate work at Michigan Ross, University of Chicago Booth School of Business and is currently enrolled at University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business for their Accelerated CEO Program.

I am a huge fan of Vital Proteins and have my entire family hooked. I put it in my coffee every morning, and notice such a difference when I don’t. Tracey is so wise and down to earth, and I think her advice will resonate with so many of you.

Now, let’s get over to my conversation with Tracey. 

Hello my beautiful Woman Inc. Listeners! My guest this week is Cathy Polinsky, a seasoned technology executive with over 20 years of industry experience and happens to be a VP of Engineering at Shopify. 

Cathy was most recently the Chief Technology Officer at Stitch Fix, an online personal shopping service. Cathy helped take Stitch Fix public and led the Engineering, Product and IT organizations through rapid growth. 

Prior to Stitch Fix, Cathy led a variety of engineering organizations and initiatives at Salesforce for seven years, including her role as SVP of Engineering. She also built robust, large-scale systems and led engineering teams at top companies like Amazon, Yahoo! and Oracle. 

She is currently an independent board director at Aetion and graduated from Swarthmore College with a special major in computer science and is a member of the Swarthmore College Board of Managers.

I am a huge Shopify fan— which I probably mentioned a hundred times in this episode, but it the platform my team and I have used to build a multimillion dollar business and I was so excited to meet the woman who is engineering much of the tech that I get to use every day.

Cathy is not only brilliant, but also incredibly down to earth and my favorite part was probably talking about her role as a mom. 

I hope this conversation brings you the one little bit of inspiration that you need to hear. Now, let’s get over to my conversation with Cathy.  

It's that time, my beautiful Woman Inc. Listeners! An inside talk from my heart to yours.

Enjoy xx