Women Who SWAAY Podcast - Weekly Conversations With Women Challenging The Status Quo

"Find things at the intersection of your passion and market demand" - Shama Hyder

In this interview I get to chat with the marketing superstar Shama Hyder. She is known as quite a few names by different media outlets, including “Zen Master of Marketing” by Entrepreneur Magazine and the “Millennial Master of the Universe” by Fast Company. As the CEO of the award-winning marketing zen group, shama has led the organization through explosive growth averaging 400% growth annually since its start in 2009.

She is the bestselling author of the Zen of Social Media Marketing and an acclaimed international keynote speaker who has been invited to share the speaking stage with the world’s top leaders, including President Obama and the Dalai Lama. She shares with us some interesting insights about the social media world, how she started her company right out of graduate school and how it evolved since then.

She also discusses why social media marketing is a 'Zen' process and so much more! We apologize the interview was cut short at the end as Shama had another commitment to head to. But it was such a pleasure chatting with her and we are glad she took the time in between her busy schedule to share some insights with us!!

Amanda Slavin (listed on this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 for Marketing and Advertising) is a Millennial and Generation Z expert and the CEO and Founder of CatalystCreativ, an experience studio that’s focused on helping cities, brands and institutions flourish by developing educational and inspirational strategy, and on and offline campaigns to engage Millennials. CatalystCreativ is funded by Zappos CEO and venture capitalist Tony Hsieh as part of the Downtown Project. Slavin and CatalystCreativ has worked with brands spanning from NPR, Dell, Ekocycle, to Starwood Hotels.

In this episode, Amanda walks us through her jobs prior to starting a business and how they helped her in becoming the entrepreneur superstar she is! She then goes on to explain the framework of Catalyst Creativ and the creative approach she takes to not only help her clients build brand exposure but also help them make somewhat of an impact in the community. She also shares how she met Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos), who then ends up funding Catalyst Creativ!

Amanda has had quite the experience in raising capital for her company, so hear more about her advice for pitching investors as well as her advice for women looking to start a business in this episode!

To lean more about Catalyst Creativ and the amazing work they do, visit www.catalystcreativ.com

In honors of Mother's Day - I wanted to spotlight an ambitious Mother, Social Entrepreneur and foodie: Tania Lopez. She is a proud mom of two teenagers and a six-foot frog named Coqui!!

Tania Lopez is the founder and CEO of Coqui the Chef (health/wellness company). She collaborates with organizations in the South Bronx, New York who want to build communities with better overall food quality and access. She promotes healthy living and nutritional awareness with projects like summer cooking camp and after-school cooking/nutrition classes with basic introduction to various exercises and music. She believes a child who explores food and exercise has greater chance of building healthy habits. She studied Culinary Arts to enhance her knowledge of food and was awarded Les Dames d’Escoffier Scholarship.

I absolutely love her efforts in being involved with her community. Listen to the episode to find out more about her cool upcoming cooking show and check out www.coquithechef.com to get to know the many initiatives she's leading and the different fun projects she works on!

As seen on ABC's show 'The Chew'

Amanda's background is in global business development and has worked with medium and large companies in the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. She is an international trade expert, communications and marketing specialist, sales leader, public speaker, event planner.

Amanda spent four years in Egypt working in the private sector. She was a marketing consultant for Dentons Egypt LLC (formerly known as SNR Denton), a global corporate law firm with an office in Cairo, where she helped author the firm’s legal publication Doing Business in Egypt. She spent several years working at the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt (AmCham Egypt), the largest and most active American Chamber in the Middle East, assisting U.S. and Egyptian companies with their marketing and communications strategies to support business expansion in the region.

In this interview she tells us how she went from working for the government to becoming a full time entrepreneur and starting her skincare line Verita to empower women cooperatives as well as the consumer. We also discuss the benefits of Argan oil and how you can become more aware of how pure your Argan oil is.

She is always looking for beauty bloggers to collaborate with, so for those interested dot hesitate to visit her site at www.veritaskin.com and shoot her an email! As you can tell from the interview she is a sweetheart and will be more than happy to send you products for review!

Jessica Zweig is the co-founder of the company CheekyChicago.com, The leading online magazine for women in Chicago since 2008. Over the past six years, Jessica has built a following of thousands of millennial women to help attract some of the nation’s largest and most innovative brands as clients.

With her unparalleled knowledge of the Millennial female demographic, combined with her global brand experience, as well as her creative gift in helping businesses tell their story in new and engaging light, the SimplyBe Agency for Branding, Marketing & Social Media Creative Consulting, was born.

In this interview, she shares with us how important it is to evaluate how you work with others before deciding on having a business partner, as well as how she got the opportunity to start the SimplyBe Agency and her unique approach to working one on one with emerging women entrepreneurs.

Visit her website at www.jessicazweig.com to learn more about how you can work with her and bring a new and personal approach to building your brand.

Rachel Rofé is a multiple bestselling author that's been featured in Entrepreneur, Woman's World, and Fox News. Since she began internet marketing in 2006, she's developed over 30 products, 40 Kindle books, and bought and sold companies with as many as 120 employees. She's designed her life to have as much ease as possible, and lives the true "internet lifestyle", traveling and speaking worldwide.

In this episode, Rachel shares with us how she quit her job as a retail manager at Walmart to become a self-made successful entrepreneur. We also discuss the importance of having a podcast for your business, the different ways of writing content for your website/blog and the importance of outsourcing to better manage your time and productivity.

If you're interested in improving your life or have any questions regarding ideas to drive your business forward, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Rachel by visiting her website www.rachelrofe.com or follow her on twitter @rachelrofe.

And last but not least, subscribe to her podcast “A Better Life”, trust me you will be hooked!! Happy listening.

Alexis Wolfer is the founder and editor-in-chief of TheBeautyBean.com, an online women’s magazine founded in 2009 to bring women their beauty, fitness and wellness fix in a way designed to make them feel better about themselves. Less than 2 years later, Forbes Magazine named TheBeautyBean.com one of the Top 10 Women’s Lifestyle Websites. Her first book, The Recipe For Radiance: Discover Beauty’s Best-Kept Secrets In Your Kitchen is available now, wherever books are sold.

In this episode, Alexis shares with us how she transitioned from working with Conde Nast publications to starting and managing her successful beauty site: www.thebeautybean.com

We also discuss the uniqueness of the content of her site as well as how she got the opportunity to write a book about her passion of formulating natural beauty remedies with ingredients in her kitchen.