Randi Zuckerberg's Blog, page 2

Radio Recap: McGarryBowen + Shine Text

If you’ve ever seen the ‘Curiously Strong’ Altoid print campaigns, Dockers’ ‘Who Wears the Pants’ project, or the ‘What Music Looks Like’ Pandora music rebrand, heck—even if you haven’t—these are some of the most iconic and biggest rebranding advertisements around and they were all helmed by Julie Scelzo Executive Creative Director at global creative agency McGarryBowen where she now leads McGarryBowen’s American Express business’ campaign. In an industry where there are few women executive creative directors or creative leaders, Julie is part of the advertising industry’s push toward diversity and inclusion.

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If you happened to catch my Top 4 Apps for Mom’s on TODAY, you’d know I mentioned SHINE—the self-care app that sends daily actionable tips and content around confidence, happiness, mental health, and productivity.  Today I sat down with Shine co-founders Marah Lidey and Naomi Hirabayashi to business of self-care in an over-worked business world.

Radio Recap: Women’s VC Fund + Ellementa

After Edith Dorsen first learned that 95% of traditional venture capital is granted to companies where senior leadership doesn’t include any women she, alongside her partner Monica Dodi, got mad… now they’re getting even with the Women’s Venture Capital Fund. Now in its second fund, Women’s Venture Capital Fund II, WVCF is among the only funds in the country actively investing in Series A and B female founders—like former ‘Dot Complicated’ guest, Amy Nelson of the Riveter. Since its inception, Women’s Venture Capital Fund, alone, has seen over 1,500 early stage companies led by women. When WVCF first started, they predicted the number of venture-worthy female founders in the United States to reach an inflection point—and WVCF believes that point has arrived. But when you look at the number of women in senior leadership roles in corporate America, progress has stalled, as less than 5% of executive roles in the Fortune 500 are held by women. But, as more studies show that firms with women in senior management outperform on nearly every metric, Edith and Monica aim to keep gender diversity critical to entrepreneurial success by granting access to much needed capital.

Aliza Sherman is a web pioneer, having founded the first woman-owned internet companies Cybergrrl, Inc. and Webgrrls International paving the way for women in the Internet industry. Now, after 25+ years online, Aliza is in her second act going from the web to weed with Ellementa—a national network and digital media platform focused on cannabis wellness for women.

Radio Recap: Story by Macy’s + iCryo

Rachel Shechtman is a 4th-generation retailer, Macy’s Brand Experience Officer, and Founder of STORY—a physical retail marketing experience acquired by Macy’s in 2018. Before Story, Rachel founded Cube Ventures, a retail consulting firm that worked with clients like Toms, Gap and JC Penney. In 2011, Rachel launched Story, which was conceived as a place that takes the “POV of a magazine, changes like an art gallery, and sells things like a store.” The themes, design and products are updated every 4 to 8 weeks, based on partnerships with brands like Lexus, American Express and Target. As Brand Experience Officer, Rachel creates Story’s interactive experiences, which, over the past 40 iterations of the store, have included everything from virtual reality meditation to a hot-towel shave station. STORY began as New York’s ever-changing retail concept store in Chelsea and this year, STORY at Macy’s launched at 36 Macy’s stores in 15 states nationwide.

Headquartered in Houston with franchises sprouting up across the country, iCryo is the fastest growing cryotherapy franchise company in the U.S—and with big investors like Dallas Cowboys linebacker Jaylon Smith on as equity partners, it’s only set to grow faster. Today I discussed the franchising industry is the Co-Founder and COO of iCryo, Kyle Jones.

 

Radio Recap: Eat Club + Spoon Meets Spoon

Providing lunch for employees has been a workplace perk since the 1990s when companies like Bloomberg and then start-up Google offered snacks in the company kitchen with the goal of making employees happier, healthier, more productive, and in the office instead of out on the town. Now everyone from Ben & Jerry’s—who offers three free pints of ice cream for each day of work— tothe American Enterprise Institutethink tank in Washington—who offers employees an elaborate buffet with luxuries like prime rib and crab cakes—free lunch has been found to increase employee productivity, help team building and culture, and adds to recruiting efforts. But what if that meal can be carbon neutral too?  Enter Eat Club, a Silicon Valley-based “virtual cafeteria” that delivers meals to more than 1,000 companies and who worked to offset emissions from its own operations—from the miles driven by delivery vehicles to electricity use at distribution centers—is now incentivizing their employees to be offset their own carbon footprints too. Here with me to discuss the benefits of work perks is Doug Leeds, the CEO of Eat Club.

Meredith Golden is a former psychotherapist turned dating app-ghostwriter and founder of Spoon Meets Spoon where Meredith does all the swiping and texting for her clients.

Radio Recap: Seyward Darby + Alexa Von Tobel

Seyward Darby is the Editor-in-Chief of The Atavist Magazine, an award-winning, digital-only publication that publishes long-form content along with podcast companion pieces. The Atavist has been nominated for nine National Magazine Awards and two Emmys, among numerous other reporting, writing, and design accolades. Prior to The Atavist, Darby was deputy editor of Foreign Policy and online editor and assistant managing editor of The New Republic. She was a 2018 Sundance Institute New Frontiers Story Lab Fellow and she’s with me today to discuss the importance of good journalism in the digital age.

Alexa von Tobel is the Founder of venture capital firm Inspired Capital and is the former Founder and CEO of LearnVest. She’s a New York Times bestselling author of Financially Fearless and is an inaugural member of the Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship for the White House. Her new book Financially Forward is out now and explains how to use the simple tools of the digital age to get more out of our money.

Radio Recap: Clear + Automattic

Only a few years ago going through airport security used to be quick and easy. Now with added security concerns coupled with more flyers in the skies, travelers are subjected to long lines and strict TSA protocol. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency, between the hours of 2 and 3pm at Terminal A of San Francisco’s SFO International Airport, the average wait time is currently set at 46 minutes with a possible max wait time of 110 minutes. That’s almost two hours spent waiting in line before you ever set foot on a plane.  But thanks to our friend technology, biometric security platform CLEAR is letting flyers cut the line. Chances are you may have seen CLEAR at your local airport as it’s currently available in40+ airports, stadiums, and other venues around the country. Here with me today to discuss the way we think about identification is CLEAR Chairman and CEO Caryn Seidman-Becker.

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Michelle Broderick is the Senior Vice President of Automattic, the parent company of JetPack, LongReads, WooCommerce and WordPress. Currently WordPress powers more than 30% of all websites including People.com, CNN and even Dot Complicated.

We are the people behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Simplenote, Longreads, VaultPress, Akismet, Gravatar, Crowdsignal, Cloudup, and more. We believe in making the web a better place.  We’re a distributed company with 881 Automatticians in 69 countries speaking 84 different languages. Our common goal is to democratize publishing so that anyone with a story can tell it, regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world.

Radio Recap: Fran Hauser + Thyroid Refresh

Fran Hauser is an expert on all things fundraising, investing and career growth. In addition to being a bestselling author with her book, The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate she’s a wealth of information and support for early stage companies. I’m thrilled to announce Fran is also the newest addition to Zuckerberg Institute’s team of Experts. Zuckerberg Institute will host its first in-person intensive with Fran on Saturday, May 4th in New York City on ‘How to Fundraise For Your Startup Like a Boss,’ where we’ll be reviewing pitch decks, fundraising action plans, and giving direct feedback to entrepreneurs in attendance on their business.

Danna Bowman and Ginny Mahar

Hypothyroidism becomes more pronounced with age and is far more common in women than men. 20% of women in the United States will develop the condition by age 60.Daily symptoms include nausea, fatigue, weight gain, constipation, feeling cold, and depression. The symptoms that accompany hypothyroidism (or an underactive thyroid) can disrupt several parts of your life since, when your thyroid is underactive, your metabolism slows down, which can lead to weight gain. Here with me today are two women leading a thyroid revolution.Created by thyroid patients, for thyroid patients, Danna Bowman and Ginny Mahar decided to create Thyroid Refresh to help all those thyroid patients struggling to adapt to a thyroid healthy lifestyle.

 

Radio Recap: Mother’s of Invention

Since its inception in 2012, Toyota has cultivated the Toyota Mothers of Invention program by awarding more than $1 million to women-led companies with Driving Solutions grants and facilitating networking opportunities, building relevant connections, and providing access to intellectual capital to help their organizations grow. These women, who are leading the charge to work on issues like homelessness, education, food, water, energy, and more, come from all over the world, and are using innovation to create lasting and sustainable impact.

Today I spoke with two different companies—both award winners of Toyota’s 2019 Mothers of Invention Grant. First here with me are Shubham Issar and Amanat Anand, makers of the SoaPen, which was created to address the 1.5 million children under the age of five who die every year from infectious diseases — a majority of which can be prevented by washing hands with soap.

Paige Chenault is the Founder of The Birthday Party Project, an organization that hosts monthly birthday parties for children at homeless and transitional living facilities across the country. She’s also been awarded one of Toyota’s 2019 Mothers of Invention.

Radio Recap: Julie Zhou’s Making a Manager + Family Tech w/ Verizon

Julie Zhuo is the Vice President of Product Design for Facebook, having led the design team responsible for the app and its services. Julie was just 25 when she became a rookie manager at the Facebook. Her knowledge was limited but she was open to learning. Now, years later Julie outlined her first-time management experience and lessons in her new book, The Making of a Manager and she’s with me today to offer some of the lessons for everyone to first-time managers to seasoned pros.

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VERIZON FAMILY TECH

Last week mobile powerhouse Verizon made a giant leap into children’s mobility launching a plan centered around a child’s first smartphone. The ‘Just Kids’ plan helps give parents peace of mind with controls toeasily keep track of where kids are, limit how time online, and set content filters. The plan also includes 5GB of 4G LTE data and unlimited talk and text to 20 parent-defined contacts. Plus there are no overage fees if the child goes beyond the allotted data, the speed simply slows down instead. This launch comes off the heels of Verizon’s Family Tech Initiative and their work with the Family Online Safety Institute, both of which take aim at good digital parenting. Here with me to discuss the Just Kids plan plus mobile and online safety are Angie Klein, the Vice President of Marketing at Verizon, and Stephen Balkam, the founder of FOSI, the Family Online Safety Institute.

Stephen Balkam + Angie Klein

Radio Recap: Cannabusinesses

2018 was a pinnacle year for the cannabis industry. Michigan voted to join 8other states that have gone fully recreational, while Missouri joins 30 states that have already gone the medical route. And Canada legalized the entire country. Also worth mentioning is the first cannabis-based drug treatments approved by the FDA and the rise —and fall— of pot stocks.

Asinvestors and rest of the financial world eagerly watch to see what will happen in 2019, the legal cannabis industry continues to establish itself with new products taking the marijuana industry by storm. Entrepreneurs are hoping their addition will be a ganja game changer. And given that the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill moved to deschedule hemp and that the AB 228 bill permits the retail sale of hemp-derived CBD in foods, supplements, and topical applications in California, expect to see an uptick in hemp and CBD-related products too.

Here with me to discuss Cannabis Companies are Mia Davis and Sylvia Werhle co-founders of skin care company June CBD Apothecary, and later in the show will be Nicco Reggente, the co-founder of personal cannabis DNA testing company Strain Genie and hemp industry consultant, Josh Hendrix.