Episode 11: Navya Rehani Gupta, VP of Product

Navya is the Vice President of Products at a company called Peek – which is basically the Open Table of activities.  Prior to Peek, she ran product at StyleSeat, the world’s largest marketplace for beauty services that has fueled over $3 billion in beauty services. She has also built large-scale products at Uber, Disney and Goldman Sachs. 

Navya has all the degrees, three of them in fact, from University of Sheffield in the UK, Stanford and from NYU Stern School of business. (Go Violets!) She is a big advocate of women in tech and is in the process of figuring out how to do it all and be successful.

She is expecting a baby soon and hopes her experience will encourage other women in tech to follow their dreams and know that integrating a family is in fact possible. After all, don’t men also have toddlers at home?

Episode 10: Karen Forchione, Project Manager, Controller

Karen is the Controller and in charge of Business Management for Dirty Robber. Previously, she has also been a Project Manager for tech companies since the beginning of Project Management as a discipline. 

She was not only the only woman in the room, she was the only woman at the entire conference at IBM headquarters. She not only figured out the job, she figured out how to hold her boundaries, hold respect, and hold her own.

From the Irish tenements in Bristol, England to the Oscars with her sons, she has had an amazing journey.

The only thing between you and your dreams, is yourself.  We hear that all the time, but it is true and bears repeating.

Episode 9: Illana Raia, Attorney, Founder

Illana is an Attorney and a Founder of a very cool website. After a career as an attorney in M&A and then after building websites for her firm, Illana launched a website for girls called Être. As in the French for “to be.”  As in, who do you want to be?

 It’s really cool and all of your daughters should be on it.  The site not only tells them to Be Brave, Be Smart, Be Charitable, Be WI$E – it also tells them how.

Episode 8: Laurie Luh, HR Consultant

Laurie is an HR consultant – Executive in Residence. She helped build Participant Media for nearly a decade and went out on her own as a consultant a few years ago. Far beyond handbooks and compensation packages, Laurie now advises CEO’s of tech companies and startups on strategy and building sustainable and fulfilling culture.  We had a juicy conversation on what employees really care about – and it’s more about engagement and purpose than it is meditation pods and shuttle pickups.  Although those things are cool too.

And for the entrepreneur in all of us, it is vitally important to dare greatly.

Episode 6: Sean Hughes, Customer Experience Leader, Writer, Founder

Sean works at a big consumer software company in California, as the Head of the emerging services group, surrounded by women. Prior to that, he was a naval officer who completed multiple deployments with the SEAL teams of the Naval Special Warfare community, where he was surrounded by men. 

In addition, he writes and runs the politics and society blog Chartwell West. If you want a break from the current hysteria that is our national discourse, Sean is your guy. 

And if all that weren't enough, he and his wife Annette founded a non-profit organization called Care for Us, which provides outreach and support for special needs families, such as theirs.

We talked all things equality and workplace culture. And as for families and work – don’t ever make them choose.

Episode 4: Linda Tadic, Founder and CEO

Linda Tadic is the Founder and CEO of Digital Bedrock. Digital Bedrock is a digital preservation company with proprietary methods of ensuring assets will be accessible in the future. Linda came up through filmmaking and cataloging and is now a thought leader in media and digital preservation and metadata.  To be honest, I was on the fence about which podcast to publish this one under – Hollywood or Tech – but Tech won out, as her company does much more than digital assets for film. In reality, this episode is where tech and Hollywood intersect and are related. 

Linda tells us about her history making experimental film, studying Baroque music, attending women’s marches, and becoming an expert in digital preservation – sometimes while partially paralyzed due to Guillain-Barre syndrome.

And she explains about her DOOD. The DOOD is really important.

Episode 3: Marissa Peretz and Max Brown, Tech Recruiters

Marissa and Max are the co-founders of Silicon Beach Talent – a recruiting and consulting firm in Los Angeles focusing on tech industries.  I mostly interviewed Marissa and heard her story coming up through the ranks via Tesla, and Max generously offered some color commentary.  We talked about the business case for diversity, the changing landscape in tech, and how women are making an impact. 

And, of course, you pick your first job based on who has the cutest outfits.  After that, you get more savvy.

Episode 2: Pooja Malpani, Senior Staff Engineer

Pooja is a Senior Staff Engineer at HBO.  She grew up in India where she was one of few women in her engineering program.  She had to get special permission from her father in order to access the lab at her college. Wait, what?  Yes.  She proved herself, winning awards and coding challenges, and paved the way for the women behind her.

She worked at Microsoft in India and in the United States. Upon arriving at HBO, she couldn’t find a women’s group and so she started one.  That’s how you do it.

Introducing The Other 50% - a herstory of tech

This is the podcast where we talk to women in tech and hear their stories.