Today, we are spending time with Kathleen Donohoe. My mom.

This is a very special Mother’s Day episode – our first on the Hype Women Podcast.

And so, there was no other person I was going to spend today with other than my mom.

Her career is exceptional. It is steeped in gender equity, justice, system change, mission-driven work and community-based connection.

She spent 24 years in the Coast Guard, before her second career of 18 years at the University of Michigan.

As a single mother, she raised my sister and I while moving us every 2-4 years to different cities and states across the country.

It was a lot. Yes, there were hard times. Of course there were good times. But what I’m enjoying most about this phase of our relationship is the ability to look at whole lot of our lives and our choices with breadth, depth and deep empathy.

Motherhood has been the most rewarding and challenging experience of my life. And talking to my mom now about her experience raising me is both eye opening and mind blowing.

Thinking of our mothers as women…humans with their own hopes and dreams and wishes and frustrations and baggage is the most relatable thing I can encourage us to do today.

The reason I do the work I do to fight the fights I have in me to fight is because my mom showed me how to do it.

And while the way in which we approach this work has looked different and been done in very different places, it all matters.

And it got me thinking: if you work inside of a system that isn’t built by – or for – you, and you want to change it, how do you play by rules that are meant to keep you from winning?

Said another way: when do you EVER have the right to break chain of command?

Listen to find out.

Women we love to hype in this episode:

Kathleen Donohoe: LinkedIn, Instagram

Fund the Fairway! Join our evergreen seed fund to bring The Fairway to new markets around the world.

Donate here.

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The Hype Women Podcast is produced by Erin Gallagher and Melanie Scroggins.

Original score by Alex Yewon.

**Please listen, subscribe, and rate our show wherever you listen to podcasts the most.**

Connect with us:

• Check out Hype Women HERE
• Buy Hype Women Swag in the Ella Shop HERE
• Follow Hype Women on Instagram HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on LinkedIn HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on Instagram HERE
• Join The Fairway HERE

Share your stories using #HypeWomen

Today, we are spending time with Susan McPherson.

You know the game “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon?” Well, today, we’re playing Five degrees of Susan McPherson.

Trust me, you can do it.

Susan is the consummate connector. She. Knows. Everyone.

But more than that, Susan CONNECTS with everyone.

She wrote a book on it.

Susan is intentional in how she connects with people and also in how she supports. She is an active participant in the growth of female founders and women-owned businesses. Through her human, social AND financial capital, she angel invests in dozens of women to help them realize their dreams.

We talked about her entre into entrepreneurship at the age of 48, the ways to build and grow a business and HOW to work differently than so many of us have been taught to lead working in spaces that were filled with people who didn’t look like us.

And we talked about the phrase: “Be careful about doing business with your friends.” – a message I truly feel is said to women so much more often than it’s said to men.

And it got me thinking, how DO we have a personal relationship with someone AND then, decide to do business with them?

Listen to find out.

Women we love to hype in this episode:

Susan McPherson: LinkedIn, Instagram, Website; McPherson Strategies: Website

Fund the Fairway! Join our evergreen seed fund to bring The Fairway to new markets around the world.

Donate here.

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The Hype Women Podcast is produced by Erin Gallagher and Melanie Scroggins.

Original score by Alex Yewon.

**Please listen, subscribe, and rate our show wherever you listen to podcasts the most.**

Connect with us:

• Check out Hype Women HERE
• Buy Hype Women Swag in the Ella Shop HERE
• Follow Hype Women on Instagram HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on LinkedIn HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on Instagram HERE
• Join The Fairway HERE

Share your stories using #HypeWomen

Today, we are spending time with Ambika Pai.

Ambika and I recorded this episode almost a year ago. And while so much of what we discuss still rings true — and I know will for YOU too — Ambika’s career has continued to expand and evolve to meet her where she’s transforming.

Today, she is the head of brand at TIAA.

We travel through decades and a multitude of milestones over the course of our conversation. But the word that stuck with me each of the four times I’ve listed to this is “floating.”

Floating means many things.

And while the word is so often viewed as a negative: not settled in a definite place; fluctuating or variable,” – in layman's terms LOST – it also has a positive connotation: buoyant or suspended

This version of the definition usually refers to literally floating in water or air.

But WE are talking about the metaphorical: the existing outside of your body, above yourself. Sometimes unsettling. Sometimes exhilarating.

Being grounded and tethered to the earth is important. But it can also be limiting and hold us back from the expansive, most unbridled versions of ourselves.

That kind of floating can take you to places that only exist in your wildest dreams.

And it got me thinking: For those of us who are always transforming, evolving and growing, are we ever NOT floating?

Women we love to hype in this episode:

Ambika Pai: LinkedIn, Instagram: Corner Office Breakdowns: Spotify, Instagram
Kim Chappell: LinkedIn, Instagram; Bobbie: Website, Instagram
Vitale Buford Hardin: LinkedIn, Instagram; Vitale & Co: Website

Fund the Fairway! Join our evergreen seed fund to bring The Fairway to new markets around the world.

Donate here.

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The Hype Women Podcast is produced by Erin Gallagher and Melanie Scroggins.

Original score by Alex Yewon.

**Please listen, subscribe, and rate our show wherever you listen to podcasts the most.**

Connect with us:

• Check out Hype Women HERE
• Buy Hype Women Swag in the Ella Shop HERE
• Follow Hype Women on Instagram HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on LinkedIn HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on Instagram HERE
• Join The Fairway HERE

Share your stories using #HypeWomen

Today we are spending time with Lisa Sun.

Only with Lisa can I cover generational trauma, the escape from corporate America, the discovery of entrepreneurship…and bangs in one conversation.

Be prepared to be taken on a ride, people. Buckle up.

Lisa has built a company and a movement to help women catalyze confidence.

And I LOVE talking to her

But it is *listening* to Lisa that has had the most profound impact on me.

It is essential that I always carry a notebook when connecting with Lisa. Because the gems that she drops act like breadcrumbs leading me to the best versions of myself.

And at the end of last year, she launched her book Gravitas out into the world. And in this book, Lisa gives a very special shout out to our Hype Women Movement.

Stay tuned for our origin story

And be sure to check out her amazing book on hypewomen.com, as Lisa’s book Gravitas is a part of our very first Hype Women Book Collective that launched on International Women’s Day just last month.

Today, we talk about …

… the tension that exists between fitting in and standing out

… what happens when love and life are conditional

… friends who help you shed your shame through psychological safety

… our inner critic and who decide is allowed be one on the outside

And it got me thinking….when someone tells you that you *don’t* possess something that you believe you do, whose truth wins?

Let’s find out.

Women we love to hype in this episode:

Lisa Sun: LinkedIn, Instagram; Gravitas: Website, Instagram
Mariah Hancock: LinkedIn; The Network: Website; Join the Virtual Event on June 20th here.
Laura Modi: LinkedIn, Instagram; Bobbie: Website, Instagram

Fund the Fairway! Join our evergreen seed fund to bring The Fairway to new markets around the world.

Donate here.

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The Hype Women Podcast is produced by Erin Gallagher and Melanie Scroggins.

Original score by Alex Yewon.

**Please listen, subscribe, and rate our show wherever you listen to podcasts the most.**

Connect with us:

• Check out Hype Women HERE
• Buy Hype Women Swag in the Ella Shop HERE
• Follow Hype Women on Instagram HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on LinkedIn HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on Instagram HERE
• Join The Fairway HERE

Share your stories using #HypeWomen

Today, we are spending time with Jenny Nguyen.

Jenny is So. Damn. Cool.

I could spend hours talking with her and feel like only a few moments had passed.

Jenny is the founder and owner of The Sports Bra, the world’s first – and until a month ago, only – sports bar playing women’s sports, exclusively.

I was so lucky to spend time in person with Jenny at the beginning of March in Austin at SXSW.

We were both there speaking on different panels. AND we were able to make time for each other.

• We danced to live music at the home of Dawn Laguens, Planned Parenthood’s Global Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer.
• We dined at Kristen Kish’s exceptional restaurant, Arlo Grey
• We dreamed together, as entrepreneurs always do.

On the Hype Women podcast, we are professional. But we are also very authentic, genuine and raw.

We don’t host these conversations in a fancy studio.

We don’t have teams of people choreographing every single move.

So, in this particular episode, you will hear the team at The Sports Bra working in the background.

Because Jenny posted up from her favorite booth in her bar to share her story with us.

The fanciest of people may turn their noses up at the “unrefined” nature of our style.

But I love it so much. I feel like we are RIGHT THERE WITH HER.

Today, the Sports Bra celebrates its two-year anniversary.

And it’s so deeply poetic that they celebrate this powerful milestone in the midst of March Madness and the Women’s Elite Eight…and a time when women’s sports is FINALLY getting the attention it deserves.

Jenny and I spend a lot of time during our conversation talking about dreaming.

And it got me thinking.

When you’re doing something for the very first time – in a way that’s NEVER been done before – how do you balance dreaming JUST enough to get started with dreaming BIG enough so that you don’t end up creating your own limitations?

Let’s find out.

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Women we love to hype in this episode:

Jenny Nguyen: LinkedIn; The Sports Bra: Website, Instagram
Sarah Hardy: LinkedIn, Instagram; Bobbie: Website, Instagram

Fund the Fairway! Join our evergreen seed fund to bring The Fairway to new markets around the world.

Donate here.

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The Hype Women Podcast is produced by Erin Gallagher and Melanie Scroggins.

Original score by Alex Yewon.

**Please listen, subscribe, and rate our show wherever you listen to podcasts the most.**

Connect with us:

• Check out Hype Women HERE
• Buy Hype Women Swag in the Ella Shop HERE
• Follow Hype Women on Instagram HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on LinkedIn HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on Instagram HERE
• Join The Fairway HERE

Share your stories using #HypeWomen

Today, we are spending time with Emily Tisch Sussman.

There is NO ONE like Emily.

No one.

She is brilliant in all the ways: street smart, book smart, style smart, whip smart.

Every time I’m in her presence, I learn more about the world and myself. I hope you experience the same.

Em and I talk a lot about her journey navigating her identity: as a woman, as a political commentator, as a lawyer, as a mother of three, as a podcast host, as a media mogul, as an owner of professional women’s soccer team – the New York / New Jersey GothamFC, as a member of a prominent New York family (have you heard of The New York Giants?).

Em has been underestimated at different points throughout her life.

And her response to this?

She committed herself to being serious – and taken seriously.

But in shape-shifting to fit inside of a “serious” box that could not contain her light, she began to lose herself.

And it got me thinking:

Are being serious and being *taken* seriously the same thing?

Let’s find out.

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Emily Tisch Sussman:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram

She Pivots the Podcast:

• Instagram: @shepivotsthepodcast
• TikTok: @shepivotsthepodcast
• Twitter: @shepivotsthepod
• LinkedIn: She Pivots
• Facebook: She Pivots the podcast

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The Hype Women Podcast is produced by Erin Gallagher and Melanie Scroggins.

Original score by Alex Yewon.

**Please listen, subscribe, and rate our show wherever you listen to podcasts the most.**

Connect with us:

• Check out Hype Women HERE
• Buy Hype Women Swag in the Ella Shop HERE
• Follow Hype Women on Instagram HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on LinkedIn HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on Instagram HERE
• Join The Fairway HERE

Share your stories using #HypeWomen

Today, we are spending time with Kiki Freedman.

Kiki is the CEO and co-founder of Hey Jane, the 5-year old telehealth startup providing patients with medication abortion via mail and the telehealth clinic offering safe, affordable, and convenient reproductive & sexual health care.

You may have seen Kiki’s story in Inc last year when she was named a 2023 Inc “Female Founder 200” winner.

What Kiki is doing with Hey Jane is saving lives. It’s creating access in all of the ways that the word is defined.

Access is:

1. a means of approaching or entering a place — in layman's terms: a way in
2. the right or opportunity to use or benefit from something
3. an attack or outburst of an emotion; For example: “When I read about the anti-choice zealots stripping away women’s rights to control what happens to our own damn bodies every day I am suddenly overcome with an access of rage.”

Yeah…that shoe fits.

In this episode, I share my own abortion stories. Yes, I’ve had two.

And I’m so excited to be with Kiki next week on stage at SXSW — an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas

And we’ll be sharing the stage with Dawn Laguens, executive vice president and chief global strategy and innovation officer at Planned Parenthood and Dr. Roopan Gill — OBGyn and CEO and Co-Founder of Vitala Global Foundation

Kiki, Dawn, Roopan and I will be talking about why EVERYONE is an Abortion Beneficiary.

Because whether you’re pro-choice or anti-choice, you — my friend — are an abortion beneficiary.

Kiki started Hey Jane because she saw a problem. And she wanted to fix it.

I am so deeply drawn to people like Kiki. The doers. The fixers. The founders.

The people who don’t wait for someone else to solve a problem.

And it got me thinking…

When DO we decide that a problem isn’t going to be someone else’s to solve — and that, in fact, WE need to be the ones to fix it?

Let’s find out.

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Check out and support the women we love to HYPE!

• Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer and Kimberly Rath: Cynthia & Kimberly on LinkedIn, Zeal of the Heel
• Netta Jenkins: Netta on LinkedIn, Aerodei
• Hillary Hittner: Hillary on LinkedIn, hillaryhittner.com

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The Hype Women Podcast is produced by Erin Gallagher and Melanie Scroggins.

Original score by Alex Yewon.

**Please listen, subscribe, and rate our show wherever you listen to podcasts the most.**

Connect with us:

• Check out Hype Women HERE
• Buy Hype Women Swag in the Ella Shop HERE
• Follow Hype Women on Instagram HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on LinkedIn HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on Instagram HERE
• Join The Fairway HERE

Share your stories using #HypeWomen

Today, we are spending time with Karine Jean-Pierre.

Whew. This exceptional woman. I still can’t get over who she is – and what she does – in this world.

Our conversation is a little shorter than most of our Hype Women Podcast episodes. Because here’s the deal. When your time gets cut short with your guest because the President of the United States needs to brief her in the Oval Office, you take what you can get.

Karine’s role as the White House Press Secretary is considered the most important – and difficult – outside of the presidency.

She wakes up every day and steps up to the plate – or the podium, in her case – to represent the President (and his administration), in all of his policies, perspectives and points of view.

Her job description IS the definition of Representation: the action of speaking or acting on behalf of someone or the state of being so represented.

AND Karine represents, intersectionality, some of the most diverse and historically excluded folks on the planet. She is the first Black woman, Black person, LGBTQAI person and Immigrant to hold the position of White House Press Secretary.

And that definition of representation is more complex, more nuanced, more complicated.

It is the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way or as being of a certain nature.

That’s a lot of responsibility.

And it got me thinking: In a world where so many of us are the *only* in a room, representing a gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality – how do we ensure that *we* don’t get lost as individuals?

Let’s find out.

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Check out and support the women we love to HYPE!

• Karine Jean-Pierre: Instagram, LinkedIn, The White House, KJP Website
• Kristin Thomas: LinkedIn, Marble Collective
• Nicci Morris: LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram

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The Hype Women Podcast is produced by Erin Gallagher and Melanie Scroggins.

Original score by Alex Yewon.

**Please listen, subscribe, and rate our show wherever you listen to podcasts the most.**

Connect with us:

• Check out Hype Women HERE
• Buy Hype Women Swag in the Ella Shop HERE
• Follow Hype Women on Instagram HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on LinkedIn HERE
• Follow Erin Gallagher on Instagram HERE
• Join The Fairway HERE

Share your stories using #HypeWomen