THE POWER OF REINVENTION with Kathi Sharpe-Ross

International Women's Month Series. ..still!

Deb Curtis has built an extraordinary career leading global marketing at Amazon, shaping brands like Prime and Alexa, with chapters at American Express, L'Oréal, and beyond. But what defines her journey isn’t just scale—it’s a single pivot early on that changed everything.

As a college freshman, a simple but profound question—what do you want your whole life to look like?—shifted h...

International Women's Month Series 

Liz Heller is a tech and media innovator, investor, and producer whose career has bent culture for four decades. She led artist development at MCA, where she commissioned more than 500 music videos for Tom Petty, Bobby Brown, and Belinda Carlisle. She became President of Island Visual Arts, then Executive Vice President of Capitol Records at the exact moment music, audio, and the internet coll...

International Women’s Month Series… Part 2 

Chrissie Hanson is the incoming executive lead for Dentsu Media North America. As the former CEO of OMD USA, she led a team of 2,500 professionals and engineered the transformation that moved the agency from 10th to 1st in new business ranking, earning AdAge's 2025 U.S. Media Agency of the Year recognition.

What I love about this conversation is how Chrissie pinpoints the exact moment e...

International Women’s Month Series

Only child. Daughter of two scientists. Now majority owner of the longest-standing multicultural advertising agency in the United States.

Monique Nelson is the Executive Chair and majority owner of UWG Inc., recently named Multicultural Agency of the Year for 2026. Since acquiring UWG in 2012, she's expanded the agency into Canada and Africa and co-founded Black Week, celebrating culture, creati...

International Women’s Series

Lee Evans Lee is the founder and designer of Mrs. Mama Bear, a women's fashion brand that blends performance, comfort, and modern style. Think dresses, suits, and jumpsuits made from performance fabric. Function and fashion in one. Built for women who refuse to choose between how they feel and how they look.

Lee grew up on a ranch in West Texas. She was riding the fence line alone by age 10, figuring ...

International Women’s Month Series

Adrienne Pabst is the President of iHeartMedia's Strategic Partners Group leading a billion-dollar portfolio of the company's largest Fortune 500 advertisers. Her team partners with top marketers and agencies to create large-scale partnerships across broadcast radio, podcasting, digital, and live events. On top of that she's built and led some of iHeart's most important client relat...

Women's History Month Series

Beth Ann Kaminkow is CEO of Dentsu Americas and Chief Global Client Officer of Dentsu. Before that, she served as Global Chief Commerce Officer at WPP and CEO New York at VML. She was also the first female CEO at Tracy Lock in its 100-year history. Recently, she was named one of Ad Age's Leaders to Watch in 2026.

What I love about this conversation is how Beth Ann talks about the "little girl...

International Women's Month Series

Lorey Zlotnick is the Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Zequity Marketing. Before launching her consultancy, she led brand divisions at Disney, FOX Sports, and the NFL - guiding transformations that shaped the modern media landscape.

What I love about Lorey's story is that none of it was planned.

She wanted to be a writer. Got a degree in fashion merchandising, minored in journalism, dreamed...

International Women's Month Series

Debbie Benadiba is the CEO of Talon Outdoor Canada, the largest independent out of home planning and buying agency in the world. She's spent 25 years in the industry building teams, mentoring women, and serving on the boards of DPAA and COMMB. She chairs WE.DOOH—Women's Empowerment Digital Out of Home. She's a certified spin instructor. A mother of two teenagers. And a recent breast cancer survivor...

International Women's Month Series

Adrienne Lahens is the Co-Founder and CEO of Infinite Studios, an AI-native studio transforming how brands produce content. She built and scaled TikTok's Creator Marketplace across 24+ markets, launched TikTok Symphony, and founded the Symphony Collective. Before that, she was COO of Influential, driving 10x growth before its acquisition by Publicis. She helped pioneer native advertising at BuzzFee...

International Women's Month Series:

Shirley Hughes spent nearly three decades in Los Angeles building teams and brands for some of the biggest names in entertainment. Hard Rock Cafe International. Paramount Studios. Wasserman. R&CPMK, where she was Global President overseeing PR, influencer marketing, and sponsorship teams for Fortune 100 brands like Mastercard, Heineken, Microsoft, Verizon, and General Motors. She's bee...

She Drove $1B in Global IP. Now She's Building a BBQ Empire. Shannon Pruitt on Her Next Chapter

Shannon Pruitt is the Co-Founder and President of BBQ United and BBQ World Cup & Expo. She's spent 20+ years building franchises across FIFA, Formula 1, the NFL, MLB, American Idol, and Disney. She's driven more than a billion dollars in global IP revenue, was Global CMO of Stagwell, founded Dentsu's $23 million Story ...

March is here and I couldn't be more excited about what we have in store for you this month.
This month is Women's History Month, and we're celebrating with a special series featuring conversations with some of the most extraordinary women I know. CEOs, founders, executives—women who have reached the top of their fields and are still evolving.
These aren't strangers. These are my friends, colleagues and me...

What does it take to turn around a beloved brand during a "retail apocalypse" AND a global pandemic? Sharon Price John, President and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop, did exactly that—leading the company to five consecutive years of record results while staying true to its mission of "adding a little more heart to life."

In this episode, I speak with Sharon Price John, who's spent over 30 years shaping iconic br...

What if the kid making Super 8 movies in his backyard grew up to shape some of the world’s most iconic brands?

In this episode, I sit down with Joe Lawson, Head of Brand Licensing at Calm, whose career spans The Simpsons, Stranger Things, Angry Birds, Shrek, Netflix—and now wellness.

Joe knew at age five he wanted to make films. While chasing that dream, he took the scenic route—turning a temp job at Fox into 12 years leading licensi...

Ever wonder what it takes to walk away from a successful career and start over from scratch? Adam Drucker went from IT executive to dishwasher, then built something extraordinary.

In this episode, I speak with Adam Drucker, founder of Doctor Dough. His Reinvention story is great. After a thriving career in IT, Adam walked away from the keyboard in 2010 to start over as a dishwasher at Paradise Cove. He worked his way up into managem...

Jennifer Principe is a stylist, author, speaker, and founder whose work blends fashion, faith, and emotional healing. After spending 14 years as a celebrity wardrobe stylist, she felt called to create something more meaningful — a space where style becomes a pathway back to confidence, dignity, and self-worth. She is the author of A Common Thread, a spiritually rooted memoir that explores clothing as a tool for inner transformation...

Sometimes the most powerful Reinventions don’t start with a plan, but with two people realizing their different strengths belong in the same story.

In this episode, I chat with the wonderful Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores, the dynamic co-authors of the sizzling debut novel Happy Wife. Happy Wife has captured national attention as a "Read with Jenna Book Club Pick," a SheReads Must-Read, and a Paste.com Most Anticipat...

Shiv Singh grew up writing fiction in India, Hong Kong and Dubai, before he ever dreamed of shaping brands like PepsiCo or Visa.

That early relationship with language, art, and culture became the backbone of how he now leads in a world being rewritten by AI.

In this wonderful episode of THE POWER OF RE:INVENTION, I speak with Shiv about his career pivots, cultural values, and the humanity behind modern marketing.

We talk about how AI ...