What Fuels You

Yoko Miyashita is the CEO of Leafly, the go-to platform for cannabis education, discovery, and community. Yoko joined Leafly in 2019 as general counsel and stepped into the CEO role the following year, right in the middle of the pandemic and a major turning point for the industry. Born in Japan and raised in the US, Yoko spent much of her childhood translating for immigrant parents, an experience that gave her an early understandin...

Dr. Sam Heidari is the CEO of Lumotive, a groundbreaking semiconductor manufacturer based in Redmond, WA. Sam holds a PhD in electrical engineering from USC and previously served as CEO of Quantenna, where he led the company through a public offering and $1 billion acquisition by ON Semiconductor.

At Lumotive, Sam is leading a team that's building award-winning programmable optical semiconductors that improve perception, increase c...

Emily Long is the co-founder and CEO of Edera, the pioneer of strong workload isolation technology for cloud and AI infrastructure. She places the highest value on people and bringing diverse teams together to build something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Emily is a tactical and strategic leader who’s proven in scaling operations, fostering strong company cultures, and driving strategic execution. She’s als...

Howard Behar's career in business spans over 50 years, all in consumer-oriented businesses covering several industries. He retired from Starbucks Coffee after 21 years where he led both the domestic business, as President of North America, and was the founding President of Starbucks International. During his tenure, he participated in the growth of the company from 28 stores to over 15,000 spanning five continents. He served on the...

Dr. Elizabeth Wako is president and CEO of Swedish Health Services, where she oversees an organization with more than 1,500 licensed patient beds, 48,000 annual inpatient admissions and $3.4 billion in revenue. 

Dr. Wako has over 30 years of experience in the healthcare field. Before stepping into her current role, she worked as a registered nurse in behavioral health and held several key executive po...

Kristen Hamilton is a three-time technology entrepreneur and CEO with multiple exits, a board director of late-stage startups, and a professional CEO Advisor. She is a General Partner at Enjoy The Work, where she teaches founders to become great CEOs. She co-founded the predictive hiring software leader Koru, and was CEO until it was acquired by UK-based Capfinity in 2019. 
Kristen grew up near Montreal, and currently split...

Jim Weber is a Director, Advisor, serial CEO, Author, and Speaker. Jim joined Brooks Running Company’s Board of Directors in 1999 and was named CEO in 2001. He stepped down in 2024 after 23 years in the position, during which time he is credited for the Seattle-based running company’s aggressive turnaround story. 

In 2022, Jim wrote a challenger brand, leadership memoir called “Running with Purpose: How Br...

Sujal Patel is Founder and CEO of Nautilus Biotechnology, a life sciences company creating a large-scale, single-molecule platform for quantifying and unlocking the complexity of the human proteome, with the goal of enabling fundamental advancements across human health and medicine.  

With nearly 20 years of executive leadership experience driving innovation for high-growth companies, Sujal is a successful entrepreneur, investor, a...

Dr. Oren Etzioni is the founder of TrueMedia.org, a free-use product that allows critical election audiences from around the world to quickly and effectively detect deepfakes.

He was the Founding Chief Executive Officer at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2), having served as CEO from its inception in 2013 until late 2022.

He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington where he helped to pioneer meta-search, online compariso...

Marc Rousso is the CEO of JayMarc Homes, a national award-winning home builder specializing in new custom homes in the Greater Seattle area. Marc founded JayMarc Homes along with childhood friend Jay Mezistrano in 2010, and together they’ve created a company culture that’s entrepreneurial, inclusive, and respectful. Marc has degrees from the University of Washington and the Sloan School of Management’s Executive Entrepreneurship Pr...

This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland's 2020 interview with Kate Wallich, the Founder and CEO of Dance Church.

Kate’s desire to study and practice dance led her to people and places she never thought possible while growing up in Michigan. When this pursuit took her to Seattle, she learned how sharing the power of dance can forge meaningful connections and inspire others.

In this recap episode, Kate emphasizes the power of ...

This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland’s 2019 interview with Sue Suh, then Chief People Officer at Time.

Before working at Time, Sue’s career took her around the world on campaigns for international cooperation and change at the U.S. Departments of Defense, State, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

In this recap episode, Sue shares great advice for younger people with stories from her college and early career days. She also em...

This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland’s 2019 conversation with Jeremy Lott, President of SanMar.

SanMar gave Jeremy his first job, modeling on the cover of the company’s first catalog at the age of two. Since then, he’s learned the family business inside and out, from pulling orders to purchasing. Now as president, he focuses on creating a culture of opportunity and sustainability at SanMar and in their factories and offic...

This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland’s 2019 interview with Dan Levitan, the co-founder of the venture capital firm Maveron. 

Dan started the firm with Howard Schultz in 1998 after helping the Starbucks team accomplish its IPO. Under Dan’s guidance, Maveron focused on “creating a cauldron of consumer passion” by forming partnerships with non-normal entrepreneurs. These partnerships have included brands like Allbirds, Ebay,...

Emily Pesce is CEO of Joon, whose mission is to make mental healthcare and well-being broadly accessible and effective for 13-24 year olds. Emily has over twenty years of experience across healthcare, e-commerce, grocery, supply chain, technology, mobile, and cloud computing. She has led product, marketing, design, technology, forecasting and replenishment teams, among others. Her primary operating experiences were at Amazon (Amazo...

Kellan Carter is a founding partner of Bellevue-based FUSE where he focuses on early-stage investments in intelligent software in both horizontal and vertical categories. He currently sits on several Boards, including Zuper and Pictory. Previously, Kellan spent seven years at Ignition Partners, a leading early-stage venture capital firm, and two years in investment banking at Mooreland Partners in San Francisco. Kellan also current...

Mike Powers is the Founder and President of Alliance Partition Systems, with over 20 years of experience in the industry. He has done everything from scrapping at Safeco Field as a 1st bracket apprentice, to successfully bidding and managing multi-million dollar projects as an estimator/project manager, to President of one of the largest drywall companies in the state. He has three children: two teenage girls and a tween boy, who h...