Clover: Conversations with Women in Leadership on Visibility, Authority & Owning the Room

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with Cherie Werner, the force behind Fiesta, the largest community for founders and investors in Austin, and FoundHERs, a dedicated space for women entrepreneurs. Cherie shares her journey from startup life to building Fiesta almost by accident, and how “leading with welcome” has become her guiding principle.

We talk about what it really takes to turn a crowded room into genuine conn...

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with Andrea Bridges-Smith, founder of San Fenix, to talk about career pivots, finding confidence in front of an audience, and why a compelling story can make all the difference when you are trying to get people invested in an idea.

Andrea’s path has taken her from more than a decade in tech marketing to video production, political satire, and now presentation coaching for founders and exec...

When I first launched Clover, I made a mental list of women I knew I wanted to reconnect with and bring onto the show. Gretta Gardner was at the top of that list.

Gretta and I first met years ago when we both lived in Austin, and I've watched her career with admiration ever since. Today, she serves as Chief Operations Officer at Ujima: The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community, where she works to improve p...

Most people know Komal Patel as the founder of two AI-powered jewelry companies. What they may not realize is that her path started with two decades in big tech, an industry she had known her entire life.

In this episode, Komal shares how growing up in a family jewelry business gave her a unique perspective on an industry that hadn't meaningfully changed in decades. After years building scalable systems in large technology companies...

Tarryn Reeves had everything she thought success was supposed to look like: a six-figure career, a corner office overlooking Sydney Harbour, and every milestone she had been taught to chase. But behind the scenes, her mental and physical health were telling a very different story.

In this episode of Clover, Tarryn shares how walking away from corporate life ultimately led her to entrepreneurship, publishing, and helping other busine...

From styling celebrities like Selena Gomez for nearly a decade to helping women executives own the room in the boardroom, Basia Richard has built a career around one powerful idea: how you show up matters.

In this episode, Basia shares her incredible journey from growing up in Poland to pursuing a career as a professional violinist, reinventing herself in Hollywood as a celebrity stylist, and eventually leaving the entertainment ind...

What happens when a creative mind, a startup operator, a cancer survivor, and a humanitarian all live inside the same person?

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with Melissa Wood, founder of Formis and Curate, to explore the winding path that led her from a small town in North Carolina to the startup ecosystem in Austin. Melissa’s story spans early tech startups, design and photography, turning down life-changing opportunit...

What does it mean to build a life rooted in service rather than status?

In this deeply moving conversation, I sat down with Dr. Farah Shroff—public health leader, educator, researcher, yoga teacher, and advocate for women's health—to explore the experiences that shaped her work and worldview. From her childhood in Canada after immigrating from Kenya, to watching her mother defy a devastating lupus diagnosis, to leading g...

Anna Sizova joins Clover for a conversation that spans global healthcare, leadership, reinvention, and what it really looks like to build a life and career across countries, industries, and identities. Anna shares her journey from growing up in Azerbaijan and becoming a pediatric endocrinologist to leading global clinical trials and eventually stepping into entrepreneurship, mentorship, and health innovation leadership in Austin.

We...

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with my friend Kara Mandeville — a powerhouse leader at Microsoft whose career journey is equal parts inspiring, relatable, and incredibly timely. From growing up as a military brat and dreaming of working with horses to leading high-performing teams in the fast-moving world of enterprise tech and AI, Kara’s story is proof that careers don’t have to follow a perfectly linear p...

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with Bree Whitehead; entrepreneur, AI strategist, and someone who has been building long before AI became the conversation. What I loved about this discussion is how grounded and refreshing her perspective is. Instead of fear, she brings clarity. Instead of replacement, she talks about expansion.

We get into what it actually looks like to use AI in a way that supports your life, your work, and y...

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with Dr. Neema Moore—chiropractor, author of Confidence NOW!, and founder of transformative wellness retreats—for a conversation that feels both grounding and expansive.

Dr. Neema’s journey doesn’t follow a straight line. From high school biology teacher to chiropractor to global wellness leader, she shares how one simple idea—choosing happiness—led her to com...

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with Marina Kay, an executive coach and breathwork practitioner who helps women lead, build, and grow their careers without burning themselves out in the process.

Marina shares the story of her own career journey, from working in HR consulting and sitting in Fortune 500 boardrooms to experiencing the intense pressure of startup culture while working at WeWork during its rise and fall. Along the ...

In this episode of Clover, I’m joined by Camille Ricketts, now a partner at XYZ Venture Capital and formerly a marketing leader at Tesla, First Round Capital, and Notion.

Camille’s career journey has been anything but linear—starting as a journalist at The Wall Street Journal, moving into communications at Tesla, where she worked directly with Elon Musk, then pioneering content marketing with First Round Review, an...

This week on Clover, I had the honor of sitting down with Celeste Mergens, bestselling author and founder of Days for Girls, a global movement that has reached nearly 4 million women and girls in 145 countries.

Celeste’s story is a powerful reminder that leadership doesn’t always begin with a master plan. She started out wanting to be an electrical engineer. Life rerouted her into motherhood, raising six children, and la...

In this very first episode of Clover, I chat with Amina Mohamed, founder of Cameras For Girls, an organization using photography and storytelling to help young women in Africa break into male-dominated media spaces.

Amina’s story begins with her family’s journey as refugees from Uganda to Canada, a career in film and television, and a life-changing return to Uganda that revealed the inequities facing girls denied educati...

This episode is about a feeling I do not hear discussed very often, especially among women in leadership: having a career that looks successful on paper, but still not feeling settled, finished, or like you have “arrived.”

I am not sharing this as a complaint or a dramatic confession. It is an honest observation about how my career has actually unfolded. Over time, I have gained experience, responsibility, and perspectiv...

In this solo episode of Clover, I speak directly to the reality many women leaders are navigating right now.

The world feels frightening and unstable. Political volatility, economic uncertainty, organizational upheaval, and an unrelenting news cycle are not abstract background conditions. They affect how people lead, how decisions are made, and how much risk feels possible on any given day. Even leaders with long track records and s...

In this episode of Clover, I sit down with Rosa Yupari, former Chief Revenue Officer turned fractional CRO and sales advisor, to talk about what actually drives sustainable revenue growth — and why so many companies stall long before they realize it.

Rosa shares her journey from engineering into sales, scaling teams to nearly $100M in revenue, and eventually stepping away from corporate leadership to build a practice rooted in...