WoVen: Women Who Venture

On this episode of WoVen, Canaan’s Nina Kjellson speaks with Chief Strategy & Scientific Officer at Headspace, Dr. Megan Jones Bell. Megan oversees medical and clinical affairs, behavioral science and clinical research, design research, and the company’s digital health subsidiary: Headspace Health. 

Megan shares how her own mental health journey led her to study psychology and wanting to turn her negative experiences in...

Unknowns: To truly set ourselves apart we need to have faith in our own abilities and take the plunge. From lightbulb moments, to dodging educational expectations, our guests prove that by venturing into the unknown we are able to unlock new potential, for our careers and ourselves. We’ll hear from Julie Wainwright, Julia Collins, Candace Nelson, Dr. Odette Harris, Amy DuRoss, Michelle Phan, and Glo Harris about forging ne...

Community: Often we think about success as being a personal achievement, but these guests demonstrate the power of being an active part of a community. Whether it’s hearing advice from a leader, or sharing concerns with associates, working in collaboration with and seeking support from others can shape the way we think and act, ultimately compelling us to become better versions of ourselves and better managers of our teams...

Balance: Domestic responsibilities have always fallen more heavily on women than on men, and that remains true even when both partners work outside the home. Juggling domestic and professional life has always been hard, but COVID-19 has made that balance impossible. Our co-host Nina Kjellson finds that even in these pre-COVID interviews, our guests provide much inspiration and guidance in their individual perspectives and ...

Prejudice: Last time we explored the power of self-care. This episode, we’ll dig into prejudice, a draining reality that most women, and especially women of color, have to deal with on a regular basis. Being an “other” in a predominantly white and male working environment comes with many challenges, but it also comes with an opportunity to influence change. Our co-host Laura Chau reveals the ways in which our guests experi...

Self-care: Last time we explored the power of resilience. This episode, we’ll dig into self-care, the yin to resilience’s yang. At a certain point, physically and emotionally, even the most successful women need to take a pause, step out of the ring, and take care of themselves. Our Co-host Laura Chau reveals the ways in which our guests decompress, find calm, and look after both their bodies and minds. From exercise and m...

Resilience: This is a challenging time for everyone, and in this first episode we explore how to cope during hard times and bounce back from them. Our Co-host, Nina Kjellson brings us behind the curtain on the wise, inspirational and sometimes hilarious experiences of women in our community who have persevered and overcome hurdles. Whether it’s unexpected change in their personal lives, profound moments of self-doubt, or m...

Gloria Harris - a.k.a. Glo - is an executive and leadership coach who has worked with many Fortune 100 companies, and in her work, she trades in concepts such as self-confidence, self-awareness, mission and vision, truth-speaking, team alignment, legacy and succession. Glo gets really deep into the mud of it, looking at what it is to aspire and to achieve, and also how all of us wrestle with personal and institutional demo...

In this special episode, three trailblazers take the stage at the annual WoVen gathering during the J.P.Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco: Pam Kostka, Roxanne Christophe and Diana Kapp.

Moderator Pam Kostka is the founding CEO of All Raise, a nonprofit on a mission to accelerate the success of women in the tech ecosystem. Roxanne Christophe is the founder and executive director of Girls Crushing It, an organizat...

Mariam Naficy is the founder and CEO of Minted, an online design marketplace that produces stationery, paper goods, home decor products, and really, anything to support an intentional lifestyle.

And it's all based on crowdsourced designs from a talented community of independent artists from over 100 countries. Mariam is no stranger to an eclectic community. She is the daughter of Iranian and Chinese immigrants and lived all...

Amy DuRoss was born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area and politically engaged at a very early age by lawyer-activist parents, as well as her Quaker school, both of which nurtured her strong social justice compass. She studied humanities at Yale, Oxford and Stanford, graduating with a master's degree in English, and then returning some years later to Stanford for an MBA.

Amy's career has spanned tech, consulting, polic...

Michelle Phan was a creator and influencer far before those were even a thing. In 2007, while working as a waitress and struggling to make ends meet to attend art school, Michelle began posting beauty tutorials on YouTube. Her infectious personality and creativity quickly garnered her millions of subscribers. She went on to found IPSY in 2011, a beauty sample subscription service that was valued at $800 million dollars in ...

Julie Wainwright is a true Silicon Valley veteran. She has been the CEO of multiple tech companies, including two public companies, and is currently CEO of The RealReal, an online luxury consignment site. Julie took The RealReal public in June of this year, and is one of only a handful of female founder CEOs who have accomplished that feat.

After working as a turnaround CEO for companies in tough times, The RealReal was the...

Gail Maderis is president and CEO of Antiva, a biotech company that's developing novel, topical therapeutics for the treatment of diseases caused by human papillomavirus, or HPV. HPV is a major cause of certain cancers.

In the U.S. alone, more than 500,000 women and 300,000 men are diagnosed with HPV-lesions each year. Most patients with HPV cancers will eventually need surgery to remove or ablate their lesions. But, while...

Karla Gallardo is the co-founder and CEO of Cuyana, a San Francisco-based women's clothing and lifestyle brand. She and her co-founder Shilpa Shah founded the company in 2011 with the concept of fewer, better things. Born and raised in Ecuador, her story is one of immigration, determination, careful planning, and family. With an immigrant mentality, Karla put her all into achievement and traditional definitions of success:...

Ginger More was a true pioneer in the male-dominated venture capital world of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, and she is who the next gen want to grow up to be. Born the second of three children to a schoolteacher and a fireman, Ginger attended the University of Bridgeport as a math major, and she married while she was still in school. She began a family as a military wife and also while working full-time at Wright Investors’ Se...

Julia Collins has dedicated her career to tackling some of the most difficult problems that our world faces: food insecurity, agricultural damage, ecological dead zones. Our food system is critical to everyone on this planet and Julia is the woman audacious enough to tackle it, head on. Julia has also dedicated her career to food. She started as a restaurateur working alongside Danny Meyer among others to open some of New ...

Wende Hutton has been a venture capitalist for more than 25 years. A remarkable feat because, even today, the stats show venture is still very much a boys club. In 2018, only 9.7 percent of U.S. venture decision makers were women. Twenty five years ago, gender metrics weren't even tracked, as there were so few women even operating in the field. Except for Wende.

Wende is a true industry pioneer. She took a college love of p...