When Cathy Engelbert found out she was pregnant, she resigned from a decades-long climb to becoming a partner at Deloitte. In her mind, being a good mom and a good exec couldn’t coexist. But one male colleague saw her potential — and told her so. That changed everything. Cathy stayed, asked for the flexibility she needed, and learned to advocate for herself. She went on to become Deloitte’s first female CEO. Now? She’s leading one of the fastest-growing sports leagues as WNBA Commissioner. In th...
Jun 25, 2025•31 min
Dawn Staley helped Team USA’s women’s basketball team win gold at the ‘96 Olympics. It was the highlight of her career. Yet she fell into a depression that was so bad, she didn’t even want to look at a basketball. Nothing prepared her to process reaching such a milestone. She was left asking herself: now what? With a resumé is full of career-highs (hi, 3x national champ), Dawn says the real reward isn’t the trophy – it’s all the work it took to get there. Dawn gets into it all in her new memoir,...
May 21, 2025•33 min
Melanie Masarin once pitched Glossier’s founder to do a pop-up at a former fried chicken shop. Her response? “I don’t get it, but I trust you.” It was a career-defining moment for her. Because getting approval from the founder meant she couldn’t afford to mess it up. Listen as Melanie shares why being given major responsibilities in her mid-twenties shaped her career. Plus, how it prepared her to start Ghia, the non-alcoholic apéritif that’s now a millennial bar-cart staple. In this episode of 9...
May 14, 2025•37 min
Alice Waters never cared about making money. After more than 50 years in business, she still doesn’t. She opened her restaurant, Chez Panisse, with money that friends and family lent her. They had no expectations of ever seeing it again. It’s no surprise, given she’s sparked a slow food revolution where consuming food slowly and resisting the industrial food system is the name of the game. Some call her the “mother of the farm-to-table movement”. Alice says: it’s just the way things ought to be....
May 07, 2025•21 min
Karissa Bodnar once got advice from a peer – she needed real friends, not just “deal” friends. It wasn’t a dig. Entrepreneurship is lonely. And if Karissa was going to make it as a founder, she’d need friends who cared about her and not the number of zeros in her bank account. Karissa sits down with us to share how she found those kinds of friends, the time she got ghosted out of a big investment, and what she really thinks about those beauty influencer trips. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Karis...
Apr 30, 2025•39 min
Kristen Kish didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming the first woman of color to win Top Chef—or of one day hosting the show. She grew up in the Midwest as a Korean adoptee and those wins hadn’t crossed her radar. But with a little luck—and a lot of support—she got there. Listen as Kristen shares how one mentor changed everything by challenging her to think beyond day-to-day dinner service and chase a career she never thought was possible. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Kristen shares: Who’s cooking ...
Apr 23, 2025•34 min
Geri Halliwell-Horner, aka Ginger Spice, practically invented girl power and forever holds a special place in our millennial hearts. In her twenties, she answered a magazine ad and ended up making pop history with the Spice Girls. In her thirties, she felt the pressures of “time lines” and adult-life creeping in. Welcome to the club. Listen as Geri shares how girl power carried her through her post-Spice Girls career. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Geri shares: The DIY skills she used to create h...
Apr 16, 2025•25 min
Tinx never set out to be known as “TikTok’s older sister.” But five years of real talk on taboo topics – dating in your 30s, botox, and having zero clue what to do in life – makes a name like that stick. Social media and influencing has gotten crowded since Tinx started posting on TikTok during COVID, and she admits she’s been rethinking her relationship to the internet and her business. Tinx shares how she's finding ways to build her career offline, thanks in part to her debut novel, Hotter in ...
Apr 09, 2025•33 min
Audrey McLoghlin’s peer once compared her to a cockroach that could withstand nuclear warfare. Weird compliment? Maybe. But Audrey says she was touched. She grew up with an alcoholic father and learned early to rely on herself, not a partner, to make ends meet. As a serial entrepreneur in fashion, she’s built her businesses through some of the toughest economic times—think: the Great Recession and COVID-19—proving resilience is her superpower. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Audrey shares: Why “st...
Apr 02, 2025•38 min
Before Emily Oster became a go-to parenting expert, she was an econ professor waiting on a tenure decision at the University of Chicago. While waiting, she published Expecting Better, a book that moms-to-be consider to be a parenting Bible. She got rejected for tenure, then spent over a decade believing the book was a “professional mistake”. Parents everywhere beg to differ. Listen as Emily shares how she moved past the disappointment – and why it actually turned out to be the best thing for her...
Mar 26, 2025•39 min
Erin Burnett flirted with the idea of becoming a CIA agent one day, drawn to the undercover thrills. Instead, she crunched numbers at Goldman Sachs as a financial analyst, then pivoted to be a broadcast journalist. While she never became a secret spy or ran a Wall Street empire, she didn’t let her interests or skills collect dust. Listen as Erin shares how she fused her business knowledge with her world news obsession to land her daily primetime show, OutFront with Erin Burnett. In this episode ...
Mar 19, 2025•31 min
For millennial women, Julia Stiles needs no introduction. She portrayed some of our favorite characters growing up – like Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You and Sara in Save the Last Dance – and challenged one-dimensional portrayals of female characters. After two decades as an actor, Julia has taken her talents behind the camera to direct her first film, Wish You Were Here. Listen as she shares how she’s managed to stay grounded despite being a child actor, how she manifested her directorial deb...
Feb 12, 2025•30 min
Unlike MBA grads focused on scaling and selling companies, Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald built Levain Bakery with no intention of selling. Baking was the life plan, the thing they’d do til their hands couldn’t anymore. They embraced slow, sustainable growth for years with no regrets. Then came a compelling offer and a gut feeling that led them to finally take on an investor. Listen as Pam and Connie share how a YWCA brought them together, how a New York Times article skyrocketed their company's...
Feb 05, 2025•31 min
In 2015, Laura Coates traded courtroom drama for newsroom deadlines, leaving her job as a Justice Department prosecutor to dive into a journalism career. She was a new mom with no media experience or contacts, but knew she’d regret it if she never tried. Fast forward to today. Laura is CNN’s Chief Legal Analyst, a Sirius XM host, and a trusted voice on today’s most pressing legal stories. Despite her success, it didn’t come without sacrifice. Listen as Laura gets real about the hard conversation...
Jan 29, 2025•34 min
Laura Modi’s organic baby formula company, Bobbie, thrived during a formula shortage that saw nearly 50% of the nation’s formula supply vanish. As desperate moms searched for alternatives, many turned to Bobbie, leading to massive growth—until the demand threatened the supply. Laura faced a critical decision: continue accepting new customers or pause growth so OG Bobbie babies were taken care of. Laura tells the story of how her bold choice paid off and how Bobbie has future-proofed itself throu...
Jan 22, 2025•35 min
When Han Wen got a job at L’Oréal as an entry-level marketing associate, she didn’t even know what marketing was. The interviewers didn’t care. They spent the bulk of the interview talking about her bold outfit, which she got off the sales rack at J.Crew just an hour before. Fast forward to 2022, and Han became the CMO of L’Oréal USA at just 39-years-old. Talk about a full circle moment. Han shares how she made impressions throughout her corporate career, and how she’s gotten really good at list...
Jan 15, 2025•32 min
Neha Ruch chose to take an indefinite pause from work after having her second child. She immediately faced raised eyebrows and unsolicited advice. She didn’t bat an eye at her choice. But the reactions got her thinking: why are we riding on outdated stereotypes about moms choosing to exit the workforce to take care of their family for a chapter of their lives? Enter: Mother Untitled, the leading platform dedicated to ambitious women choosing to lean into family life – without shame. Today, Neha ...
Jan 08, 2025•35 min
Alice Milligan left home at 19 to escape a dysfunctional family life. Her peers went to college right out of high school. Meanwhile, Alice spent ten years getting her college degree while working full-time to support herself. She had no choice but to be resilient, independent, and patient. Decades later, and faced with choosing between a dream job or staying near her husband awaiting a liver transplant, Alice shares how the patience she cultivated as a young woman guided her choice. In this epis...
Dec 18, 2024•42 min
She’s an icon, she’s a legend, and she is the moment. Connie Chung is the trailblazing veteran broadcaster who worked her way up from being a copy-girl at a local news station to anchoring one of the most popular nightly newscasts, CBS Evening News. To get there, she had to make it through the “boys club” of the 70s newsroom. Think: Mad Men, but news. She says it could’ve been worse. But she made it work by being just as confident as they were. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Connie shares: The im...
Dec 11, 2024•34 min
Welcome back to a new season of 9 to 5ish. We’re kicking things off with Jessica Alba and Lizzy Mathis, two best friends and co-hosts of the show “Honest Renovations” on The Roku Channel. There are plenty of home renovation shows out there. But theirs highlights the importance of mom having their own space to recharge. As moms of three kids each, they learned that the hard way. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Jessica and Lizzy share: Their friendship origin story and why Lizzy lied to Jessica abou...
Dec 04, 2024•32 min
Early in her career, Sharon Price-John literally put pen to paper and wrote what she dubbed her “price values.” AKA: the qualities that guided her in work and life. She reasoned that if she had time to write a grocery list, she could take a second to define what was important to her. Although her price values have inevitably evolved as she got older, Sharon shares that defining her values made the path to achieving her goals a lot clearer. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Sharon shares: The brownie...
Oct 30, 2024•32 min
Through her twenties and thirties, comedian Jenny Slate couldn’t find peace. By all accounts, she was succeeding. She earned a spot on Saturday Night Live, and became recognizable through her on-screen appearances next to actors like Amy Poehler and Nick Kroll. But she still felt stuck in a cycle of self-criticism and a pressure to always be on. Then she became a mom and it all clicked. Listen as Jenny shares why becoming a mom made her feel less desperate to get jobs, please others, and “perfor...
Oct 23, 2024•35 min
Erin Andrews has become one of the most recognizable sideline reporters in the sports industry. She started out at ESPN in her early twenties, and eventually moved to Fox NFL where she continues to give fans updates on their favorite players and coaches. While Erin’s worked in the biz for nearly two decades, she says she knows there’s a “shelf life” to her job. But the only way she’ll stop is if they drag her off the sidelines – and Erin says, it ain’t gonna be pretty. In this episode of 9 to 5i...
Oct 16, 2024•37 min
Before she decided to run for mayor, Kate Gallego was newly divorced with a young child. Her support system drastically changed after her mom was diagnosed with cancer. Her only income was through her job on the city council, and she questioned whether Phoenix could stomach a young, unmarried woman as mayor. She won the race and has led the city for five years now. As mayor, Mayor Gallego implemented one of the most generous paid family leave policies for government employees and established an ...
Oct 09, 2024•26 min
Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz said “I do” to Kevin Hartz twice: once when they got married, and again when she decided to become a co-founder with him. Julia says she doesn’t even remember the latter moment. All she knows is she trusted Kevin’s entrepreneurial instincts and it paid off. But when Kevin needed to step down as CEO and have Julia step in, she describes the transition as going from “Candyland” to “Tron”. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Julia shares: What her internships on “Friends” and “...
Oct 02, 2024•38 min
On the literal first day Rachel Zoe decided to be a freelance stylist, Tommy Hilfiger called her up to style a 2-week campaign with the biggest celebs and supermodels. She had 0 faith in herself, but he trusted she could do it. Rachel spent her career mainly behind the camera until her clients – who were the it-girls of our time – started pulling her in front of the paps with them. That turned into a Bravo TV show about her life, “The Rachel Zoe Project” and several fashion-focused brands center...
Sep 25, 2024•31 min
Claudette Zepeda grew up as a border kid between San Diego and Tijuana. On top of that, she spent summers in Guadalajara, watching her aunt run a bustling restaurant. She didn’t know it then, but those summers created the foundations for Mexican cuisine and hospitality in her mind. Then, she became a mom at 18-years-old. Claudette was a kid raising her own kid. She needed to pay the bills, sure. But what Claudette wanted more was to figure out how to build intergenerational wealth – and how to i...
Sep 18, 2024•32 min
Mary Barra grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, aka: the heart of the auto industry. Her father worked at General Motors for 40 years, and Mary became a second generation GM’er. She worked her way up the company, studying at the General Motors Institute (yes, it was a thing) to eventually becoming the CEO in 2014. Mary claimed GOAT status in the auto industry for steering the company through several crises – and for being a mentor to other women in the biz. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Mary share...
Sep 11, 2024•32 min
Jamie Kern Lima sold her company, IT Cosmetics, for $1.2 billion to L’Oréal. The sale made Jamie the first female CEO of a L’Oréal brand and safe to say, she made a pretty penny. She'd made it. At least that’s what everyone thought. In reality, Jamie says she couldn't find the self-worth to make her feel like she deserved any of it. In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Jamie shares: Why befriending Oprah deepened her understanding of being “enough” How she distinguishes between self-confidence and self...
Jul 31, 2024•35 min
Today, we’ve got a bonus episode of “9 to 5ish” for you with a guest whose name has been in the news a lot lately. Our guest is Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, the co-chair of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, and author of the New York Times bestseller “True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between.” As a popular governor of a swing state, Governor Whitmer’s name has been floated in convos about who might be on the Democratic tic...
Jul 25, 2024•18 min
