Welcome to B The Way Forward Interludes - a series of conversations that don’t necessarily fit in our regular season, but are just too good to not share. Dr. Timnit Gebru is one of the leading voices in AI research calling for more responsible and inclusive AI systems. Or, as she puts it - “a technological future that serves our communities instead of one that is used for surveillance, warfare, and the centralization of power by Silicon Valley.” As the Founder and Executive Director of the Distr...
Jul 09, 2025•44 min
Welcome to B The Way Forward Interludes - a series of conversations that don’t necessarily fit in our regular season, but are just too good to not share. Heard something about AI Lately? Have those two letters shown up in just about every app you use - whether you want them to or not? Yeah. Same. These days, it seems like you can’t go an hour without hearing that Artificial Intelligence is going to radically remake our world. But… is it? There’s so much hype it can be hard to really know what pe...
Jun 25, 2025•35 min
At 16, Shellye Archambeau already knew she wanted to be a CEO. And early in her career at IBM, after closing a massive deal with RiteAid, it felt like she was well on her way. But then, at the last minute, the deal fell through. Shellye felt utterly defeated - until a conversation with her husband helped her realize that there had been a failure … but that didn’t mean she was a failure. Shellye went on to have a thriving career at IBM and beyond, with the lessons learned from that early setback ...
Jun 11, 2025•44 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Amanda Bickerstaff had a plan and a goal. When she transitioned from being a teacher in NY to working in Ed Tech, she knew she wanted to make it to CEO - and that the only jobs she’d take would be the ones that would get her one step closer to the C-Suite. In the fall of 2019, at only 39 years old, she moved to Australia to make that goal a reality as the newly minted CEO of an Ed Tech Company whose founding CEO had needed to step back from the role. It was a dream job. Until it became a nightma...
May 30, 2025•35 min•Season 2Ep. 11
Today, as leader of the Talent Strategies program at the Berkeley lab, Dr. Rebecca Andersen has a thriving career in professional development. But back when she was in the middle stages of her career, a toxic work environment, and its effects on her, nearly derailed it all. On the one hand, from a job performance standpoint, she was killing it. She was at the top of her game, giving talks, winning awards, and leading her team to success. On the other hand, that same success seemed to paint a tar...
May 14, 2025•46 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Marco Polo CEO, Vlada Borthnik, almost said no to being on our podcast. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a fan of AnitaB.org or didn’t believe in its mission, it was that we’d asked her to talk about failure… and Vlada almost totally rejects the notion of “failure” on principle. Instead, Vlada advocates for throwing away the binary lens of “success” and “failure” and instead to reframe things as experiments and their outcomes. Because even when the outcome isn’t what you’d hoped for, you can still lear...
Apr 30, 2025•40 min•Season 2Ep. 9
In 2014, former teacher turned recruiter, April Christina Curley, got offered her dream job - a major tech company asked her to come on board specifically to create a talent pipeline for overlooked tech talent at historically black colleges and universities. Without hesitation, April said yes, packed up her things, and moved from Baltimore to NY. At first, things were great - the program April helped create was a success. She was driving real change and making a real difference. But it didn’t la...
Apr 17, 2025•43 min•Season 2Ep. 8
The second half of season 2 is all about the view from the bottom: what does it feel like to fail, and more importantly, how do you come back from it? We’re creating a safe space for women tech leaders to talk about the worst day of their career — a project gone wrong, a lay-off that came out of nowhere, a startup that shutdown — and how they got through it. Because we never learned anything from the days it all went right. To kick off this series, Better Allies® series Author and former Adobe V...
Apr 02, 2025•36 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Welcome to B The Way Forward Interludes - a series of conversations that don’t necessarily fit in our regular season, but are just too good to not share. This week, a very special episode for Women’s History Month. Telle Whitney was already a trailblazing woman in the field of semiconductors when she moved to Silicon Valley in the 1980s. Anita Borg had already made a name for herself in systems. The two met at a party and became fast friends. Among all the things they bonded over was, of course,...
Mar 20, 2025•42 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Over the first half of Season 2, we’ve been exploring the best ways to create meaningful change - and whether it happens within our systems or on the outside. But no matter which approach you take, you have to be able to effectively communicate with others - and that can be hard, especially when you need to speak up in spaces that may not seem as open to hearing from you. How do you read the room and communicate more strongly to achieve our goals? And how do you do it without ever compromising o...
Mar 12, 2025•42 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Welcome to B The Way Forward Interludes - a series of conversations that don’t necessarily fit in our regular season, but are just too good to not share. Today, we’re bringing you a conversation with one of our favorite kinds of people; A BFF. No, not a “best friend forever,” a Badass Female Founder. Shelley Gupta took her own culinary and cultural curiosity and channeled it into BāKIT Box, a unique subscription service delivering STEM-based baking activity kits that bring the world’s flavors an...
Mar 07, 2025•40 min•Season 2Ep. 6
It’s never been easy being a woman in tech. But now? When top tech execs say there’s "not enough masculine energy" in “the culture?” It’s a lot. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a show where women who’ve “made it” can share their inspiring success stories? Sure. But this is not that show. Because we don’t need “nice,” we need honesty. And, if we’re being honest, failure can teach us even more than success. In the second half of B The Way Forward’s second season, I’m talking to leaders from Adobe, Goo...
Feb 26, 2025•1 min
Here’s a question; how much water do you think a single query of ChatGPT consumes? What about Carbon Emissions? How many round trip flights between New York and San Francisco equal the Co2 emitted by training one Large Language Model? And maybe this is the most important one - how would you even figure those numbers out when the big AI companies don’t make them public? Concerns about AI’s impact on Climate Change aren’t new, but as extreme weather events like the floods in North Carolina and the...
Feb 12, 2025•47 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Let’s start with the obvious - There is no putting the AI genie back in the bottle. And frankly, as an organization run by technologists and dedicated to advancing women in tech, we wouldn’t necessarily want to. We believe in the promise of technology. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to be concerned about with how AI has been developing so far. Near the top of that list for almost everyone is the question “Is AI going to steal my job?” For many creatives, that reality of being replaced b...
Feb 05, 2025•47 min•Season 2Ep. 4
We started this season by asking what’s the best way to create real change - inside or outside of the established system? But sometimes it feels like the systems we’re trying to improve are just too entrenched; it can be hard to imagine any approach being successful. And there might not be anyplace where that feels more true than in our politics. But Jennifer Knox, the National Director of Organizing and Tech for the Working Families Party doesn’t believe we have to be stuck with the system we h...
Jan 29, 2025•39 min•Season 2Ep. 3
When Americans went to the polls in November of 2024 it felt like in many ways, alongside the presidential candidates, tech was at the top of the ticket. So what will advocacy in this world look like as Donald Trump begins his second term? And what can be done to ensure that the change we’ve worked so hard to create for women and non-binary folks around the country isn’t reversed? To unpack those questions, and explore how activists and advocacy organizations like AnitaB.org adapt to the tidal s...
Jan 22, 2025•32 min•Season 2Ep. 2
With a new administration about to take office, we’re kicking off our second season of B The Way Forward by talking about one of the most powerful tools for change we have access to -- our vote. And digging into why - in the most recent presidential election -less than 40% of young voters showed up, compared to a record-breaking 50% in 2020. GenZ and Millennials make up the largest voting bloc in the country. Re-engaging this slice of the electorate will be crucial for preserving our democracy f...
Jan 15, 2025•39 min•Season 2Ep. 1
B The Way Forward is coming back with all-new episodes featuring a slate of incredible guests, taking on some of the biggest issues! Including the one that’s central to activism - can we create real change by working within the system? Or do we need to break it to fix it? Featuring arguments for how to tackle making political representation actually representative, debates on whether Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives actually work and if you can even have DEI without the “E”, tactics ...
Nov 23, 2024•2 min
Welcome to B The Way Forward: Interludes - a mini series of special episodes and conversations that stand apart from our regular season, but are just too good not to share. Dr. Rebecca Anderson, Kendall Holbrook, and Supriya Gupta. All three are leaders within the technology, business and career development spaces. They are all working on truly innovative products, research, and technological solutions to pressing problems. We could do entire episodes with each of them individually about their w...
Nov 20, 2024•34 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Welcome to B The Way Forward: Interludes - a mini series of special episodes and conversations that stand apart from our regular season, but are just too good not to share. These days, the headlines can sometimes mostly focus on the challenges in tech - issues like AI ethics and data breaches. But in this special conversation, taped live at Grace Hopper Celebration 2024, Brenda wanted to shift gears! Because Grace Hopper Celebration is about the belief that when used by the right people, for the...
Nov 13, 2024•33 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Welcome to B The Way Forward: Interludes - a mini series of special episodes and conversations that stand apart from our regular season, but are just too good not to share. Last night was election night in America, and as we publish this episode today (November 6th, 2024) we can say that it was historic - but not because the US elected its first female president. Once again, the highest glass ceiling was cracked but not shattered. Kamala Harris wasn’t the only woman on the ballot this election. ...
Nov 07, 2024•49 min•Season 1Ep. 2
The B The Way Forward team is hard at work on Season 2, premiering in December 2024. But you won't have to wait until then for more of the the honest, insightful, and inspiring conversations you’ve come to expect from this feed. Introducing B The Way Forward: Interludes - special episodes and conversations that stand apart from our regular season, but are just too good not to share. First up, two interludes focused on ways that our democracy is working at a time when many of us are scared it's o...
Nov 01, 2024•3 min
Welcome to B The Way Forward: Interludes - a mini series of special episodes and conversations that stand apart from our regular season, but are just too good not to share. A lot of things probably spring to mind when you hear the words “Federal Government.” “Innovation, understanding, adoption, and regulation of new technology” is likely not one of them. More likely, citizen-facing government technology brings to mind websites that feel outdated - like something still stuck in the era of dial u...
Nov 01, 2024•36 min•Season 1Ep. 1
On this episode of “B The Way Forward,” host Brenda Darden Wilkerson is joined by AI and digital technology expert, Suchi Srinivasan. With over 20 years of experience in the industry, Suchi is extremely sought after for her expertise and knowledge and is currently managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group. Suchi sits at the helm of the artificial intelligence space where she is passionate about using technology to solve some of the world’s most complex problems. Suchi tells Brenda...
Oct 17, 2024•52 min•Season 1Ep. 32
On this episode of “B The Way Forward,” host Brenda Darden Wilkerson talks with multi-tasker extraordinaire Trishala Pillai. Outside of Trishala’s day job as senior product manager of supply chain innovation and automation at Walmart, she also serves as a board member at AnitaB.org and a producer at the media company she founded called Jugaad Community. Together, Brenda and Trishala talk through how to bring creativity to your career and how to find new opportunities in emerging technologies. Th...
Oct 09, 2024•56 min•Season 1Ep. 31
Devshi Mehrotra and Leslie Jones-Dove join host Brenda Darden Wilkerson on this inspiring episode of “B The Way Forward.” Devshi and Leslie are the CEO and CTO, respectively, and co-founders of JusticeText, an MIT and Google-backed startup that is building technology to better improve the criminal justice system. They talk Brenda through the mission of their company – to hold law enforcement accountable and ensure that low-income criminal defendants get their chance at an equal and fair trial. J...
Oct 02, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Host Brenda Darden Wilkerson is joined by speaker, author, founder, and DEI advocate, Yai Vargas, in this episode of “B the Way Forward.” Yai’s big belief that “women are the heart and soul of an organization” rings true in everything she does and stands for. Yai tells Brenda about her personal journey as a woman from the Dominican Republic who immigrated to the United States at an early age and realized quickly how important it was to connect with her Latin roots. After landing what she thought...
Sep 25, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 29
On this episode of “B The Way Forward,” host Brenda Darden Wilkerson has a powerful conversation with Susie Jaramillo, an Emmy nominated director, artist, storyteller and entrepreneur who uses the power of media to introduce diverse cultures to children. Influenced by her Venezuelan roots, Susie noticed a lack of inclusive representation in storytelling for her two young kids. According to the US Census, Gen Alpha will be the most diverse generation in history, yet they remain severely underrepr...
Sep 18, 2024•52 min•Season 1Ep. 28
On this episode of “B The Way Forward,” you’ll receive a master class in soft power strategies with Forbes Columnist and leadership expert, Penny Abeywardena. Penny introduces us to her new company, Soft Power Strategies, and tells host Brenda Darden Wilkerson why the use of soft power is beneficial on a variety of issues. As the former Commissioner for International Affairs of the city of New York, Penny talks about her experiences leading the agency and what it was like to serve the largest di...
Sep 11, 2024•54 min•Season 1Ep. 27
On this episode of “B The Way Forward,” Host Brenda Darden Wilkerson is joined by Beena Ammanath, an executive, author, advocate, AnitaB.org board member, and nonprofit founder, who aims to increase awareness on the use, risks, and benefits of artificial intelligence, all while promoting diversity in this niche tech space. Beena is the Executive Director at the Deloitte Global AI Institute, where she helps companies and businesses learn how to leverage AI in the most practical and safe ways poss...
Aug 28, 2024•52 min•Season 1Ep. 26
