Becoming

Becoming is a show that’s all about womxn, work, and how they’re finding their “why’s”. And we’re wrapping up Season 1 on founders! I’ve taken some time to reflect on what I’ve learned from one year of podcasting and to revisit some highlights from this season. Excited for you to take a listen!

Carrie Zhang is the founder of Asian Mental Health Project or AMHP, an initiative that aims to educate and empower Pan-Asian communities in making mental healthcare more accessible. Founded in 2019, the project currently uses social media, multimedia content creation and community events to de-stigmatize topics of mental health, critical social issues and provide tangible resources. A daughter of Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants, she graduated from the University of Southern California and currently works as a communications and marketing professional in the tech, entertainment and music space. In our conversation we talk about AMHP - what inspired her to start it, what she’s learned, and what’s next for AMHP in the next year. We’ll go into her personal mental health journey, why she chose to cater her project to the Pan Asian experience, cultural stigma, and of course, how she’s becoming. I’m excited for you to take a listen!

Tagan Horton, known as TheTagan, is a storyteller translating knowledge through data, marketing and technology. Currently, she is a podcaster and tech innovation strategist. She founded Founders Get Funds, a podcast and newsletter, to reduce misinformation targeted to founders building businesses from the ground up. She is also the co-host of "The Lay of The Land", a weekly podcast mapping tech innovation in Cleveland. In our conversation we talk about Founders Get Funds - what inspired her to start it, lessons she’s learned, and what’s next for FGF in the next year. I’m glad I caught her at this point of developing her business, because she’s tried a few different things with it, and is taking time to learn, question, and decide how to best tackle the problem that she sees: misinformation around funding. We go back to how she’s developed as a fintech leader. From studying abroad in Senegal getting hands-on experience in economic development through L’Entente Feminine to her time in Cleveland working at a startup, and of course, how she’s becoming. 

Marlin has over 20 years’ experience as a Global Diversity and Inclusion Officer for two Fortune 500 organizations. Currently she is serving as the Vice President of Global Diversity and Inclusion for StockX. She began her tech career as a coder at Compuware Corporation, where her passion for inspiring women and people of color to join her field gained notice. She is the founder of Sisters Code, which educates, empowers and entices women ages 25–85 to explore the world of coding and technology. In our conversation, we talk about how she began her career as an aspiring mortician and eventually found her way into the tech world, how she incorporates her passion for speaking and uplifting others into her DEI work, why supporting other womxn is so important to her, and of course how she’s becoming her fullest self. I’m excited for you to take a listen. 

Millie is the founder of the Institute of Global Entrepreneurship and Talent and is currently the Vice President of Global Entrepreneurship and STEM Talent, where she supports international founders by providing a pathway to establish their business in Michigan, create new jobs, attract investment, and improve economic prosperity for Michigan. In addition to her full time job and company, she does probably five or six other things but it all connects to what she calls her North Star: building vibrant communities by helping entrepreneurs, professionals, and families create the life they have envisioned. In our conversation, we talk about how her immigrant experience influences her passion for her work, why supporting immigrant entrepreneurship is so important to her, and of course how she’s becoming her fullest self. Excited for you to take a listen!

Sarah is the founder of Write For The Job. Write For The Job is built on a theory that “if more people had jobs that made them happy, the world would be a kinder and friendlier place.”  She has really leveraged her natural curiosity in people and love for learning + her writing and storytelling talent to revamp professional materials for her clients. In our conversation we talk about where her passion for storytelling and words first started, what inspired her to start Write For The Job, specific tactics & strategies she uses for her clients, and of course, how she’s becoming her fullest self. I’m excited for you to take a listen!

Wilshia is a Creative Strategist at Maker Lab at Google, who works on digital marketing campaigns and pilots that elevate Google APAC’s social presence. Outside of her day job, she is a self-published children’s book author-illustrator who loves to write and draw meaningful stories for children. She hopes that her children's picture book series, Bucky The Dino, can spread positivity and reach the hearts of children all around the world. Wilshia is also the co-founder of a ground-up initiative, HopeFull, that contributes to the wider social movement tackling the resource-divide in Singapore that stems from systemic inequality through their programmes. From writing and illustrating her first childrens’ book character and story to founding Hopefull, a ground-up initiative that creates, gathers, and provides engaging educational resources for children and youth from low-income families, her heart and her head for leveraging her passion for creativity, curiosity, design and education, are inspiring to see. I’m excited for you to take a listen!

Esther Choo, MD MPH is an Associate Professor in the Center for Policy and Research in Emergency Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. She is a practicing physician and researcher, with expertise in drug policy, injury, and gender disparities in healthcare. With some experience in journalism, coming from a public health background and now a physician-scientist , and being an activist for women and minorities in healthcare, the intersections of Esther’s interests and passions come to a head in everything that she does. From founding her company Equity Quotient, a company that provides metrics of healthcare culture, to helping found TIME’S Up Healthcare, an initiative of the TIME’S UP Foundation, her heart and head for investigating issues in healthcare, policy, advocacy, and equity, are inspiring to see. I’m excited for you to take a listen!

**Submit a voice message: https://anchor.fm/justine-kim/message**

Stix is a female-founded startup on a mission to transform women’s health experience, starting with a better pregnancy and ovulation test. Founders Cynthia Plotch and Jamie Norwood created Stix because buying a high quality pregnancy test should be easy and delightful, no matter the result you’re looking for. Stix is over 99% accurate, fairly priced, and delivered in a discreet envelope. Just recently, Stix launched their Sanity Series - a series of virtual events, every TTH until May at 7:30 pm EST on topics ranging from mental health to fertility talks. This will definitely be an episode you'll want to tune into!

Founder & CEO Dressember, learn how upon realizing a problem, Blythe built a movement. The Dressember Foundation is an anti-trafficking nonprofit organization that engages womxn and men in the fight to end modern-day slavery. Through their annual campaign, thousands of people across six continents commit to wearing dresses or bow ties for the month of December as a way to bring awareness and raise funding for anti-trafficking work. What started off as a style challenge, in six years, Dressember advocates have raised $7.5MM USD. Dressember has received press attention from the likes of Forbes, Glamour, InStyle, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, and the TODAY Show. Just this year, Dressember has partnered with Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST) and Lyft to provide in-person human trafficking prevention education sessions to prevent the growing use of ride-sharing apps by traffickers.  It’s definitely going to be an episode you’ll want to tune in to!

Right after graduating from UCLA, while working a full-time job in sports marketing, a friend of Jenni’s and her fellow co-founders Sabena and Chelsea, was hospitalized with pneumonia. All three working full-time, entry level jobs, they couldn’t find the time to visit her, and hesitated to send her something as impersonal as a bouquet of flowers. That gave the trio their initial idea: how can we make it easier to send a personalized gift from one person to another?

Co-founder & COO of BOXFOX and a 2019 Forbes 30 under 30 recipient, learn how along with her co-founders, Jenni built BOXFOX – a custom gifting service with a mission to create stronger relationships through beautiful and personal gifts. The company started from her apartment in Venice to now shipping more than 60,000 boxes to gift recipients in over 20 countries. From people telling her it was just her “little gift thing” to now, the brand having a growing client list from Visa to Airbnb and stylish boxes filled with brands from DryBar to Sugarfina, BOXFOX is only growing. It’s definitely going to be an episode you'll want to tune in to.

**Note: This episode was recorded in BOXFOX’s warehouse, so there may be some background noise, which I’ve done my best to eliminate. Apologize if there are some distracting bits (but also just goes to show BOXFOX is a thriving business!)**

Welcome to Becoming, a podcast that dives into how womxn are navigating the relationship between what they do, and who they are. Hosted by Justine Kim, this is a podcast that investigates how womxn are building meaningful, fulfilling careers, how work plays a simultaneously huge yet partial part in womxn’s identities, and the experiences that shape how womxn are becoming their fullest selves.