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Badass Women in Business
Welcome to The Badass Women in Business Podcast, where real women share the unfiltered stories behind their success.
Hosted by Cristy O’Connor and Aggie Chydzinski, this podcast brings you inside the minds of founders, CEOs, and changemakers who have built, rebuilt, and redefined what leadership looks like.
Each week, you will hear how these women turned obstacles into opportunity, silence into strategy, and ambition into impact. These are not highlight reels. They are hard-earned lessons from women who built empires, challenged norms, and did it all on their own terms.
If you are building something, leading something, or dreaming of more, this show will light the fire that keeps you moving.
Subscribe now and join the movement of women rewriting the rules of business, one badass story at a time.
New episodes drop every Tuesday.
Episodes
130 episodes
Hon. Leela Sharon Aheer: How a 15-Year-Old Targeted by Hate Became a National Leader
The Honourable Leela Sharon Aheer shares the story that shaped her life and leadership.Growing up in Alberta as the daughter of an Indian immigrant father and a Canadian mother, Leela learned early what it meant to stand out, speak up, a...
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Season 4
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Episode 52
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55:25
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Sarah Angello: The Startup Founder Rebuilding Trust in Philanthropy
Most people donate because they want to help. Few ever find out what actually happens to their money. Philanthropy has a trust problem. Nonprofits have a transparency problem. Donors want clarity but rarely get it. And donor-advised funds have ...
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Season 4
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Episode 51
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49:31
Rachael Wonderlin: How She Built a Thriving Consulting Business, Broke Out of Her Niche, and Learned to Trust Her Gut
Rachael Wonderlin built a national dementia consulting firm from a Tumblr blog, three Johns Hopkins books, and a decade of hands-on work inside senior living communities. But the real story is what she learned along the way about boundaries, bu...
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Season 4
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Episode 50
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46:22
Kristin Heideman: How I Built a Lifestyle Business, Walked Away From the Scale-at-All-Costs Trap, and Found Success on My Own Terms
Kristin Heideman spent more than twenty years working inside the insurance industry before she realized she was ready to build something of her own. When she was let go from a job she excelled in, she walked into Best Buy the next morning, boug...
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Season 4
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Episode 49
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49:39
Amanda DuBois: How She Built a Successful Law Firm After Being Told She Would Fail
Amanda DuBois was once told she was nothing more than a doctor’s wife who should stop dabbling at the law. Instead of shrinking, she built one of Washington’s longest standing women owned law firms, created a workplace that supports and mentors...
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Season 4
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Episode 48
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50:18
How to Build a Brand That Blooms: Ashley King on Letting Go, Leveling Up, and Creating Brands That Convert
What happens when a fashion designer and magazine editor turns her creative eye toward helping women entrepreneurs grow their brands and themselves? Ashley King, founder and CEO of BLOOM Virtual.co, joins Aggie and Cristy to share how sh...
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Season 4
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Episode 47
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53:09
Burn It Down and Build It Better: Sarah Noel Block on Confidence, Clients, and Control
In this Season 4 episode of Badass Women in Business, Aggie and Cristy sit down with Sarah Noel Block, founder of Tiny Marketing, to talk about what happens when you stop playing small and start building a business that a...
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Season 4
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Episode 46
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42:00
From the Fairway to the Field: Jenn Harris on Reinvention, Leadership, and Owning Every Pivot
Jenn Harris’s journey is a lesson in reinvention, resilience, and trusting yourself through change. Before becoming President and CEO of AirX Utility Surveyors, she built her career on curiosity and connection. She studied psychology, dreamed o...
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Season 4
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Episode 45
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46:28
From Pathology to Purpose: Angela Zeng on Building Karviva and Bringing Ancient Wisdom to Modern Wellness
Angela Zeng, PhD, MBA, is the founder and CEO of Karviva, an award-winning wellness beverage company that blends Traditional Chinese Medicine with modern nutritional science. A pathologist by training, Angela immigrated from China to the U.S., ...
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Season 4
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Episode 44
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51:09
Julie Smolyansky: Building Lifeway Foods, Leading with Resilience, and the Power of Gut Health
At just 27 years old, Julie Smolyansky became the youngest female CEO of a publicly traded company when she stepped into leadership at Lifeway Foods in 2002. What began as her family’s immigrant dream has grown into the dominant kefir brand in ...
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Season 4
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Episode 43
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45:37
From Teacher to Tech Leader: Jennifer Dulski on Resilience, Leadership, and Building Connected Teams
Jennifer Dulski’s career journey is anything but linear. She started as a high school teacher, moved into the nonprofit world, and went on to hold executive roles at Yahoo, Google, Facebook, and Change.org. Today she is the Founder and CEO of R...
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Season 4
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Episode 42
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51:00
Scaling Impact, Breaking Silos: How Anne Marie Dougherty Built a $40M Force for Veterans
Anne Marie Dougherty is the CEO of the Bob Woodruff Foundation, where she has led the organization from $4.3 million to nearly $40 million in annual revenue. With no formal business training, she built a high-performing, data-driven nonprofit b...
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Season 4
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Episode 41
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49:50
Burn the Playbook: How Kate Wolff Built Four Companies, Raised Millions, and Rewrote the Rules
Kate Wolff walked away from big agency life with no safety net and built four companies from the ground up. Lupine Creative. No Sheep Studios. Do the WeRQ. LumiTerra. Each one different. Each one intentional. And each one pushing against the in...
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Season 4
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Episode 40
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49:06
From Best Kept Secret to Booked Out: The Visibility Playbook with Christina Lenkowski
What if the real ROI of being on a podcast isn't the interview itself, but the relationships that come afterward?In this high-energy, straight-talking episode, we sit down with Christina Lenkowski, founder of Publicity by Chri...
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Season 4
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Episode 39
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46:40
Beyond the Highlight Reel: Yuki Bi on Cross-Cultural Growth, Resilient Leadership, and Owning Your Weakness
In this episode of Badass Women in Business, we sit down with Yuki Bi, global advertising executive and co-founder of Helios Worldwide. Yuki shares how her journey from a Canadian ad intern to leading a private equity-backed global con...
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Season 4
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Episode 38
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48:11
Pinterest as a Business Powerhouse: From Hustle to Freedom with Laura Rike
In this episode of the Badass Women in Business podcast, Laura Rike, Pinterest strategist and founder of SimplyPintastic®, shares her incredible journey from a burned-out VA to a thriving CEO leveraging Pinterest to create sustainable ...
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Season 4
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Episode 37
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48:45
From Elephant Handler to Software CEO: Betting on Yourself with Libby DeLucien
What do Asian elephants, a messy divorce, a housecleaning hustle, and a tech company have in common? Libby DeLucien. In this episode, Libby shares her unapologetically bold journey from growing up in a family of elephant handlers to becoming a ...
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Season 4
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Episode 36
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35:33
How a Real Estate Broker Became a Tech Founder; and Why Women Need to Do It Too
Lisa Troyano-Ascolese is not your average real estate broker. She’s a serial entrepreneur, tech founder, podcast host, and unapologetic advocate for women building their own path to freedom. In this powerful conversation, Lisa shares her evolut...
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Season 4
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Episode 36
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39:24
When Talk Therapy Isn’t Enough: How Dana Hargus Uses Biofeedback to Heal Dysregulated Kids and Burned Out Adults
Dana Hargus has spent the last 25 years helping kids and families find real relief when nothing else seems to work. In this conversation, she shares how her personal journey as a foster parent led her to build one of Oklahoma’s most innovative ...
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Season 4
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Episode 35
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50:09
Keep Your Eye on the Horizon: Kathy Eberwein on Leading with Integrity, Going Global, and Building Real Impact
Kathy Eberwein is the founder and CEO of Global Edge Group, one of the first woman-owned recruitment agencies serving the global energy industry. From managing multimillion-dollar engineering projects to building a workforce of over 1,000 peopl...
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Season 4
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Episode 34
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43:58
Making Justice Personal: Liz Frederick on Leading With Purpose at Avenues for Justice
What does it mean to lead with authenticity in a system built to overlook you? In this powerful episode, we sit down with Elizabeth “Liz” Frederick, the Executive Director of Avenues for Justice: a nonprofit that's been disrupting the incarcera...
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Season 4
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Episode 33
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38:29
Permission Granted: Championing Women in Business, Sport, and Self
Thayer Lavielle is the Managing Director of The Collective at Wasserman, where she leads a global practice dedicated to driving investment in women in sports, entertainment, and music. In this episode, Thayer walks us through her nonlinear path...
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Season 4
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Episode 32
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45:16
From C-Suite to Global eCommerce Mentor: Marissa Rodriguez on Redefining Success
Corporate life gave Marissa Rodriguez a title but not the freedom she craved. After a sudden layoff in 2015, she chose a different path that led her to build a powerful eCommerce consulting business, generate over $100 million in client revenue...
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Season 4
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Episode 31
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53:16
Breaking the Mold: Min Ju Kim on Golf, Glam, and Grit in Business
SummaryMin Ju Kim, founder of Zasin, joins the podcast to share her inspiring journey from D1 golfer to multi-venture entrepreneur. Born in South Korea and raised across three countries, Kim brings global perspective, grit, and cr...
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Season 4
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Episode 30
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49:51
Pause, Reflect, Move Forward: How Holly Oldham Turned Cleaning into a Catalyst for Change
Holly Oldham built a luxury cleaning business out of grit, grief, and one life-changing poem. After leaving a toxic marriage with just $100 in her wallet, Holly didn’t just survive, she created PRMF Cleaning (Pause Reflect Move Forward) and red...
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Season 4
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Episode 29
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39:20