Women and wealth building look different when you stop climbing the ladder and start buying the building.

For Heather, it started with a paper route in small-town Nova Scotia, a mom who modeled resilience, and a belief that working hard was the only way out. Syama Bunten sits down with Heather Kernahan, CEO of the Content Bureau and author of Unstuckable, for a Getting Rich Together conversation about building wealth as a woman in the corporate world and beyond.

Heather shares the unfiltered story of student loan debt, stock options she did not fully understand, and the mindset shift that changed how she showed up at work. She gets into negotiating salary and equity as a woman, what the path from corporate career to CEO genuinely cost her, and how she eventually became a limited partner in a venture capital fund focused on female and minority founders.

Venture capital investing for women, female entrepreneurship, and business acquisition are not topics most personal finance conversations touch, and Heather makes each one feel within reach.

She also opens up about the personal decisions that made her ambitions possible, and what it meant to personally finance her first acquisition. Financial independence for women does not follow one path, and this conversation proves it.

If this conversation moved you, keep going. Join Syama and the community at the Wealth Catalyst Summit, a full-day event in San Francisco this October. Find your city and claim your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

This is a story about financial independence, women and wealth building, and the courage it takes to bet on yourself.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Women and Wealth Building With Heather Kernahan

02:11 Growing Up Without Financial Safety Nets

09:53 The Exchange Program That Changed Everything

18:19 How a PR Certificate Launched Her Career

22:06 Student Loan Debt and the Wake-Up Call That Forced Her to Get Serious

28:03 The Performance Review That Rewired Her Professionally

36:01 Pursuing an MBA While Working Full-Time With Two Kids

43:30 Stock Options, RSUs, and Learning to Negotiate Equity in Tech

49:54 What to Do With a Big Financial Win

51:58 Becoming a Limited Partner in a Venture Capital Fund

55:14 Acquiring Her First Business and Betting on Herself

1:00:07 Legacy, Longevity, and What She Is Building Next

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Women and money is a conversation most people only have in private, if at all.

Alicia Umpierre is a patent attorney with a Ph.D. in chemistry. She built her career with no family blueprint and no financial network to draw from. On Getting Rich Together, host Syama Bunten draws out the story behind the credentials. What emerges is the women and money conversation you know but rarely hear spoken out loud.

Alicia grew up in Southern California not thinking about finances. No one around her had a Ph.D. She didn't even know what one was until college. Without mentors, she says she might still be testing wastewater in a lab in Ontario, California. People told her what was possible before she knew to ask.

Her patent attorney career path didn't come from a plan. She followed what felt right. She left behind what didn't. A career change to law came from recognizing a dead end, not a vision. She passed the patent bar in two months, went back to school for her J.D. while raising a toddler, then had her second son during law school, and built a career most people don't even know exists.

What Alicia is still working on is teaching kids about money the way she wishes she'd been taught. Her own financial goals now center on a question many women know well: how do you build wealth as a woman when you know what you have, but don't have a trusted network to help you decide what to do next?

She watched her immigrant father work without rest his whole life. She doesn't want to do the same.

Syama built Wealth Catalyst because women and money deserved a better conversation. If you're ready to be in the room where that conversation happens in person, the Freedom Tour salons are gathering women across 32 cities this year, and the Wealth Catalyst Summit comes to San Francisco this October. Save your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Women and Money: Alicia Umpierre on Building Wealth Without a Roadmap

02:12 Growing Up Middle Class With No Financial Role Models

04:01 Why Math and Chemistry Became Her Foundation

06:24 Working Through College and the Value of Hard Work

09:17 How Mentorship Changed Everything

13:21 FromPh.D. to Patent Attorney Career Path

16:49 Passing the Patent Bar and Landing the Job

18:28 Going Back to Law School in Her Thirties

21:57 Building Financial Goals as a Couple

24:46 Teaching Kids About Money and Work Ethic

27:57 Retirement, Nest Eggs, and Investing Honestly

33:41 Why Trusting a Financial Advisor Is So Hard

38:46 On Implicit Bias and the Power of Mentorship

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Impact investing for women does not have to mean choosing between profit and purpose.

Lucy Rogers built a global network connecting more than 3,000 family offices, investors, and founders by asking one simple question in every room she entered about what that person actually needed. On Getting Rich Together, host Syama Bunten sits down with Lucy to explore how that instinct became the foundation for a new model of values-based investing that is quietly outperforming expectations.

Lucy's path was anything but conventional. She was expelled from two schools, dropped out of college at 17 to travel solo through Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand, and left university a second time to chase work experience instead of a degree. She bought her first flat at 24 through sheer discipline and eventually built a career spanning creative direction, entertainment, and capital. None of it followed a straight line, and that turned out to be exactly the point.

The conversation gets into what family office investing looks like from the inside, how Lucy positions impact investments to skeptical investors without ever leading with the impact angle, and why the most oversubscribed deals in her network are increasingly backed by women in venture. Lucy shares the story of an investor who said he wanted nothing to do with climate, and how she got him to fund a climate company anyway.

For anyone thinking seriously about impact investing for women and wealth building, this episode changes what it means to put capital behind values. The return data is catching up to the conviction. Lucy Rogers is proof that when you build from alignment, the numbers tend to follow.

If this conversation sparked something, the next step is a room of your own. Join Syama and the Wealth Catalyst community at the Freedom Tour salons happening in 32 cities across the country, or at the Wealth Catalyst Summit in San Francisco this October. Find your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Meet Lucy Rogers, Entrepreneur, Investor, and Family Office Connector

02:32 Early Entrepreneurial Instincts and the First Lessons About Money

04:43 Getting Expelled Twice and What It Taught Her About Reading People

07:37 Dropping Out, Traveling Alone, and Finding a Creative Path Forward

10:42 Buying Her First Flat at 24 Through Extreme Discipline and Saving

13:18 Why She Built Financial Independence From a Place of Feeling Unsafe

15:08 From Advertising to Music Videos and the Power of Following Intuition

20:12 Going Freelance, Starting a Company, and Building Real Wealth in Entertainment

30:45 Finding Alignment Through Values-Based Investing and Impact-Driven Work

33:31 How Just Us Was Built to Replace Transactional Networking With Human Connection

38:15 Impact Investing for Women and Why the Market Still Confuses It With Charity

40:38 Converting a Skeptical Investor Into an Impact Deal Without Leading With Impact

41:56 Building Infrastructure for Legacy Through the Aspen Institute Partnership

45:32 How Intuition Drives Her Investment Decisions Alongside Rigorous Due Diligence

48:49 The Philosophy Behind Her Work and Why Safety Is at the Core of Everything

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Annie sold a multi-million-dollar therapy center at 43. On paper, that kind of success should make a person feel safe. But money does not automatically rewrite what the body learned first.

Host Syama Bunten sits down with Annie Wright, a licensed psychotherapist and executive coach specializing in trauma recovery for high achievers, for a conversation about what financial success can and cannot fix. For Annie, psychological healing and financial healing have never been separate work. Her childhood financial trauma shaped more than her beliefs about money. It shaped what safety, success, and self-worth felt like.

Annie grew up between old-money privilege and real financial instability, watching money appear, disappear, and come with secrecy, shame, and survival. That early relational trauma and money mindset followed her into adulthood, even as she became the first in her family to build the kind of security she once imagined from a distance.

This is a conversation about breaking the poverty cycle, first generation wealth building, and the emotional cost of becoming the person no one in your family knew how to model. Annie is honest about ambition as a survival strategy, the nervous system that still braces for everything to disappear, and why the numbers on paper do not always match the feeling of safety inside.

Now, her work sits at the intersection of women and financial healing, with books, courses, and education designed to help more women move from survival into lives that feel secure, self-directed, and fully lived. Her 2026 book Decade of Decisions is part of that next chapter.

If Annie's story speaks to you, keep going. The Wealth Catalyst Freedom Tour is bringing intimate money conversations to women in 32 cities this year. The Wealth Catalyst Summit lands in San Francisco this October for a full day built around what comes next. Find your city at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Meet Annie Wright: Psychotherapist, Executive Coach, and Exited Entrepreneur

02:28 Growing Up Between Poverty and Old Money on the Coast of Maine

06:28 How Childhood Financial Trauma Shapes the Way Kids Survive

07:54 Getting a Full Ride to Brown and the Drive Behind It

11:25 The Peace Corps, a Breaking Point, and the Start of Healing

15:24 Burning Through Savings and Finding a Career Path at Esalen

17:43 Graduate School Debt, Minimum Wage Internships, and Financial Fear

23:45 Budgeting From Zero and the Financial Sobriety Journey

28:23 Launching a Therapy Center on Mat Leave and Betting on Herself

30:49 Being the Primary Earner and Making the Stay-at-Home Partner Decision

34:52 Knowing When to Sell and the Exit That Changed Everything

38:22 Trauma Recovery for High Achievers and the Mission Behind the Work

41:46 What Comes Next: Books, Courses, and Scaling the Impact

47:27 How to Find Annie Wright and What She Needs From You

Connect with Annie Wright:

Visit Annie's website

Subscribe to Annie's Substack

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

What if your money could fund the future you actually want to live in?

That is the question Alix Lebec has spent her career trying to answer. On Getting Rich Together, host Syama Bunten sits down with Alix, founder of Lebec, a firm built to mainstream innovative finance and put more capital to work on some of the world's biggest problems.

Alix grew up between France, South Korea, and China before finishing high school in Dallas, Texas. That global upbringing shaped everything about how she sees money, risk, and opportunity. She built her career inside global development, philanthropy, and asset management before launching Lebec during the height of the pandemic to bridge the gap between traditional finance and meaningful change.

The conversation gets into the real mechanics of innovative finance strategies, including how blended finance can turn $1 million in philanthropy into $50 million in private investment capital that would otherwise sit on the sidelines. Alix breaks down why women in impact investing are not choosing between returns and values, and why that false choice has kept too many people out of the room for too long.

Lebec operates across three pillars. The first is strategic advisory. The second is a boutique investment manager that builds diversified portfolios of private market funds across sectors like water, oceans, and deforestation. The third is narrative change through commercial film and storytelling, where innovative finance structures put capital directly in the hands of social entrepreneurs. Alix is also raising a $1 million seed round to scale the vision.

This episode is for any woman who has ever wondered whether her money can do more. Impact investing for women is no longer a niche conversation. It is becoming one of the most important conversations in finance. And if you are ready to take it further, join Syama and the Wealth Catalyst community at the Freedom Tour salons happening in cities across the country, or at the Wealth Catalyst Summit on October 16 in San Francisco. Find your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Welcome to Getting Rich Together

02:48 Growing Up Across Three Continents

20:01 From Documentary Filmmaking to the World Bank

26:15 Money, Salary Negotiations, and Early Financial Lessons

30:36 Fieldwork in Bangkok and the Shift Toward Social Entrepreneurship

40:25 Joining the Clinton Global Initiative and Discovering Impact Investing for Women

43:42 The "Bleeding Heart" Mindset and the Real Cost of Mission-Driven Work

45:40 Why the Scarcity Mindset in Impact Work Has to Go

50:29 Building Lebec and the Case for Innovative Finance

59:23 How Alix Spends Her Money and What She Is Building Next

Connect with Alix Lebec:

Visit the Lebec website

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Generational wealth building for women starts long before the first investment, the first business, or the first paycheck. It starts with the decision to believe your life can look different from the one you inherited.

On Getting Rich Together, host Syama Bunten sits down with Twyla Garrett, a serial entrepreneur, real estate developer, and founder of the Garrett Foundation, whose story is one of the most compelling examples of how to build wealth from poverty you will ever hear. Twyla grew up in Cleveland's inner city, was removed from her home at 14, spent time in juvenile homes, and relied on welfare and food stamps during college. She left with a financial acumen that would eventually carry her to seven figures within a year of walking away from a government job.

Twyla does not skip the hard parts. From doing taxes and bookkeeping as a teenager to buying her first home at 26 with just $4,000 and shaky credit, to transforming a derelict Cleveland train station into the city's largest jazz supper club, Twyla's path is a masterclass in how to scale a business from nothing. Women entrepreneurs and real estate intersect throughout her journey in ways that feel practical and urgent, not abstract.

But the conversation goes further than personal success. Twyla is now channeling everything she has built into a model for affordable homeownership in the inner city, one that replaces Section 8 dependency with actual ownership. People take care of what they own. A $200,000 condo with a $900 monthly mortgage costs less than what Section 8 currently pays for a two-bedroom rental. That gap is where generational wealth building for women and for entire communities becomes possible.

If you have ever wondered whether your starting point disqualifies you, this episode is a reminder that your starting point does not have to define what you build next. And if you are ready to keep going, Wealth Catalyst is where women take it further. Join us at the Wealth Catalyst Summit, a full-day event in San Francisco this October 16, 2026, or find a Freedom Tour salon happening near you. Women are gathering in 32 cities this year for intimate, honest conversations about money, risk, and what they are building. Find your city and claim your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Getting Rich Together With Syama Bunten and Twyla Garrett

02:29 Growing Up in Poverty in Cleveland's Inner City

08:39 How Twyla Turned Childhood Trauma Into a Success Mindset

18:56 Learning to Manage Money From Scratch and Building the Foundation for Generational Wealth Building for Women

29:40 Buying Her First Home at 26 With $4,000 and Bad Credit

33:04 Why She Left Her Government Job to Build a Business From Nothing

47:11 The Cleveland Train Station That Made Millions and Changed Lives

50:49 Affordable Homeownership vs. Affordable Housing and Why the Difference Matters

55:10 The Garrett Foundation's Vision for Inner City Communities

1:02:09 How to Connect With Twyla Garrett and the Impact League

Connect with Twyla Garrett:

Website: https://www.twylagarrett.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fedbizlady/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/twyla-garrett8016/

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

The system was not built for women raising capital, so Melissa Wallace built a new way forward.

Melissa is the founder of Fierce Foundry, the first femtech venture studio in the United States. Long before she was reshaping how female founder funding works, she was sorting babysitting money into labeled envelopes and selling handmade greeting cards door-to-door with her dad's old briefcase. The instinct to build was always there, even before she had the language for it.

With host Syama Bunten, Melissa shares the personal story behind the mission. She talks about a marriage in her twenties that ended with her ex-husband emptying her bank accounts after she asked for space, and a divorce process where she was willing to give up everything just to walk away clean. She shares how she went on to build a marketing agency, learned to lead instead of carrying every task herself, and kept seeing the same funding gap show up for women in health tech.

Investors wanted proof of customers. Founders needed help getting customers. Too many had no early capital to make either happen.

That loop is what Fierce Foundry was built to break. As a venture studio for women, it acts as a co-founder from day one, not a short-term program with a graduation date. It brings early capital, skilled operators, and support from idea through exit. This conversation offers a clearer path for any founder trying to understand how to raise pre-seed funding without relying on the usual gatekeepers.

Women raising capital in femtech startups should not have to prove they belong before they even get started. Melissa is building the infrastructure to help more women build, fund, and scale what the world has been missing. If this conversation moved you, keep it going. Find a Wealth Catalyst Freedom Tour salon near you, or claim your seat at the Wealth Catalyst Summit in San Francisco on October 16, 2026.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Meet Melissa Wallace, Founder of Fierce Foundry

02:59 Growing Up With Money: What Her Father Taught Her Without Saying a Word

05:54 Her First Business at Age 10 and the Pricing Lesson That Stuck

09:19 The Exchange Year in Brazil That Changed How She Saw the World

16:40 Early Career, a Bad Marriage, and the Cost of Conformity

18:55 Losing Everything in a Divorce and Choosing Freedom Over Financial Security

23:45 From Employee to Entrepreneur: The Pattern She Finally Broke

29:50 Building a Marketing Agency and Learning to Step Back From the Work

35:04 Women Raising Capital: Why Less Than 2% of VC Funding Goes to Female Founders

38:00 How the Fierce Foundry Venture Studio Model Works From Idea to Exit

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Most women never get an honest blueprint for building wealth because the women around them were never allowed to talk about it either.

Kristin Thomas grew up inside that silence. With inherited wealth on one side of her family and a grandfather who built everything from nothing on the other, she absorbed two completely opposite relationships to money and was taught to openly discuss neither. What she learned instead was how to read a room, adapt fast, and connect with anyone. Those skills mattered more than she expected when it came to women and money.

Her real financial education started the hard way. A fraudulent stockbroker targeted her recently divorced mother and wiped out the family savings. Financial fraud protection was not something anyone had prepared her for. So she prepared herself, buying every real estate book she could find and knocking on foreclosure doors in her early twenties. Women investing in real estate was not a common conversation then. She was doing it anyway.

By 30, she owned 15 investment properties. Then 2008 hit. Financial loss and recovery became her whole reality. She rebuilt in luxury real estate and spent years at work that left her feeling empty. The pandemic forced her to stop. That pause became Marble Collective, a platform preserving the stories of inspiring women. Women entrepreneurship, for Kristin, turned out to be about legacy more than revenue.

She is raising two sons differently, teaching kids about money with the transparency she never received. Women and money passes through generations. That is exactly the point.

Wealth Catalyst Summit in New York on May 14 is where this conversation continues. Built for women ready to stop being quiet about money and start building something real. Find your seat at wealthcatalyst.com.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Women and Money: Why We Need to Talk About It Differently

02:44 Growing Up Between Inherited Wealth and a Self-Made Legacy

09:56 How Losing Her Entire Inheritance to Financial Fraud Changed Everything

14:39 The Foreclosure Strategy That Launched Her Real Estate Career

22:12 Losing a 15-Property Portfolio in 2008 and How She Rebuilt

29:32 Building a Family and Teaching Kids About Money Intentionally

33:46 How the Pandemic Sparked the Idea for Marble Collective

42:17 Preserving Women's Stories and Building a Legacy That Lasts

Find more from Kristin Thomas:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristinthomas_/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristin-thomas-1092a01b

Website: https://www.marblecollective.com

Find more from Syama Bunten:

Attend a Salon near you: wealthcatalyst.com/salons

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syama.co/

Join Syama's Substack: https://thewealthcatalystwithsyama.substack.com/

Website: https://wealthcatalyst.com

Download Syama's Free Resources: https://wealthcatalyst.com/resources

Wealth Catalyst Summit: https://wealthcatalyst.com/summits

Speaking: https://syamabunten.com

Big Delta Capital: www.bigdeltacapital.com

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm