She was fired while pregnant— twice. Now she's building the company she wished had existed when she needed it most.

Beth Wanner, founder of Mother Cover, spent 15 years building her career in tech marketing leadership before facing a challenge she never expected. After navigating infertility and IVF, she was laid off just two days after finding out she was pregnant. She landed another executive role, only to be fired after telling her new employer she needed to take maternity leave. That experience led her to build Mother Cover, a company helping businesses support employees through parental leave.

Beth talks about what it was like to lose her job while pregnant, why so many working moms feel their careers are at risk when starting a family, and how her experience with pregnancy discrimination inspired her to create something better. She also shares why generous parental leave policies mean little without the right support, how companies can protect employees' careers while they're away, and what it really takes to make returning to work after maternity leave easier.

Jump into the conversation:
(00:00) Meet Beth Wanner

(02:09) How she lost her job after IVF

(03:10) Facing pregnancy discrimination at work

(04:59) Turning her experience into Mother Cover

(09:00) What supportive parental leave looks like

(12:26) When a leave policy is just for show

(14:17) How to cover a senior role on leave

(17:31) Making maternity leave easier for everyone

(19:48) Returning to work after maternity leave

(22:53) Protecting your career while on leave

(26:47) Why dads need parental leave too

(40:39) Making parental leave work in practice

(43:00) Save of the week

Connect with Mallory Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorylee/

Connect with Shannon Curran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-sweeny-curran/

Connect with Beth Wanner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethwanner/

Check out Mother Cover: https://www.mothercoveragency.com/

Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius

www.shareyourgenius.com

Dr. Anne Welsh is a psychologist, executive coach, author, and mom of four who has spent nearly 20 years supporting women's mental health and helping working mothers build sustainable careers. After experiencing burnout while working at Harvard and raising two young children, she made the difficult decision to leave and start her own private practice, forcing her to rethink what ambition and success really meant to her.

Anne talks about why perfectionism can hold women back in both leadership and motherhood, how workplace expectations contribute to burnout, and why traditional career advice doesn't always work for working moms. She also shares how leaving Harvard challenged her professional identity, why mothers need to get comfortable asking themselves what they actually want, and how small changes can help women build more fulfilling careers without completely upending their lives.

Jump into the conversation:
(00:00) Meet Dr. Anne Welsh

(00:58) Supporting working mothers and women in leadership

(03:57) Why traditional career advice fails women

(07:00) How women internalize perfectionism

(08:41) When perfectionism starts holding you back

(17:15) Redefining ambition and professional identity

(21:13) Asking yourself what you actually want

(23:39) Navigating workplace politics and double standards

(27:46) Why motherhood builds valuable leadership skills

(29:44) When emotional intelligence goes unrecognized

(38:06) Managing burnout without quitting your job

(40:01) How small changes lead to lasting progress

(44:28) Save of the week

Connect with Mallory Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorylee/

Connect with Shannon Curran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-sweeny-curran/

Connect with Dr. Anne Welsh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drannewelsh/

Check out her website: https://www.drannewelsh.com/

Get Ambitious Mother: From Surviving to Thriving in Your Career and at Home: https://www.drannewelsh.com/ambitious-mother-book

Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius

www.shareyourgenius.com

Rachel Nazhand, VP of Operations at Arta, has built her career leading operations across startups, high-growth companies, and corporate environments. She's also a mom of two, navigating co-parenting after divorce, commuting between New York and Virginia, and finding ways to stay fully present for both her kids and her career.

Rachel talks about how co-parenting has changed her relationship with the mental load of motherhood, why going through divorce forced her to lean on her village, and how she's learned to embrace a family structure that works for them. She also shares why raising a baby in New York City felt easier than in the suburbs, how she navigates career opportunities without letting her personal life define her professionally, and the simple parenting routines that make life as a working mom a little easier.

Jump into the conversation:
(00:00) Meet Rachel Nazhand
(02:08) Commuting between New York and Virginia

(03:50) Balancing co-parenting and work travel

(06:04) How co-parenting changes the mental load

(07:38) Staying connected with kids across households

(11:31) How she built a village after divorce

(13:47) Giving back through community

(17:21) Raising babies in the city versus suburbs

(22:02) Why she creates intentional childhood experiences

(25:04) Navigating divorce while building a career

(28:53) Keeping motherhood and professional identity balanced

(31:57) The realities of parenting young kids

(38:39) Save of the week

Connect with Mallory Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorylee/

Connect with Shannon Curran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-sweeny-curran/

Connect with Rachel Nazhand: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelnazhand/

Check out Arta: https://arta.io/

Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius

www.shareyourgenius.com

Ruchi Varshney is the co-founder of Measure, an end-to-end RevOps and finance platform she started with her husband and her brother-in-law. Before that, she spent her career at Dropbox, where she started as an engineer and worked up to running all of the new products. She is also raising an eight-year-old son and leading a remote, all-Canadian team of 15 from Toronto.

Ruchi shares what it was like to lead a team of 30 engineers while pregnant, why she stepped away from her team before taking leave, and the part of returning to work that nobody explained to her. She talks about how parenting taught her what to let go of, and why she and her co-founders chose to self-fund the company they run as a family business.

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) Meet Ruchi Varshney

(02:09) What’s it like co-founding a company with family

(04:35) Why she left Dropbox to build something new

(07:36) The reason to self-fund

(11:02) Why trust matters in billing software

(17:44) Leading 30 engineers while pregnant

(20:44) Stepping away from her team before leave

(22:57) Returning to work after leave

(24:38) What parenting taught her about letting go

(26:00) Camp signups and grocery orders between calls

(28:53) Running calls with a toddler nearby

(36:11) Stack ranking business and family priorities

(39:20) Taking vacations while building a company

(42:26) Save of the week

(48:52) Advice for aspiring founders

Connect with Mallory Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorylee/

Connect with Shannon Curran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-sweeny-curran/

Connect with Ruchi Varshney: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rvarshney/

Check out Measure: https://getmeasure.com

Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius

www.shareyourgenius.com

Emilia D’Anzica has spent her career building and leading teams in tech, while raising two daughters and a bonus son. She earned her MBA, started her own business, and eventually co-authored Pressing On as a Tech Mom. After watching women leave tech in huge numbers during the pandemic, she and co-author Sabina Pons surveyed more than 300 women around the world to understand what was pushing working moms out and what helped others stay.

Emilia talks about returning to work after just five and a half weeks with her baby, the heartbreak of realizing her daughter preferred the nanny after years of work travel, and the working-mom guilt that can keep you up at night wondering how much you’re missing. She also shares the workplace double standards that made leaving at 5:30 for daycare pickup feel unacceptable, why she eventually left corporate life, and how parenting has changed as her daughters have gotten older.

From learning to give less advice and ask more questions to building a career with more room for family, Emilia shares what she wishes more working moms knew: there is no one right path, and none of us are meant to do this alone.

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) Meet Emilia D’Anzica
(03:37) Building a career and family in tech

(06:26) Why she wrote Pressing On as a Tech Mom

(11:40) Are workplaces actually changing for moms?

(14:01) The guilt that keeps working moms up

(14:46) Calling out workplace double standards

(20:53) How motherhood changes as kids get older

(23:00) Giving less advice and asking more questions

(27:25) How Emilia found her voice as a woman in tech

(34:13) Building the next chapter of her career

(38:48) Why working moms need each other

(40:04) Save of the week

Connect with Mallory Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorylee/

Connect with Shannon Curran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-sweeny-curran/

Connect with Emilia D’Anzica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emiliadanzica/

Check out Emiliadanzica.com: https://emiliadanzica.com/

Get Pressing ON as a Tech Mom: https://a.co/d/03Zrx10A

Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius

www.shareyourgenius.com

Susanna Hunter has spent more than 10 years at Salesforce, where she’s now a VP of HR supporting a global organization of 10,000 people. She’s also raising four-year-old twins and a new baby, living on an intergenerational family compound, writing songs, doing stand-up comedy, and sharing the very real side of working motherhood on LinkedIn.

Susanna talks about the mom rage she once thought was hers alone, why her second postpartum experience has felt completely different from her first, and how she’s learned she doesn’t have to lose herself after having kids. She also shares the practical systems behind making their life work, including paid childcare, dividing responsibilities with her husband, a weekly house meeting, and removing the tiny recurring decisions that used to create friction at home.

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) Meet Susanna Hunter

(04:33) Building an intergenerational family compound

(09:09) How motherhood rewired her brain

(15:00) Talking openly about mom rage

(21:38) Her surprisingly positive postpartum experience

(25:13) Staying connected to yourself after kids

(27:41) What it actually takes to make it work

(30:40) Taking a four-week-old baby to a festival

(33:00) Why she embraced vibe parenting

(36:13) Navigating work travel with three kids

(38:46) Being a Salesforce VP on Mom LinkedIn

(41:40) The systems that keep their family running

(47:40) Save of the week

Connect with Mallory Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorylee/

Connect with Shannon Curran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-sweeny-curran/

Connect with Susanna Hunter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannahuntercoaching/

Check out Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/ap/?ir=1

Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius

www.shareyourgenius.com

Nicole Ramirez spent 15 years in journalism and marketing, including a stint as director of marketing for Forbes, before a layoff in July 2024 sent her back to LinkedIn to job hunt.

Instead, she built a following from 2,000 to 50,000 in two years and turned it into a full-time business helping women in corporate, out of corporate, or just starting to build an online brand to show up and get noticed.

Nicole shares the framework she uses with clients (educate, entertain, inspire), why she thinks about content as a strategy instead of just something to push out, how she coaches people through comments before a post goes live, and what she actually tracks instead of obsessing over follower count.

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) Meet Nicole Ramirez

(01:29) The Google Doc post that went viral

(06:44) Who she actually works with on LinkedIn

(09:53) The journey from journalism to Forbes

(13:15) How she grew to fifty thousand followers

(15:40) How motherhood changed her content

(16:49) The beach chicken post that went nationwide

(24:26) Her childcare setup with her father-in-law

(34:53) Coaching clients through personal brand crises

(38:52) The post that hit five million impressions

(39:38) What to track instead of follower count

(43:47) Save of the week

Connect with Mallory Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorylee/

Connect with Shannon Curran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-sweeny-curran/

Connect with Nicole Ramirez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicoleramirez-personal-brand-expert/

Check out NR Digital Consulting: http://nrdigitalconsulting.com

Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius

www.shareyourgenius.com

Jessica Winder built a career out of learning exactly how corporate America works, then decided to teach other people how to work it too.

She is Chief People Officer at her Winder Law Firm, a career coach, and mom of four, including two sets of twins born seventeen months apart. After building an entire household team to make her career and her family both possible—from a live-in house manager to a set of core work hours she and her husband both protect—she started talking openly on LinkedIn about what she saw behind the curtain of HR. That honesty turned into a podcast, a speaking career, and a client list full of women trying to get promoted, come back from maternity leave, or figure out if they want to come back at all.

Jessica shares why she believes the 40 hour work week was never built for people with families, and why she thinks having it all really just means paying other people to help you get it. She also explains what she tells women before they go on maternity leave, how she decides which coaching clients are actually the right fit for her, and why she tells everyone to get the title before they ever think about getting the raise.

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) Meet Jessica Winder

(04:45) On having two sets of twins in seventeen months

(07:26) The team behind the scenes at home

(12:12) How much she and her husband actually work

(16:47) Her two maternity leaves and what she would tell other moms

(23:40) From ranting on LinkedIn to building a media business

(26:23) Why the 40 hour workweek was never built for parents

(28:39) Inside her podcast, Make It Make Sense

(32:40) Coaching moms through the decision to go back to work

(35:44) How to know if your career coach actually knows what they are doing

(41:00) Why you should get the title before you get the raise

(43:57) Save of the week

Connect with Mallory Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorylee/

Connect with Shannon Curran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-sweeny-curran/

Connect with Jessica Winder: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicadwinder/

Check out Winder Law Firm: https://www.linkedin.com/company/winder-law-firm/

Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius

www.shareyourgenius.com