Carissa Richardson on starting your own marketing agency, paid advertising transparency, and building a business around the life you actually want.

Carissa Richardson spent more than twenty years inside traditional and digital media agencies. Then her school district moved to half-day kindergarten, she had two kids back to back, and no version of the job worked anymore. She left without a plan. What grew out of that is Kindred Strategy, a paid advertising agency built on two convictions: clients should understand exactly where their money goes, and great work should not cost you the parts of life that matter most.

In this special member edition of The Power Lounge, Amy Vaughan and Carissa get practical about what it actually takes for women in digital to build the thing they wish had existed. Charging what you are worth. Why transparency is strategy and not a nice to have. Growing only as fast as the life you want allows. And how community, not cold outreach, built an entire referral based business.

WHAT YOU WILL TAKE AWAY

• Efficiency pays you differently depending on who you work for. Inside an agency it earns you more work. On your own it earns you more money.
• Transparency is a business model, not a personality trait. Clients own their ad accounts, reporting leads with an executive summary, and optimization targets the metric the client actually cares about.
• Charge what you are worth from day one. The knowledge came with you when you left.
• Growth is a choice. Carissa has grown only to the edge of the life she wants, and her revenue tracks her kids’ school schedule on purpose.
• Guardrails hold. Published working hours in her email signature, scheduled sends after five, and a hard stop when the bus pulls up.
• A business plan can work as a safety net when you give up the salary and the insurance.
• Community is business development. The referrals that built this business came from community first, clients second.

FROM THE EPISODE

“I immediately made back my salary because I’m actually getting paid for every hour that I work and my efficiency is equaling more money now.” Carissa Richardson

“I really think my business would not be here if it wasn’t for community.” Carissa Richardson

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Welcome and why this is a special member edition
02:29 Two decades in agencies and the wall that ended it
05:21 Capable versus confident when you go out on your own
08:04 Why transparency felt urgent enough to build around
11:32 The hardest assumption to break: charging what you are worth
12:58 Efficiency pays more when you work for yourself
15:01 Transparency in practice: client ad accounts and real reporting
18:04 Growing only as much as the life you want allows
21:56 Guardrails, working hours, and the schedule send
25:38 Delegation, the competence trap, and what to hand off
30:38 Turning convictions into structure, and the business plan as safety net
38:12 How community built the business
42:44 What to know before you take the leap
45:34 Where agency models go next
47:34 Power round

CONNECT

Carissa Richardson, Kindred Strategy: https://www.kindred-strategy.com/

Carissa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carissarichardson/

Together Digital: https://togetherindigital.com

The Power Lounge on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@togetherindigital3269

Support the show

Marketing channel integration, clean customer data, and the AI search work that actually moves revenue.

Most teams do not need more marketing activity. They need their channels to talk to each other. In this episode of The Power Lounge, Amy Vaughan sits down with Amanda Friedt, founder of FRDTLAB, to unpack what an integrated growth system really looks like when SEO, paid media, content, email, and social are all running at once.

Amanda has spent twenty years building the infrastructure underneath growth, and her answer to the complexity question surprises most marketing leaders. It is not as complicated as you think. What breaks is rarely the strategy. It is naming conventions, tag management, disconnected customer data, and the quiet assumption that AI can just handle it.

This one is for every woman in digital holding a fragmented tech stack together with willpower and a spreadsheet.

What you will learn

• Why the biggest misconception about marketing channel integration is that it is complicated
• How signals work, why humans create them, and what that means for your naming and tagging
• The competence trap, and what happens when one capable person quietly becomes load bearing
• Where to start when you inherit a fragmented or legacy tech stack
• Why clean customer data decides whether your paid ads work at all
• How to align siloed search, paid, and content teams when you do not control the swim lane
• What Amanda tells marketing leaders heading into a quarter of budget cuts

From the episode

Thinking they can just automate it. Can AI just do it and automate it? And they miss the fact that you need orchestration layers and control points that are overseen all the time. Amanda Friedt

At the right time that they need it. Not when you posted it, when they need it. Amanda Friedt

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to The Power Lounge

01:33 Overwhelm, back to school, and building agents for your own life

04:27 The biggest misconception about connected channels

06:11 Naming, tagging, and why systems cannot talk to each other

08:56 Governance layers for agentic workflows

11:13 Visibility and revenue up 67 percent in the first 30 days

12:38 The competence trap and load bearing people

16:13 Where disconnected systems create real gaps

19:10 Inheriting a fragmented tech stack, where to start

23:59 Getting siloed teams and budgets aligned

28:05 What clean customer data actually changes

32:31 Momentum over one viral post

34:07 Authenticity, divorce, and the relationships it built

40:02 The biggest mistake leaders make integrating tools

41:55 The unexpected gap she uncovers most often

44:01 One practical first step you can take today

47:38 Power round, the metric almost nobody tracks

49:28 Advice for marketing leaders facing budget cuts

54:59 Where to find Amanda

Connect

Amanda Friedt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandafriedt/

FRDTLAB: https://frdtlab.com/

Together Digital: https://www.togetherindigital.com/

The Power Lounge: https://www.togetherindigital.com/podcast/

Support the show

A VP of strategy and innovation on career pivots for women in digital, and why you are never starting from zero.

Shannon Lewandowski has moved from software developer to IT manager to digital agency leader to AI and product consulting, and she says none of it was starting over. She joins Amy Vaughan on The Power Lounge to talk career transitions for women in digital, how to tell ordinary restlessness apart from real curiosity, and where to start with AI when you are convinced you are already behind. This is also the first episode of a new Power Lounge series featuring the women of Together Digital.

Key takeaways

• You are never starting from zero. Consulting, coaching, athletics, and even your own life as a customer are all experience you carry into the next role.
• Restlessness and curiosity feel different. Restlessness is unease with where you are. Curiosity pulls you toward something specific.
• Leaders do not need every answer. The work is bringing better questions and surrounding yourself with people who see it differently.
• Start with AI where you are annoyed. Hand over the task you could do in your sleep, then spend that time on work that needs your judgment.
• Women do not need to get better at doing everything. Release the expectation and build the support system instead.
• “I truly believe you’re never really starting from zero.”
  Shannon Lewandowski
• “I don’t think women have to become better at doing everything.”
  Shannon Lewandowski

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and a new series featuring Together Digital members
01:32 Meet Shannon Lewandowski
02:26 Why a pivot is never starting from zero
05:04 How her relationship with change changed
08:22 Restlessness versus curiosity
13:23 Mentors, coaches, and the coaching program that reframed fulfillment
16:49 Why investing in yourself is worth it, and the time study
21:08 Where to start with AI when you feel behind
25:00 Service design applied to your own career
29:03 Ask, Give, Grow and the gift of asking for help
31:43 What actually holds women back
36:57 Values, energy, and where to start when you feel stuck
40:33 Where her curiosity is leading now
41:47 Power round
43:39 Live audience questions
50:28 Closing

Connect with Shannon Lewandowski
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shannonlewandowski
Ingage Partners: ingagepartners.com

Connect with Together Digital
Website: togetherindigital.com
Podcast: togetherindigital.com/podcast

Support the show

A leadership and visibility strategist on why women over-explain, and the four-part shift to executive presence and real authority in any room.

Dr. Rita Renee spent 30 years in executive healthcare leadership learning the difference between explaining yourself and owning the room. On this episode of The Power Lounge, she joins Amy Vaughan to unpack why so many high-performing women shrink their language before they even finish a sentence, and the specific words to use instead. This is a conversation about executive presence for women, precision in communication, and what it actually takes to lead with authority without losing your humanity.

Key takeaways

Explaining is convincing people you deserve to be in the room. Owning is knowing you already belong there.

Every extra qualifier, like just, maybe, or I think, quietly gives away your authority before you finish the sentence.

Precision has four parts: know your point before you start talking, lead with the headline, cut unnecessary qualifiers, and end clearly with what you recommend or need.

Confidence and kindness are not opposites. You can be warm and still be clear, and disagree without over-explaining why.

You do not have to be in every room. Be fully visible in the rooms that matter for the people you serve.

"Explaining is when you feel like I have to convince you that I deserve to be in the room. Owning is when I know I belong there."

Dr. Rita Renee

"Clarity is not about saying more. It's just making what matters impossible to miss."

Dr. Rita Renee

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and introducing Dr. Rita Renee

01:05 Explaining versus owning the room

03:06 A 30 year lesson from healthcare leadership

04:43 The pattern holding high performing women back

07:26 Moving from seeking validation to stating your position

09:34 A real example of repositioning as a decision maker

11:34 Four strategies for precise communication

14:03 Confidence, kindness, and the fear of being too much

15:19 Executive presence on Zoom versus in the room

16:46 The first shift for women early in their career

19:47 The future of leadership communication

23:08 Power round with Dr. Rita Renee

25:47 How to connect with Dr. Rita Renee

Connect with Dr. Rita Renee

Website: https://drritarenee.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drritarenee/

Connect with Together Digital

Website: https://togetherindigital.com

Podcast: https://togetherindigital.com/podcast

Support the show

Why your nervous system, not your willpower, decides how you lead

Your brain decides whether to trust someone in about three seconds, long before you have said a word. Dr. Zakia Ghafari says that same wiring is running the show every time you walk into a hard meeting, and most leaders have no idea they are fighting their own nervous system instead of leading. This episode breaks down the actual neuroscience of leadership behind that reaction, in plain, useful terms.

For women in leadership especially, that fight shows up as over preparing, over explaining, and quietly burning out while everything on paper looks fine. That is exactly the kind of pattern this women leadership podcast exists to name out loud. Zakia has spent twenty five years as a geriatric pharmacist watching this pattern play out in real time, and she built a framework to interrupt it before it becomes a full shutdown.

Dr. Zakia Ghafari is a pharmacist, speaker, and thought leader who helps individuals and organizations create sustainable change without burnout. Drawing on neuroscience and behavioral design, she developed the Wired to Lead framework, which reframes resistance as a clarity problem instead of a motivation problem. She joins Amy Vaughan for a conversation about emotional intelligence, self regulation, and why your humanity, not your hustle, is your greatest leadership asset.

Key Takeaways

• Your brain decides within three to four seconds whether it trusts someone, long before it registers what they are actually saying.
• The same alarm system that fires when you face real danger also fires in a stressful meeting, which is why preparation alone does not calm a racing heart.
• Willpower is not the reason New Year's resolutions fail, your brain reads any change in routine as a risk until a new habit becomes familiar.
• Naming an emotion out loud, even silently to yourself, brings your logical brain back online within two to three seconds.
• Real influence means giving someone else enough room to disagree with you and staying okay with it.
• Dr. Zakia Ghafari said, 'Discipline cannot override a nervous system that always feels like it's under threat.'
• Dr. Zakia Ghafari said, 'You're not doing it wrong. It's not a character flaw. It's just biology.'

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and introducing Dr. Zakia Ghafari

01:23 Why emotional intelligence beats artificial intelligence

06:09 What emotional intelligence actually is, and the biggest misconception

08:19 The gut brain connection and where intuition comes from

08:50 The lion in the room, how your brain confuses a meeting with real danger

10:59 Why your brain is wired for prediction, not change

13:14 The Wired to Lead framework and the WIRE method

23:09 How burnout shows up first as quiet emotional withdrawal

26:30 Toxic wellness culture and the shame of not keeping up

30:05 The kinds of wiring behind approval, connection, and worth

32:36 How to self regulate in two to three seconds

40:16 Why women feel they have to prove themselves ten times over

46:10 Building systems that make change inevitable

54:39 Power round, rapid fire questions with Dr. Zakia Ghafari

Connect with Dr. Zakia Ghafari

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zakiaghafari/

Instagram: @DrZakiyyahSpeaks

Support the show

The warning sign almost nobody catches is not exhaustion. It is guilt.

What if the thing burning you out is not your inbox, your clients, or your calendar? What if the call is coming from inside the house? This conversation went somewhere most burnout talks never go, and I am still thinking about it.

Burnout prevention is not a luxury topic for women in digital. It is survival. So many of us are high functioning, holding it together on camera and in meetings while our shoulders creep up to our ears. Marian knows that pattern from the inside, and she shares the practical strategies that helped her build what she calls a depression proof life.

Marian Mills is a mental wellness speaker, award winning voice artist, Army veteran, former social worker, and founder of Depression Proof Your Life. After burnout pushed her out of the career she loved, she built the Depression Proof Method, a practical approach to everyday mental resilience for professionals, women in leadership, and female entrepreneurs online.

Key Takeaways

Guilt about resting is one of the earliest and most overlooked signs of burnout among professional women in digital.

People do not burn out because they stop caring; they burn out because they care so deeply they forget to care for themselves.

Awareness is the foundation of burnout prevention, from tense shoulders to stress headaches to emotional numbness.

Asking for help is a muscle, and real strength is knowing when to reach out, not handling everything alone.

A simple pause between meetings, calls, and tasks can reset your nervous system before stress compounds.

Marian Mills said, 'People don't get burned out because they don't care. They actually burn out because they care so deeply and they end up forgetting to take care of themselves.'

Marian Mills said, 'I used to think that strength meant handling it all on my own. I learned that the real strength is actually knowing when to reach out.'

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome and meet Marian Mills

01:50 From social work to voiceover to Depression Proof Your Life

05:06 The burnout patterns professional women share

08:14 Rest is part of getting stronger

08:35 The Depression Proof Method in practice

14:04 Military discipline, recovery, and vulnerability

15:16 Ask, Give, Grow and learning to ask for help

23:25 Your voice, your energy, and your mental wellness

26:58 Protecting your energy in emotionally demanding work

32:20 Auditions, interviews, and positive self talk

36:26 Early warning signs: numbness, guilt, irritability, resentment

41:14 The first thing to do when burnout is on the horizon

46:40 Protecting your mental health in the year ahead

50:25 Power Round

55:26 How to connect with Marian Mills

Connect with Marian Mills

Website: https://www.depression-prooflife.com

Voiceover: https://www.marianmillsvoice.com

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/company/depression-proof-your-life

Email: info@depression-proof-life.com

Support the show

What happens when a digital strategist stops fighting reality and starts leading from it.

There are conversations that feel like a strategy session and a therapy session at the same time. This one was both. Mary Brodie came into the Power Lounge and did something rare. She made acceptance sound like the most powerful leadership move you can make.

If you work in digital, lead a team, or run your own business, you know the pressure to chase the aspirational audience, the perfect product, the frictionless experience. Mary has spent over 20 years helping companies stop chasing and start seeing. And what she has found is that the women in digital who thrive are the ones who learn to work with what is, not just what they wish were true.

Mary Brodie is the Founder and Digital Experience Strategist at Gearmark, a consultancy she has built over two decades across apps, websites, content strategy, lead generation, and full digital experience design. She holds a BA and MA from Simmons College, a certificate from MIT, and an Executive Master's in Corporate Communications from IE University in Madrid. She is currently pursuing her doctorate at Case Western Reserve University, where her research explores how B2B buying teams build relationships with supplier salespeople.

Key Takeaways

Acceptance is not passive. It is the foundation of every smart business decision, from knowing your real customers to building a team that actually trusts each other.

Your digital experience reflects your internal experience. If your employees are disengaged, that bleeds into every customer touchpoint, every chatbot, every support call.

Women in digital and female entrepreneurs online often chase aspirational audiences instead of maximizing the ones they already have. The brands that win know exactly who their customer is and own it.

AI is a tool, not a replacement. Using it well means knowing what question you are actually trying to answer and what data you are feeding it.

The most underrated skill in women leadership and digital marketing for women is listening. Not the performative kind. The kind where you feel something shift in the room.

Mary Brodie said, "Accept yourself and make sure that you're happy with what you're doing and what your output is. Not your perfect foot. Your best foot."

Mary Brodie said, "Once you accept that we don't all share the same values, the world becomes a very different place. And it's not a scary place. It's just a different place. And a lot of the world becomes a lot clearer."

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to the Power Lounge.

01:51 Twenty years of entrepreneurship. What keeps Mary going.

04:26 Why Mary kept going back to school, MIT, Simmons, Madrid.

07:37 Being the only American in the room. What that taught her.

09:41 Customer experience and employee experience are the same problem.

13:10 How to know if your company actually has a digital experience.

16:33 AI and digital strategy. Tool or replacement.

21:00 What gets in the way of leaders communicating their vision clearly.

26:54 What a broken internal experience is costing your organization right now.

31:08 The Art of Acceptance. What it means as a leadership practice.

40:04 What Mary looks for before any strategy or deliverable.

41:19 One shift for every woman in the audience.

42:37 Power Round. Rapid fire with Mary Brodie.

Connect with Mary Brodie

Email: mfbrodie@gearmark.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marybrodie

Website: gearmark.com

Support the show

Two sisters from rural Appalachia wrote the playbook they wish they had.

What does it actually take for a woman to lead herself forward when no one handed her a roadmap? That question sits at the heart of this conversation, and the answer is more honest, more practical, and more urgent than most career advice you have heard.

Self leadership is not a title you earn or a milestone you reach. It is a daily practice, and for women navigating careers that were not designed with them in mind, it may be the most important skill no one ever taught them. This episode of The Power Lounge is for every woman who has ever felt stuck, invisible, or like she was playing by rules she was never given.

Kelly Mooney is a three-time author, speaker, gender equity advocate, and founder of Equipt Women. She spent over two decades leading the nation's largest independent digital agency, became Chief Experience Officer of North America at IBM, and has served on three public company boards. Her sister and co-founder Katy Mooney is a certified leadership and performance coach whose clients include Walmart, Meta, and Lululemon. Together they are the co-authors of UP! The Playbook for Every Woman on the Rise, available June 2nd.

Key Takeaways

Self leadership has to come before everything else because when you change the way you think about yourself and what you want, every choice that follows becomes different.

Women often wait for permission to pursue something bigger, ask for more, or take up space. A big part of moving forward is writing yourself that permission slip.

Your career is a series of choices, and not choosing is also a choice. Recognizing that truth, even when the system is not working in your favor, is where your power starts coming back.

Visibility with senior leaders is not about politics. It is strategy. Research shows that for every sponsor advocating for you behind closed doors, your chances of promotion increase by 10 percent.

There is no one path and no one pace. Careers span 40 to 50 years, which means you cannot have your foot on the pedal all the time. The only shoulds that matter are the ones you decide for yourself.

Kelly Mooney said, "I want her to know that she has more power within her than she realizes to create the career and life she desires."

Host Amy Vaughn said, "Self leadership is not a title you earn. It is a practice that you choose."

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to The Power Lounge

01:12 Introducing Kelly and Katy Mooney

02:43 Growing up as two of ten kids in rural Appalachia

05:05 The arc of UP and why self leadership comes first

07:59 What coaching reveals about women who feel stuck or invisible

09:31 Owning your choices even when the system is broken

15:18 Finding your fit. The four dimensions framework

21:57 Self leadership in the middle of a big transition

24:47 Tuning into head, heart, and gut as centers of intelligence

33:23 Getting in the game and the unwritten rules of the workplace

39:14 No shoulds. Staying on your own mat and practicing non-comparison

47:08 Power round. The hardest rule to learn and what moving up means now

52:31 Audience Q and A. Keeping entrepreneurial momentum while working a 9 to 5

Connect with Kelly and Katy

Book: https://equiptwomen.com/up

Website: https://equiptwomen.com

Newsletter: https://equiptwomen.com/get-equipt

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

Together Digital: https://togetherindigital.com

Support the show