Christy Turlington Burns
Maternal Health Advocate & Founder of the Non-Profit Organization Every Mother Counts

“The US is the only industrialized country to have a rising mortality rate and the number of women who lose their lives giving birth here has nearly doubled over the last 25 years.

EMC started out by making my film, No Woman, No Cry, and we have continued embracing film as a medium. We think human storytelling and the people that are making a difference on the frontlines are so important. These stories in our films really allow people to connect and to relate and bring us closer together in our experiences.”

– Christy

Anine Bing
Founder & Chief Creative Officer of ANINE BING

“Ever since I was a little girl I knew I wanted to do it all, I didn’t want to choose. I wanted to be a mother, I wanted to be a business woman and I wanted to create something big.”

– Anine

Nyakio Grieco
Founder of Relevant Skin and Co-Founder of Thirteen Lune

“I’m very grateful for those moments of resilience and perseverance because it’s all part of the process. What I do think is important, especially within beauty, is taking up space and building more generational wealth. And it is important that it starts at the top, that the people writing the checks are committed to making this world more inclusive and equitable. That’s why I do what I do now.”

– Nyakio

Cobie Smulders
Actress

“I am learning that, in life, it is okay to travel in darkness, not knowing what your next move is. I don’t allow the stress of the unknown to affect my health, and I listen to my body when it sends me distress signals. I wish that we, as women, spent as much time on the well-being of our insides as we do with our looks on the outside.”

– Cobie

Eve Rodsky
Author of the New York Times bestselling book, “Fair Play” and national bestseller “Find Your Unicorn Space”. Activist on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.

“Creativity is not optional, it’s essential. Reclaim your permission to be unavailable. Reclaim the interests that makes you uniquely you. Make the pursuit of an authentic life story your living legacy. Only one thing can prevent you from burnout, across your life time as a woman; being consistently interested in your own life. That’s the only antidote.”

– Eve

Mariel Hemingway
Actor, Writer, Activist, Advocate & Entrepreneur

“When we talk honestly and courageously about the stories that we know about … it opens doors, and it enables people to feel free to heal themselves, and also share that information with other people.”

– Mariel

TyLynn Nguyen
Designer & Fashion Entrepreneur

“I believe roadblocks are a redirection to the bigger purpose. Whenever we go through something difficult in life, it’s not to make us feel less than, or to look down at ourselves. These roadblocks, heartbreaks, disappointments — all things I’ve gone through — have gotten me to this moment today. I needed challenges to become who I am today.”

– TyLynn

Marie-Louise Scio
CEO & Creative Director of Pellicano Hotels and Issimo

“For me luxury is obviously time, but it’s about discovery, enriching yourself, getting a smile on your face, those things are luxuries in life, small or bigger, but then again it’s always composed of many different parts.”

– Marie-Louise

Nora Zehetner
Actress

“What does it even mean ‘the train is leaving’? Who decided the train and which train we are supposed to be on? These goals that we think we have, all these milestones ahead, were they things we actually ever chose or are they things that we grew up with, the idea of what we are supposed to accomplish or be a part of?”

– Nora

Lauren Gallo
Global Head of Social Media and Digital Brand of Nike Women

“There is no prescriptive way; even if you don’t know about a particular industry, but you’re looking to get in to that type of industry, it’s possible.”

– Lauren

Ara Katz
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Seed

“If you work within a framework where you believe that there’s already guidelines — and you work from the idea that those guidelines already exist — you’ll never really create new and interesting innovation.”

– Ara

Denise Vasi
Founder of Maed

“No one is going to dream your dream. No one is going to dream as big as you can for yourself. Why limit your dream? Dream as big as you possibly can, and go into these offices, act like a boss, and ask for what you want.”

– Denise

Fara Taylor
Entertainment Veteran and Former Head of Marketing of Archewell

“If you are looking at the essence of creativity as novelty, invention, discovery and journey, nothing in my life has had greater impact on my self discovery than becoming a mother. Motherhood is not incompatible with a creative life.”

– Fara

Jaclyn Johnson
Serial Entrepreneur, Founder of Create & Cultivate

“I think the lesson is just focus on your business, keep on building, build in quiet, and then sell with a bang. That’s what we did. Don’t focus on the shiny headlines. We all know where that ends up.”

– Jaclyn

Monica Corcoran Harel 
Journalist, Best-Selling Author, Screenwriter, and Founder of Pretty Ripe, a multimedia platform for women with experience.

“I have no shame in aging. I’m really at the best point in my life. I almost feel like I’m back in my 20s, and I feel like midlife could be looked at that way. Women have been fed the story of aging is the end, but it’s really an exciting beginning for so many women. It’s just a matter of having the information you need and sometimes course correcting a little.”

– Monica

Clare Vivier
Designer

“I wanted to start giving back. I really felt the sister connection with Christy. The first EMC X Clare V collaboration was a tote bag that says, “Mama Je t’ Aime.” It launched on Mothers Day a few years back.”

– Claire

Sarah Treem
Television Writer, Producer, Playwright & Showrunner for the TV Series “The Affair”

“Good writing comes from fear. What do you fear the most?”

– Sarah

Erin Falconer
Editor, Podcast Host, Author, Digital Entrepreneur

“It is a really magical thing that, the more curious you become about yourself, the more curious you then become about those that you are working with and sharing a life with — whether that is personally or professionally. When you start to unlock that kind of 360 degree curiosity, that is where real creativity synergies start to happen.”

– Erin

Megan Alida Strachan 
Founder, CEO & Creative Director of Dorsey Official

“When challenging things happen in the world we tell them to look for the helpers. In business, I would tell you to look for the believers.“

– Megan

Natalia Bonifacci
Model

“I always had my creative expression very down, but for a long time I felt I didn’t have the tools to sustain it which often times I think is confidence and fearlessness. Becoming a mother gave me the confidence and the fearlessness I needed and I started feeling like the critical voices of others didn’t apply to me any longer. I felt so confident in my role as a mother and in my instinctual approach handling my new responsibilities that it rubbed off on everything else. I started to fully believe in myself and attacked life, creativity and work fearlessly, with a new clarity that created a fundament for structure in my life.”

– Natalia

Ariel Kaye
Founder & CEO of Parachute home

“I’ve learned to be comfortable with discomfort, understanding that tough times are temporary and an opportunity to grow. I’m very solution-oriented, so I know that shifting my energy when times are tough help me tremendously. I try to be kind to myself by giving myself time to feel.”

– Ariel

Sarah Heyward
Television & Film Writer

“(Lena Dunham told me), ‘I read your short story, we got picked up to series, you can be our staff writer!’ … it was the luckiest, craziest — it’s not very typical that a short story gets you a job like that.”

– Sarah on the serendipitous way she got the job writing for Girls

Deb Schoeneman
Television & Film Writer

“(I told this person I met at a baby shower) ‘I have a Gossip Girls script, but nobody will read it!’ And she was like, ‘Well, I’ll read it. I’m the showrunner of 90210. And I’m specifically looking for staff writers.’ … And they hired me off of my Gossip Girls script.”

– Deb on how she got her first big writing job for TV

Jessie De Lowe
Manifestation Coach, Art Therapist, Certified Yoga Instructor & Co-Founder of “How You Glow”

“The only way to transcend into growth is to acknowledge. If we don’t know where we are, we can’t determine where we want to go. We have to look honestly at ourselves and our lives, and take responsibly for the life we have created. I mean that in the most positive way. Give yourself credit.”

– Jessie

Pippa Vosper
Writer, Presenter & Brand Consultant

“Most of us will have been challenged in some way; it’s the empathy and understanding that comes from these challenges that connects us.”

– Pippa

Shelley Armistead
Partner & Chief Operating Officer of The Gjelina Group

“For me, creative leadership is the ability to be as adaptable as possible to all of the different personality types that we have, and all of their own individual goals, while still keeping the company’s goal going down the same track.”

– Shelley

Annika Meller
Chief Operations Officer & Co-Founder of ANINE BING

“Teaming up with people that are very different from you — but where you share a certain belief and you find these commonalities that you can build on — really is what has made the change in the way I look at my work life.”

– Annika

Sophie Monet & Audrey Okulick
Fashion Entrepreneur Sisters

“Take a leap, trust your intuition, start your own business. If that’s what you really want, it’s worth the risk. Nothing is final – you can always do something else.”

– Audrey

Sophia Moreno-Bunge
Artist, Floral Designer & Founder

“I make an effort to talk about my queerness on social media. I’m gay, and I love telling people that because I think it’s important to always be open, and normalize it. While it is so accepted so many places in the world, at this point, it’s not the case everywhere; there might be one person that’s still in the closet somewhere who sees something you post, and connects to it. It’s so important to have all sorts of different and varying types of queer role models to look up to.”

– Sophia

Janessea Leoné
Fashion Designer & Founder

“Social media is just a window to this universe that we’re creating … We’re spending time, effort, and all of our creative resources to build a brand, to build a business, a lifestyle, and an ideal. And social media is just a window into that; a little glimpse. So, while it’s strategic, it’s the overflow of this bigger foundation of what we’re building. A lot of people that are starting out, that I have come across, spend so much effort on the social media portion of it without the foundation and the substance. And there is going to be a disconnect there.”

– Janessa

Alex Noiret
Model, Lifestyle Blogger, Creative Director & Artist

“It’s taken me ten years to get to this place where I am now, personally and professionally. In my professional life, there’s been many times when I felt I had to change who I was. To know now, for myself, that I didn’t have to change to get to where I am makes me feel a sense of joy, pride, and fulfillment that I love to share with others through social media.”

– Alex

Marissa Ribisi
Actress

“Complaining is a really bad habit, get out of that habit, because then you’re just going to see life through negativity, you have to see the good in things. You have appreciation at the top, it’s a scale and at the bottom is critical. You don’t want to live at the bottom, it’s just too far towards death.”

– Marissa

Cerise Hallam Larkin
Producer

“When I realized that I wanted to do this job, I made it my mission to learn every single thing that everyone could do, and I still do it, to this day. Every production I do, I’m learning, I’m learning, I’m learning.”

– Cerise

Marina Zenovich
Filmmaker

“I once made a short film about Julian Schnabel, and he talked about found objects. He made some of his art with found objects, his Plate Paintings. I feel like when you’re making a documentary, it’s almost like you have found objects. You have the interviews you have. How people were that one day when they talked to you. You have footage, archive you’re working with. Hopefully, you have enough, and it resonates.”

– Marina

Catherine Hardwicke
Filmmaker

“You just can’t take ‘no’ as an answer from anybody, and you’ve got to be willing to do it yourself; you’ve got to know how to do everything yourself.”

– Catherine

Kay Montano
Makeup artist & creator of ‘The space in between’

“It takes a long time to become who you really are.”

– Kay

Caroline Ingebom
Founder & CEO of LEAP

“I think we need communities where we can be truly seen,heard and recognized. As humans we have much more in common than not.”

– Caroline

Ondine Cohane
Author & Editor

“Focus on what gives you energy. Focus on the people and places that are important to you.”

– Ondine

Dr. Sherry A. Ross
OBGYN, Author & Health expert

“My goal is to shine a bright light,change the old narrative,and empower women to take control of their bodies for healthier and happier lives.”

– Dr. Ross

Ahlem Platt
Founder of Ahlem Eyewear

“I wanted to be a war journalist. There is this sense of humanity that is burning inside of me, I always wanted to be closer to the human condition.”

– Ahlem

Stella Simona
Designer, Blogger & Creative Director

“Our jewelry journeys involve our personal walks with ourselves, our identities, growing into our confidence. With each year, as our business grew, we grew; there was a parallel … In wearing Amarilo (Jewelry) and Haati Chai (Jewelry), we want you to embrace who you are as a woman, too.”

– Stella