Inspiring Women with Laurie McGraw

Women are great savers, but 70% of their money sits in cash, while it has to last longer because women live longer. Dr. Sylvia Kwan has built her career closing that gap. Dr. Sylvia Kwan joins Laurie McGraw on Inspiring Women for a conversation about money, power, and why the financial industry has been quietly failing women for decades. Sylvia is the CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Ellevest, a women-founded, women-led investment advisory firm dedicated to closing the gender wealth gap. The firm has grown to 3 million members and manages over $1 billion in assets. Her path was not obvious. She studied applied mathematics and computer science at Brown University, planning a career in technology, before a final rotation in a quantitative investment group changed everything. She went on to earn a PhD in engineering-economic systems at Stanford, where her dissertation on how social interaction and investor behavior shape markets became one of the earliest works in behavioral finance. As Sylvia and Laurie discovered on the episode, they both share roots in Providence. Sylvia took the reins as sole CEO after succeeding Ellevest founder Sallie Krawcheck, and this episode goes deep on what she has built and where the industry is heading. She walks through the first-of-its-kind gender-aware investing algorithm she created, built on the real data of women's lives: salaries that peak roughly 15 years earlier than men's, career breaks, and longer lifespans. She also makes the case for "wealthcare," her term for shifting financial services away from the assumption that more is always better and toward quality of life, peace of mind, and goals that actually matter to a client. Plus the strategic decision to move Ellevest's digital investing business to Betterment so the firm could focus on private wealth and financial planning, and how she is preparing women for the $124 trillion great wealth transfer now underway. TOPICS COVERED - Why 70% of women's portfolios sit in cash and what it costs them - The gender wealth gap and why women are not set up for financial success the way men are - Building the first gender-aware investing algorithm - Why women's salaries peak 15 years earlier and why career breaks cost far more than lost salary - "Wealthcare" and measuring success by quality of life, not just returns - The $124 trillion great wealth transfer and who is prepared for it - Why 86% of widows fire their financial advisor within a year - Leading Ellevest through a major leadership transition - Investing for both returns and impact - Her one piece of advice for women: don't wait, and don't delegate Dr. Sylvia Kwan's advice to every woman watching: don't wait to claim your financial power, and don't fully delegate it. Get engaged, stay informed, and know what your money is doing. Inspiring Women is hosted by Laurie McGraw, spotlighting the women leaders shaping business, healthcare, and beyond.

Dr. Uché Blackstock spent almost a decade as an associate professor at NYU School of Medicine. From the outside she looked happy and successful — inside, she had never felt so invisible, undervalued, and underappreciated. So she left. When she wrote her resignation op-ed on why Black faculty leave academic medicine, she was sobbing — grieving the career she wished she could have had. That piece became lightning in a bottle, followed by her instant New York Times bestselling book, Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine. In this Inspiring Women conversation, host Laurie McGraw sits down with the founder of Advancing Health Equity to talk about the moment the window on health equity swung wide open in 2020 — and what happens now that it's closing. They get honest about the difference between performative statements and real systemic change, why the work is being renamed and re-embedded rather than erased, and why some disparities — like maternal health — are still getting worse. She breaks down the strategic shift her own organization had to make when the inbound stopped overnight: from trainings to restructuring, from the moral case to the ROI case, from many projects to a few high-value partnerships. And she goes somewhere most leadership conversations don't — burnout, hiring a mindset coach, and picking up the violin again for the first time since she was 18. Hosted by Laurie McGraw. IN THIS EPISODE: - Why she left academic medicine — "I never felt so invisible" - The op-ed that changed everything — and the messages still arriving 6 years later - Performative statements vs. real systemic change after 2020 - Why the work is being renamed, not erased — and why she kept her org's name - The leaky pipeline myth — it's a systemic problem, not a pipeline problem - Finding the open windows before they close - The business case for health equity: ROI, clinical trial diversity, the bottom line - Rebuilding her organization when inbound stopped overnight - Leading through burnout — fewer, higher-value partnerships - Protecting your wellbeing as a purpose-driven founder Full episode on Inspiring Women. Link in comments. #InspiringWomen #UcheBlackstock #HealthEquity #Leadership #WomenInMedicine #Legacy

Michellene Davis began her career as a trial litigator and public defender in Newark, where she kept arguing the same point to juries: if her client had had access to healthcare, none of them would be in that courtroom. That insight has shaped a career spanning law, government, and now national health equity. In this episode of Inspiring Women, host Laurie McGraw sits down with Michellene Davis, Esq., President and CEO of National Medical Fellowships (NMF). Founded in 1946, NMF is one of America's oldest diversity organizations and works to close the physician shortage by building a more representative healthcare workforce. ABOUT MICHELLENE DAVIS Michellene describes her career as "chutes and ladders," but the through line is consistent: integrity, systems thinking, and a refusal to set policy through a privileged lens. Her path includes: - Trial litigator and public defender in Newark, New Jersey - Senior policy advisor in the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services - Youngest CEO of the New Jersey State Lottery, a $2.4 billion entity and one of the state's largest revenue producers - First African American and only the second woman to serve as New Jersey State Treasurer, overseeing a multi-billion dollar budget and pension portfolio - First African American to serve as Chief Policy Counsel to the Governor - Co-author of "Changing Missions, Changing Lives" (ForbesBooks, 2020) WHAT NMF DOES Over its history, NMF has awarded more than $50 million to over 35,000 alumni, training not only physicians but physician leaders who reflect the communities they serve. Michellene explains why this is a problem that touches everyone, not just under-resourced communities: a six-month wait to see a specialist is becoming the norm, with roughly one physician for every 1,000 people in LA County and one for every 3,000 in parts of Mississippi and Georgia. She also unpacks the "curb cut effect" and the research showing that diverse clinical teams produce better outcomes for every patient. A PERSONAL CONVERSATION ON CAREGIVING The conversation then turns personal. Michellene opens up about caring for her mother through advanced Alzheimer's for the past 13 years, the disproportionate caregiving burden carried by women leaders, and the friends she has lost to that invisible weight. She closes with the question she believes every high-achieving woman should sit with: when you are lowered into the ground, what do you want to have truly done? A wide-ranging conversation on systems change, health equity, leadership, and legacy. IN THIS EPISODE - The patient the system failed - Why "universal healthcare" kept appearing in her courtroom arguments - The accidental path into government leadership - Becoming the youngest CEO of the NJ State Lottery - First African American and second woman NJ State Treasurer - Holding the purse vs. deciding where to place the coins - Inside NMF and the fight against the physician shortage - The curb cut effect and why representation improves outcomes - 13 years of caregiving and what it taught her about leadership - The caregiving burden on women, and the friends she lost - Her advice on legacy for mid-career women leaders Hosted by Laurie McGraw, where she has the best world women leaders every week and shares their stories and insights!

Dr. Amber Michelle Hill spent 14 years inside medical research — as a neuroscientist, in the lab, on the preclinical side, and patient-facing — before she discovered the real reason 90% of clinical trials fail. And it has almost nothing to do with the science. In this Inspiring Women conversation, host Laurie McGraw sits down with the founder and CEO of Research Grid (R.grid), the London-based, VC-backed company she built to take the administrative burden out of clinical trials, speed them up, and make them more diverse and representative of the people the medicines are meant to serve. Research Grid didn't start as Research Grid. It grew out of Movement for Hope, a nonprofit Amber founded during her academic years that brought researchers, artists, and patient advocates together to raise awareness for neurological conditions. When COVID shut the events down and investors passed on the idea, she repurposed the technology — and the hard-won community relationships behind it — into two AI products: Inclusive, which automates everything that happens before a trial starts and expands access to underrepresented patients, and Trial Engine, which automates the back office of the trial itself. Today that network spans 99,000+ communities, 400 million members across 157 countries, and 2,000 health indications — all built by hand, over years, with no bought data, while the company stayed stealth for four years before launching in 2023. Amber breaks down why a single medicine takes 10 to 14 years to go from bench to bedside, why $400 million per trial is burned on admin alone, and how women were once excluded from drug testing entirely. Then she gets brutally honest about raising money as a woman of color in a world where less than 2% of funding reaches female founders — including the investor-scoring matrix she built to decide who's even worth her time. And through all of it, she stays an artist: every painting in her home, including the giant acrylic pour behind her, is her own. WHAT WE COVER: - The art-and-science mind behind the company — and why painting quiets her thinking - 14 years as an end-to-end researcher, and how Movement for Hope became Research Grid - Why 90% of clinical trials fail — and why it's an admin problem, not a science one - The hidden cost of research: $400M per trial and 28,000 hours per person on admin - Why 84% of trials still don't reach the people who need them in time - How women were excluded from drug trials, and the fight to diversify research - Building a 400-million-member network the hard way, with no bought data - How AI took a six-month site feasibility process down to minutes - The truth about raising capital when you're "different from the person across the table" - How she scores and filters investors instead of chasing them - Repositioning to seed and landing in the top 1% of seed-stage companies globally - Her golden rule for founders: never assume common sense GUEST: Dr. Amber Michelle Hill, Founder & CEO, Research Grid (R.grid) HOST: Laurie McGraw ABOUT INSPIRING WOMEN: Inspiring Women with Laurie McGraw features candid conversations with the women leaders, founders, and changemakers reshaping their industries. 🔔 Subscribe for more Inspiring Women conversations. 💬 What hit hardest for you? Tell us in the comments. #InspiringWomen #FemaleFounders #ClinicalTrials #AIinHealthcare #WomenInTech #StartupFunding #DrAmberHill #ResearchGrid

What if the biggest health crisis in America is one almost no one is being treated for? In this episode of Inspiring Women, host Laurie McGraw sits down with Alexandra Drane, co-founder and CEO of ARCHANGELS, recorded at the WBL conference. Alexandra has spent her career proving a simple, radical idea: when life goes wrong, health goes wrong. After gathering more than one billion data points at her former company, Eliza Corporation, she identified what she calls the unmentionables: caregiver stress, financial stress, relationship stress, and workplace stress. Her conclusion was that these are among the biggest diseases in the United States, and that at the center of all of them sits the unpaid caregiver. Today, more than 40 percent of adults are unpaid caregivers, and between 40 and 50 percent of them are men. Drawing on both the data and her own experience caring for her sister-in-law, who died of glioblastoma at 32, Alexandra makes the case for why caregiving must be recognized, measured, and celebrated. IN THIS EPISODE: - How unpaid caregiving is really defined, and the many roles people never recognize as caregiving, from installing grab bars to handling finances and navigating benefits - Why 40 to 50 percent of caregivers are men, and why so many never see themselves in the role - How gathering over a billion data points at Eliza Corporation led her to the unmentionables - Why she insists on broadening the definition of health to include life - The personal loss that shaped her mission, and the founding of Engage with Grace - Why she uses the word intensity instead of burden, and what that reframe makes possible - The Caregiver Intensity Index, and what it means to be in the clear, yellow, or red - Why being in the red means a 90 percent risk of a mental health impact, a 50 percent drop in productivity, and four times the cost - How the share of caregivers in the red tripled from 8 percent before COVID and never came back down - The sandwich generation, the panini, and the club sandwich, and why double-duty caregivers face double the intensity - Overtreatment, the rising cost of care, and what it really means for the great wealth transfer - The growing gap between how many people will need care and how few are available to give it - The Care Badge, built in partnership with Joint Commission, and why a career break was never a gap, it was a job - The skills caregivers build, and why they are exactly the people employers should be hiring - Grief, the rogue waves that keep coming, and the phrase that drives her: memento mori Alexandra Drane is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of ARCHANGELS, a women-owned public benefit corporation supporting unpaid caregivers across all 50 states. She previously co-founded Eliza Corporation and Engage with Grace, among other companies. Inspiring Women is a weekly podcast about advancing women to healthcare leadership and keeping them there. Women make up 70 percent of the healthcare workforce but hold just 20 percent of the C-suite. Each week, Laurie bridges that gap through conversations with the women rewriting healthcare's leadership playbook. Subscribe for new episodes, and share this one with a caregiver in your life. #InspiringWomen #Caregiving #UnpaidCaregivers #ARCHANGELS #WomenInLeadership #Healthcare #CaregiverSupport #AlexandraDrane