Getting Rich Together

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

Women's sports investing is one of the biggest opportunities in the market right now, and Lorine Pendleton has been calling it for years. Host Syama Bunten sits down with Lorine Pendleton, founder of 125 Ventures, a venture capital fund at the intersection of sports, media, entertainment, and technology. She grew up in Harlem, earned her degree at Brown, went to law school at night while working in entertainment, and eventually negotiated the very first hip hop arena tour at a time when promoters refused to book rap artists in large venues. Building wealth as a woman, she learned early, starts with the basics. Her father came from nothing, bought six multifamily homes, and talked about money openly at the dinner table. That foundation shaped everything that followed. Save consistently. Live below your means. Understand equity. Her entry into angel investing for women came through a CNN segment that stopped her cold. She learned that less than 1% of venture funding reached Black founders and less than 2% reached women. She found Pipeline Angels, wrote her first check, and never looked back. The Rising America funds she co-raised went on to become some of Portfolia's best performers, with investments like Canela Media returning 50x. What sets Lorine apart is her view of women's sports growth as a structural opportunity, not a social cause. The attendance numbers, media rights deals, and a 400% WNBA salary increase backed by a Nobel Prize-winning economist make the case plainly. Startup equity explained through her lens means understanding where value lives before everyone else catches on. If this conversation has you thinking bigger about where to put your money and your attention, join us at the Wealth Catalyst Summit in New York on May 14. Lorine will be on stage, and this is exactly the kind of conversation that will continue there. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Introduction to Lorine Pendleton and 125 Ventures 03:03 Growing Up in Harlem: Early Money Lessons and Financial Foundations 11:30 Choosing Passion Over Pay: Breaking Into Entertainment Law 13:00 Negotiating the First Hip Hop Arena Tour 20:13 Understanding Startup Equity and Early Tech Exits 25:54 The CNN Moment That Sparked Her Angel Investing Journey 32:00 Why Women's Sports Is the Biggest Investment Opportunity Right Now 34:58 The Technology Infrastructure Behind Women's Sports Growth 39:03 WNBA Salaries, Valuations, and the Data That Proves the Opportunity 41:39 How to Connect with Lorine Pendleton and 125 Ventures 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