Badass Women in Business

Maria Onesto Moran: Being Where Your Feet Are and Building a Values-Driven Business

Send us a textMaria Onesto Moran, founder and CEO of Green Home Experts, joins the Badass Women in Business podcast to share the real story of building a sustainable, values-driven company through recession, pivots, leadership challenges, and motherhood.Maria started Green Home Experts in 2007 as a green building supply showroom just before the housing market crashed. What followed was not failure, but evolution. Today, Green Home Experts is a WBE-certified energy efficiency logistics and fulfillment company serving utilities and program implementers across the Midwest.In this episode, Maria talks about mindfulness as a leadership practice, trusting your gut without a business degree, learning through mistakes, and building a strong company culture rooted in integrity, flexibility, and excellence. This is an honest conversation about entrepreneurship without the highlight reel.Key Topics Discussed • Mindfulness and the mantra of being where your feet are • Starting a business right before the Great Recession • Pivoting from retail to warehousing and logistics • Building Green Home Experts into an energy efficiency partner for utilities • Pick and pack, product distribution, and kitting services explained • Workforce development and inclusive hiring practices • Leadership lessons learned by doing every job first • Balancing business ownership and motherhood • Trusting your gut and learning through failure • Creating a values-driven company culture • Setting expectations without micromanaging • Redefining success beyond revenue and growthAbout the GuestMaria Onesto Moran is the founder and CEO of Green Home Experts, a WBE-certified energy efficiency logistics company based in the Chicagoland area. Green Home Experts supports high-performing energy efficiency programs for utilities and implementers throughout the Midwest through pick and pack, product distribution, and kitting services.Maria holds a degree in Sociology from DePaul University and has nearly two decades of experience in sustainability, green building, and energy efficiency. She is known for building a people-first workplace rooted in integrity, versatility, and excellence. Maria is married to her high school sweetheart and is raising three eco-fabulous sons.Connect with Maria - Website: https://ghexperts.com - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-onesto-moran-b68a756/--- Subscribe and ReviewIf you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

Molly McCartan: Why Working Moms Are Leaving and What It Says About Leadership

Send us a textMolly McCartan, Founder and CEO of The Mom Pact, joins Aggie and Cristy for a direct conversation about why nearly half of working moms are leaving the workforce and why this is not a motivation or confidence issue.This episode looks at leadership, incentives, and systems that were never built to support real life transitions. Maternity leave, flexibility, childcare, career gaps, and return to work are not fringe topics. They are core business and leadership decisions with long term consequences.If companies care about talent, retention, and performance, this conversation makes one thing clear. The problem is not working moms. The problem is how work is designed.In this episode, we unpack:Why high performing women exit the workforce after becoming mothersWhat the 44 percent statistic actually reveals about leadership failureWhy flexibility outperforms salary increases in retentionThe cost of rigid work structures on productivity and trustWhy career gaps should be viewed as capability, not riskWhat most companies misunderstand about maternity leave and reintegrationWhy the system pushes women out instead of pulling them back inHow community and strategy rebuild confidence after time awayWhat leadership looks like when policy has not caught up to realityCore idea:Working moms are not opting out. They are being pushed out by inflexible systems.About the GuestMolly McCartan is the Founder and CEO of The Mom Pact, a career driven network supporting working moms through major professional transitions. With more than a decade of experience in strategy, operations, and business development, Molly brings a business and policy lens to a problem often framed as personal.Connect with MollyWebsite: https://www.themompact.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollymccartan52/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themompact/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/molly.owens/--- Subscribe and ReviewIf you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

Dr. Laura James ND: Why Modern Healthcare Overwhelms Women and What Actually Helps

Send us a textThis episode is about health in the real world, not textbook medicine.Aggie and Cristy sit down with Dr. Laura James ND, a naturopathic oncologist with more than twenty years of experience working with women inside an overwhelmed healthcare system. Together, they explore why modern healthcare leaves so many women confused, exhausted, and unsupported, especially while they are managing work, family, caregiving, and their own health.Dr. Laura explains how rushed appointments, fragmented care, and authority driven medicine limit understanding and undermine trust. She shares why education, inquiry, and listening are essential to better health outcomes, and how integrative approaches can support conventional care without replacing it.They also discuss supplements, misinformation in the wellness industry, menopause, energy depletion, and why fewer, well designed tools often work better than endless advice. This is a grounded conversation about resilience, boundaries, and how women can protect their health and capacity in systems that were never designed to support them.Notes:Overwhelm is often more damaging than the diagnosis itselfSeven minute doctor visits do not leave room for real understandingWomen need guides in healthcare, not just authority figuresAsking better questions leads to better decisionsMidlife women are often caring for everyone while neglecting themselvesSupport only helps when it matches what someone actually needsLearning to ask for specific help reduces stressBoundaries are a health strategy, not a personal failureThe supplement industry is confusing and poorly regulatedFewer, targeted supplements work better than long listsMenopause during illness adds another invisible layer of strainEducation is one of the most powerful forms of careThe healthcare system is breaking under capacity pressureResilience is built through clarity, support, and agencyGuest ContactDr. Laura James NDWebsite: https://www.laurajamesnd.comSupplement line: https://bestforbreast.com--- Subscribe and ReviewIf you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

Hon. Leela Sharon Aheer: How a 15-Year-Old Targeted by Hate Became a National Leader

Send us a textThe Honourable Leela Sharon Aheer shares the story that shaped her life and leadership.Growing up in Alberta as the daughter of an Indian immigrant father and a Canadian mother, Leela learned early what it meant to stand out, speak up, and build community. At just 15 years old, she was directly confronted by white supremacist hate. Instead of shrinking, that moment became the catalyst for using her voice and stepping into leadership.In this episode, Leela walks through her unconventional path from music and teaching into politics, winning her first election by just 260 votes and later serving as Alberta’s Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism, and Status of Women. She shares grounded lessons on women’s leadership, servant leadership, and why real change is built through small, consistent actions rather than power or position.This conversation is a reminder that you do not need permission to lead. You just need to activate yourself.Episode Notes In this episode, we cover:• Leela’s early life and how identity and community shaped her leadership • Being targeted by hate at 15 and choosing to speak up instead of stay silent • Why she left political science for music and later returned to politics • Winning her first election by 260 votes and navigating imposter syndrome • Why women’s rights must be protected in legislation • How to build bridges with people you strongly disagree with • Why momentum matters more than burnout • Her vision for global collaboration, trade, and women’s leadership • The simple lesson she believes every woman needs to hearGuest Information The Honourable Leela Sharon Aheer, ECAEmail: eventswithleela@outlook.com Twitter: @LeelaAheer Instagram: leelasharonaheer LinkedIn: Hon. Leela (Sharon) Aheer--- Subscribe and ReviewIf you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com

Sarah Angello: The Startup Founder Rebuilding Trust in Philanthropy

Send us a textMost people donate because they want to help. Few ever find out what actually happens to their money. Philanthropy has a trust problem. Nonprofits have a transparency problem. Donors want clarity but rarely get it. And donor-advised funds have become a quiet holding place for billions of untapped charitable capital.After fifteen years working inside philanthropy, Sarah Angello could not ignore the friction anymore. She saw the outdated systems. She saw the lost potential. She saw how giving had become complicated when it should feel meaningful.So she left a stable career, stepped into tech, and cofounded Daffodil, a fintech platform designed to rebuild trust in the nonprofit sector by making charitable giving transparent, simple, and accessible.In this conversation, Sarah explains the gap no one was addressing, how donor-advised funds actually work, why impact reporting is broken, and how she is solving a systemic problem with zero-burden, real-time data. She opens up about raising capital as a woman, choosing cofounders, navigating risk, and the lesson that shaped her leadership: almost everything is fixable.If you have ever given to a nonprofit, wondered where your money went, or thought about starting something meaningful, this episode will change the way you see philanthropy and the business behind it.Chapters this episode explores:The moment Sarah realized philanthropy needed a complete resetWhy donor-advised funds hold more than 250 billion dollars that rarely reaches nonprofitsWhat the GoFundMe controversy revealed about trust in the sectorHow Daffodil built a system to deliver real-time impact reporting with zero burden on nonprofitsWhy transparency is the next frontier in charitable givingWhat she learned moving from nonprofit bureaucracy to tech speedHow she chose her cofounders and why their history mattersThe reality of raising money as a woman in a male-dominated funding environmentWhy she believes fear of being copied is fear of weak executionThe early mistake that taught her that almost everything is fixableKey lessons:Transparency is not optional; it is the foundation of impactGood ideas are everywhere; execution is the differentiatorDonors do not stop giving because they lack generosity but because they lack visibilityFounders should build in public, not hide in fearCareers are long, and mistakes rarely ruin themContactWebsite: www.getdaffodil.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/getdaffodil/ Email: sarah@getdaffodil.com--- Subscribe and ReviewIf you loved this episode, drop us a review, share it with a badass woman in your life, and subscribe to Badass Women in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Stay badass. Stay bold. Build it your way. Keep up with more content from Aggie and Cristy here: Facebook: Empowered Women Leaders Instagram: @badass_women_in_business LinkedIn: ProveHer - Badass Women in Business Website: Badasswomeninbusinesspodcast.com Athena: athenaac.com