How She Does It

EP 74: JPMorgan Chase’s Kristin Lemkau: Professional Ambition, Personal Loss & Feeling “Unstoppable”

Kristin Lemkau was thriving in her job as CMO of JPMorgan Chase, a job she thought would be her last, when CEO Jamie Dimon and his leadership team threw a new challenge her way.  They wanted the company to become more competitive in the wealth management space, and offered Lemkau the job as CEO of J.P. Morgan Wealth Management.  Despite some significant hurdles that would come with building the business, Lemkau took on the role in late 2019.   A few years into this professional challenge, she experienced a tectonic shift in her personal life.  Lemkau’s husband, who had stayed at home with their two children, passed away.  Overnight, she became a single mom.  She found herself trying to figure out all the details of the family’s day-to-day life that he had handled, from multiple school apps, household bills, her kids’ sports schedule, and more.  After taking some time off, her two teenagers encouraged her to return to work, where she thrived.  Under her leadership. J.P. Morgan Wealth Management has grown from  $500 billion to $1.3 trillion dollars in assets, an accomplishment she confidently takes credit for.     ”What I've done over the past six years was really, really hard.I genuinely believe a lot of people couldn't have done it. We had a lot of headwinds, but we did it,” Lemkau said.   💬 In this episode, we explore: Why Kristin Lemkau said “yes” to the CEO job, despite really “loving” her marketing job and the people she worked with Lemkau’s approach to re-making and growing the wealth management business  How her personal loss has impacted the way she manages her team  Her secret for getting a full-night’s sleep, and why that’s been so critical for her well-being  Her thoughts on being the oldest of four very high-achieving siblings, and what about their upbringing may have helped them all to succeed Some of the perks of working at JPMorgan, including being front and center for one of the wildest US Open Women’s Finals ever Resources: 🔗 Visit J.P. Morgan Wealth Management  📸  Follow @JPMorgan Wealth Management on Instagram 📸  Follow @JPMorgan Wealth Management on LinkedIn 🎧 New episodes of How She Does It drop every Tuesday. Be sure to follow us so you never miss an episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

EP 73: ULTA Beauty CEO Kecia Steelman: From An Hourly Job At Target To Leading The Largest Beauty Retailer in the U.S.

Kecia Steelman was a 20-year-old single mom living in government housing when she faced a realization: if she wanted a better life, it was up to her.  She became determined to find a job where she could learn and grow.  From the men’s department at Target, she buckled down, worked holidays and weekends, and transformed what started as an $8 an hour gig into something much more. She built a career path that would lead her to become one of the most powerful women in the beauty business.  On this episode of How She Does It, Kecia opens up about her first year as CEO at ULTA Beauty, the country’s largest beauty retailer.   With 30 years of retail experience, including almost five years as ULTA Beauty’s COO, she was able to take on this new challenge and “hit the ground running.”  From expanding the brand into international markets to working closely with brand founders like Beyoncé, Kylie Jenner, Paris Hilton, and more, the company has seen growth across both their e-commerce and retail sales.    💬 In this episode, we explore: Kecia’s rollout of ULTA Beauty’s most recent strategy, from the C-Suite to the employees on the sales floor The approach Kecia takes when it comes to setting expectations for Wall Street  What her “best day” and “worst day” working in retail look like The three factors Kecia looks for when making a new hire What happens when Kecia visits an Ulta Beauty store unannounced  The profound way Kecia’s mother inspired her  Resources: 🔗 Visit Ulta.com 📸  Follow Kecia Steelman on Instagram  📸  Follow Kecia Steelman on LinkedIn 📸  Follow Ulta Beauty on Instagram  🎧 New episodes of How She Does It drop every Tuesday. Be sure to follow us so you never miss an episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

EP 72: Responding To Change: Maya Shankar On Finding Your “Why” When Facing An Unexpected Detour

We’re all likely to encounter some change in life that’s unwelcome:  a scary health diagnosis, the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, or the end of a dream.  Maya Shankar, PhD, deeply understands the concept of change and offers a roadmap for navigating it.    She is a cognitive scientist and Senior Director of Behavioral Economics at Google.  But she is perhaps best known for her side gig: being the creator and host of the award-winning podcast A Slight Change of Plans.  Her fascination with how we navigate change started when she was a teen, and a hand injury forced her to give up her dream of becoming a professional violinist.  In this episode, Maya speaks with Karen about that first pivot as well as some difficult challenges she faced later, and how she has built a successful career teaching others how to learn from the unexpected.  It’s all in her New York Times Bestseller, “The Other Side Of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans.”    💬 In this episode, we explore: Maya’s biggest piece of advice for transitioning through change: finding your “why” Tools that can be helpful during the most difficult periods of change  How Maya’s mother taught her the importance of the cold call / cold email (or, in her mom’s case, the cold drop-by-Julliard)  Maya’s view of imposter syndrome and how one can leverage it into becoming better at your job  Resources:🔗 Visit Dr. Maya Shankar’s website  📕 For Information on “The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans.” 📸  Follow Maya Shakar on Instagram  📸  Follow Maya Shakar on X 🎧 Listen to A Slight Change of Plans  📸  Follow Riverhead Books on Instagram  🎧 New episodes of How She Does It drop every Tuesday. Be sure to follow us so you never miss an episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

EP 71: Tradwife Or Career Woman: Corinne Low on On Ambition, Kids & Equality

“I don’t sweep the floor with my uterus,” asserts Corinne Low, Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania.  It’s a stark statement, but her underlying point is to urge men and women to re-examine gender roles around the work needed to maintain a home and family: cooking, cleaning, making the kids’ doctor’s appointments, and so on.   Low was on the tenure track when her first marriage fell apart.  She was overwhelmed with her job, a bad commute, a new infant, and housework. She was the higher earner of the couple, and the division of labor at home felt way too lopsided.  So she used her know-how as an economist to study the data on how men and women divide tasks at home and develop strategies for how couples can create a system that’s fair.   Today, Low is a tenured professor and is remarried to a woman. (She notes that it is not a prescription for everyone, but it works for her.) She writes about her research and her experience in HAVING IT ALL: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours, which is a USA Today National Best Seller and an Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Year. 💬 In this episode, we explore: How to approach a conversation with a partner about re-allocating work around the house  Why parents today are feeling “the squeeze” - when time pressures and money pressures hit at the same time - more than previous generations. What concerns Low about the “tradwife” trend Questions to ask yourself about your career path to determine if it’s compatible with the life you want outside of work  Why a job with “boundaries” is better for women than a job with “flexibility.”  🔗 Visit Corinne Low’s website 📕 Find out more about Corinne Low’s book: HAVING IT ALL 📸 Follow Corinne Low on Instagram  📸 Follow Corinne Low on Substack 📸 Follow Corinne Low on LinkedIn 📸 Follow the show on Instagram: @hsdipodcast🎧 New episodes of How She Does It drop every Tuesday. Be sure to follow us so you never miss an episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BONUS: Karen Finerman’s Bold Bets (and Red Flags) for 2026

The markets are still riding high, but if 2025 taught us anything, it’s that not everything that glitters is gold. In this episode of our sister podcast HerMoney, Jean Chatzky sits down with legendary investor and How She Does It Host Karen Finerman to unpack the wild ride of 2025: the highs, the flops, the lessons learned, and the big bets she’s making in 2026. We also talk about what makes a winning portfolio, how our InvestingFixx club beat the market, and how you can start building confidence with your own investments, one smart move at a time. In this episode: What Karen’s biggest winner of 2025 says about the market’s resilience Karen's biggest regret and what she’d do differently Whether or not the AI hype is starting to look like 1999 How to use the volatility index to make better decisions Why banks might be the most overlooked opportunity of 2026 What our InvestingFixx community got right and how they keep winning Looking for more? Join our InvestingFixx club Listen to HerMoney with Jean Chatzky  Karen Finerman’s viral end-of-year thread on X Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices