Entrepreneur: Sallie Krawcheck, Ellevest

This article is part of our Create & Cultivate 100 List created in collaboration with KEDS, you can view the full Entrepreneur List Here.

The woman of Wall Street. 

If there’s one thing we have in common with Ellevest CEO and co-founder Sallie Krawcheck, it’s that we both believe the future is female...financial independence. The 52-year-old former Wall Street maven, who once ran such elite institutions as Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, and Smith Barney, is leveraging her 30 plus years of professional expertise to help women build and invest wealth and “unleash women’s financial power.”

With Ellevest, Krawcheck is on a mission to close what she calls the “gender investment gap,” an extension of better-known disparities such as the gender pay gap and the gender debt gap. So, what is the “gender investment gap,” exactly? Well, it begins with the fact that 71% of all assets controlled by women are uninvested cash, which translates to us boss ladies missing out on major market gain opportunities and losing out to inflation. And why don’t they invest if it’s such a lucrative opportunity? A few common reasons include craving certainty, relying on bae to handle things (ps he can’t even be trusted to restock the toilet paper), and feeling it’s too time-intensive. For her part, Krawcheck— who has been named the most powerful woman on Wall Street, and at one point oversaw $2.3 trillion in client assets — strongly disagrees.

“I have become truly convinced that getting more money into the hands of women is a positive for everyone,” explains Krawcheck, asserting that the “gender investment gap” costs professional women hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, over their lifetimes. “Closing this gap helps the women themselves, but also their families, society, and businesses. It also solves a lot of society's problems: for example, the retirement savings crisis is actually a women's crisis, given how much longer we live then men (and that we retire with less money than they do).”

"Getting more money into the hands of women is a positive for everyone."

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It’s this revolutionary, women-centric approach to investing — one that factors in our longer lifespans, winding career paths, and unique risk factors, and doesn’t default to men’s salaries and preferences (86% of investment advisors are men, age 50+) — that separates Ellevest from its competitors and makes it a game-changing investing platform for women.

They say a woman’s work is never done, and that’s certainly true when it comes to Krawcheck. In addition to founding Ellevest, the fierce advocate for women’s financial freedom chairs both the Ellevate Network (a global professional women's network to help women close their gender work achievement gap) and the Pax Ellevate Global Women's Index Fund (the first mutual fund to invest in the top-rated companies for advancing women). Bottom line: she’s 100% committed to beefing up women’s bank accounts and setting women on the road toward financial independence. But, success does come at a price, and insecurity is what keeps this cat-loving, wine-drinking powerhouse at the top of her game. “Right after I had my daughter, I cried to my mother that I couldn't do my job and be a mother to two little ones. She brushed off my tears and said (in a pretty brusque way), ‘Of course you can. You're just going to be really tired for awhile.’ She was right.”

Today, Krawcheck is “all-in” on herself, and her career, raising  — not only her daughters  — but a generation of financially savvy, professional women who know their value, and, better yet, how to invest it.

Content Creator: Tayst

This article is part of our Create & Cultivate 100 List created in collaboration with KEDS, you can view the full Content Creator List Here.   

Don't call her a doodler. 

When Taylor St. Claire, AKA Tayst of Tayst Design, received negative feedback from a her college art professor on a project, she posted the piece on social media “on a whim.” 

For the first time, she received positive affirmation of her work, while also having fun creating the artwork she was posting. After a few months of posting her illustrations to her personal channels, companies started reaching out. “Requests for sponsored posts and custom graphics for their company’s use started to flood in. I was so happy to think that people appreciated and wanted my artwork.”

"I was so happy to think that people appreciated and wanted my artwork.”

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Growing up in a very creative family, Taylor has been drawing as long as she can remember. Art came easily, but it’s been her unique approach to marketing herself as a brand, as well as “a lot of persistence and hard work,” that has catapulted a passion for art into a career that she loves. Take for example her approach to the business card. “At the beginning of my career I attended a seminar in New York at the Teen Vogue offices for young people interested in the business of fashion,” she says. Rather than opting for “the common business card,” Taylor created mini flip books showcasing her artwork. It set her apart from others at the event and hooked some of her favorite editors who were also in attendance. “When they contacted me,” she explains, “they helped give me confidence that I had found the right career path.” 

That she has. “Ever since my initial post, business has been nonstop,” Taylor claims. Which sounds ideal, but can prove difficult for a young artist dipping her ink into the business world. Initially time management became a struggle. “It all happened so fast, I had to pretend to be professional, while still trying to figure everything out,” she explains. Everything from pricing, to copycats, including fake social media accounts imitating her style and blatantly copying her work, became hurdles. “Some even went so far as pretending to be me,” she says, “in hopes of taking my clients.” It was admittedly difficult, but Taylor is “always striving to learn the next latest and greatest thing to make my work stand out.”

“Not everyone understands what I do,” she adds, “but I am proud of all that I have accomplished in such a short time.”

Taylor is wearing Keds' Champion Originals.

She's inspired by "interesting" boss ladies who “live their lives with a sense of playfulness and humor.” Women like Beyoncé, Adele, and Chrissy Teigen. Taylor also says that her “absolute favorite character" Molly Gunn from the movie Uptown Girls, "gives me hope that the free-spirited and young-at-heart will overcome the hurdles in life to eventually thrive.”

Her favorite life advice is fitting for an artist: “Don’t be passive and end up with the black crayon. Always go for the red crayon.” But like many 23 year olds she also looks to Instagram stars like Gigi Hadid, who has said, “Eat clean to stay fit. Eat a burger to stay sane.” Which might help when she’s wide awake at 2am, the time she claims is when her “best creative work happens.” 

"Don’t be passive and end up with the black crayon. Always go for the red crayon.”

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In addition to her work for Tayst Design, Taylor is also the Digital & Creative Content Manger for La Femme Collective, a site she launched with some of her best friends last year on International Women’s Day. “LFC,” says Taylor “is an online community created to support and celebrate the careers and personal development of women. On our site, we feature women from all walks of life to share their triumphs and struggles, and encourage both male and female audiences.”

After hearing their stories for a year Taylor says her takeaway is this: “Be strong, be independent, volunteer, get involved and support the women around you. It’s the only way that things will change.”

Styling provided by Reservoir LA. Hair and makeup provided by Glamsquad. Photography courtesy of Light Lab and Woodnote Photography.

Fashion: Melody Ehsani

This article is part of our Create & Cultivate 100 List created in collaboration with KEDS, you can view the full Fashion List Here.

The woman of streetwear. 

With mentors like her mom and Frank Ocean, how could streetwear designer Melody Ehsani go wrong?

“Every time I talk to Frank,” Melody shares, “I learn something from him. He has taught me to be regimented, disciplined, preferential in my work and not feel crazy.” 

A native Angeleo and the daughter of two artists, Melody assumed that the only way to enact justice was through the legal system. She attended UCLA, majored in Philosophy/Sociology in preparation for law school. 

However, after several law related internships at every place from Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. to private law firms in LA, she knew it was not the path for her. “I had an anxiety attack before entering law school,” she says, “and as a result was forced to dig deeper. I had always felt that the only way that I could carry out my affinity for justice in the world was through the law. I was wrong.”

But wrong can lead to rights. Both personally and fighting for them. Though she had previously associated fashion with a shallowness, Melody “started seeing the nobility in creating beautiful items that made women feel more confident and happy.” She found that doing what she loved was the greatest way she could serve the world.

“In our world,” says Melody, “it’s so easy to get distracted and to truly forget who we are. It’s so important to check in daily and find memory of who you know you are, as opposed to who people want you to be.” 

She’s not immune to fear or doubt. Mediation, looking in versus looking out, and staying connected spiritually are all vital to her success.  Every morning she wakes up, prays/meditates, does 20 minutes of stretching on a foam roller, and then takes her journal down to my favorite coffee shop. Where she sits “with a cup and has ME time. It sets the tone for my day.”

And she's asked herself the question that all entrepreneurs ponder: “What if my business tanks? What if I don’t succeed?” But a wise friend told her, “You are not a role, you are an entity. If your business tanks, you’re still going to be Melody Ehsani. This business is just a role, but you… you are forever going to be you.” She took it to heart. 

As the world of streetwear evolves, Melody hopes, “that streetwear steps up and becomes the raw, unfiltered voice that its always been, sort of like how hip hop was in the ‘80s. I also hope more women in the industry step out and let their voices be heard louder than ever, because now is the time. The feminine needs a bigger voice.”

“Now is the time. The feminine needs a bigger voice.”

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She’s ready and willing to show up. Unapologetically. For her sisters. “I think it is essential that we band together, because we need critical mass to make a change. As women we need to remind one another that the things we feel and experience are real and OK.” 

That includes questioning the status quo and weeding out the red herrings. “After a visit to the White House earlier this year I learned that women are paid significantly less than men in the workforce because women rarely ask for raises, whereas men ask for them often, and often receive them.  If we had more women leaders in the workforce, we would learn basic things like this, to ask for our place."

“To quote Obama,” Melody says, “I don’t have a bucket list but I have something that rhymes with that.” 

Styling provided by Reservoir LA. Hair and makeup provided by Glamsquad. Photography courtesy of Light Lab and Woodnote Photography.

Food: Brette Warshaw

This article is part of our Create & Cultivate 100 List created in collaboration with KEDS, you can view the full Food List Here.

Taking a big bite out of food news. 

In 2017, that nagging, draconian phrase “a woman’s place is in the kitchen” is taking on a whole new meaning, and by that we mean becoming totally meaningless. After decades of battling the boys' club for recognition — about half of culinary school grads are women but they make up only about 20 percent of chefs, does that seem very fair to you? — female chefs are finally getting accolades they deserve.

Creating a platform for this generation of female culinary-world rock stars is Lucky Peach Chief Operating Officer Brette Warshaw, who, at the age of 25, is reinventing how we devour the news of food. As inspiring as it is, Warshaw’s is no overnight success story — and luck has absolutely nothing to do with it. As a sophomore in college, she interned at foodie website Food52 and became Managing Editor upon graduating. Later, she was hired as Managing Editor at Lucky Peach, promoted to editor, and recently, all-the-way-up to COO. Attention college kids: time to apply for those internships (bonus points if they’re paid!).

If there’s one teachable moment in Warshaw’s rise in the ranks (and there are many), it’s that it pays to take the initiative. “I got my job at Food52 because I asked one of the founders, Amanda Hesser, if I could profile her for a creative writing class I was taking,” says the self-starting COO, who admits to having little business experience before accepting the role of COO. “From there, I got the internship, and got my foot in the door at a place that was poised for some really exciting growth. I would not be here today if I hadn't worked up the guts to ask her.” Learning on the job is just one of the many tricks this culinary chieftain excels at. “I’ve become a lot more sure of myself, mostly by forcing myself into unfamiliar situations and figuring them out, and emerging with new skills and perspective."

While Warshaw’s more operations, less knife skills, she’s no stranger to the double standards faced by the female chefs her team regularly reports on. “I've gotten things like ‘You must be Brette's assistant’ when I get on calls or walk into meetings—it's definitely surprising to some that a twenty-five year old woman would be at the other end of the table.” That a woman in her position, with her experience, is greeted with skepticism is hardly surprising — Glassdoor finds that female chefs make 28.3% less in base pay than their male counterparts. “At first, I would be shy or would make excuses or feel the need to justify what I was doing and where I was at. I don't do that anymore. If people don't take me seriously, that's their problem.”

"If people don't take me seriously, that's their problem.”

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Growing a cutting-edge food magazine into a “modern, sustainable, gangbuster” media business by the age of twenty-five is no small feat. Although you wouldn’t know it by her down-to-earth vibes and unpretentious appetite. She swears by a twice-weekly ritual of eating at the diner across the street from her apartment, accompanied only by her favorite magazines — “I feel like a superhuman afterwards!” For Warshaw, female empowerment means two things: “breaking glass and cashing checks.” AMEN. And by that we mean, HELL YES.

So, what’s next for this young culinary world mover-and-shaker changing the face of food media? Hopefully, she says, to be interviewed for the New York Times Corner Office section of the Sunday Business paper. Sounds more than doable.

Styling provided by Reservoir LA. Hair and makeup provided by Glamsquad. Photography courtesy of Light Lab and Woodnote Photography.

Brette is wearing Keds' Triple Solids.

Music: TRACE

This article is part of our Create & Cultivate 100 List created in collaboration with KEDS, you can view the full Music List Here.

18 million streams and counting; 1 dream.  

Tracy Le, TRACE to the music world, is the former managing editor of Darling, a quarterly magazine run in LA that never retouches any of its photos (which, we love, obviously). She was the mag's first employee, having moved LA from San Diego to run the editorial department. But two years ago "music made itself known," to TRACE becoming "a serious thing versus a thing I just did for myself-- locked up in my room, playing and singing at a general volume of three out 100."  

So she launched a Kickstarter revisiting all her "'not really a real song' songs," left her Darling family, and got to work on her dreams. "Before doing what I do now," she recently told her former employer, "I think I did a total of five internships, a handful of part-time jobs and two different, 9-to-5 careers. But dreaming has been a vital part of how I got to where I am." With over 18 million combined streams on Spotify and SoundCloud, she's done a little more than dream. 

We caught up with TRACE, recently back off her first US tour, to talk risk, reward, and that time she had less than $25 in her bank account. 

You left a job to pursue a dream. What are some of the challenges you face?

No one, it seems, is in the exact same position as I am. Being a musician is so complex and everyone has their own path and thoughts on what is best (for them and in general) and what has worked and what hasn't. I think for me it's knowing that there isn't really just one way to get to point B from point A. (I also think there are like 100 point Bs). Another challenge lies within creating boundaries with people. It's such a people-heavy industry so it's been a semi- challenge not necessarily knowing everyone in LA who is in the music industry (i.e., where does one find a lawyer or anyone know what a booking agent looks like? HAH!), so when you do meet someone with wisdom and experience, there's a lot of discernment and patience that goes into it all.

 What is the best piece of "real talk" advice you've received?

No one will care about your music more than you do. So no one will (or should) work harder for your music than you do.

What is your favorite life advice?

Work hard. Then work harder. Then work even harder.

Is there a time in you life when you thought, 'I can't do this anymore?' 

Maybe that one time my bank account hit below $25 dollars. That was a bit back, but that was a moment where I felt vulnerable to sacrifice.

"No one should work harder for your music than you do."

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What's next?

Next is new music and more shows. The five year goals would likely include having at least one full-length album done under my musical belt, having done festivals and tours internationally, and having built a light to medium-heavy portfolio for the songs I've written for major artists. It's dreamy but here we are.

What's a habit or routine or routine you swear by?

Pop Physique. LOL. But I would say exercise, in general. When I can't write a song or am too lazy to do proper vocal exercises or can't sleep, or go on a bad date even, I exercise. 

How has your relationship to your career changed in the last five years?

I don't take it flippantly or lightly. It's become a more serious (but like in a good way) relationship. 

What's on your career bucket list? 

Write for Rihanna, write with Sia, sing with Drake. Easy...

What does female empowerment mean to you?

The perfect balance between grace and strength. 

What do you do to support other women either personally or professionally? 

I lend my ear and listen. I give a stern talk when needed. I connect them with resources. I am slow to speak. 

TRACE will be performing at GIRLSCHOOL on January 28th in Los Angeles.