Meet Dr. Maria Rothenburger; she’s a fertility therapist and coach who has been through the harrowing journey of infertility. For over six years, Maria and her husband tried to have a family, but it only brought pain, depression, anxiety, and intense marriage struggles. Eventually, they agreed the process wasn’t worth the suffering. Now Maria uses her personal experience to help others. She wrote a #1 Bestselling book, Transcending Infertility: 9 Keys for Improving Fertility, Creating Miracles, and Being a Better Human, and hosts a weekly Podcast, Miracles Happen Fertility. Maria offers invaluable Fertility Keys and action steps to guide couples through their own struggles with infertility.

Katie Nave is a freelance writer and mental health advocate based in Brooklyn, New York. She writes personal essays for outlets like Newsweek, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. Her article My Daughter’s Common Problem Made Me Feel Like A Failure As A Mom caught our interest and leads off our conversations in May on Motherhood, or what Katie calls the Gritty, Down-and-Dirty Job of Mothering!

Alexandra Mislin is passionate about educating others on how to analyze human behavior to motivate others to act in their interest. Currently, she’s an Associate Professor at American University’s Kogod School of Business and teaches various courses in Negotiation and Management in the Department of Management. Her research and study outline how trust and emotions, race and gender, affect negotiation and conflict management. Alexandra is also the author of the Medium article, 5 Tips for Women to Negotiate a Higher Salary: Practical Tips for Getting the Salary or Promotion You Want.

Women face a unique set of financial challenges. Women have more hidden costs in their daily lives, like the pink tax, and the potential for more financial setbacks in the future, including the gender pay gap. Around the globe, women are generally less educated about personal finance – partly due to perceptions that finance is a “man’s issue.” This week we welcome Mariska Reinerink, Certified Behavioural Money Coach, Holistic Financial Planner, and Founder of MONEY WELLNESS. Mariska combined her finance and healthcare expertise into the Money Wellness approach that helps her clients transform their money story into one of freedom and confidence! “As a Financial Advisor and Certified Behavioural Money Coach, I not only help people figure out their finances and come up with financial and cash flow plans, but I also help people redefine their relationship with money.”

Are you the master of your money, or is money the master of you? April is Financial Literacy Month — at VBB it’s Women & Money Month. We could talk about the six components of financial literacy — earning, spending, saving, investing, borrowing, and protecting, or using financial skills for personal financial management, investing, and budgeting, but what about your feelings about money? Are you intimate with your money, or is money a necessary evil? Jessie Susannah Karnatz, aka The Money Witch, will tell you that your finances don’t need willpower; they need love. So it’s to your advantage to be more responsive and intimate with your money. Jessie Susannah wrote the book MONEY MAGIC: PRACTICAL WISDOM AND EMPOWERING RITUALS TO HEAL YOUR FINANCES. She brings capitalism-critical, shame-free education to healers, hustlers, and creatives to catalyze change in their financial lives. She’s not messing around. But it’s your money!

Throughout March, International Women’s Month, it’s been one conversation after another with inspirational women born, living, or working globally in China, India, Iran, and Puerto Rico. Today a visit to Ghana, Africa. Gifty Serbeh-Dunn is co-founder of Baraka Shea Butter and owner of Shea Butter Market in Victoria, Canada, but what she has created for the women in her home village epitomizes what International Women’s Month is all about — women standing up for women.

Michelle Hrycauk Nassif is a loving mother and a wise matriarch whose business is being a powerful Feminine leader. Her deep and genuine passion is to build and nurture Communities that support women and girls in their journey to fulfill their dreams and ambitions. We feature Michelle during International Women’s Month.

Dr. Sousan Abadian was raised in Washington, D.C., but was born in Tehran, Iran. She shares a uniquely cross-cultural view the rest of the world might consider.

Ahilya Mehta is not yet 30 years old, but she is a former co-founder of Aara woman’s health clinic and is currently an entrepreneur-in-residence at Nua women’s wellness start-up in Mumbai, India. Ahilya graduated from Wellesley College in the US and worked as an IT consultant in San Francisco before completing an entrepreneurship fellowship program for female and non-binary first-time founders. “My interest in women’s health and women, in general, started when I spent four months working in a tribal village in Rajasthan helping victims of domestic abuse. That experience exposed me to the inequalities among women in India.”