Second Life

Erika Thompson is a beekeeper, bee advocate, and founder of the bee removal services company Texas Beeworks. Erika grew up in Texas loving all things animals and bugs. She studied geography at the University of Texas at Austin, and after a brief stint as a vet tech, embarked on a career in communications. She worked at several different nonprofit organizations over the years, but despite the impact she was making, she didn’t love sitting at a desk every day. In 2012, she signed up for a beekeeping class as a fun outlet. But from that first class, she was hooked. She started keeping bees herself and eventually began offering humane bee removal services to people in the Austin area. In 2018, she left the world of communications to commit to being a beekeeper full-time. In 2020, she made another major career move when she began posting videos of her bee removals on TikTok. Her passionate, kind, fascinating storytelling immediately resonated with others, and her audience grew quickly. Today, she has over 11 million followers, and several of the videos of her bee removals (which she still does for free!) have over 100 million views.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Susan Korn is the founder of the charming, quirky, and downright joyful accessories brand Susan Alexandra. Korn started her brand by making jewelry and creating handmade painted pieces. But one fateful day, she discovered a bead shop in Chinatown and had a vision of a beaded bag she wanted to create. Her beaded bags have since cemented her as the queen of whimsical fashion. Now, she’s expanded into DIY charm jewelry, custom sculpted pet pieces, home goods, a full Judaica line, and has collaborated with brands like Pebbles, Bose, and Crocs. This week, she joins Kat to talk about how she approaches designing a new product, her dreams for the brand in 2025, and her epic dog fashion show with Rachel Antonoff at New York Fashion Week this past fall.Listen to Susan Korn’s Second Life episode here!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Aisha Bowe is an aerospace engineer and the founder of the engineering consultancy firm STEMBoard. Bowe wasn’t always an engineering wizard. In high school, she struggled to connect academically and enrolled in community college with little hope that any field could interest her. But a teacher identified her strengths and suggested she try out engineering. She thrived in her engineering courses, and her confidence and sense of possibility for her career began to grow. She followed this passion to the University of Michigan, where she gained two degrees in aerospace engineering. Bowe interned at NASA in college and then was hired full-time. She ultimately spent seven years there, working on small spacecraft and flight trajectory dynamics. In 2013, she founded STEMBoard, a startup that provides engineering services and solutions—a feat she accomplished without any outside funding—and eventually left her job at NASA to pursue her startup full-time. In 2020, she founded Lingo, a company that creates self-paced, at-home STEM education kits for kids. Earlier this year, it was announced that she would be the first Black woman to travel to space with Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Shopping Director Bobby Schuessler sits down with Associate Director of Special Projects Kristen Nichols to discuss her 2024 Luxury Report. Her insightful, well-researched piece breaks down everything you need to know about the high-end fashion business right now, the biggest trends, what the most-coveted pieces say about where the industry is headed, and how leadership changes at the top fashion houses are setting the tone for luxury fashion’s future.Watch this episode of the Who What Wear Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYortCBaf3ARead the Luxury Report here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.