Chief Best Friends
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© Niki Torres
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This is not a typical podcast on entrepreneurship. It's a podcast to figure out business success while cultivating meaningful friendships. How can we mix the personal and the professional? What does it mean to be champions to one another? Why do we need genuine allies? Hosted by Niki Torres, she brings women's stories of breaking glass and bamboo ceilings, of navigating life changes and careers, and of the emotional rollercoaster that is startup life. Chief Best Friends is about work wives and work besties everywhere.
22 Episodes
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What better way to end the season than with The Cosmos co-founders, Cassandra Lam and Karen Mok. They share a thing or twenty about shaping and growing a community rooted in intention, transparency and integrity.
Co-founders of Relogo, a search platform for coliving spaces, talk about motherhood and why it's a superpower when building a business.
Rachel and Danella comes to our show today to share what it took for them to make things work even when things aren't working.
Kintsugi is a different kind of mental health platform that uses voice biomarkers to measure and predict our well-being. Grace and Rima, co-founders of Kintsugi, share with us why there is beauty in our cracks and imperfections.
Race Wong and Rhonda Wong are sisters and Ohmyhome's co-founders. They share how they turned their MVP that once offered a free service to what is now a full-service prop-tech business that's transacting thousands of homes that has a combined value of close to two billion Singapore dollars.
Liht Organics joins us on the podcast to talk about Asia's appetite for clean beauty, being friends first and why we shouldn't believe the myth that friends and business don't mix. Liht Organics founder Nerissa Low and her two chief best friends, Michelle Lee and Stephanie Tan, show us why three's definitely not a crowd for this Singapore beauty brand.
Starting a business is hard enough as it is, try starting and growing one in the middle of the pandemic. Sam and Luannie of Pory.io share their story of building a side-hustle after their day jobs moved them into part-time roles.
Tess Mackean, CEO of talenTtrust and Sunita Kaur, APAC VP of Twitch and board member of talentTrust, drops into our show to talk about vulnerability and maintaining integrity during challenging times. They also talk about volunteering and what it means to help charities remain sustainable.
The co-founders of IFundWomen, focuses on women helping other women. They're on the podcast to talk about the lack of access to capital for female founders and how they've built just the thing to address that.
Supernova, the brand behind some of the best super brands—think Coco & Eve and Sand & Sky—joined me on the podcast to talk about investors and what it takes to build the new generation of beauty brands.
Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow are headlining this new season of Chief Best Friends, sharing with us what it takes to build, maintain, and navigate a changing friendship. This amazing duo is behind popular podcast Call Your Girlfriend and is out with a new book, Big Friendship.
Chief Best Friends is back with a new season! You will hear from ladies who gave us Shine Theory, who are fighting workplace discrimination, who are building a fundraising platform specifically for women by women, and so much more.
What do you see when I say venture capitalist? Most likely a guy, probably in his 30s or older. What if, I told you, that when Pocket and Elizabeth started SoGal Ventures, they were the complete opposite of that stereotype. In fact, it was so against the grain that the people closest to them thought they wouldn’t make it. What others saw as a crutch, they took as their unique selling point. SoGal Ventures dubs itself as the first female-led millennial VC firm.
They took what they knew best and invest millions on a new breed of creators and entrepreneurs. Pocket and Elizabeth understand the importance of chief best friends. Since they invest in early stage startups, they’re hedging their bets against the success of the founders. SoGal has invested in some of the most inspiring brands you could think of, including our very own episode 1 guests the ADAY co-founders, Meg and Nina.
If you believe in the power of our wallets, SoGal ventures see VC funding as a way to shift that power to women and minorities. These ladies are definitely putting their money exactly where their mouth is.
Jenn and Vivian run a bespoke fashion store called East Meets Dress. They create and develop cheongsam dresses in the hopes of bringing back traditional garb but made for the modern woman. What makes their story amazing is that they didn’t come from a fashion background. They grew up in a typical Asian household and had originally wanted to become doctors and go into finance. However, they came across the idea of East Meets Dress through their own need when planning Jenn’s wedding. Through sheer hustle and good work ethic, they turned this idea into a thriving business. Jenn and Vivian teaches us the art of balancing friendship and business, learning to say no, and how to turn a lofty idea into something that’s more tangible.
If you are looking for other Asian-hosted and Asian-produced podcasts, then you’d want to subscribe to Rock the Boat. We have today Lucia and Lynne, the power ladies behind this amazing show. You’ll get to hear why gathering communities is important in the causes we believe in. And also the double whammy Asian women have to deal with in the corporate world: think glass ceiling and bamboo ceiling, the latter being something Lucia will explain more in this episode. You’ll also walk away with tactics on how to be intentional in checking in with your chief best friend as well as productivity tips from this awesome duo. I’m super stoked to know that Lucia and Lynne are transforming the stories around the Asian identity and how we should always aim to rock the boat.
Heart of Home Workshop is run by Clare Barker and Yasmina Cowan. Heart of Home is all about at-home indoor photography. It’s a very specific niche, if you asked me, but I love the way they see the home as an extension of ourselves. The thing that makes them such an interesting pair, is that they run a business in separate corners of the globe. Their friendship blossomed online, while apart. Even their business was started this way. First time they saw each other was 20 minutes before their first workshop attendee arrives. Despite the challenges we have with technology and social media, it does have its moments, especially when it brings two people together who may not otherwise have crossed paths. I love it, and I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.
We have Sam Lo and Sophie Ong in our show today. I’m lucky enough to be friends with both of them and I couldn’t help but bring them onto Chief Best Friends because I think they embody the future of work. Kind of like a collective, where each individual is a company of their own but would sometimes work together for certain projects. For most of our episodes we’ve had women co-founders who run their own business together. For Sam and Soph, it’s a little bit different because they’re two artists with very distinct styles. They earn their living through art commissions, traveling to places, like India recently, to paint walls. They embody what it means to check your ego at the door; having to work with another’s style, while also finding ways to bring their own self into the work. It’s truly the "art of balance".
It was a great pleasure to speak to Naomi and Frances, sisters and co-founders of Red Shoe Stories, a publishing company that’s helping bring diversity in picture books for children. Their fascinating story have origins in both their personal and professional lives. Coming from a corporate world, working long hours and never seeing their families, they realised that they have to change something to bring back balance to their lives. Naomi and Frances shared with us what Red Shoe Stories are actually about, their Kickstarter success story, and so many lessons they learned during the campaign. Don’t miss out on this inspiring and heartwarming story.
Super privileged to chat with two successful, smart and beautiful women Anabel Chew and Linda Tang, co-founders of WeBarre. Their studio brings together ballet technique, yoga, pilates and strength training in an invigorating workout to transform your entire body. It is the workout that celebrities swear by including Madonna, the Victoria Secret’s Angels and even Ryan Gosling. We learned first-hand how sharing the same passion and working together to achieve higher goals can change your life for better. They showed us a power of support, mutual respect, encouragement and trust to each other’s strengths. They also showed us that no goal is achievable only if you work with passion and go for it with your business partner. Empowering interview for all entrepreneurs!
Excited to bring this podcast closer to home with this episode. We speak with Sarah Tang and Alison Schooling of Sarah and Schooling. This was definitely one of our most fun interviews, with the energy and buzz of their friendship almost oozing out of the computer. As co-founders and ardent supporters of Singapore’s literary scene, they are actively involved in designing books and publications across multiple genres. It’s so refreshing to see such young talent in the world of printed matter. When everyone’s moving into digital, here are two awesome ladies injecting life into an industry that others perceive as dying. Clearly, that’s not the case! Super stoked to have Sarah and Alison talk to us about their beginnings and how they’ve both grown into their business, their friendship, and their own power.
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Love the show and concept! I think you bring out great stories from your guests, and somehow, it feels like the guests leave the show knowing each other better too. For a podcast, I think that's rare :)