Fortune Favors the Bold - The Official Mastercard Podcast

This week, Fortune Favors the Bold brings you a bonus episode. Ashley sat down with Trevor Mundel, President of Global Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Mike Froman, the Vice Chairman and President of Strategic Growth at Mastercard to answer the question on all of our minds: How can we work together in a crisis? Trevor, Mike, and Ashley talk about how the global health and economic crisis is impacting work of all kinds—from positions in the gig economy to traditional nine to five jobs. Even though our lives have changed, they are encouraged by the way businesses and organizations are coming together to share expertise and resources to stop the spread of COVID-19 and protect our most vulnerable. Together, they think through how we can take what we’re learning in this difficult time and create a more equitable society on the other side of this crisis.

This episode of Fortune Favors the Bold is coming to you LIVE from On Air Fest in Brooklyn. Ashley sat down with comedian, writer, and activist Baratunde Thurston and CEO and founder of The Helm, Lindsey Taylor-Wood to wrap up our season and answer one final question: what does it mean to be BOLD? Baratunde, Lindsey and Ashley walk us through their own financial journeys: how systemic, economic barriers have shaped their financial identities, how they think about a future where women and people of color have access to financial capital, and how their professional and personal goals have changed their definition of financial equilibrium. Together, they think through how we can all set ourselves up to be BOLD in ways that work for us.

As our lives move increasingly online, it can seem like everything is password-protected. How do we choose good passwords? And how do we keep track of those passwords? Most importantly, what can we do to really keep all our data safe? On today’s episode of Fortune Favors the Bold, Host Ashley C. Ford sits down with Eric Mennell, a podcast producer who understands why we need passwords in today’s digital age but can’t ever seem to remember his passwords and ultimately wants a better, smarter and more seamless way to protect his professional and personal information. Ashley turns to cybersecurity experts Rebecca Leddingham and Cormac Hurley to find solutions that will help Eric and so many people like him. They’ll discuss different strategies for keeping our accounts safe, how companies can be responsible for protecting their clients’ data, and imagine a world in which biometrics might make passwords a thing of the past.

This week, Ashley heads to Albuquerque, New Mexico to continue exploring the question, “how can I make my work work for me?” To find answers, we’re doing something a little different: we’ll meet two people who are already talking through big questions– about work, life, and having an impact– together. Ashley sits down with Amy Yeung, founder of Orenda Tribe vintage boutique, and Shondina Lee, a young Navajo creative and one of Amy’s collaborators. The three discuss Amy’s decision to leave the corporate world of fast fashion to get closer to her indigenous roots, Shondina’s journey to representing her community through design, and how our work can be personally fulfilling while also making the world a better place.

We’ve been hearing so much about the changing nature of work recently– whether it’s the rise of the gig economy, or millennials rising in the workforce. And we know so many people’s money questions are work questions, so we decided to do a two part series on it!  In this first episode of the series, Ashley talks to Andrew, a plumber’s apprentice and part-time arborist, about how his financial identity has shaped his zig-zagging career path. They discuss Andrew’s hopes for the future, and what it’ll take for him to find both financial equilibrium and meaning in his work.  Then, Ashley convenes a panel of two people who’ve been where Andrew is today. We hear from Heather Marold Thomason, founder of the sustainable butchery Primal Supply (https://www.primalsupplymeats.com/), and Jeremy Ayers, the artisan behind the Vermont-based Jeremy Ayers Pottery (https://www.jeremyayerspottery.com/), about how they found the confidence and perseverance to launch their own businesses and navigate life outside the 9-to-5. 

Travel is often a transformative part of our personal and professional lives. But there’s a growing conversation around the ethics of traveling. From the carbon emissions involved in flying to the impact on local communities, there are a lot of factors to consider when it comes to deciding how, where and why to travel.  This week on Fortune Favors the Bold, Ashley C. Ford explores how to travel more intentionally. She speaks with Jada Yuan, the first-ever New York Times 52 Places Traveler, about the essential role travel has played in her life, and what questions about responsible travel her round-the-world trip inspired. To address those questions, we’ll hear from Justin Francis, founder and CEO of Responsible Travel, a company that helps tourists make more informed decisions about their travel plans. Justin explains how sustainable travel choices -- such as eating locally-sourced food -- can actually make travel a more affordable and emotionally fulfilling experience for everyone. He shares why he’s optimistic about our ability to travel in a way that preserves destinations for both the locals and visitors of the future. 

The number of people living in cities grows by about 6 million each year. And with all this growth, experts are looking for ways to make cities more comfortable, affordable, and accessible for everyone. Ashley sits down with Shayna Pollock, a self-proclaimed “transit nerd” who works for Central Atlanta Progress, a nonprofit focused on improving the livability of the city. Shayna has questions about how to ensure that everyone can reap the benefits of public transit, and how to spread that message throughout her city.  Ashley brings her questions to Kevin Bacon, an urban designer at Atlanta City Studios -- a “pop up” design studio that’s re-envisioning Atlanta with everyone in mind. They’ll discuss how the physical design of public transit can improve urban life, what needs to be protected, and how communities can prepare to grow without losing the city they love. 

It’s hard to know what exactly you’re paying for when you pay college tuition. Is it a chance at a better career? Some time on a lush green campus learning from worldly professors? The risk of six-figure debt that never seems to shrink? And if students are paying a fraction of that price or nothing at all in other countries, how do we rationalize the cost here in the United States? Is college in the United States and abroad still worth the price tag? Ashley Ford speaks to Katia Maneff, a mom who is considering the cost of higher education for her daughter both in the United States and the United Kingdom. To answer Katia’s questions, Ashley turns to journalist Paul Tough and University College London economics professor Gillian Wyness to get more information on the tricky decisions we make when we think about how, why, and how much to pay for a college education.

Welcome to Season 3 of Mastercard’s Fortune Favors the Bold! Ashley C. Ford is back, and she’s kicking off our season by diving into the financial question that underlies everything else we’re talking about this season: how do we define ourselves financially? For a lot of people, a surefire way to really feel your own financial identity is to start making financial decisions with someone else. In this episode, we’ll be talking to a couple who is in the process of figuring out their own financial identities, including: how to maintain financial independence, what to do if your partner comes from a different financial background than you do, do you have to merge bank accounts”? And how do you even start these big, motional conversations? Ashley will then bring these types of questions to a panel of experts who know how to navigate the murky waters of love and finance. We’ll hear from Anna Sale, host of WNYC’s Death, Sex and Money, CBS news business analyst Jill Schlesinger and Daniel Lavery, AKA Slate’s “Dear Prudence.” Together they’ll give our guests and listeners insight to help their love lives thrive and anxieties subside when money enters the equation.

Season 3 of Fortune Favors the Bold, available wherever you get your podcasts in January 2020

Hey, Fortune Favors the Bold listeners— Ashley C. Ford here. I’m back and so is ​Fortune Favors the Bold​ Season 3. We’ll have new episodes of the podcast in just a few months, but I’m popping into your feed now because we need your help. This season’s theme is “Question Everything.” We’re diving into real questions from real people— the financial questions that everyone thinks about, but no one talks about. So we’re doing something a little different. We’re taking your calls! We want to hear the questions that are keeping you up at night. Are you thinking about how to pay for school? What it means to be “financially stable” in this day and age? How to find work that works for you? Whatever your question is... throw it at us. And this season, we’ll find answers that will help ​all of us​ navigate our ever-changing world. So call us and leave a voicemail with your question— no matter how big or small. Call 971-666-3977. That’s 971 - MONEY QS. You just might hear your question on the show.

Season One host Ashley C. Ford is back for this live bonus episode! She spoke with Nichole Perkins, co-host of the podcast Thirst Aid Kit, and Stefanie O’Connell, who specializes in talking to women about how to take control of their money. 

There’s a misconception that small businesses are overshadowed by big businesses when it comes to driving the economy. The truth?  Small businesses punch way above their weight, creating positive ripple effects far beyond their local community. In this episode, we’ll follow a storefront bakery in Washington, D.C., focused on the betterment of military veterans, their spouses, and their caretakers. We also talk to a woman in the northern farmlands of Rwanda, who built her own brick-making business, all thanks to a nonprofit seeking to guide young entrepreneurs out of poverty.

In 2012, for the first time in history, more people made their homes in cities than rural areas. But now, services designed for a few hundred thousand residents are straining under the pressure of meeting the traffic, housing and health demands of millions, and sometimes tens of millions of people. With limited space and resources, how can city officials make more services work for more people? “Smart city” proponents say new networks, integrated technology and data-driven decision making will make the difference in cities of the future. 

What it means to be employed continues to shift. The old way of thinking? It’s up to employees to learn those new skills, or else companies will find someone else who has them. In this episode, we’ll hear from employers turning that way of thinking on its head — and seeing how their businesses are benefiting.

Long-established methods for determining who gets credit are leaving a lot of people behind. In this episode, we’re talking to the people finding new ways to establish creditworthiness and getting more people access to opportunity in the process.

As technology changes at an ever-faster pace, it’s more important than ever to talk to kids about money. But that’s hard to do if you, as a parent or teacher, never learned about money yourself. We’ll hear from the rule breakers who are making sure future generations don’t have the same blind spot.

Bootstraps, good attitudes and elbow grease? Sorry, that’s not enough to be upwardly mobile these days. See how individuals and countries can fight against the inertia that makes class transition so difficult, and look at some organizations who are tipping the scales.

This season, host Mona Chalabi will help us explore the assumptions that shape the way we think about things like upward mobility, creditworthiness, financial literacy, and more. And then she’s going to talk about who’s kicking those assumptions to the curb and forging new approaches that might just benefit all of society. She’ll also look at how organizations are protecting their own interests by reskilling the 21-Century workforce, how growing cities are outsmarting expectations, and how small businesses remain the workhorses of a huge portion of the global economy and workforce.

Imagine using your phone to give a subway busker a couple bucks. Or, walking into a store knowing you won’t have to wait in line to check-out. Imagine a world beyond cash. In some Scandinavian countries, this is already a reality—roughly 90-percent of all financial transactions are on debit cards. In this episode, taped in front of a live audience in Manhattan, an economist, a humanitarian and a businessman will discuss how cash is being replaced around the world with electronic payments. You’ll hear a lively conversation, moderated by Ashley C. Ford, between representatives from The Fletcher School at Tufts, The International Rescue Committee, and Lyft about what going cashless looks like worldwide, and what the United States can learn from other countries about getting it right.

The fact is, many of us are working jobs that were created in the past ten years— app developers, social media managers, ride-share drivers! And because of major advancements in technology, the pace of this change is only going to get faster. So, how do we keep up? This episode is all about the skills we need to future-proof our careers. What skills will help workers of the future weather job loss, new titles, or automation? You’ll hear stories from someone who made a drastic career move at age 50, a robot creator, a futurist and a workplace strategist who will share their secrets to future-proofing our careers.

We use ID all the time. Maybe you use a driver’s license to prove you’re old enough to buy beer. You might have a PIN you use at your bank. You probably have a bunch of passwords for different websites and social media accounts. But we don’t really think about ID until something goes wrong. In this episode, we’ll explore what it means to be able to prove we are who we say we are, and how it can change our lives. You’ll hear stories about how organizations like the World Bank are working to bring digital IDs to the developing world, how the private sector is striving to make IDs super secure, and how the Baltic country of Estonia has gone completely digital. 

“It's not personal, just business" was a line that could have gotten you far in the 80s—but today, businesses need to adopt an entirely new mindset. To be successful you also need VALUES. In this episode, you’ll learn how some businesses are tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems like poverty and hunger, and in the process, learning that you can do well AND do good.  You’ll hear from a successful founder who’s helping lead a movement to put purpose at the core, right alongside profit, and meet a business-whisperer who teaches CEOs how to get on-board with the economy of doing good. 

It’s time to say ‘goodbye’ to white picket fences because that American Dream is history. In fact, the dream might not even be American at all. In this episode, Ashley C. Ford investigates what’s next. Hear stories from people who are walking away from traditional markers of success and finding new ways to define prosperity.

Host Ashley C. Ford kicks off the series by examining the future of work through the lens of the gig economy. In this episode, you'll meet risk-takers who have chosen to put their personal values -- like experience and travel -- over traditional ideas of stability and ownership. Hear stories of a family who lives and works on the road, tales of entrepreneurs, freelancers and more.

This season, host Ashley C. Ford will examine the unique and changing role money plays in our lives—and about what happens when we take risks, take control, and redefine our relationship with it. She’ll take on the future of work through the lens of the gig economy, talk to companies who are defining what it means to do well by doing good, explore how digital identities are key to accessing the digital economy, and take a peek at how the cashless future is already unfolding before our eyes. Fortune Favors the Bold will also explore our shifting sense of just what marks “success” in our lives—and how money has become more of a means to a different end, rather than the end goal itself.