Female Founder Stories: Seeds of Hope

​Keira Kotler

​Keira Kotler is the visionary behind Everviolet, an intimate apparel collection designed with adaptability and beauty in mind. Her brand is dedicated to women navigating various life-altering experiences: whether it's coping with cancer, embracing pregnancy, navigating menopause, overcoming disability, dealing with skin sensitivities, or recovering from surgery.

​Keira's mission is to aid women in rekindling their sense of self and femininity. She strives to provide comfort, beauty, and confidence, ensuring that women feel their best, regardless of the challenges they encounter.

​Justine Kahn

​Justine is the creative force, formulator, and esthetician behind Botnia Skincare, a deeply personal journey toward authentic, holistic skincare. Botnia Skincare was born from the need for individualized skincare solutions, as unique as our fingerprints. This revelation ignited a passion for understanding skin's complexities and nature's nurturing secrets.

​More than a skincare line, Botnia is a science-backed collection of potent, raw ingredients, each uniquely blended to cater to specific skin types. A full-fledged lab, partnering with over 200 spas nationwide, the reach of Botnia extends beyond skincare. It embodies Justine’s cherished values: sustainable farming practices, a nurturing work environment, and the promotion of self-love.

​Hosts

​Bonnie Powers

Co-Founder, Poet, and/the Bench

​Bonnie pivoted from her 30-year career running branding, design, and innovation consultancies to opening the mixed-use retail and gallery space Poet and/the Bench with her jewelry designer husband. Poet and/the Bench is a rare find of a lifestyle shop with a highly edited selection of small batch and one of a kind home goods, art, jewelry and apothecary supporting more than 60 emerging and independent artists. A majority of the artists are from the San Francisco Bay Area, most are women, and a good selection of artists are BIPOC. 

​With a history of creating narratives for consumer brands, Bonnie believes in giving voice and visibility to artists and providing a platform for discovery and an intimate shopping experience. At its heart, her passion is connecting you to the artist's story to develop an examined way of buying and creating an appreciation for craft and inspiration. She says, “Storytelling connects us to the human experience.” The shop has its brick-and-mortar HQ in Mill Valley and online e-commerce. 

​https://poetandthebench.com
​https://www.instagram.com/poetandthebench

​Kasia Stiggelbout

Founder, In Flow

​As a women’s wellness entrepreneur and podcast host, Kasia’s journey is anything but linear. In her past life, she led product development, marketing, and operations at companies like Microsoft, TEDx, and AI startups in Silicon Valley. Still, after suffering crippling burn-out, which resulted in full-body eczema, hormonal imbalance, & inflammation, Kasia found herself questioning her definition of “success.” Her life seemed perfect on paper, but her heart and body were left behind. Embracing the Buddhist philosophy of a “beginner's mind” she leaped to leave her 11-year successful corporate career and start from scratch; redefining her sense of self and launching an ever-evolving journey to balance her Type-A, “Yang” energy with that of feminine “Yin” vibes. She entered a Doctoral program studying Chinese Medicine, graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and launched her podcast, helping similarly ambitious women navigate “doing” with “being.”

​Today Kasia Hosts the Nourish Podcast and is building In Flow,  a women’s wellness brand rooted in cyclical living for ambitious women (covering every phase of a woman's cyclical journey: from first menstruation and pregnancy to menopause). When not working on her passions, she fills her cup hiking, doing yoga, or dancing. 

​https://www.linkedin.com/in/kkrzoska/
https://nourish.buzzsprout.com/