Well Being Walks with Kip Hollister

This week Kip takes a walk with Chris Gasbarro, where they discuss the creativity and opportunity that has emerged from this new virtual environment - both at work and at home with family.
Chris Gasbarro is President and Owner of Ember, an event production/creation company that specializes in creating unique unforgettable corporate, B2B and consumer events and gatherings.

This week Kip walks with Tom Harvey to discuss the importance of authenticity in leadership. Tom discusses his own experience being fully himself as a gay man, and also shares how motivated he is by the important work his company does in serving vulnerable patient populations. Tom Harvey is Chief Information Officer at Alkermes, a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on diseases such as such as schizophrenia, depression, addiction and multiple sclerosis.

Sulagna (Dia) Ghosh is a Google's Women Techmakers Ambassador with a background in computational biology and over 10 years of work experience in academia and biotech. As the founder of Joint Family, she is dedicated to building an innovative, inclusive and data driven venture to connect and empower individuals across generations.

Earlier this year Joint Family held its very first multigenerational virtual series. This post The Pilot That Got Everyone Talking encapsulates some of the insights gained. To further strengthen community ties we have been hosting in person workshops. Our first session took place at the Foundry Festival and a word that resonated throughout the session was community. This video link provides a glimpse of the immersive experience. A similar sense of connectedness emerged during a gathering at the Cambridge Public Library with over 30 participants aged 9 to 75+ (video highlights) and a subsequent AI literacy workshop focused on mental health and companionship at the Woburn Public Library (SCI-Let)! Our work bridging generational divides was recently recognized by the local community in Cambridge, MA (Imagined In Cambridge).

Joint Family will be resuming programs this Fall with an in-person session at the Malden Public Library on September 14th. Beyond these one-off events, a major focus for Q4 are community specific projects that bring together local residents on a semi-regular basis. An idea we are beta testing in collaboration with the Foundry Consortium centers on intergenerational storytelling with AI + local artists culminating in a mural of lived experiences.

In this week’s podcast, Kip walks with Judy Giovangelo to talk about their shared experiences with loss. Judy discusses being “a Ben”—someone born into an environment with trauma and challenge, and a unique intuition and sensitivity to their surroundings. She tells her son Ben’s story, and how he inspired her to start her foundation, Ben Speaks.

Judy and Kip discuss how grief can allow a person to lean into their spiritual essence and guide them to love. Judy discusses how investing in the grief process, finding service work, and self-care can allow a grieving person to move forward. She and Kip discuss how mindset and taking control of subconscious behaviors can help a person find direction and be resilient through life’s challenges.

Judy Giovangelo is the founder of Ben Speaks, a foundation where families can access a full spectrum of resources, including Emergency, Therapeutic, Healing, Mental Health, Addiction, Nutrition, and Grief Support. She is also a healer, yoga instructor, artist, and author of the book Phoenix Rising. Find out more about Ben Speaks here: https://www.benspeaks.org/.

This week Kip walks with Dr. Beverly Edgehill and discusses what it is like to be a black female leader during these times and how Beverly sees leadership through her lens.

They share the importance of understanding one's own orientation/intentions and the power of building community vs. living with an us/them attitude. We need to be educated from each other and be curious to learn and understand. Learning and expressing one's own inner voice is critical. Silence is loud.

Dr. Beverly Edgehill is Senior Vice President, Global Head Organizational Development at The TJX Companies, Inc. and a former President and CEO of the Partnership.