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Behind The Work by Jessica Santana

Behind The Work by Jessica Santana

Written by: JESSICA SANTANA
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Jessica Santana is a business and leadership coach for entrepreneurs and executives. She specializes in teaching founders, entrepreneurs and executives how to build strong businesses, careers and lives they love. Behind The Work is the podcast show for ambitious executives and entrepreneurs looking to build businesses that scale and careers that leave an impact. Hosted by Jessica Santana, each episode features in-depth conversations with entrepreneurs, founders and executives who are building companies from the ground up and are succeeding in their career fields. Discover the real successes, honest failures, pivots, and the vision behind the most successful people reshaping industries. Some episodes, we’ll sit down with some dope guests and hear about their journeys. Other times, it’ll just be us—breaking down the lessons, strategies, and real talk that I have learned as an entrepreneur and executive – It will be everything you need to keep pushing forward and you’ll always walk away with something tangible and practical. This show will provide answers to questions like: - What does the real journey from zero to success actually look like—beyond the highlight reel? - How do I turn my business idea into a profitable, scalable company? - How do successful founders navigate failure, pivots, and setbacks without giving up? - What's the difference between entrepreneurs who scale to millions and those who stall? - How do you secure funding, and what should you know before approaching investors? - What does it actually take to build product-market fit? - How do you build a high-performing team and company culture from the ground up? - What blind spots do first-time entrepreneurs have, and how do you avoid them? - How do you balance growth with profitability and sustainability? - What's the real behind-the-scenes strategy that successful founders use? - How do you stay motivated and resilient through the tough seasons of building? - What's the path to building a company that can scale beyond you? - How do you know when to double down on your vision versus pivot? - What does leadership actually look like when you're building something from scratch? - How do the most successful entrepreneurs think differently about risk, money, and opportunity?JESSICA SANTANA Careers Economics Leadership Management & Leadership Personal Success
Episodes
  • The Funding Gap Nobody Talks About: Shawna Young on Closing the Gap for Founders

    The Funding Gap Nobody Talks About: Shawna Young on Closing the Gap for Founders
    Jun 2 2026

    Shawna Young has built her career around a simple but radical belief: that investing in underinvested founders isn't charity — it's the multiplying force that changes entire communities. It's not just about writing a check. It's about what happens when the right person finally gets the room, the resources, and the relationships they were always capable of using. This week, Shawna joins Jessica on Behind The Work.

    Shawna is the CEO of Camelback Ventures, a New Orleans-based nonprofit accelerator committed to increasing access to opportunity for entrepreneurs of color and women — providing early-stage fellows with seed funding, mentorship, and community at the "friends and family" stage of their journey. She came to Camelback from Ada Developers Academy, where she served as interim CEO, and has held executive leadership roles at the Scratch Foundation, MIT, Duke University, and Durham Public Schools. She holds an MBA from MIT, a master's in science education from UNC Chapel Hill, and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Howard University.

    In this conversation, we get into what it actually takes to fund early-stage founders the system has historically overlooked — and why the gap between a good idea and a funded one is rarely about talent. We talk about what Camelback's fellowship model gets right that traditional venture capital gets wrong, what it looks like to build a startup ecosystem from the inside out, and why Shawna would take a Rolodex over a million dollars every time — because in underinvested communities, the missing ingredient isn't always capital. It's connection.

    We also get into her own leadership journey — what it taught her to watch her parents build and sacrifice for a business for over 35 years, and how that shaped the way she thinks about the founders she now serves. We talk about what she learned stepping into Camelback during a founder transition, what it means to honor a vision while making it your own, and what the hardest parts of this work have revealed about what she is actually made of.

    This episode is for you if:

    - You're an early-stage founder who has been told no by rooms that weren't built to say yes to you — and you need to know there are people actively working to change that.
    - You work in venture, philanthropy, or impact investing and you're ready to be honest about where the gaps are and who gets left out.
    - You're building a nonprofit or social enterprise and trying to figure out how to scale without losing the mission.
    - You're a leader stepping into an organization someone else built — and you're navigating the weight of legacy while finding your own footing.
    - You believe the next generation of world-changing companies will come from founders who've been overlooked — and you want to understand what it takes to actually back them.
    - You want to see what it looks like to build an ecosystem, not just a portfolio.

    Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

    • Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
    • Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
    • Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
    • Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
    • Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

    About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.
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    45 mins
  • Judith Martinez On Women, Courage and Social Change

    Judith Martinez On Women, Courage and Social Change
    May 26 2026
    Judith Martinez has built her life around a single question: what would you do if you were one percent more courageous? It sounds simple. But for the young women of color she has spent her career serving, that one percent is the difference between staying small and stepping fully into who they were always meant to be. This week, Judith joins us on Behind The Work. Judith is the Founder and CEO of InHerShoes — the modern woman's community for courage — a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit committed to catalyzing courage for young women of color around the world. She is a first-generation Filipina-American, an LA native, a Forbes 30 Under 30 nominee, a Vital Voices and TRESemmé Global Leadership Fellow, a United State of Women Ambassador for California, and a 2021 awardee hand-selected by Serena Williams and Stuart Weitzman for her work in cross-generational equity. She has spoken at the United Nations Youth Assembly, worked alongside Echoing Green fellows, and most recently served as Director of Social Impact and Inclusion at Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez — where her work helped earn the brand a 2023 Fast Company Brands That Matter recognition. In this conversation, we get into where InHerShoes came from — what Judith saw in young women of color that made her say courage is the thing we have to activate. We talk about what it felt like to speak at the UN Youth Assembly in the early years, what traditional institutions are still getting wrong about developing leaders, and what she learned co-authoring the first book written by students, for students, on leadership in higher education. We also get into the corporate world — what drew her to Rare Beauty, what social impact looks like from inside a brand versus inside a nonprofit, and how she navigates the line between performative and authentic impact when the pressure to perform is real. We talk about what the 2020 national awakening taught her about the relationship between individual courage and systemic change. And we talk about the hardest moment in her journey — and what it revealed about what she is actually made of. This episode is for you if: - You have an idea, a vision, or a calling you've been too afraid to begin — and you need someone to remind you that one percent is enough to start. - You're a first-generation woman navigating systems that weren't built for you and trying to build something that will outlast you. - You work in social impact — inside a nonprofit, a brand, or a corporation — and you're thinking hard about how to protect the integrity of the mission. - You're a young leader trying to figure out how to build power without losing yourself in the process. - You've been waiting for permission to step into the room — and you need someone to tell you the permission was always yours. - You want to understand what it really looks like to build a movement from the ground up — the parts that worked, the parts that didn't, and the moments that changed everything Connect with Jessica:- Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/ - Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessicasantana - Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow - Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide - Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.
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    39 mins
  • Charlotte Castillo On Latinas & Civic Engagement with Poderistas

    Charlotte Castillo On Latinas & Civic Engagement with Poderistas
    May 19 2026

    Charlotte Castillo was seven years old when she became the Chief Translator for her Dominican immigrant family in New York City. She didn't know it then, but she was already doing the work — figuring things out beyond her years, building courage in real time, and learning how to move between worlds. Twenty years later, she's still translating. Just on a much bigger stage.This week, Charlotte joins us on Behind The Work.Charlotte is the Managing Director of Poderistas — one of the fastest-growing and most influential digital communities celebrating Latina culture in the United States. Before that, she spent over 14 years as an award-winning senior executive at ViacomCBS, and before that, she was the founding Head of Marketing at Latina Magazine — the first print publication ever created for the bicultural Latina. She is a first-generation college graduate from Wesleyan University, the proud daughter of Dominican immigrants, a New Yorker to her core, and a mother of a 16-year-old son.In this conversation, we start at the beginning — what it was like to grow up as the daughter of Dominican immigrants in New York, and how that environment shaped her sense of identity, resourcefulness, and ambition. We talk about what it meant to be part of Latina Magazine from the very start, and what drew her deeper into media and marketing for a community that had long been underserved and misunderstood.We get into the pivot — what made her walk away from a long, successful corporate career, how she found Poderistas as a volunteer after being laid off during the pandemic, and what it felt like to step into something so mission-driven after 14 years inside one of the most powerful media companies in the world. We talk about why Poderistas works — why leading with culture, beauty, health, and entertainment creates the trust that makes civic engagement possible — and what she has learned about what actually moves people from awareness to action. We get into the danger of treating Latinas as a monolith, what it really looks like to correct that in media and politics, and what Latina power means not as a slogan, but as a real, lived practice in everyday life.This episode is for you if:- You've spent years building someone else's vision and you're starting to feel the pull toward something that actually reflects your values.- You're navigating the transition from a corporate career to mission-driven work and want to hear from someone who made that shift and found her footing.- You care about civic engagement but feel like traditional outreach has never spoken to you — and you want to understand a different approach.- You're a Latina who is tired of being treated as a monolith and wants to see what it looks like when an organization actually gets the complexity of our community.- You work in media, marketing, or philanthropy and want a sharper lens on how to reach communities with authenticity rather than assumption.- You want to understand what it looks like to build power through culture — and why that approach is more durable than anything built on messaging alone.Connect with Jessica:- Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter — link in bio- Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessicasantana- Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow- Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide- Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindtheworkAbout Behind The Work:Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 1 min
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