267: AI, Investment & Impact: Why Women’s Leadership Must Shape the Future with Susan Sly

What happens when a woman decides not just to lead in tech, but to fund it, shape it, and rebuild it from the inside out? This week on the Leading Woman in Tech podcast, I’m joined by Susan Sly, tech entrepreneur, investor, and the founder of multiple companies, including The Pause, for a bold and deeply honest conversation about what’s missing in the tech industry and what it’s going to take to fix it.

We’re talking about the urgent need for more women investors and founders, particularly in the AI space, but and beyond. Why ethical leadership is the future of innovation. How to navigate tech and VC in particular as a woman without playing small. And yes, we dive into perimenopause, women’s health in the startup world and why we need to be taking that more seriously. And why that might just impact the choices you’re going to make as a tech leader. This episode is an equal parts strategy and soul and it’s a rallying cry for any woman who’s ready to step up and not just participate in tech, but to reshape it. Let’s get into it.

Toni Collis 

Welcome to the show, Susan. Thank you for joining us today.

Susan Sly 

Toni, it’s so great to be here and to all of the listeners, I am super excited for our conversation because I know you and I were chatting pre-show. There is no hold bar, so let’s go.

Toni Collis 

Absolutely not, let’s go indeed. Well, let’s start off with who you are and what you do. You are one of the few women in the world who has deployed AI computer vision at scale, which is incredible. Tell us a little bit about how you got to that point. What does it mean to get to that point in your career, both personally, but also what does it mean to deploy AI computer vision at scale? Tell us about who you are today.

Susan Sly 

sure, absolutely. So I am an unlikely candidate to deploy a computer vision at scale or in 2024 to be one of only a handful of women to be named alongside Mera Murty, who is then the CTO of OpenAI as one of the top women in the world in real time artificial intelligence. I spent 20 years, in CPG, consumer packaged goods helping a American-based company, I’m originally from Canada, so I’m a commonwealther, scale their products and services. And then in 2016, I had traveled the world, Cambodia, Africa, all over the place with a focus of liberating girls from sex trafficking. And I’ve been in, and I’ve seen some of the most horrific things one can see.

And I came back from one of my trips and I wasn’t well. And normally I would be taking with me a kit, antibiotics and antivirals and all sorts of things. And this time it was a last minute trip and I came back and I started to get strange fevers that would come and go. I started to feel very weak. I ended up in bed. I was misdiagnosed by three different doctors. One said it was all in my head, gave me a personal development book. I said, you realize I do speaking events with Toni Robbins and I’ve written seven books. So another one said it was PMS and he sent me a journal article on PMS. eventually I, in a hail Mary ended up in New York seeing an 83 year old physician who had served in over 30 Medecins Sans Frontières camps and he diagnosed me, had an amoeba, it was shutting down my organs and I could have died had I not had really healthy lifestyle. And as I was going through two years of treatment, Toni, I kept thinking if I had died, what is it that I would have missed in my career? What was my opus? And it was technology.

Susan Sly

And so I serendipitously ran into these guys who were starting a computer vision company and they needed someone with my skills, raising money, selling, and they made me a co-founder. And so I hadn’t written a line of code since 92. I enrolled in MIT. The pandemic hit. I doubled down and finished a four-year program in three years and brought in the largest deal that had been done in computer vision. It was a $60 million deal. And under my tenure as COSY of that company, we made history. And so that was the journey that for the last seven years, I’ve been at the bleeding edge of artificial intelligence.

Toni Collis 

Wow, that’s pretty cool. And what a way to like go from a moment of, gosh, like I could die to turning that into a mission to do something bigger and better. think you hear some of the most inspiring people in the world and that there was a moment where they said, I, now I have to. And it sounds like that was your moment, but let’s talk startups because you’re a founder, a multi-time founder, including that company.

And I know that women-led startups are one of the things that you’re passionate about. So just to give the listeners a bit of background here, 63 % of women-led startups are more successful. Female-led companies are more likely to become unicorns. Why is it that VC funding is dropping today? I think you said to me before the show, it’s dropped from 2.5 % to just 1%. What is going on? And why are you one of those women that’s bucking the trend, do you think?

Susan Sly

That’s a great question. We look at the, you know, as much as the, one can look at what’s happening in, you know, the global landscape and as much as women are in greater leadership positions, the trend toward VC funding, toward women led startups, it’s not even attributable to one political party. Went down in 2024. So it went from 2.5 % to 2.4 % to less than 1 % last year. And we’ll see how things are going to land this year. So part of it is that traditionally, and I’m just going to say this, Silicon Valley, which tends to be the epicenter of technology, especially for the United States, is very much an old boys club. You have a lot of

Gen X men, and I’m 52, so Gen X, a lot of Gen X men who came up, they were the ones who did STEM engineering. We still in those days had a disproportionate number of men to women who were actually studying technology, becoming the engineers, coding. I was a bit of an outlier because I was coding in the 80s. I was raised by my dad, a single dad.

And he was an engineer. I tell me in the eighties, I wanted video games and he’s a code them yourself. And so I was that nerdy kid who started the Dungeons and Dragons club and was making my own video games and doing all that stuff. But it was, you know, it was mostly men. So as these men have gone to build companies early on and then exit and become venture capitalists, of course, like attracts like that’s one problem.

The second problem is women don’t even realize that they can be investors. And a lot of women who maybe have the means to write a check for whatever, know, 25,000 euros or 50,000, they don’t realize that they can use that to fund women-led companies. If you’re looking at the stock market, and someone said to your excellent point,

Oh, that stock is 63 % more likely to be profitable. Of course you’d invest in it, right? Who doesn’t wish they had invested in Nvidia in 2010? But by that same token, they’re not looking at that. And in 2025, there’s a very different VC scorecard. The other thing to note, in 2021, we saw valuations that were absolutely through the roof. And a lot of big investment firms invested at these inflated valuations.

In the United States, there were 11,000 VCs. Last year, there were less than 9,500. In the next two years, it’s estimated there will be less than 7,800. The number of VCs is going down. So that’s a problem. And so you have fewer women who entered STEM. You have more guys who are investing in their friends’ companies because they came up, they’ve had their exits. Women who don’t even know they can invest.

And that’s the perfect storm for lack of investment. So women founders, if you know that you’re going to have to pitch a hundred times to get one, yes, you just know what you’re up against. The only way to change it ladies is to be wildly successful, make money and do what I’ve done, which is take some of the money that I’ve made and reinvest in some female led startups.

Toni Collis

Because I know I have a lot of listeners who are leaders who want to work for women-led companies. also have a lot of listeners who, and a lot of clients who come to me as senior executives and like they have a little bit of a desire to be a founder and they’re just not quite sure what that looks like. Some of them will be a co-founder as kind of more of a side hustle and they don’t really know what to do. But I think particularly the ones who want to work for a female-led company, I often think to myself,

Why are you not going out and being that female leader that you want to work for? Why are you waiting for somebody else to do it? What would you say to those women?

Susan Sly 

It’s a great question. We haven’t spoken about imposter syndrome as women for a few years. It was kind of like.

Toni Collis

I know it’s kind of not become the topic for a bit, hasn’t it?

Susan Sly

Yes, exactly. But it’s very real. And even for myself as women, we will often second guess ourselves. And especially when it comes to starting technology companies, right? It’s, it’s am I, do I really have that understanding? Do I really have the ability to lead a team? And then a lot of these tech teams you’re going to be leading, a lot of them are, comprised of a lot of men, because again, we don’t have as many women going into STEM. So even at my current company, The Paws, I have an inordinate ratio of young men to young women. Now we do have female engineers, but when we put out a job posting, Toni, we’ll get, say we get 50 applicants. We might have of those 50, there might be three who are women.

And so this from the imposter syndrome, number one, you have to look yourself in the mirror and say, you know what, I, I’m strong enough to be a leader, regardless of who I’m leading. Number two, have a healthy curiosity, figure it out. And number three is if you’re the one with the idea and we have all of these amazing AI tools and we can research and we can do architecture diagrams without having an engineering background.

then learn it, figure it out, and then surround yourself with people who are very mission driven, who have the skills you need. But we don’t talk about imposter syndrome, but it’s still very real. If it wasn’t real, a lot of women aren’t going into starting companies because they know the funding landscape is so challenging.

Toni Collis

Yeah, there’s so much to unpack in that. The first one is I’m just going to do a call out actually to you and to listeners, which is I really want to put more women in touch with women led companies. So if anybody is looking to hire a ping me on LinkedIn, I’d be happy to repost it. I think I have a lot of clients looking for jobs and I have a lot of people like you who are saying I would love to have more women candidates in the poll.

So if you’re listening, Susan, this goes to you too, please, like next time you’re hiring, ping it to me. Let me just do a little bit of a service, just by simply reposting something, connecting more. I’ve got something like 13,000 female followers at this point, so yay. But then I think the next thing I want to dig into here is what you’re doing at the pause, for example, because am I correct in understanding the pause is really a menopause-based service, is that right?

Susan Sly

So when we started the company, it was really interesting because I was traveling Toni all the time from my previous company. And I was also having two week long periods. I was sweating through my clothes. I had to start wearing only black because I would just bleed and I’d sweat. And to all the women listening, the average woman

is going to see five to six providers and she is probably going to be gaslit. And now the big thing is, just go on hormone replacement. Not all women qualify for hormone replacement. Not all practitioners are certified to prescribe it. So we’re seeing women getting prescribed things that are not necessarily the best for them. And they’re, it’s, like hormone spaghetti, Toni. It’s just like, here, on this much progesterone, tons of testosterone, inject it, do this, do this. And then it might solve some things in the short term, but then it causes other problems. And so what was happening to me was I’d be great for two weeks out of the month and then I would just, you know, collapse. so as this was happening, I was invited to speak at this event by Nvidia and HPE in New York for Fashion Week, and it was called Women in AI, and there are only 32 women who get to go. And so I go there, and then what it is, in the morning we talk about AI, and then we get on a party bus and go to a fashion show and drink champagne. So we’re all on the party bus, and the girls are not talking about, the latest GPUs and all this different stuff and servers. They were like, how much sleep did you get? Are you having hot flashes? How’s your sex drive? And one girl is like, Susan, can you solve this with AI? And I said, it’s interesting because I’ve been thinking about this. The reason, when we look at menopause and we look at a TAM, a total addressable market, by 2030, over 1 billion women globally will be in menopause. And menopause, and just as a PSA for women, ladies, it isn’t your period stops and your past menopause. This is the lack of education. This is the only inevitable health condition every woman on the planet will face. And we will spend over 40 % of our lives in menopause. you, the average age globally of menopause is 51. You stop your period. Guess what? You’re not done.

Now you have vaginal dryness. Now you have low sex drive. Now you have brain fog. Now you’re not sleeping. And you think that’s just an old age thing. It is not, it hasn’t been solved. The only way to solve it is with AI because you’re talking about a data set that is so diverse to be able to figure it out. You have to use artificial intelligence and 70 % of the recommendations for women in cardiology, in oncology come from data sets that are based on middle-aged white men.

Toni Collis

Yes, I’m so glad you brought that up, because most of our medicine is based on data from white men. It pisses me off, quite frankly. That’s how I got into caring so much about diversity, was actually hearing the medicine. Breast cancer treatment was first trialed on men. It was only in 2005, I think, I kind of made that up. I’m not sure when. It’s very recent they started actually trialing breast cancer drugs on women.

It’s like, you what? What is going on here? So yeah, I mean, and this brings me back to my question. I love that you’re tackling this, but it is fascinating to me that even in a company where you are tackling a women’s health problem with AI, yes, it’s a tech thing, that you are still inundated by male applicants. Because I think a lot of the time, women would see a company that’s tackling a male problem and they went, no, I don’t want to go there.

I know, so many of my clients want to, I’ve got like three clients right now who want to work for a health-based tech company working on a female health problem. And they’re like, I don’t even know where to look. There are so many female health problems out there that I think there’s a growing acceptance of people like you. Like there are real issues that we haven’t tackled as a species that affect women. And yet they are, they’re saying I can’t find a company, but then you’re inundated with male applicants. It’s like, I feel like,

There’s just like a huge mismatch going on here. What’s going on? I didn’t expect you to have an answer, but yeah, have a go.

Susan Sly

I’ll speak for our company because I think we have something very special and unique. our focus is on being a benefits platform. So we do have a consumer version of our product. It’s available in the US and Canada. We will be making it available in the UK in early 2026.

which is fantastic. It is coming. And for us, it’s been really, I, I’m very focused, Toni, on the human side. believe anyone can learn skills, but you can’t learn integrity and heart. That is something that takes, usually a traumatic life experience in my opinion, for someone to really go from, in the UK, we’d say being a git like For someone to go from being a complete idiot, horrid person to suddenly they’re like Gandhi, something traumatic has to happen. And I have seen that. For me, and as a CEO and a founder, even my head of product was raised by his mom and his grandmother. He knows more about menopause than I do.

He, you know, he’ll be the first one to say there are 10 different phases and stages rather of perimenopause and menopause. 10. I didn’t know this.

Toni Collis

I didn’t know that. I’m learning about perimenopause at the moment. Full disclosure, I had no idea that. I’m going to go and Google that now. You and I need to have a longer conversation.

Susan Sly

Yeah, it’s called the straw 10. And so he was a data scientist working for me in my previous company. He cares so deeply about the experience of the user and the data and the AI we’re creating and the models. then, you know, he’s just this, this, he has this beautiful soul and this beautiful heart.

And I think that when we look at, you know, even for my dad, the first person who went to buy me tampons was my dad, right? And I think that for me, I love men too, but again, it comes down to one, I mentor a lot of young women who are in university and they’re wanting to start companies. It’s a disproportionate number who are studying STEM. It’s a disproportionate number.

who are starting companies, women apply for fewer patents than men do. We just applied for a patent for our company. And then I was in front of three male VCs and they’re like, why did you apply for a patent that, you know, it means you won’t be able to be as nimble. And I said, if, you know, in my mind, I’m like, if I was a guy, they’d be like, Hey bro, that’s so good. Like you applied for a patent. Good girl. You know, why are you applying for a patent? It’s just mind blowing how

And we can’t just even paint it on a gender. If someone’s an idiot, you can be a female and be an idiot too. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to be encouraging more young women to go into STEM, encouraging more young women to start their own businesses and be okay with the fact that the odds are stacked against you, right?

And, and, investing in those companies after I exit this one, I am going to start an incubator and I’ve even changed my investment thesis. I’m not investing capital right now because the best thing I heard Toni was bet on yourself. So I get so many like random reach outs, like, invest in my company. I’m like, no, I’m investing in me.

Toni Collis

I love that. wish more women actually would invest in themselves. And that goes back to like investing in things like coaching. so I’ve been in being my bonnet about that. Women are less likely to invest in coaching the men by quite like a margin. And obviously as a coach, as a women in tech coach, I find that heartbreaking. But I think in general, like we should be prepared to invest in ourselves. think that there’s, are, you can control what your outcomes are. If you don’t like what you’re seeing,

Yes, there are things that are external, but we have a lot more control over what happens, and I think we think we do. If you’ve invested in a third party company, you have very little control, even if you are invested enough that you’re on the board. There’s actually not a huge amount you can do. If you don’t agree with the decisions of the founder, if you don’t see that they have grit, if they’re pivoting left, right and centre because they’re freaking out, you don’t have control over that. You have control over you and what you do.

if you can control your mindset, which is something interesting. Well, let’s actually talk about, you and I brainstormed before we hit record about changes to transform the tech industry to support female founders. So the thing we came up with was like looking at company boards, AI governance, small scale investing, becoming a founder yourself. Like let’s talk through those.

What are the levers we should be using to change this tech industry for the better? There are so many more female, women out there who want to become female founders. There are so many more women wanting the world to look more female oriented. What can we do?

Susan Sly

Well, you’re going to be a guest on my show, and Real Entrepreneurship. And so I’m just going to be raw and real. It’s the only way I know how to be. Number one, girls, that period tracking app you’re using, who started that company?

Yeah, the number one tracker in the world is founded by two men and kudos to them. have done incredibly well, but number one is women. need to support women led companies like our company. To give an example, we’re doing this fun, but the time this show comes out, it will already have happened, but we’re, doing this really fun called the pause slumber party, Toni. And it’s about bringing women together with doctors.

to give tips on how to get better sleep because women who are in perimenopause and menopause, one of the first things that starts to go asleep, right? And so we have women led businesses that were founded by women who are sponsoring it. Glowchie, that’s one of my portfolio companies, Lori Harder’s company, then Womaness. That company has products for women in skincare, perimenopause and menopause. In this world, I am so

I’m aware of where I’m choosing to spend my hard earned dollars from the apps I download to the products I use to the brands I’m wearing. Ladies, if you don’t like the stats Tommy and I are sharing, where did you go shopping? That outfit you’re wearing, who designed it? Like even look at fashion designers.

You know, we can all name like all of these incredible designers. Fashion was one of the first places where women started to build massive brands. know Donna Karen, she built a massive brand. And you look at Diane Von Furstenberg and all of these different people. So what are you wearing? What do you, you know, like all of those things, it all comes down to one, where are you spending your money? And I want you all to message Toni, I want you to tag us, have a bloody wake up call. The biggest thing, like our company being female founded, my co-founder, Dr. Mia Ciorny, she sees these patients every day. She is a specialty in cardiology, genomics, she’s board certified in menopause. We’re a female founded company solving women’s health, right?

And Toni for me, that has been my wake up call. I’m a lot more present to it. Number two is the boards. This is, are seeing the tech bros behaving really badly. Mark Zuckerberg last year announced his AI committee. There was not one woman on it. Last year there was like the, can’t even remember who published it. New York times, the top 25 people in AI. There was not one freaking woman on it. Like

This is ridiculous. Every company that uses AI tools is an AI company. Who on the board has any experience scaling AI? I’m not talking about consultants. I’m talking about people like myself who’ve actually been in the trenches and done it. And does the board represent the end user base? And we still see a disproportionate number of boards that don’t represent the user base. And going back to Meta, 50 % of its users on its platforms are women and yet you have an AI board comprised only of men. And that’s what happened with that whole internal shakeup at open AI and they were called to the carpet. They had to make changes, but Miramurty left and she was incredible CTO during all of it because she was like, enough’s enough. I’m not, you know, I’m not being party to this nonsense. So everyone listening, I want, if you’re,

If you’re listening and you’re, you’re mad that the fact that Canva, a tool we all love, she had to pitch 200 VCs to get one yes. And she became a unicorn. If you’re mad about this, but you’re still not patronizing women led companies, then you’re a hypocrite. And I know some of you are like, never have Susan back. She’s, but I’m calling you out with love because we have to get present to this. 

Toni Collis

We do, we do. think one of the things you mentioned to me before the show is like we can help these women led companies, not just by, you I was, after our first conversation, I actually went and thought like, who do I buy from? And accidentally, I don’t think I was intentional. Like all my skincare products, my hair care products are from women led companies, partly because I’m going for like organic and you know, not full of toxins. And I don’t know what women seem to be building those companies more.

But then I look at like where I buy my groceries and I try and buy organic groceries and they’re all male like companies. I mean, there aren’t actually that many options for where I live, unfortunately, but it’s just things like that. But you’ve also pointed out to me, like we can invest even just $250. So how do people get started with just like, know, writing a small check to prop up a small company that’s just getting going? How do we even do that?

Susan Sly

That’s a great question. the thing I love now is with crowdfunding platforms. So WeFunder is one as an example. So you can invest in small amounts of money in WeFunder companies. I think that everyone should do their due diligence. Warren Buffett, he said, invest in what you understand.

And so one of the reasons I invested in tech early on was because I understood it, right? And I understood this growing dependency we would all have on technologies. The, even my thesis has changed. of my portfolio companies, I had invested in some male led companies. wasn’t until I was deep in this myself that I went, no, I’m shifting that. Right. And so one of my female-led portfolio companies is a company in America called Infemwines, female-founded vineyard. And in four years, she’s taken her company to top three. She got the Delta Airlines contract, Neiman Marcus. It’s incredible. And she is in a very male-dominated space and she is so gritty. And so I think whether it’s a small check in crowdfunding or even if you invest in the stock market, who’s on the board, who is, who is the CEO of that company? What are you choosing to buy? Because if you’re choosing to buy something, it’s an investment. even, and, know, for those of you who can’t see, I, apologize. I’ve got some allergies. There’s a bunch of things I’m in Scottsdale, Arizona at our house here. And there’s a bunch of, it’s beautiful desert, but there’s a bunch of stuff in the air this morning. So, but even the protein shakes I drink, it’s a global company. The CEO is a woman. The manager for the EU, my friend Elena, is a woman. The board is female dominated and the co-founder is one of my mentors. She was a woman and that company did nine billion US in sales. And so yes, of course I’m going to support them.

Toni Collis

That’s amazing. I might have to get the name of that protein shake company off you. Because I mean, I think sometimes also it’s hard to see like what is, who is doing what. But I truly believe like if we are going to change the tech industry, we always talk about getting more girls into tech in school. And my entire career, I have known that that is not really the issue. It is part of the problem. But we have so many women still leaving the tech industry. Part of that is a lack of role models.

Part of it is the conversations I have with women who are saying, I really want to work for a female-led company, but there aren’t any. Well, go and do it. Go and do it yourself. It’s the conversations I have with leaders who are saying, I want to be a CEO one day. then I’m like, well, why not now? And they’re like, no, I couldn’t possibly. I’m like, why not? Let’s have this conversation. Why are we not aiming to get you in that CEO seat? And they’re like, well, I don’t know how to get started. like, well, that’s what we’re here for. And that comes back to the imposter syndrome and fear, which is now, I think, So many of the women I talk with say to me, I don’t have imposter syndrome. I think we’ve ever done that conversation. I’m like, no, we all have it. I think men have it too, by the way. And we’ve got to accept that that is part of why we don’t take action. If you don’t like something, take action. And if you’re going, couldn’t possibly, is that your imposter syndrome? Would you agree with what I just said or would you counter it?

Susan Sly

Well, I think that there’s another piece that the research and I want to commend the UK because the UK currently is really leading the world in research for women in perimenopause and menopause in the workplace. So let’s start to think about, I want to add a layer to what you just beautifully articulated, Toni. So for the newest research is that women as young as 30 are experiencing perimenopause.

And unless you’ve had a hysterectomy, which means you go into instant menopause, I’m talking about the first signs are neurological. It begins with brain fog. begins with forgetfulness. It begins with irritability, surges of anxiety, then the physiological itchy skin, frozen shoulder, all sorts of things. And we previously had thought it was just menstrual issues, but it’s not. There’s a whole host of things that are happening as the hormones are shifting.

So the research in the UK says that almost 40 % of women in perimenopause and menopause want to leave their jobs due to lack of support. In America, one out of 10 do. In the UK, the number is even higher. So when we say to women, go on the track to the C-suite, by the time we have earned our stripes, we’ve gone to uni, we’ve climbed the corporate ladder. Guess what is also happening? We’re also going into perimenopause. We might be having children at home and aging parents, which is what happened to me. So I’m now at this point, I’m highly symptomatic. I’ve made it to the C-suite of an AI company doing the largest deployment at scale. But as I said, I’m dealing with two week long periods. I’m sweating, I’m being gaslit. I go to all these different providers.

I’m not feeling good. I had been a professional athlete like this. I know my body so well and all of these things are going on and I’m not sleeping. And of course my mind isn’t, wow, Susan, you’re bloody amazing. And you’ve done this incredible AI deployment. I’m in survival mode. And my message to all of the girls listening, I can say girls cause I’m in my fifties, but the, message to all of the girls listening is it’s really tough because if your body begins controlling you, of course you’re not thinking I can show up and produce and be in the C-suite. And the message I want to say to everyone listening is go find a, if this is you and you’re resonating with this, let Toni and I know that this is helpful.

But go find a really good female practitioner who is in her forties or fifties who has lived it. And it doesn’t matter if you see a homeopath, a naturopath or a medical doctor, but go get a practitioner who’s experienced and ideally certified in this area because you do not need to suffer. I suffered for years. In fact, I had those two week long periods from the time I was 38 to the time.

Toni Collis 

That’s crazy, that’s crazy. Yeah, I mean, oh, there’s so much more I want to dig into there, but I’m acutely aware of running out of time. I want to ask you one more question before we move into the quickfire round, which is about boards, because one of the things I have decided to do this year is to more, I’ve always, I’ve been on boards for on and off and it’s always been reactive. Somebody’s approached me now, you know, do I want to, do I not want to? Yes, okay.

This year I’ve decided to be more intentional and it’s partly because my mission as a business owner and as an individual is to change the face of the tech industry for the better by helping women in tech thrive. But helping women in tech thrive comes through many different facets and changing the tech industry for the better also comes in many different roles and that I’ve decided includes boards. What would you say to somebody who’s thinking, I’d like a board role but I’m nervous? What would you say to them?

Susan Sly 

Why are you nervous? it because you feel that you have nothing to contribute? Then I would say, here’s the thing. As you said, Toni, what is your mission? What is your why, as Simon Sinek said? But I would look at boards in terms of what is the role of a board member? It’s to represent shareholders, to represent customers and to represent employees. Those are your three key roles, right? If you can relate to shareholders, customers, and employees, then be their representative, show up, use your wisdom to serve, right? And as women, we will always be asked to do things. We will always be asked to, I get asked to do things all the time.

And I’ve done stage events with Jack Canfield, who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul and his co-writer, Mark Victor Hansen is a friend of mine. I get asked to do so many things. And one of the things that they wrote about once was saying no to the good. So you can say yes to the great and think about really and truly not being a yesaholic.

Because at the end of the day, if you say yes to too many things and you get overextended, you’re never going to be stellar at one thing. We do need more women on boards. There’s no question. But how do we make that change? It goes back to what we said. Who made your shampoo? What are you wearing? Right? What are the apps you’re using? Who started those companies? Who are you following on your social media?

That’s great. You’re watching Love Island. The question is, why are you, why are you watching that nonsense that is just like, just so disgusting to women? Like if don’t say, this is the thing that ticks me off. Don’t say you’re a stan for women and then you do things like that. Like be, if you’re a stan for women, be a stan for women, but don’t say you’re a stan for women and then publicly say all these, this vitriol and then in your private life.

That’s the stuff you do that supports those things that just demoralize women. Right? And I know it’s a hard message for women to hear, but the spirit of this show is to uplift women, especially in the tech industry, which is very, very male dominated. how we do one thing is how we do everything.

Toni Collis

Yeah, I love that. is about how we show up in every aspect of our lives. And I think it’s so easy to forget that a little bit. Well, let’s move on to the quick fire round. Some of my favorite questions that I ask everybody here. My favorite question of all, what is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Susan Sly

the one of the worst pieces of advice. I had a financial advisor once and I wanted to invest in Facebook when it went IPO because I could see it. And he said, no, don’t invest in Facebook. It’s never going to make any money because it’s a free platform. And I wanted to put 10,000 in, the IPO. it would have made me million.

Toni Collis

wow. wow. My gosh. Yes, interesting one. can always do your own financial research in my opinion. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Susan Sly 

So one of my mentors, and this is something everyone can do starting today, I would watch her. I didn’t have a mother, so I had to, just like you mentioned about coaches, right? As a professional athlete, I had a swim coach, a bike coach, and a run coach. So I’ve had mentors and coaches for very specific areas of my life. And Cathy, who is the lead investor in my company, but also my mentor, she,

I would watch her send gratitude messages every morning, even when her son was a teenager and he was just, you know, being a teenager and every day she would send texts. She would do voice texts. And she said, you know, if you send three gratitude messages every day to people, it will change your life and, and change your relationships. And so that is the best piece of advice. And I have done that for the last 20 years. Yeah.

Toni Collis 

That’s beautiful. That is a beautiful practise actually. I think I could learn from that one. I’m going to bring that one into my life. I love to send gratitude messages but I don’t do it daily. It’s kind of like, I need to send a few things this week. I love that.

Susan Sly

We have it in our app actually, Toni. So we have a gratitude tracker. So you’re reminded to send those messages.

Toni Collis 

I love that, love that so much. What a great piece of advice. What is the last book you read and would you recommend it? Or listen to for that matter.

Susan Sly 

My oldest daughter is 28 and she just moved across the country and our family is very close. I have three girls and a boy and they range in age from 15 to 28. And I was, I was at the finger like summit I was telling you about, and I was just after four days, I was just mentally knackered and I went to Barnes and Noble, which is just like my happy place. And this book stood out to me. was a little fiction book called Will Prescribe You a Cat. And it was originally a Japanese book translated into English. So I bought this book and my daughter and I decided we would do this. I sent her a copy and we did this mini book club. So I literally just finished it last night. It was charming and darling. But I do read a lot of business books and so forth, but that was literally the last book I

Toni Collis

Oh, what a fabulous book. As a crazy cat lady, I was getting cat therapy this morning on the sofa, so you know, I’m going to go look that book up. I tend to like, you know, the kind of non-business, non-leadership stuff that I read tends to be, you know, fantasy and fiction and stuff, but I feel like being prescribed a cat sounds like I might cup a tea.

Toni Collis 

This has been fabulous. So how can people connect with you, find out more about what you do both as an individual and your work at the pause? Where can we find you online?

Susan Sly 

So I’m on Instagram at Susan Sly, LinkedIn at Susan Sly. My personal website is www.susansly.com. I do, for companies, do AI innovation workshops just because having scaled AI, understanding how to bring in all of the various stakeholders. So you can reach me that way.

The pause, we will be expanding globally, as I said, starting in 2026. Right now, if you’re listening in Canada, the US, you can get the app for you in the Play Store, the App Store. So we want to invite a global movement of women. The app isn’t just to help you navigate para menopause and menopause, it’s really about creating a community and a movement and creating change.

Toni Collis

I love it, I love it. I hope some of the listeners will consider downloading the app. I’m certainly based in the UK. I’ve gotta wait a little bit time, but I will be downloading it next year as somebody who’s definitely going through perimenopause at this point, sadly. It just is one of those things. Any final thoughts you would like to leave us with today, Susan?

Susan Sly

that I would firstly, Toni, I love what you’re doing in the world. for all the global audience, had a, Toni and I had a pre-call. We could have gone for three hours. Like it was just so much and Toni, your heart and your service and the fact, the consistency, right? And as a fellow podcaster, it’s the consistency and very few podcasts, the top podcasts in the world are all men.

And I would also say to everyone, who are you listening to? Right? That’s another thing. So I love that you’re all here. The final thing I would say is being a stand for change isn’t easy. But the question I would ask everyone, especially if you have daughters, would you want your daughters growing up or your granddaughters in the same landscape that you’ve had to endure? And if the answer is no start to lead by example and support women-led businesses because that’s how we’re going to make the change. Money talks, girls.

Toni Collis 

It really does. Thank you. What a beautiful note to leave this on. We went in so many different directions. There’s so much more to every facet of this topic. So I hope if you’re listening that you are going to take away a few key things. I’m just going to recap a couple of things that I believe we should be doing differently. The biggest one of course is exactly where Susan finished. Use your money where you want to make a difference. with your wallet, vote with your feet. we’ve said that before in the past to the species, it’s kind of like not been a thing for the last five years maybe. I think it’s time to take that back, especially, dare I say it, with the political climate we’re currently in. I think women’s rights are being eroded left, right and centre. Let’s vote with our feet, ladies. Let’s vote with our wallets and our feet. Let’s do that. Secondly, if you’re a leader who wants to see more women in their companies, I would encourage you to not just vote with your wallet and support those companies, but I would also suggest be the leader.

If this is the wake up call you need to step up and be the leader that part of you wants to be, but you’re a little bit scared, lean into that fear. Fear makes us do great things sometimes. A little bit of fear is a good thing. Too much fear is not helpful, but a little bit of fear helps us make good decisions. And then the final thing I’m going to pick up on here is what Susan said about investing in ourselves. We have the ability to change the world through our own actions.

So rather than waiting for somebody else to do it and cheering them on, investing in them, maybe, just maybe, you should be looking at investing in yourself. And that comes in many different forms. It’s not just money, it’s time, it’s energy, it’s how you talk to yourself as an investment in yourself, sending those gratitude messages. Maybe consider investing in yourself because you know what? I know the next unicorn leader is listening to this podcast. And she will just get out her own way and do it. Bye for now.