ari life guests
Sophie Chiche
CEO of Shape House
Sophie Chiche, born and raised in France was 350lbs, overweight and embarrassed by her current lifestyle, she moved to the US. She worked as a journalist for a French publication and started a website called “Life by Me” on creating and manifesting your life while on her own personal weight loss triumph. On this quest, she struggled with maintaining her personal dynamic over societal pressures like sugar, alcohol, and toxic foods. Through the idea of maintaining a fun way to lose weight and keep it off, she created Shape House: a place to enjoy the experience of weight loss, detoxing, and wellness, in a community.
Caroll Lee
Donald Davis
Caroll Lee has a history in luxury branding until during her first pregnancy felt there needed to be an easier way to get local organic food. After taking time off from work to stay at home with her baby, she started an organic meal prep company in 2006 to solve the demand for organic local food for busy moms, before going back to school to study integrative nutrition. Caroll’s mission in life became to help women heal their bodies and alleviate the stress of doing so with a meal delivery system called provenance meals. Her goal became to have all women enjoy the pleasure of eating while nourishing their bodies.
Marta Cros
CEO of Apto Skincare + The Ritualist
From growing up in Barcelona, Marta learned skin care from rituals passed down from her mother and grandmother from generation to generation. After moving to the US, she realized skin care was event based; something for a wedding, special occasion, or PR event. For Marta skincare is about the every ritual to be the best version of yourself. She founded The Ritualist to provide skincare services to your home or on location. After 2 years, she realized there was a need in the market for quality clean vegan affordable beauty products, which launched APTO Skincare; low price point products made with the highest quality ingredients at her own factory to insure utmost integrity of the product.
DRIA MURPHY
CEO of Alise Collective
Dria began her career working in the fashion industry, at Calvin Klein and then Ralph Lauren before transitioning to PR at TopShop, who cultivated the digital movement of influencers and social media. She then left to be the director of communications at a fashion tech startup which ended abruptly, however she maintained her relationships and partnerships with the brands who instilled trust in her. The partnership was launching Google Play at the Surf Lodge in a fun, alternative way and they then became her first two clients, launching her own brand; Alise Collective: a creative brand building agency that cultivates wellness brands through lifestyle and fashion.
Amy Ling Lin
CEO of sundays studio
Amy went to a school to be a nail technician before opening her own nail salons. Over time, this led her to her question the type of products being used in the nail salon industry, and inspired her to create products that herself, her technicians, and her clients felt safe to use. When she started talking to clients she realized that wasn’t about painting their nails, but instead it was about the concept of relaxation and self care. Amy then opened Sunday’s Studio, a combination of a non-toxic product and holistic space, proving that you don’t have to compromise beauty and self care.
Dr. Shari Auth
Co-Founder of WTHN
Shari came from a background of wanting to help people through all things healing. She received a degree in biology, chemistry, and psychoneurology before taking a leap of faith to go to chinese medical school and become an acupuncturist, knowing if she went to traditional medical school it would’ve been something she didn’t believe in practicing. Her studies have also included panchakarma, yoga, pilates, thai massage, chinese medicine, and shamanism. Shari started WTHN as a way to bring acupuncture and herbal medicine to a larger audience; a way to demystify acupuncture and how it works through education, language, and science, then reinventing it at a price that makes it available to everyone.
Divya Gugnani
CEO of wander beauty
Divya started her career working for Goldman Sachs, and since has started 4 companies, the latest one recently sold to QVC. Divya was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that prompted her to reinvent her beauty routine, after realizing she was having an immune allergy to the toxic ingredients in cosmetics. She met her cofounder, Lindsay Ellington, and they bonded over traveling and beauty products. They decided to launch Wander Beauty and focus on fewer better beauty essentials that cater to women on the move, and allowed time starved women being gorgeous on the go. Wander Beauty owns the beauty routine of women on the go, without the toxic ingredients.
Nicole Rechelbacher
CEO of intelligent nutrients
Nicole and her father Horst, founder of Aveda Salons, began Intelligent Nutrients, an organic supplement company, in 1993. In 2008, Intelligent Nutrients came out with the first certified wellness products for hair and skin, creating a full circle product line from recyclability to lifecycle. The family then sold Aveda in 1997, and directed all of their focus on Intelligent Nutrients and their mission. In 2014, Horst passed away, leaving Nicole and Kiran, Horsts life partner, to lead company in the true energy of the products and the of the planet.
Leila Janah
Founder & CEO of Samasource + Samaschool + LXMI
Leila is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a Director of CARE USA, a 2012 TechFellow, recipient of the inaugural Club de Madrid Young Leadership Award, and the youngest person to win a Heinz Award in 2014. She was named one of Fortune’s Most Promising Entrepreneurs in 2014 and was the subject of cover stories in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and Conscious Company Magazines. Her enterprises #givework to low-income people around the world using cutting-edge social enterprise models in AI/machine learning, digital freelancing, and clean skincare, respectively.
Katie Kaps
co-founder of HigherDOSE
Katie is the co-founder of HigherDOSE and a panelist at ABC Beauty Wellness Wisdom, Dreams & Doers, NYC Governance Talks at the Consulate General of India, Female Biohacking presented by Tesla Group, Biohack your Body presented by Dr. Emily Splichal, Well in Tell Workshop presented by Hawkins International, Foundermade and Mindbodygreen Revitalize. In addition, Katie has served as International Expansion Manager for Tough Mudder, taking the company from $10M to $150M in sales and being named employee of the year in 2013
lauren singer
Founder & CEO of Package Free Shop
Lauren Singer is Founder and CEO of Package Free Shop, a one-stop shop for everything you need to reduce your waste daily, and author of the Zero Waste blog Trash is for Tossers. The amount of trash that she has produced over the past seven years can fit inside of a 16 oz mason jar. She is an Environmental Studies graduate from NYU and former Sustainability Manager at the NYC Department of Environmental Protection. Through her blog, she has empowered millions of readers to produce less waste by shopping package free, making their own products, and refusing plastic and single-use items.
Sylwia Wiesenberg
CEO of Dope Naturally + Tonique Fitness + Bawdy Beauty
Sylwia’s approach to beauty and wellness is simple; proper ingredients and movement are the foundation of a healthy, high-quality life. She stresses that what you eat and how you eat it have a long-term impact on your beauty, wellness and mood. She firmly believes in the power of pure ingredients to significantly improve the way we look and age, as well as how we feel and perform. It is this focus on the highest quality, pure foods, and an organic lifestyle that led her to become an innovator in the ingestible beauty and wellness industry.