Beautiful Power™
Talks
Conversations with Women in Expansion
Past Conversations
MOVING WITH VISIBLE VULNERABILITY
June 24, 2026
Three women who have spent their lives creating in public — Grace Valerie (Singer, Actress & Content Creator), Carmen Scott (Actress, Writer & Founder, Flesh Onesie Creations), and Sumanma Wadhwa (MFA Visual Storyteller & Founder, Art Leela Design House) — talked honestly about what it means to move with visible vulnerability rather than wait for it to pass.
What came out of the room:
Fear and vulnerability are not the same thing. We tend to mix them up. Fear tells you to stop. Vulnerability is what happens when you keep going honestly anyway.
The hardest visibility isn't public. It comes from the people who knew earlier versions of you — and haven't updated their picture yet.
Visibility has a cost. Relationships that couldn't grow with you. Comfort. The ability to hide. Nothing lost was worth keeping more than themselves.
Being visible and being known are not the same thing. Known is what happens through real connection, over time, through what people feel when they're around you.
When you see the beauty within you, things change. People start seeing you differently too.
NAVIGATING THE UNKNOWN
May 13, 2026
Three women who had walked away from something significant and built something truer on the other side — Sejal Desai (Executive Director, Akanksha Education Fund), Tomide Awe (Founder & Creator, On Your Terms), and Theresa Bailey (Founder & CEO, Starfish Synergies).
What came out of the room:
The knowing comes before the certainty. You don’t need the full plan — just the willingness to notice what you already know.
To expand, we often have to contract. What no longer fits — relationships, identities, roles — isn’t loss. It’s space being made.
You’re not starting over. Everything you’ve built is preparation. The walk-away is not a rejection of who you’ve been, but a continuation.
The mess is the path. Non-linear, unglamorous, and more honest than anything that looks clean from the outside.
Women in Expansion is an ongoing conversation series hosted by Design Your Next.
Design Your Next works with women in the process of realizing their own Beautiful Power — the power that is naturally visible when a woman returns to herself and expands. This panel brings that conversation to the broader public.
If you’re restless, you’re ready.
An 8-week strategic design experience for Women in Expansion.