Advocating for Yourself with Kirsten Newbold-Knipp

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
My mom died when I was 13. And it was horrible. But it also like it shaped me in a way that taught me about like advocating for myself. And that that I think is some then people don’t do very much

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Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Welcome to Voices of Athena a podcast highlighting the more personal side of the remarkable women that make up the Athena Alliance, a learning community for executive women. I’m your host, Priscilla Brenenstuhl, and today we are crying a little and laughing a lot with Kirsten Newbold-Knipp.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Please tell me how you would introduce yourself

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Pleasure to have with me, Kirsten Newbold-Knipp. She is a longtime marketer, and has grown across roles from product management, product marketing into a CMO position and has been in the tech arena for a number of years. She’s someone who loves cats and travel as much as she loves technology marketing, and it’s here to share a little bit of her insight.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
You’re used to that third person,

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
I’m a Marketer, we have to come up with crap like that.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
So how would you introduce yourself outside of the professional? sphere?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Hi, my name is Kirsten.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Who or what inspires you? And why?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
I would say so like people wise, I would say my dad. He is someone who he was an immigrant to the US while actually he was an immigrant to Canada, at the age of 17. And he started peeling potatoes at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, and then grew his way up the ranks he wanted to be he thought he wanted to be a restaurant manager then did that then moved on to become like Front of House Hotel Manager then became a general manager then grew into like senior management and what have you, but never went to college, never had any of those benefits and sort of did his own thing, ultimately became a very successful international executive who was globe trotting and developing hotels and doing things and a lot of it was through just intellect and work ethic. So he definitely inspires me. But I would say that the other things and you know, there are too many things that inspire me when I think about in particular, also, the work that I do. One is seeing people I have coached or mentored go on to do great things. I’ve been really fortunate when when I was thinking about we were doing some work actually with Athena to write our board bios and folks were like, well, what are you really proud of? What is this was that and I thought about okay, at least nine people that have worked with me before have gone on to become CMOS. Some even for the right, like or I’ve built companies or have done amazing things and it’s it’s really fun to see that because you’re you’re building something durable, I get inspired by building something durable, but that durability doesn’t actually have to be a product or a company it could also be someone skill, someone’s talents you know, challenging them but also motivating them to go do something great. So I would say there’s there’s the combination of my dad himself is is really an inspiration in terms of how he self guided a career but then also being able to be part of somebody’s story because none of us do it alone.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Absolutely, I agree 100% and gift that keeps on giving it’s it’s so cool to be able to say that you are a part of that path and that journey.

What song are you singing karaoke?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
I have to the one that I know all the words to and is my jam is bust a move. Because I don’t have to stand there busting she says Hello Come sit next to me find fellow so Buster move. But then my like my I would I call my pumpup song. So like if I were gonna go on stage if I were to do something, It’s good as hell by Lizzo that’s do my hat toss Chapman nails, baby. How you been feeling? Good? Yeah. This is why I don’t sing.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
you were totally on key and with enthusiasm. So I think you should sing.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
There you go. Karaoke, I will sing. Especially as other people are also embarrassing themselves with me. I’m good.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
We did have someone else who said that she would do that song too. So I think I need to introduce you both. And then there needs to be some kind of like,

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
or maybe that you also do a soundtrack to this podcast series. Their music was very, um, very empowering songs, some of her songs 100%

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
and also the radical kind of, you know, envelope pushing, celebrating women forms and controversy. So I’ll see you she Max me. There you go. I’ll invite her to the podcast.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Hey, she has achieved great success, different kinds of success than what some of us have. I would love to know her backstory.

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Priscilla Brenenstuhl
What is your biggest fear?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
It’s like that I’m doing it all wrong. Like, if I actually have to write there’s like a there’s a workflow and there’s a personal fear. And they in a way, you could say one of them is almost a subset of the other. But like what I’m doing it all wrong. There’s a little bit we all have impostor syndrome. It’s true. We talked about it, etc. But like, every so often, I recently had a situation at work, where I was questioned about some things, and I second guessed myself, so much. And then I went back to my network, many of whom were members of kind of networks. And I asked him questions, and I shared what I was working on. And they’re like, No, you’re doing all the right things. And it was, it’s those moments where like, your stomach drops when someone asks you something, and you’re like, Wait, am I actually doing this all wrong? What’s, what’s going on? And so that’s, that’s definitely one of my biggest fears, in the professional sense, personally. And this comes full circle. Like, I certainly identify a lot with my work. My husband and I have a great relationship, but we don’t have kids. And it’s intentional. We’re not We’re not kidding people. But on some level, you then also go, Okay, well, if I work too much, am I going to, later in life regret that? Like, how am I making sure that I’m being really intentional about investing in relationships outside of work? And sometimes I worry that I’m not doing that enough. So that’s definitely there’s, there’s a fear of spending too little time with my loved ones. That That worries me from a long-term standpoint.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Yeah, yeah, I understand that. And especially when things happen in, you know, gets all shifted and put into perspective, because it’s easy to get caught up and career driven, and then say, Oh, wow, I wish I would have known I only had such and such amount of time.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Yeah. Yeah, I wish I would have, I wish I would have spent more time cultivating that relationship or spent more time with my parents or spent more time with whomever. Right. That gives you that perspective. Certainly the last few years of the pandemic has been a good reminder.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Yeah. And that lends itself to Am I doing it all wrong?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Correct. Where it goes back to like, the bigger Am I doing it all wrong, right. Hey, am I doing all right work? Well, that’s one thing. But what about in life? Am I doing it all wrong? Am I going to regret some of these choices in 20 years? I don’t know.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
I hope not. I regularly fall into existential crisis is, you know, or because you because you know, you get kind of caught up in the day to day and you get caught up in in your idea of what the future looks like. And then, and you just kind of keep going. And then suddenly you’re like, Wait a second. A year has gone by, or you know, like, wait a second, am I living to my fullest potential? And is my fullest potential the same that I wanted to be a year ago? And if not, you know, what will it take for me to realize that and then and then like switch, switch gears, and have the courage and the foresight to do so. So I can, I can feel that for sure.

What is the most daring thing you’ve ever done?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Besides paragliding, which is super fun and very daring. I’ve also jumped out of a plane, I didn’t find it as daring because so many people do it. Paragliding, there’s a place in San Diego very close to where we have a little summer house. And like you literally run off a cliff with a parachute on your back. And somehow because it’s different, like running off a cliff part you’d like we’re going to run off a cliff and this is with a professional strapped to you. So I haven’t done it by myself yet. But I think in terms of like daring, you see the edge of this cliff? And you see the ocean and you run towards it? And yeah, maybe things will work out and maybe they won’t.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
you have to actually like do that the running and I know you’re saying with because like with skydiving you don’t see the ground yet that kind of thing because I jumped off the highest bungee bridge. It’s actually here in South Africa and I could see the ground. I mean, it was like a it’s a river it’s over a river the leads the ocean and I had to actively jump.They was nothing short of having to push me off like me asking them because I’m like, I’m not trying. I’m not not doing this. But like my feet. My legs aren’t working. I can’t convince my body that I’m doing the right thing.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
I’m paralyzed in this moment. Yeah. Bungee jumping for for that reason. I’ve never done it. It doesn’t appeal to me. That somehow Unlike paragliding, it’s once you’re up. It’s so peaceful. But definitely the running off a cliff. You’re like, am I running off a cliff? What

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Am I doing this all wrong? Is that you said it?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
all wrong. What was he thinking? What was I thinking? But

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
yeah, who what I when I made this decision? Do I trust that person now?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Totally, totally. I think it’s a it’s a good analogy, right for like the other things I thought about, like, what are a couple of things I’ve done professionally that were daring, if you will. And I’ve almost always been like taking on a role that is completely outside of my comfort zone. I’ve done it a handful of times with the two that like jumped to mind for me. When I was first out of grad school, I was a product manager for a product in the US, but for a German company, Siemens, and after about a year, the company changed tactics, and they’re like, Well, hey, do you want to come to Germany for a six month stint as a territory manager to help us get the company sold an m&a deal? I was like, Yes, sure. Okay, that sounds super exciting. I have no idea what that means. And it was an amazing experience, I learned a ton, I don’t want to do that particular job again. But it was like it was fantastic. And I moved to a country I happen to I’d be, I’d be traveling, I speak German, I’m a German citizen. So it was it was great for me to sort of get cultural immersion that I didn’t have. But I didn’t know people, I didn’t have an apartment. I didn’t, you know, figured all that stuff out. And then later in my career, and my last company, I was the CMO. And at some point, they said, Hey, we think we’re going to hire a chief revenue officer, but we actually think you might know how to do it. Do you want to do both? Do you want to run sales and marketing? And again, it was sort of like, I mean, I’m willing to give it a go. If you’re willing to take a risk on me. I’m willing to learn.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
So you’re willing to take out a risk on me, then I better be willing to take a risk on me, particularly when I come from my father. I am my father’s daughter.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Right, right. Exactly. I am my father’s daughter like we figure these things out. We pull ourselves by our bootstraps. We go we learn we work hard, we do it in a way. Like it’s that jumping running off a cliff. You’re like, well, you know, I’m not totally alone. Maybe there’s a parachute? Maybe there’s not hopefully it works. What’s the worst that could happen? I think I’ll go learn.

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Priscilla Brenenstuhl
If you weren’t in marketing, if you weren’t a CMO, what would you be doing?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
So this, this answer will show up consistently in every interview I’ve ever done. Because for all time, I have wanted to be a professional travel, food blogger, now food vlogger, right, the video blogger, right, whatever. But I even millions of moons ago, there was some reality TV show where you could essentially apply for one of those jobs I was in and I got like two rungs into the application before the next year. But I was just I was, I think I was 24 or 25 at the time. And I’m like, yes, yes, take me out. This is like, this is my calling. But my undergrad was in hospitality. I’ve been like in some form of like f&b Hotel, early parts of my life through my dad, and I very casually, or slow travel of all. So that would be my dream. I when I retire, maybe I will do something like that without making it a profession. Because you can eat and travel without being paid for it. It’s just much nicer.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Well, and that’s how people do it. These days. They they do it on social media, and then get paid for it. Like, you know, you don’t need an agent or you don’t need someone to say, we’re gonna book you you decide you live. If people like it, then you get to do it and get paid for it.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Exactly. You might not get paid much, but like, hey, maybe it pays for your travel costs a little bit and then everything else, you know, who knows? So I’m hoping

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
and maybe it gets you in at like restaurants that are like, you know, hard to get into. And they’re like, oh, okay, I see. I don’t need a waitlist, or they make room for me at this space.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Precisely. I think that would be that would be great. So yeah, that’s that’s, that’s maybe my retirement is if I can do well enough in my current career, maybe work on a board or two and then in the downtime, travel blog about it, eat

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Travel and eat great food.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
So I want you there I want I want to come to Africa. It’s never I’ve never been that’s on my list.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
And I can I mean I can show you the food because I have so many my husband’s Nigerian I mean, their food is very different. Also, I have friends who are deep in South African like pojtie bowls and brias, what we call barbecues. So I’m in the so yeah, I’m happy to do that. What to show you around the food world here.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
I will blog about it and I will I will link back to the conversations and, you know, free promotion on my very huge following

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
I just looking for a good time and a fellow food enthusiast. So what is your favorite food to eat?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
So it’s a category of favorite category food to eat as Italian food. I have many varieties of things within the Italian arena that I enjoy, but like if someone can make a great veal piccata I’m all about it, but often and saltimbocca often it is too salty. So that is actually like it’s hard to find a great veal saltimbocca. So I’m also extremely happy with just some delicious pastas. I certainly always look at you like a bucatini or something as Oh, Italian is my number one favorite. I think that maybe my German heritage like I infuse some Italian in there somewhere. But that it’s sort of an easy answer after that. I mean, I love almost everything. I’m not I’m just not big on awful and weird parts of animals.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Just not big on awful well, Nigeria and they have lots of weird parts of animals. It’s a big and mopani worms, Ambani worms that my Zimbabwean nanny. Yeah, I don’t venture there. I haven’t eaten meat in like 20 years. So I’m like, you know, and the opposite side of this.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Like awful is not only skin, but like everything else that goes with it was the strangest things I’ve eaten, like, crickets are a sort of new protein. And I’ve had those and

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
an excellent source of protein and like way more sustainable, friendly. Like let’s get behind them. And I heard someone say and maybe it was even like Jonathan Van Ness who I adore. But because he has something about bugs, are they gross or not? But I watched with my son we love it. It was like, you know, talking about Americans in particular how we’ll eat like lobster and all these crustaceans he’s saying is like the crickets of the sea. Yeah. It’s like, oh, no, like super snobby about

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
I mean, I don’t do lobster I’m, I’m allergic to shellfish. But I agree with you. Like, they’re, they’re critters that like, if you eat one critter, try another critter with it.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Totally. Do you cook then? Or are you just,

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
I cook a lot, I do probably cook five to six nights a week.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Wow, they have a show here called Come Dine with Me South Africa. And it’s about have you seen it or heard of it? Okay, so when you come we’ll make a plan that will be on the show. Because what it is is like five strangers that cook for each other. And they like rate each other. It’s my favorite show.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
we built the house that we live in now. And we intentionally built the downstairs is very much an entertaining space. But with a dining room table that seats 12. Like I love cooking for friends we used to have and now everyone’s gotten busy, they have kids, it’s whatever we used to do once a month, or rotating dining around with four couples and we would all take like one one of the most favored memories before we built the house. We had a little bungalow here. And we were living in it in this tiny bungalow. And we I turned it into a sort of Moroccan style. All of the pillows were on the ground, we had hung banners and did a bunch of things and just did a really amazing set of foods that I had never tried before. And most everyone’s like that was the most magical evening. And we got we did it. Was it perfectly authentic? I don’t know. But was it really fun and engaging and delicious? Yes.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Was it authentic in the way that you like, show it up and put all of your intentions in and got excited about it and poured your love into it like yeah, so

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
got that. Which is I was thinking you said now that we have kids and I’m like geez, I really need a rotating thing because I have kids I never have time to cook I need like partnerships parents to cook

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
like family friendly and the kids

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
and all have our kids not eat each other’s food

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
and all and then be like okay, now kids appetizer over you guys go play outside. We’re going to be adults.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Exactly. That’s the type of lifestyle that I need.

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Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Tell me about a life-changing In our life-defining moment.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Yeah, there’s there’s one that, you know, there’s there’s several out there that were smaller. But there’s one that is probably what, what defines who Kiersten is, and the way that I show up and even, you know, folks that know me that are like, she’s driven. She’s, you know, independent, she’s confident. Am I really? Or is that what you see? When I was 13, my mom passed away unexpectedly. And the, the situation was a very unfortunate one, in that, she and my dad were having trouble at the time. And so they were separated. But, you know, my brother, I have an older brother and my brother and I were, you know, we were planning to live with our mom, and we thought it would all work out in some way. And unfortunately, she drowned. So, it’s not like there was a disease or something where you could prepare yourself for it. It was just a very abrupt, shocking and scary time. And kind of put us in a position to have to advocate for ourselves in different ways than we might have. My dad was living in a different city at the time. And so he came back, but but his job was somewhere else. And over, over the next, like three to seven years, the amount of time that I can count that I lived in the same house with my entire family was like on the order of months, it wasn’t most of the time. So we joked, we had, we became the halfway house for American Airlines employees, because eventually my dad remarried and his wife was an American. And when she lived in another city, as well, we all all three of us live to different cities. And so when new people would come onto the team, that she was on an American, there’d be like, Hey, we have a guest room, and two kids that are alone at the house, you willing to stay at our house for free instead of taking the reload. And so for probably about two years, that was our adult supervision. Wow. And admit, meant a lot of different things, right. For the first probably six months, I compartmentalized a whole hell of a lot. And my method was to essentially say, What would want mom want me to do, I would want her to be proud of me. I’m, I went to school the day after I found out because I couldn’t stay at home and just cry the whole time. So that was the moment. And I would say it, you know, it definitely changed me in a lot of different ways.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Thank you for opening yourself up in that way to share about a life-changing but also very painful, devastating moment. My mother is still alive. But being a mother, and my best friends lost their moms. So going kind of through that with them. Or, you know, as much as someone can go through that with someone. I feel like it just asked me so bizarre, because like, moms are like a true north moms are constant moms are where you come from. Moms give you a safety net, even if you don’t really get along with them. It’s just like, it’s this defining. Create my Creator, like my direct creator, and my son is only six. But I mean, I don’t even I don’t think he identifies me as a, as a as a person. Like, as an individual. Right? And I know I did with my mom for a long time. I am an extension of him. And then add the fact that you’re a 13 year old girl. Oh my god. I mean, that’s when you really need to lean into mom. Yeah, it’s talk you through or don’t want your mom but you want to have the right to not want your mom and be able to express that. Right, you know, and then and then to try and navigate that in the way that you did with strangers.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Yeah, the strangers was really weird. And it was also one of those where, like, again, you got to figure out where you advocate for yourself. But I think one of the other things it’s so interesting, right and you said it in in as much as you you navigated alongside friends of yours that have lost their mom. Like when you’re 13, and you use your mom. And your friends want to comfort you? It’s very hard because they have, they have no context. Right? And it actually led to it was weird. I had some fights with some friends, even at the time, because they, you know, they wanted you to open up to them. They wanted you to this and what why won’t you? Why won’t you tell me more? Why don’t you this? Oh, my God, I’m dealing with this in any way that I can and you can’t possibly comprehend. So that was really hard, right? And figuring out, what were the outlets that you had figuring out who you could talk to figuring out if there was anybody could talk to people certainly make themselves available, but it’s really different in terms of what you might need at that time. And everyone handles it handles it really differently. So I was I was fortunate that at least several friends had parents who were present enough to reach out every so often and what have you, but also ended up learning just to do a lot for myself. And it probably has, I will say when I say, Am I doing it wrong? How much am I investing in relationships, it probably led to a place where I became so independent, that sometimes maybe I’m too independent. Because that’s kinda what you had to do. I sometimes think with mostly not jealousy, mostly with happiness and joy for folks who still have their moms and and on Mother’s Day, they talk about that, or they I have a good girlfriend who talks to her mom, like three times a week, I can’t even fathom what that might be like.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Or, you know, I’m pretty distant with my mom. So I have that. And she’s still around. And it’s very painful. You know, to see other people engage in that also, just like, you know, your mom not meeting your husband, your mom not knowing like who you who you’ve grown to become, you know, you want your mom to be proud of you. But what’s the measure? Like, you know, where’s the you? Where do you get to say, you know, I did this or show it’s very abstract. And how do you? How do you really share anything with a 13 year old girls? Because we’re a mess? And you’re like, are you really trying to help me? Or are you just, you know, what I mean? Are you trying to, like so? And then the whole advocating for yourself? Because there’s no option but also because, wow, the one of the people that is like, who I thought was permanent in life, and who I probably was one of the people I’m closest to is just gone all of a sudden, how can I possibly put myself in a position again, to rely on anyone or to, to to be so close to anyone? I may be setting myself up for more hurt. So. I mean, I can, it’s totally understandable that you wouldn’t want you’d want to almost distance yourself as much as possible.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Yeah, I think on some levels, that’s really true, right? Where, how vulnerable you get how, how much you allow people to lift you up. If you’re like, you’re like, Hey, I’ve always got the backpack. I’ve got the parachute. I got myself, I got the parachute. Because you don’t know if someone’s going to drop you in the trustfall and not that it was intentional, right? She did not mean to drown. This is you know that that was unexpected. And you kind of had to figure it out. But you know, it went from, you know, my dad was there for a couple of weeks. And he’s like, Well, I gotta go back to work. I’ll be back every weekend. Like, can you guys handle it during the week? Here’s the checkbook, you know, where the grocery store is? You’re a big girl now. Right? Though my brother was older, I was probably the more like, structured responsible one. So I had already been learning to balance a checkbook with my allowance. And then it became, I’m now putting, you know, 100 bucks a weekend for you guys to pay the maid. And I mean, we were fortunate, right? We were upper middle class, we had a maid that was very fortunate. But nobody, I couldn’t drive my brother couldn’t drive. I rode my bicycle to the grocery store. I injured myself several times, right. All the stuff that you have to figure out I I always joke with friends of mine. I was a little young for my grade, as well. So like when I was 13, when I was 14, etc. It also meant I didn’t start driving until later parts like basically until my senior year in high school. Probably one of the things I hated most was also I had a bum a ride from everybody all the time. And you know, people would not know you’re walking your mom come get you. You know, that was hard.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Yeah. And because there’s so many times in your life that then you have to say, No, she can’t. And then and then it’s almost like you want to advocate that she would if she could write you also don’t want to like have to tell everyone your most intimate personal details. Yeah, yeah. There’s so many times where there’s so many times where moms are supposed to be there without question.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Yep. But, but to your point, right like what Are there things that are defining moments? What is life changing about it? Though I would never wish that on anyone. It’s definitely made me who I am means that I’m willing to take a risk, it means that I trust myself to kind of figure it out. It also means that, I mean, for a lot of friends, like they can lean on me, because I figured out how to stand up. So,

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
yeah, yeah, which so many people don’t have that, you know. And that’s where I what I think is really interesting. Even in that I first, I’m thinking about how you said, Too, Am I doing it all all wrong, you know, and that somebody questioned you, and you started to question yourself, but it’s like, wait a second, you know, even even the fact that you reached instead of staying in that hole of like, oh, you know, you reached out to other people. And, you know, even that is self advocation. You know, the ability to reach out to other people and receive that feedback, because it could be really easy to get, you know, feedback that calls you into question and then just kind of, you know, stay there or kind of shrink. Yeah.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
So I wish I could say, like, always works out perfectly that way. Because sometimes you’re like, Oh, it was, but but for sure, I actually, I was talk to folks who like mentors, mentees about building your own personal board of directors. And I think that phrase, from a variety of places is like converging and catching on for people. Because almost in the same way, like, I didn’t have a mom to help me through many of the harder moments in life. Similarly, what people used to see as like, Oh, you have a men mentor, and they take you under your wing, and you follow them your whole career. And I’m like, That’s BS, that doesn’t exist. That was like a 1920s. male dominated. You know, that it’s, that hasn’t been there for for a long time for anyone. But for women, especially, it’s very, very rare. So how do we how do we find the support networks that we want, we have to build them? We have to be intentional. And we have to be comfortable asking for help and leaning and maybe like not all the time, right? And not for everything. But if you don’t pull together that understanding of where do you have weaknesses? Where do you have opportunities? Where do you need someone to help lift you up? And being comfortable sort of building that arena of people that you’re willing to ask for help from is so important. And I think I think my experience taught me that too. Right? I didn’t have that one mom to hug me when something went wrong.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Yeah, totally. And looking for kind of surrogates, I guess. And in that way, you know, even my, like I said, one of my best friends who lost his mom at a young age, he calls me mom.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
That’s awesome.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Because, you know, I’m the person he calls when he would call her or wants to share stuff with or feels like he can be his whole self with, you know, in an exchange, I call him mom. I mean, we have a very, and it’s, you know, we do we were like Mom, we do a very, like, you know,
there’s a very, there’s a seriousness to it. And I’m, gosh, I just don’t know what I would do without that relationship. So I have one more question.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
All right, bring it on that wasn’t on the sheet. I hope it’s not heavy.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Well, you’ll have to decide, I don’t think it’ll be heavier than what you just said. But it may it may make, you may need to pause for a moment to reflect you know, I’m doing this kind of Russian roulette audience questions. Tell me about a time where you changed your mind.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
and not about ice cream flavors. That kind of thing all the time. All the time. Um, whoo. I have two ones. one’s fun and quick. One’s more serious, but also interesting. The final quick one. So when I was 16, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. I loved debate. I still like to debate I thought, you know, of the glamour and the excitement that you see on TV from lawyers. Right, the things that you see that you think are the real highlight reel. Yeah. And, and, and my dad was, I think he was already he had moved to Asia at one point. I don’t know if he’s already there or not. But he had a friend in Vermont. We were living in Texas, had a friend in Vermont who was a lawyer and had his own firm. And he was like, Hey, I know it’s like early for an internship but would you take my daughter on as an intern? That internship only lasted a week because he was a law firm. They had an issue and I went and did something else. But even that one week, just that one week, I was like, Oh, God, is this? Oh, no. There was so much like, just documents upon documents about documents and filing and reading that were like that. Were unintelligible to that. And I like reading and writing. I love that. I’m like, but not lawyer least. So I changed my mind. That was And luckily, I had the experience to get an experience that very quickly helped me change my mind because I think I could be a lawyer. I don’t think I’d be very happy. And I’m very glad I did not go through many years of you can take a long

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
time to really find that out. So yay for debt. What is Dad’s name? I feel like

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
dad’s name is Hal moot, very German, like Helmut Kohl. But how much snip? Yeah, that’s me. See this, as soon as it gets so glad I asked Phillips to have potato salad whenever he can. So but the other one and this one is more interesting. And my husband probably killed me. But when, when I first met my husband, I had zero interest in him. And a friend had tried to set us up. And it did not go well. About four months later, I met him again. And I still wasn’t interested. And then about three days later, a number of things transpired. And I was like, oh, gosh, I think I was wrong. I think I like this guy. And there are many other parts to the story. He made me mad. We had a tiff, a bunch of stuff happened. We essentially we like went through all of the toughest moments of a couple within the first three weeks of really knowing each other. But I went from I have no interest in this guy to like, he seems really special. Now we’re married and we’ve been together for 17 years. So yeah, that was I was wrong to see for mine. I know that would that would be a whole nother one hour long thing.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Oh my god. And we should do it sometime. Because honestly, I when I met my husband on the first day I arrived in South Africa, he’s walking across the street and in my mind, I swear I said, Thanks mama Africa because he was so beautiful. But I wasn’t I’ve never dated beautiful. And I don’t want people to hear I mean, but just like I’m usually intellectuals and scrawny people are just like, not like people who don’t you know, and just I don’t know what it is. But I never would have seen my I did not take it seriously at all. I was traveling. I was like, Yeah, this is fun. But there’s no way. And here we are. So

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
yeah, there’s something to that sometimes. I think that whenever, right they they’ll say like, if you have any sort of reaction, right? That could be good or bad, right? When when we’re little kids, and we chase each other around the park, and we’re annoying each other. Usually it’s because we have a crush, not because we actually hate the other person. Yeah. So yeah,

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
that’s true. And maybe that’s even how they catch us off guard. Because they get to come in and like through the bad, like, make an impression and then rattle us a

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
little bit. I don’t know, I mean, having some sort of

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
fire when we’re very independent and stuff like this opportunity to kind of let our guard down and an unassuming way. Because if we come in and assuming way, like, I want you to be this person, we were really, really good at finding all the faults within 30 seconds.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
He didn’t like let’s be clear, I don’t know about your beautiful Nigerian husband. But my husband did not check many of the boxes on my list, right? Because I’m a very, I was like, listen to the dibba did it and all these things. And I’m like, yeah, no, no, I

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
mean, he boils chicken feet. I’m a vegan. He’s like Catholic, and I’m like doing mantras and mudras, so

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
you couldn’t be more upset. You couldn’t be more opposite.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Like, yeah, this isn’t gonna work. But here we are.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Usually, the most important things maybe are not don’t show up on our list in the way they should. And we learn that the thing that’s most important, do they make you laugh? Do they make you happy? Right. Can you trust them? Those are the most important things.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Yeah. Yeah. And those have to be built a lot of them so well. Kirsten I’m so grateful for this time and this opportunity in this space to get to know you better. What a treat for me. Thank you for opening up and and sharing.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Yeah, thank you for having me. It’s it’s always fun to get to share stories, even if they’re hard ones. And hopefully, there’s some there’s some nuggets of usefulness for others in there as well. So and I will hopefully not cry again today. Well,

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
yeah, I think you do. I mean, it’s a workday after all.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
There are several hours ahead, sir. and lets you know

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
we came in, we can continue to compartmentalize and then cry when we have our pajamas on and we’re in bed and we have the tissues and when we decide we’re going to cry. Well, I

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
mean, like, let’s put it this way, there are certain movies I cannot go see in public because if there’s like a mom situation, oh, I just, it’s just I’m done. I’m done. So those those coming out of this

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
theater, can you please have a trigger warning before?

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Me when I have been on a plane before and a movie happens that I don’t think is good. And then there needs to be a trigger, right? Because I’m like, I am sobbing on a plane. This is Yeah, I

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
was not prepared for this.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
Well, the rest of your evening is also lovely and that this is a good way to maybe wrap up your day as well.

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
perfect way to wrap up my day. Yeah. Thank you.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
until the next time, but certainly if I ever come to South Africa food tour,

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
I am the person for you. Yes, I’ll show you the best food around.

Kirsten Newbold-Knipp
You Well, cheers.

Music Insert#5

Priscilla Brenenstuhl
Thank you for sharing your time with me today. Please tune in to our next episode with CEO and Founder, Public Board Director, Audit Committee Chair and Finance Committee Member Aishetu Fatima Dozie. And as you’ll find out, there’s a lot more to her than that…

If you are a member of Athena and would like to be featured on an episode, please reach out to me at [email protected]. Your story matters.