Episode 105: Kristin Thomas
Join Lori in this inspiring conversation with Kristin Thomas, Founder and CEO of Marble Collective, an AI-powered platform designed for high-impact women leaders. Social media can be overwhelming and noisy, but Marble Collective helps you rise above the chaos. Discover how the platform connects you with the right people to amplify your voice, increase your visibility, and expand your impact — so your legacy reaches exactly who it’s meant to inspire!
Here are the things to expect in this episode:
The personal journey behind building a mission-driven, AI-powered platform
What sets Marble Collective apart from traditional online networks
Ways it connects purpose-driven women with aligned opportunities and communities
How AI is being used to strategically amplify your voice and visibility
And much more!
Kristin’s Bio: https://marblecollective.com/kristin.thomas
Marble Collective: https://marblecollective.com/
Marble Collective Application: https://marblecollective.com/about/founding-membership
Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00
You're listening to the positive impact philanthropy podcast, where we share the journey with everyday philanthropists as they incorporate philanthropy into their lives. Philanthropy is a personal journey, and through the stories we will share here. We hope that it sparks something in you and how you can make your own philanthropic impact in the world. I'm your host. Lori Kranczer, attorney, philanthropic advisor and legacy giving strategist. Together, we're going to explore what it looks like to be an everyday philanthropist and make a positive impact in the world. Before we get started, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a new episode posted on Wednesdays. So today, I'm so excited. We have Kristin Thomas with us. She is the founder and CEO of Marble collective. Welcome Kristin.
Speaker 2 00:52
Thank you so much, Lori. I'm so happy to be here, and I love talking about philanthropy and legacy, which is very much tied into everything you talk about in this podcast. So I'm so excited,
Speaker 1 01:06
absolutely, it's what I live and breathe, right? So, so Kristin, why don't you tell us, our listeners, more about what you do?
Speaker 2 01:15
Sure. So I am the founder of Marble Collective. We're like a digital AI powered ecosystem to capture, preserve and amplify the legacies of remarkable women so that they can mentor, inspire and role model at scale, while being better connected with each other through information sharing and amplification of what they're working on.
Speaker 1 01:43
So I know about Marble collective. I think it's an incredible platform that's being built, but for our listeners, an you share more like, what does that look like?
Speaker 2 01:51
Yeah, absolutely. So we're launching this fall, after two years in beta. We're launching with about 300 industry and diverse women leaders, we're launching with a mobile and web platform that takes the digital legacy. So think podcasts, videos, articles, blogs, anything you might find out in the ecosystem of the internet about an individual, or centralizing it into a beautiful design forward portfolio that anybody can follow, and building centralized profiles that serve as personal websites. So for the women leader, it makes it a little bit easier to keep things centralized and to allow other people to follow you, because we use AI to do that. So when an individual, one of our members, does, let's say a TED talk, or they're on a panel, and somebody in the audience sees them and gets really inspired by what they're saying, there's not an easy way to get plugged into that individual going forward and to follow them beyond social media, and that takes regular posting and the algorithm wanting to show that to you. So it's not always the most reliable way to follow somebody that's inspiring to you. So what Marble is going to allow you to do is to find that female role model, get plugged into them, know when they're going to be speaking at an event or on a panel or on a podcast, when they're on the press, or they release anything into the world, so that you can follow their journey and their career as they're building it, rather than wait for them to post something on say, LinkedIn,
Speaker 1 03:41
Yeah, speaking of LinkedIn, I mean, I was thinking how this is so different and so much better, because on LinkedIn, I feel like I see the same 10 people, even though I have 1000s of followers, right? So it's explain to people how this will make, like, a bigger impact for themselves when they're following individuals, and also for the people that are putting out content.
Speaker 2 04:01
That's a really good point. Some of our members have over 100,000 followers, and some of their posts get 10 likes, and you just see that they're not being seen, right? So those individuals have worked really hard to post regularly, to build a following. They're LinkedIn content creators, but there's so many women out there who are not regular content creators, and even if you are, you might not always get seen. So for really busy women who have worked really hard in building larger than life careers, they don't have a lot of time often, they hire people to update their social media handles and to keep people informed that way. But marble, we're taking a different approach. So marble uses AI to track the podcast and the press and the events that you might be speaking in or panel discussions, so the women can continue to work without lifting a finger and anybody in the world who's interested in following them and getting plugged into what they're doing can get it. Can stay informed. Another area that we're focused on is information sharing. So our time is our greatest asset, right? And what we invest our time in consuming, like the books we read, the podcasts that we listen to and the articles that we consume, they're informing our work and our thinking, and that is very valuable. So what we're allowing our featured women leaders to do is to save the media that they're consuming that's informing their work and thinking into a public facing portfolio that ambitious professionals and students and anybody in the world can get plugged into and follow in a much more efficient way than, let's say, if they were dropping it in their newsletter or doing a post on social media that unfortunately will get buried the next day in the inbox or the social media feed. We want to make that media by them, about them, and that they're consuming can be accessible in perpetuity?
Speaker 1 06:08
Yeah, I mean, I was just thinking about the legacy, we'll talk about legacy in a little bit, but the legacy for these women is going to be amplified. And I'm just thinking also ways, and I don't know if you've thought about this already, but how do we, how do you measure that, like, how are you then now going to track, like, what that impact could look like for these creators?
Speaker 2 06:30
That's fascinating. I'm excited to find that out. So we're, we're building the foundation, and that's gathering industry and diverse in every way women leaders into one place, because women the data shows that when we lead organizations, the organizations are more capital efficient and even return more returns to investors. We know that women leaders are doing a great job. We also know that they're underserved and leadership positions are underrepresented. So what we hope to do is to amplify their visibility, share their stories, much like you're doing on this podcast, because storytelling creates the emotional connection to people to help inspire and inspire their own life and what they're possible of achieving themselves. So by elevating visibility and creating this access point for others to follow them, it's allowing the entire life's work of a woman leader to be captured and preserved versus being on a static feed. So when you look at a woman's life, a woman leader's life, from a bird's eye view, it's interesting to see where they started and where they landed. Being able to explore that journey is really fascinating. So to answer your question, that's one of the things I'm really excited about doing, is putting their life into a digital timeline they can add to with pictures and stories and audio, so that that student that just graduates college can find a role model and explore their life in a different way than, say, an autobiography.
Speaker 1 08:14
Yeah, I love this. I mean, it's one of the things we examine a little bit here on the podcast, sharing our philanthropic journeys and how we are doing what we're doing, and I also want to get into that with you. But it's, I mean, I get questions all the time that I'm a former practicing attorney, and I have questions all the time from young adults interested in the law and interested in philanthropy, and how do I get to where I am now? And if you saw that through the body of work, it can be, I mean, not only a visual portfolio, but for others coming up behind you to have those lessons, and the people that have gone through it already. I think this is so important, what you're doing. Let's go back to your pathway. I want to hear about how did you get this idea? Where did this come from and who joined you on this journey?
Speaker 2 09:03
Thank you so much. It's very much tied to legacy and role models. So I grew up with a larger than life grandfather. His name was Peter Thomas. He was arguably the most prolific voice over narrator of his time. So he was, he had an incredible passion and love for storytelling and this rich, beautiful voice. And he just brought words on paper to life. And I would hear him. He was the voice of Forensic Files. I'd hear him in documentaries at school. He passed away when I was in high school, and I was used to having him around, having this larger than life role model around that I was very close to, and I just felt like his entire life and legacy was fading away in memories stored in boxes in the basement or just scattered across the internet. And I really thought about this a lot, and I felt a great loss of opportunity. I then wanted to go back. And I started searching his name on the internet and exploring his old videos. And I realized how hard it was and how scattered everything was, and I had saved them on documents. That was the seed of marble. I went into marble wanting to create this legacy platform for all leaders like him. But then I realized how women leaders lacked the visibility and the representation, and it became really clear that marble needed to be for women. So he was the seed of my inspiration for building this, and then just my learning about the women's ecosystem and the lack of representation really made it clear that we wanted to focus on women. So I have been in real estate for two decades. It has been a grind. It's been incredibly fulfilling. I've worked in New York City, and I've gotten to work with really fascinating people. The pandemic happened, the real estate market shut down, and marble had been ever since my grandfather passed. It had been in my mind, and I had been thinking about it a lot. I just didn't have the space in my life. So the pandemic happened, the real estate market shut down, and it was like marble just came out of me. It was the first time that I had peace and quiet and I dove right in, and I've really been building it ever since.
Speaker 1 11:23
And so for people that are listening, because I think a lot of people will think I have an idea or I'm inspired by something, how do you take that first step or that second, third, fourth step? How do you continue moving on with building something that you're building now?
Speaker 2 11:41
That is a really great and complex question, and I don't think there's a simple answer to it. My one learning throughout this whole process is don't give up and don't stop. So every entrepreneurial journey is so different, and it's like following breadcrumbs. Surround yourself with other people who are building whatever company, type of company they're building, just bringing something from zero to something into the world is a real lift. It's not hard. It's probably one of the hardest things you will ever do in your life, but it's so rewarding, the people that you meet along the way, the connections that you make, the learnings that you find, and just going through incredible setbacks. The two steps forward, one step back is normalcy and bringing something into the world, but it's so rewarding. And I think those that succeed, somebody once said, are those that don't give up. So you might go through many pivots, and it's all part of the journey. Just find something that you are passionate about and that you don't lose interest in, and just keep going, keep talking to people, keep building relationships, read, learn, find role models and listen to their stories. And it's actually listening to the stories of other entrepreneurs and other women leaders who I find inspiration for everything that I'm doing
Speaker 1 13:18
And with that, which leaders do you find inspiration from?
Speaker 2 13:23
Oh gosh, there are so many. I probably listen to a founder's story every single day through podcasts like yours. I just this morning listened to the Gloria Feldt podcast. She's a founding member of Marble Collective, and I learned something new. I'm trying to remember what she said, but when she talked about her own childhood, she thought being a social studies teacher was as high as a woman could go in rural Texas, right? And then her role was opened as she was exposed to other role models in her life. And it's, it's stories like that that we can all find something to relate to in our own lives, and just it opens up our mind. And that's, that's really what we're trying to do at Marble, is open up the minds of the next generation so they can expand what they believe is possible for them.
Speaker 1 14:19
Yeah, I love it. And Lori is fantastic. And she's my role model. She is why I went into the nonprofit sector. So, yeah, so that's why I was so thrilled to interview her for our 100th episode. Wow, this is it all comes back to legacy. And so I want to talk about legacy for Marble Collective, and also what you consider your legacy to be?
Speaker 2 14:44
That's such a powerful question. It reminds me of envisioning somebody reading your obituary or standing up and sharing about somebody's life and doing that in retrospect, I think the legacy that I want to leave behind is a an ecosystem and platform that captures and preserves the legacies of remarkable women to make them more efficiently accessible to this and the next generation. I kind of look at Marble like a living and breathing library or museum of remarkable women. We want to capture women that are living today, but we also want to capture women's legacies and history, because they're equally as inspiring, and I just want to keep them alive.
Speaker 1 15:40
Fantastic. So it sounds like your legacy is really intertwined with Marble Collective's legacy
Speaker 2 15:44
That's why I'm here. That's why I'm waking up and doing this every single day, and doing it with so much joy, despite how hard it is to bring something into the world. It's what keeps me going.
Speaker 1 15:59
For anyone listening now, any advice that you can give about doing something in social impact, which is exactly what you're doing.
Speaker 2 16:08
So I think each of us, in our unique way, just through our lived experience in life, gathers wisdom and insight that nobody else has and can offer and just in line with what we're doing at Marble. I think no matter at what stage you are in your career, to be able to make time and space for individuals that are following in your footsteps, and you can offer support, advice and insight, too, at any age, we don't have to wait until the end of our career to do that we can do that, make time for it in everyday life, and it just makes our life's work more meaningful on a day to day basis, and gives us joy that we would otherwise not feel if we don't make time to give back and spend that time with others.
Speaker 1 16:59
Oh, I love that. Okay, so we're nearing the end, and I really would love for you to share any next steps regarding Marble collective. Where could people find out more information about you, marble collective? And what you see is like the next stage of it growing.
17:15
Speaker 2 17:21
Amazing. So our website is www.marblecollective.com. We're launching in the fall with 300 plus remarkable, inspiring women leaders. Applications are open right now. If you feel called and you feel like Marble Collective platform may be a great way to centralize your own legacy and make you more accessible to others. Please go to our website and apply. We have an amazing list, including yourself, Lori, of inspiring women leaders. Our next phase is, we are going to open it to the public so that anybody in the world can get plugged into remarkable women leaders for learning and inspiration. So I would say sign up to our newsletter to stay informed about what we're doing. And if you feel called to join Marble, please head over to our website and apply.
Speaker 1 18:13
Fantastic. So everyone, yes, I am involved. Full disclosure, I’ve felt completely drawn to the mission of what Kristin is doing. So check it out. It's a fantastic opportunity to create your own legacy of all the content that you're putting out there. Anyway, thank you again, Kristin, for coming and talking with us about you, your journey. I love the stories that you shared about your grandfather. I'm going to have to look that up, and hopefully we can see his body of work sometime soon.
Speaker 2 18:43
Thank you so much. Lori, this has been so much fun. I could keep on talking and I just, I love the work you're doing to this podcast.
Speaker 1 18:54
Thank you all of our listeners. Thanks for joining us. We hope we provide some insights and inspiration that you can use for your own philanthropic journey. You can tune in every week on Wednesdays, when new episodes are dropped, we'd love to hear your feedback, so leave a comment and a rating you like and what you'd like to hear more about. And if you liked the episode today, make sure to share it, to raise awareness about the story, to inspire other women to take action. I'm Lori Kranczer, and until next time you can make a positive impact through philanthropy every day. Thanks For Listening.