Kundra
Kundra
Podcast Description
Kundra — reimagining workplace gender equality through stories we don’t usually hear.The podcast explores the realities of gender at work through the voices of women, working moms, leaders, and changemakers.What began as customer research for a B2B SaaS — by Theresa Gschwandtner, FinTech exec turned Founder — quickly revealed stories too powerful to keep private.This is a public journey of product discovery, filled with honest conversations, practical takeaways, and proof that equality drives success.Sign up for the betahttps://www.kundra.ai/
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on gender equality in the workplace, with episodes tackling topics such as the challenges of returning from maternity leave, hidden struggles women face in high-performance jobs, and the importance of equity in organizational success, exemplified by episodes like 'From Top 1% Sales Rep to New Mom: What No One Tells You About Coming Back' that dives deep into the personal experiences of working mothers.
Kundra — The career podcast for working parents and HR leaders tackling parental leave
The podcast explores the realities of gender at work through the voices of women, working moms, leaders, and changemakers.
What began as customer research for a B2B SaaS — by Theresa Gschwandtner, FinTech exec turned Founder — quickly revealed stories too powerful to keep private.
This is a public journey of product discovery, filled with honest conversations, practical takeaways, and proof that equality drives success.
Sign up for the beta
https://www.kundra.ai/
What can companies learn from countries where parenthood still pushes talent out of the workforce?
In this episode of the Kundra Podcast, Theresa speaks with Claudine, founder of Promama, an Italian startup working to make workplaces genuinely more family friendly. Claudine shares how her own maternity leave experience – marked by silence, lost role clarity, and stalled progression – became the catalyst for building a data-driven solution to a systemic problem.
Together, they explore what Italy’s parental-leave reality reveals about workplace culture, why good intentions aren’t enough without structure, and how companies can retain parents through simple but deliberate design choices. This is a rare peer-to-peer conversation with someone tackling the same challenge from a different national, cultural, and policy context—and uncovering lessons that travel far beyond borders.
Whether you’re an HR leader, manager, or working parent, this episode offers a grounded look at what actually moves the needle when it comes to parental leave, retention, and performance.
Inside this conversation, you’ll discover:
- How a maternity leave breakdown exposed a wider, systemic problem
- Why nearly 1 in 5 Italian women leave the workforce after becoming mothers
- What “family-friendly” looks like in practice—not just in policy
- The hidden cost of losing parents (and why retention is the real ROI)
- Where companies most often fail—and the low-effort fixes they miss
- Why flexibility is the single biggest enabler for working parents
- What it takes to turn personal experience into scalable change
In this episode we cover:
- 00:00 Introduction to Claudine & the Career Turning Point
- 03:31 When Maternity Leave Breaks Trust – and Careers
- 09:29 The Data: Why This Is a Systemic Issue in Italy
- 11:48 Building ProMama: From Personal Pain to Platform
- 14:33 The 4 Pillars of a Truly Family-Friendly Company
- 19:26 Retention, ROI & the Business Cost of Getting This Wrong
- 32:36 Flexibility as the Foundation – and What to Change First
About Kundra
Kundra is building the future of parental leave.
We believe ambition and parenthood can thrive together – and companies that embed equity into their foundations today will lead tomorrow.
This podcast is part of our journey: speaking with working parents, business leaders, and HR innovators to surface the truths of career and parenting and the tools that make it work.
We’re now opening up pilot programs for companies ready to rethink parental leave. If you’d like to see how Kundra can support your teams, email [email protected] for a demo.
Want more from each episode?
Subscribe to Kundra Notes for insights, recaps, and HR toolkits
Follow Kundra on LinkedIn for product updates and thought leadership
Follow Kundra on Instagram for stories, quotes, and behind-the-scenes
Disclaimer
This podcast’s information is provided for general reference and was obtained from publicly accessible sources. The Podcast Collaborative neither produces nor verifies the content, accuracy, or suitability of this podcast. Views and opinions belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.
For a complete disclaimer, please see our Full Disclaimer on the archive page. The Podcast Collaborative bears no responsibility for the podcast’s themes, language, or overall content. Listener discretion is advised. Read our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for more details.