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Visibility is not vanity.
It is infrastructure.
If people cannot be seen, they cannot be funded, promoted, hired, followed, or supported.
In this episode of Is Anything Real?, I sit down with Leslie Greenwood and Melissa Moody, co-founders of Wednesday Women, a global movement designed to amplify the visibility of executive women and make leadership more accessible, visible, and connected.
What began as a single LinkedIn post and a simple spreadsheet has grown into:
- 20,000+ supporters
- a global visibility network
- and an executive community of 200+ leaders
But the real story is not growth.
It is system design.
We explore:
- Why visibility is infrastructure, not ego
- How movements begin with refusal, not strategy
- Why sharing wins is actually cultural architecture
- The myth that visibility equals bragging
- What real allyship looks like in practice
One of the clearest truths from this conversation:
You cannot promote, fund, hire, or follow someone you cannot see.
👥 Guests
Leslie Greenwood
Melissa Moody
Wednesday Women
🔌 Host
Adam W. Barney
Transition Leadership Coach | Creator of EnergyOS | Author of Make Your Own Glass Half Full
Website: https://adamwbarney.com/
Book: https://makeyourownglasshalffull.com/
Book a 20-min Exploration Call: https://calendly.com/adamwbarney/explorationplugin-20min
Book: https://makeyourownglasshalffull.com/
Book a 20-min Exploration Call: https://calendly.com/adamwbarney/explorationplugin-20min
Creators and Guests
What is Is Anything Real??
Is Anything Real? is the Reality-First Leadership podcast for builder-leaders who want outcomes, not optics. Each week, Adam W. Barney sits down with founders and operators to unpack positioning, marketing, community, energy management, and influence - plus the numbers behind what actually worked.
You’ll hear: a quick Reality Check, a practical Proof Stack (inputs → actions → outcomes), and one EnergyOS habit you can run this week. Specifics over slogans; humane systems over hustle cosplay.
New episodes every Wednesday at 12:00 PM ET.
👉 Book your 20-min Exploration Call: https://calendly.com/adamwbarney/explorationplugin-20min
[00:05.4]
Here's a myth that quietly holds back a lot of extraordinary women. Visibility is vanity. Like, if you talk about your wins, you're too much. If you take the stage, you're self-promoting. But what if visibility isn't ego...
[00:22.0]
what if it's infrastructure? Because you can't promote, fund, hire, or follow someone you've never been allowed to see. And today, we're talking to two people who built a system that makes seeing extraordinary women inevitable. Welcome back to "Is Anything Real?", the reality-first leadership show, where we test advice, publish the receipts, and ship what actually works under pressure.
[00:45.8]
I'm Adam W. Barney, leadership coach, author, and host of this show. And today I'm joined by Leslie Greenwood and Melissa Moody, founders of Wednesday Women, a global movement designed to amplify the visibility of executive women through public awareness and private support.
[01:03.8]
Just a quick celebration here because it really matters. Wednesday Women was just named Community of the Year 2026 by Demand and Expand, announced at their May 19th awards in San Francisco. And of course, this isn't fluff. In about two years, you've grown to 20,000 plus supporters and built an executive membership community of 200 or more executive women leaders.
[01:28.5]
So it's not a vibe, it's a movement. Leslie, Melissa, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having us. This is such a pleasure to be on this. You've been such a great supporter and ally all along, so I'm happy to be here.
[01:43.8]
I'm so psyched to have you here. Before we go deep though, I want one moment from each of you. What would you say is the most Wednesday Women moment you've experienced recently? The one where you went, yep, this is exactly why we built this. I will say I'll tell a story that Leslie has told before, and it's a really special one.
[02:05.7]
We were at an event the other year and we were doing kind of a gathering for women, and in the middle of a big event, and we had actually ordered a giant cake. We felt like we let them eat cake moment, right? Like it was. We needed this. It was incredible cake.
[02:21.4]
We brought it into the room and put it down. And a gentleman was the first one to come over, and he said, what are you doing? And we explained to him what we were doing. And he said, can I take a picture? Because I want to go home and tell my daughter about this. And I think that one stands out to me because we see connections between women, for women, among women, all the time.
[02:42.8]
But what we've built really isn't just for women. This is a movement for everyone to see these incredible leaders. And so that really touched my heart. I know it touched Leslie's heart. And I think it was, for me, it's cool to have a moment about Wednesday Women that is actually not necessarily even with a woman, but it really touched someone in our broader audience.
[03:02.8]
And we always say small ripples make big waves. And that's what we were founded around. And that's it. It can be just a very small moment that can really make a change. Right, right. I love that. And you know, ripples are what I love to talk about. It's not about the legacy. Legacy is a long-term thing.
[03:18.4]
Ripples are what we can control more closely. But I love how that, you know, that gets into the heartbeat. But let's, let's kind of go back to the beginning, take us to the origin story. And also not the clean version, but the real version. What was the ache you both felt that existed before Wednesday Women existed?
[03:37.8]
Well, I mean, Wednesday Women started from a single LinkedIn post. It was, I just made a post, and it's funny, because it was kind of triggered by some person who now happens to be one of our biggest partners. And it wasn't triggered in her, by her, in a negative way at all, but it was like, who are the women I should know?
[03:57.4]
Who are the CEOs I should know? Because my feed is desolate and I only see two women keynoting on stages. I'm like, how can Alina from Chili Piper and Irina from Hootsuite fly all over the world all the time and be on all these stages like they have lives. And it's like, there's got to be more women.
[04:13.8]
And that post, I mean, blew up. It turned into a Google sheet and I was just toiling away with me and the Fiverr guy and the Google sheet for, I don't know, maybe a year or two. Just because I see more posts, you know, even we see it today, you'll still see posts like, who are the women founders, the women CMOs, the women in the data privacy.
[04:32.6]
Although, I don't think people actually ask about that because when we featured women in data privacy, my God, they were so excited. Then I would take that Google sheet and drop it around to other people. And I dropped in Melissa's feed, didn't know her.
[04:48.6]
I was connected, like a LinkedIn rando connection or something, and I dropped in her feed, and somehow we end up on a call. She's like, what are you going to do with this Google sheet? I'm like, I don't know. I was just making a Google sheet, man. Just, whatever. Melissa, the executor, which I love.
[05:06.1]
That's how I knew we were going to do fine. She was like, well, what if we did this? And by the way, why don't we do it on Wednesday, and we'll call it Wednesday Women? And oh, yeah, I'm a CMO, so of course, I've already bought the domain. So, because they're domain hoarders, I did not know that about Melissa. Melissa probably has her own story, but, like, that's how we started.
[05:22.6]
And we made one post, on a Wednesday, featuring one woman, May 3rd of 2023. And we had zero followers when we did it, we just, we figured, why not, why not shout a little bit about one woman who's really awesome? And maybe even if a couple folks see it, that's a start.
[05:41.4]
And, to Leslie's point about earlier, about, like, how good it feels with the women in data privacy, it's really amazing. You know, we all. Not just for women, but it's one thing to say your own win. It's another thing that's so meaningful when someone else says, did you see what Adam did?
[05:58.7]
Look how awesome that was. It feels so good. And it feels so valuable. And so just even that little beginnin was really valuable. That's magical. It's not like one big incident led you to this.
[06:15.3]
It was probably more of death by a thousand cuts, honestly, of what's being ignored in the world. You know, and also, here's what I think people miss, right? Movements don't start with strategy. They start with a refusal, a refusal to keep watching the same outcome repeat.
[06:36.2]
And, you know, fast forward: then when did you realize, oh, this isn't a post, it's not a spreadsheet, it's actually a flywheel. And what was the first proof point that made you go, wait, wait, wait, people are hungry for this? I mean, I'll probably say, you know, we started doing the post, and Leslie and I are off running our own other businesses at that point.
[06:56.7]
We were just like all the other executive women, very, very busy. Too busy. Too much on our plates. That was part of what we said is it shouldn't require more bandwidth for these women to necessarily be recognized. I think the moment for me was actually one where we'd started publishing these featured posts.
[07:17.2]
We started having little moments here and there at events. We started even. Leslie is a master of events. We started even bringing our own events together. And there was one event where a woman stood up and said, you know, I want to be the chapter head of Wednesday Women.
[07:33.6]
And to that point, we'd been hearing a lot of women say, I'm a member of Wednesday Women. Spoiler alert. We didn't have a membership. There was no membership. And I think. And we swore we were never going to have one. Like, we have a whole on how to unity on without building a community. Right, right.
[07:49.2]
Because that effectively is still, and it is what we do, which is we build community. Yes, there is a membership for a certain segment of women, but we build community, not a community. And so you can be a part of this thing. When people started saying, I am a member, when we didn't have a technical membership, I think that was the marker where we went, oh, we're actually building something.
[08:13.2]
That's the proof point that it's a movement there. Right. And, you know, I guess on the flip side, with such a huge audience of supporters and those executive members, do you each have kind of, you know, a specific share or a nomination or a message from a woman that shocked you, surprised you, that they were a supporter and coming into the community here?
[08:36.9]
I think you always talk about Terry. Maybe talk about Teri, Leslie, because that's a big one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, we did a Women in Energy series. And, our job was to, you know, make connections, to feature these women at, like, large oil and gas companies.
[08:55.2]
And I'm like, I know nobody in there. You know, like, we had zero. Like, although we both live in the biggest oil and gas states in the United States, but it's like, it's not in our natural network. So, you know, I do my normal LinkedIn stalking, but I'm kind of good at making rapport with people quickly and easily.
[09:12.3]
So, like, I've, you know, made these connections. And we ended up featuring Teri Cotton Santos the Chief Compliance Officer of Phillips 66. And, we just, I mean, chatted a little bit. We featured her, and then my daughter had a swim meet in Houston.
[09:29.6]
And I'm like, oh, hey, there are two of you in Houston. Do you want to get together for coffee while I'm there? They both said yes. And the other one is the VP of Resilience at HP. I mean, I'm like, I never expected them to ever even like acknowledge my message, let alone take time out of their weekend or day to come meet with me.
[09:53.0]
And just like, we just got to know each other. And so they're both members now. They are both very engaged, super supportive. And, it's just amazing to me that like, we have these women that are from all walks of life, all sizes of company, every different role imaginable.
[10:14.2]
You know, Fortune 50 to someone like me who's never worked at a company over 250 people. And I thought it was, I was going to die because there's so much red tape involved. You know, and been a solopreneur and stuff like that. But there's just like this, the glue I always talk about when I was doing community consulting, the sticky glue.
[10:30.8]
What's the sticky glue that's going to keep this community together? And it's that we've all walked the path. We walk the path to become an executive at one point. And so when someone says something and you get this nod that says and you see, I've been there too.
[10:48.0]
And so yeah. And a lot of these women, they're very similar. It's like they spent so much time networking inside of their companies to move up in the business and their visibility inside the company, they haven't spent time building any visibility or networking much outside of the company.
[11:05.6]
So they have the same challenges that everyone else is. It's like, how do I build visibility? Is this bragging? Like, I don't want to see bragging. It's like, is it a fact? And they're like, yes, my facts aren't bragging. Let's go. And the other one is, I've got so much on my plate.
[11:24.0]
I mean these women are underwater with everything they give, and they give, and they give, so much on their plate. Why would I take a little bit more time to invest in my presence in a book and standing on stage and like, it's just, it's investing in me, and I don't put me first. We hear that all the time.
[11:40.4]
Right, right, right. Well, and now of course, you're talking 20,000 plus supporters. It's clear that that didn't happen by accident. Right, you're solving something real here. But you both kind of tied to this a little bit. Let's name the myth, and in one sentence, even at the executive level, what's the biggest lie women get fed about visibility?
[12:03.5]
I would say the biggest. I don't know that. I suppose we're maybe fed it in a roundabout way. But I would say the biggest lie is when you talk about what you've done publicly, it is egotistical and about you.
[12:20.8]
Whereas when you reframe it, to share your experience so that others can gain from you, when you turn it into giving, it becomes much more palatable for a lot of the women we speak with. Like, personally, I will say, I hate social media. Hate it, absolutely hate it.
[12:37.3]
But when I realized that when I show up, and one more person sees their journey in my story, and feels a little more comfortable, and a little bit more empowered, it's worth it to me. That's my why. Everybody has a different why for stepping into the light. But, we've all thought that the why for stepping into the light.
[12:55.1]
If we think it's for our ego and our own personal gain, it feels ick, right? If we reframe that in one of many other ways for women leaders, all of a sudden, it becomes very doable and potentially even joyful. And then it's something we've done.
[13:11.0]
I mean, we see that from, I mean, people have been specifically told that, you know, by their bosses. Like, I need you to take down your newsletter off your LinkedIn. You work for us. You know, I mean, that's been, I mean, very specifically.
[13:27.6]
But then also we did original research, you know, a couple years ago, about the socialization of young girls compared to boys. And even the words that we were taught as children to describe what was good. Good is quiet, good is obedient.
[13:43.3]
Boys are brave and bold, and those things don't serve us. So it's like there's so much underlying in there. It's not just because we need to get more brave, we need to be more bold. But it's like, this is something since the age of four.
[14:00.1]
And I know I got called on this. I called my daughter bossy. She wasn't bossy. She knew her mind. Right? I never called my son bossy. So these are things that have been happening forever. And it's just like, you know, if we can help one woman make a small step, hit the button on that first post, maybe questioning if this is bragging and I will just run them through.
[14:22.4]
Well, are you a CEO? It's a fact. Yes. Do you have a business for five years? That's a fact, right? Yep. You're a seven-figure business. Is that a fact? Yes. Great. I need you to make this post. This is not bragging. Well, I'm gonna plug something that our listeners can do.
[14:39.8]
If you head to the Wednesday Women website, you can put a nomination up there. Yes. That is one of the most powerful ways to activate that. Right. You know, it's not forcing someone to say that they should do something, or they need to do something.
[14:55.5]
It's almost slyly saying, hey, I'm gonna put you in this group, and you have to do it self-directed, and you're going to get highlighted. Right. And I think that that's, I mean, that's kind of what the spark was that I think caught fire for us. But that's what I always say, is the easiest way to step into this world of sharing your wins is to start by sharing someone else's.
[15:17.5]
Right. Look at someone else and say, wow, look at what they did. Look how they grew that business. Look how they changed their career journey. Look, whatever it might be, because you get, it's so easy to share wins of someone else. And if maybe you're not totally comfortable sharing your own, start by practicing someone else.
[15:34.1]
And we, within our executive membership, we talk a lot about building the habit. That's the other piece of it. It doesn't feel good the first time you do this. We've had women say they felt physically sick. Like, you know, it doesn't feel great. And so you have to practice. You have to share the little wins.
[15:50.8]
You have to share something you might feel uncomfortable with putting out into the world because then it becomes more natural.
[16:02.1]
Well, I'm going to celebrate one of your wins for just a quick second here before we move along. That community of the year win, you know, I want to frame it though, the right way. It's not look at us, it's look at what this proves. And you know, I love how that gets into it. But then, you know, obviously, I come at this from an ally standpoint, and I love being an ally in communities like this.
[16:25.0]
A lot of people want to help, but they default to performative stuff, or they also freeze because they don't want to say the wrong thing, almost tying back to exactly what you were just saying. So I'd love the field guide from your perspectives. You know, give me maybe five ways an ally can stand up that are specific enough, someone can do them this week even.
[16:46.8]
Oh, I love a list, Adam. We're going to do a list. Okay, Leslie, you start. I've got my five. You got your five. Okay, we'll add. We'll add. We'll cumulatively hit five. Go ahead. Okay. One. You see some woman that you may or may not know, give them a like on their post.
[17:03.8]
Give them a comment, give them a follow. That's one. That's the easiest thing. You don't even have to know them. But that's just one thing of visibility that you can help amplify. Two, is nominate someone. Three is go to our public free ungated directory on our website because you can freely search for experts.
[17:27.8]
Should you be looking for an expert and think to yourself, I don't know any women experts in X, let me tell you, I got 500 of them in all different areas on the website for free. Right. And I'll stop talking, because I'll probably just name all of Melissa's. So. Okay, they've been the easy ones.
[17:44.4]
So I feel like this is tricky. I will also say take the time, use your earbuds, you know, and actually listen to some of the stories, because I think sometimes we don't actually understand the other perspective. Our podcast, The Ripple, is awesome. These are the most incredible women.
[18:01.1]
Being very vulnerable. And it's not just for women. These are leadership stories. So listen to The Ripple. I will say one of my favorite that, earlier you mentioned a woman who'd been featured that really struck home with us. We have an amazing episode on our advisor, Kim Peretti, and she tells a story.
[18:18.4]
This amazing, accomplished executive woman. Her story is just about a moment where she was told, you are enough. And I mean, I still get chills thinking of it. It's cried like 8,000 times now. It makes me go, like, go and listen to The Ripple. So, yeah, like or follow.
[18:34.0]
What was it? Nominate. Go to our speaker directory, to find speakers for your panels, your podcast guests, whatever. Listen to the podcast. And then, you know, honestly, if people are listening to this, you have been such a champion of ours, because you've become our friend.
[18:50.5]
So I would also say follow me and Leslie, and maybe even reach out for a chat with us. We love growing our network of people who get what we do and get the vibe, and so, that would be a big one. Yeah. Oh, can I add a sixth?
[19:05.9]
Because it's really easy. Bonus, add a bonus. Make your own post about someone else's win. Go and do what we did. Just pick someone awesome. And you know, honestly, for today, it doesn't even have to be a woman. Just practice sharing the wins. But we would love it. There's so many amazing women in your network.
[19:22.3]
Make a post about something awesome that someone else did. How easy is that? Or a couple people like, here are the six women I admire. Right. And I'm gonna say, you know, I've actually learned that one of the strongest ally moves is something that's really boring. It's saying her name when she isn't in the room.
[19:40.2]
Right. Think about it, right? You know, and surprise people. But, I'd like to move this into one sort of EnergyOS move for the week. I'm going to call it The Visibility Ledger. You know, this is another list. Three columns, ask what do I quietly respect and never amplify?
[20:01.6]
Who do I amplify only when it's safe? And then three, who am I willing to advocate for when it costs me something? And then, just pick one name off of that list and do one door-opening action in maybe 24 or 48 hours.
[20:19.8]
Not a compliment, not a vague post, but just a move. But what do you both see as the most powerful door opening move you wish allies did more often? Especially when you look, not even at executive amplifying each other, but the broader world of men like myself?
[20:36.9]
Say someone's name when they're not in the room. That's one of them. And then if you see, you know, we always hear a bit about over-talking. So you're in a board meeting, you're in a meeting, you say something, someone else says the same thing, and you be the one to say, hey, didn't Jane just say the exact same thing two minutes ago?
[21:01.2]
I mean, we hear that story all the time. It's like, be the one to step a little bit out of comfort. That's not confrontational. Just, it's again, stating a fact. I thought Jane just said that, and we glossed over that. So maybe we should pivot back to Jane's thought. Or a small spin on that would be.
[21:19.2]
Oh, I'd love to hear from Linda on this. I'd love to hear what Leslie is thinking on this topic. Just opening those doors. But I will say saying, you know, when you think of all the network moments that we have in our lives. Those moments where someone says, oh, do you know, do you know a growth stage marketer?
[21:39.5]
Pause for a moment, and if you have one or two names coming out of your mind, pause for a moment, and think about anyone else who also should be in that group. Because I think just the recommendations, the connections, sometimes we default to the first thing out of our mouth. But if you pause and think about. And this isn't again, doesn't just have to be for just women, but the, maybe the names that you don't say right away that you realize should absolutely be in those lists because they're not the well known ones, they're not the ones with a hundred thousand followers, but they are like a genius at growth stage marketing, you know, but people just don't know who they are.
[22:12.5]
And again, like you said earlier it's like people can't help you if they don't know you and you have to step out and you have to be visible in some way. Otherwise the perfect person who has the answer to your question. One, if you never ask, you will not get the answer.
[22:28.4]
And two, if they don't know who you are, you also can't get the answer. It's flexing a muscle, it's building a callus, right? It's putting armor on your back. The first time you do it, it feels harder. The more times you do it, it gets easier and easier and you get more confident through it.
[22:45.8]
It's a boulder rolling down a hill in that sense. I have to connect it to, I'm guessing both of you have maybe heard of or read James Clear, his Atomic Habits. The one thing that always stands out to me about that is there's a lot of things you can do to build a habit.
[23:01.5]
But the main thing that really changes habits is when you stop saying I'm someone who amplifies women. Or let me rephrase. You don't say I do things to amplify women. You say I am an amplifier of women, right? So his thing is running, right?
[23:17.0]
I am a person who goes for runs. No, no, no, you'll never build a habit. If you say I am a runner, you begin to build a habit. And so I think just by mentally framing yourself as someone who absolutely is an amplifier of women, is an ally, then if you think about yourself that way, it starts to become mor natural, and it's not the thing you have to remember to do.
[23:38.3]
That's great. That's a fantastic point. All right, same closing question I ask every guest here. You know, Leslie, Melissa, is anything real? And answer that however you want. Is it leadership, visibility, power, community, or all of it? Leslie's looking at me like she wants me to go.
[23:56.9]
I will say I have a book. It's written by an Italian who's incredible, named Carlo Rovelli, and it is called Reality Is Not What It Seems. And it will teach you the basics of quantum reality, and you will never see straight again. So I'm gonna go with no. Nothing we're doing is real.
[24:12.9]
We are bits of particles that happen to hit each other. And we're apparently posting on LinkedIn about B2B marketing, so.
[24:22.8]
Oh, that is fantastic. Leslie, competing view? How do I even follow that? I don't know. I guess I'm not even here. Thank God, I had my non-real coffee this morning to get through that statement.
[24:41.4]
Yeah, I don't know. We have to put up with this every day. I know. Relationships are real. Building relationships are real. Make the time to make the connections. To go from no, like, to trust.
[24:56.7]
Yeah. Trust moves the needle. And I think what's real is this. Right. Visibility. It's not vanity. It's how we stop losing people to silence. That's the simplest way I would look at it. But, Melissa, Leslie, where should people go to support Wednesday Women, get involved, and nominate not just one person, but a handful of people in their network?
[25:18.8]
I mean, wednesdaywomen.org is our site. And the two specific links I would send you to is /nominat to nominate someone. I think you're right. That's the easiest. You don't even have to talk to a human. Just put their name in, and we'll follow up. and /subscribe, because that's where you can get the latest on events.
[25:37.7]
You can see what we're posting on LinkedIn, if LinkedIn won't show it to you in your feed and all of that. #heyalgo, right? So. No, we didn't say that. Please do not put us on the blacklist. And then just follow our page. Follow our page. I said it, Leslie, I said it.
[25:54.6]
There we go. All right, well,we'll, of course, link to those in the show notes below, but I would challenge our listeners. You know, if you're listening and you know an executive woman who should be on more stages, in more rooms, and in more conversations.
[26:12.0]
Don't just think it. Head to that nomination page. Share her, say her name in rooms she's not in. And if you're an ally who wants to do more than just agree, do one of those door-opening moves this week. But, you know, Leslie, Melissa, thank you for building something that makes visibility inevitable here.
[26:32.6]
And until next time, stay grounded, stay human, and keep questioning the noise. But, thank you both. Thank you, Adam. Adam. Amazing.