About Maura:
Maura Duggan is the founder and CEO of Fancypants, a delicious crispy cookie brand using high-quality ingredients with an elevated twist. She originally started Fancypants as a decorative cookie company in Massachusetts in 2004, along with creating her own manufacturing facility to ensure quality control and scale the business. Maura ​​evolved the company with her husband and COO Justin Housman into a premium CPG cookie brand in December 2023. Maura was inspired by the homemade cookies she made with her grandmother after school, creating a range of classic, approachable, and innovative flavors with a special fancy touch. With sustainability top of mind for Maura, she’s proud that Fancypants is a zero-waste, upcycled cookie brand.

Before becoming a full-time baking entrepreneur, Maura had a career in neuropsychology education including working at The Perkins School for the Blind. She valued her time at the school teaching students with varying degrees of vision and hearing and other health and cognitive issues, as she learned to see the world differently and gain perspective on what is truly important in life. When she wasn’t with students, she was tied to a desk and daydreaming of baking, which led her to pursue an entrepreneurship path. She earned a Masters from Harvard University in Mind, Brain, and Education and a Bachelors in Neuroscience from Northeastern University. Maura currently lives in the Boston area with her husband, two young children, and puppy Hazel, working at the Fancypants facility and offices in Walpole, Massachusetts.

Fancypants Website
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About Us - Women Who Brunch:

Women Who Brunch is a food community and event series for women who love connecting, networking, and learning from each other over the most important meal of the week...BRUNCH!

We're solving the problem of making adult friendships while doing cool stuff in the Hudson Vally, NY.

Visit our website for updates on events, recipes, brunch spots, product reviews, and more or say hi on Instagram!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womenwhobrunch
Website: https://womenwhobrunch.com

About Valentina:

Valentina Mussi is a cookbook author, pastry chef, and lifelong foodie who has turned her passion for the culinary arts into her social media platform, @sweetportfolio. Valentina's love for food and its ability to create community has become an essential part of her content. Her Italian-Colombian roots help guide her videos, through their ability to share special moments with her family and about her ancestry.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetportfolio
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sweetportfolio

What You'll Learn in Today's Episode:

• What did pastry school teach her and what made her want to pursue pastry
• Valentina's favorite things to bake
• How has she viewed community when it comes to content and how she continues to nurture her community.
• How she approaches content creation when it comes to creativity and trying new ideas or videos.
• Current social media trends she's loving.
• How she has handled burnout as a content creator.

Support the show

About Us - Women Who Brunch:

Women Who Brunch is a food community and event series for women who love connecting, networking, and learning from each other over the most important meal of the week...BRUNCH!

We're solving the problem of making adult friendships while doing cool stuff in the Hudson Vally, NY.

Visit our website for updates on events, recipes, brunch spots, product reviews, and more or say hi on Instagram!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womenwhobrunch
Website: https://womenwhobrunch.com

About Lauryn Bodden:
Lauryn is a freelance recipe developer, private chef, culinary producer, and food editor. She won Netflix’s newest cooking competition Snack vs Chef, which pushed her to launch her very own snack brand: S’NOODS.

Instagram
LinkedIn
Website

What You'll Learn in Today's Episode:

• What Lauryn has enjoyed most in her culinary career so far. What advice she would give to someone starting out in food media.
• What made her want to get into the CPG world with the launch of S'NOODS.
• A day in the life as a private chef at sea.
• Favorite local bites and spots in NYC.
• Changes she's made to S'NOODS since her initial launch and new launches.

Support the show

About Us - Women Who Brunch:

Women Who Brunch is a food community and event series for women who love connecting, networking, and learning from each other over the most important meal of the week...BRUNCH!

We're solving the problem of making adult friendships while doing cool stuff in the Hudson Vally, NY.

Visit our website for updates on events, recipes, brunch spots, product reviews, and more or say hi on Instagram!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womenwhobrunch
Website: https://womenwhobrunch.com