Podcast Summary: The Messy Parts with Maryam Banikarim

Episode: Vanessa Barboni Hallik: Where is the rest of me?
Date: July 28, 2025
Guest: Vanessa Barboni Hallik (CEO & Founder, Another Tomorrow)
Host: Maryam Banikarim

Episode Overview

This episode of The Messy Parts centers on the unfiltered, often untold challenges behind a high-achieving career. Maryam Banikarim speaks candidly with Vanessa Barboni Hallik—finance veteran turned founder of sustainable fashion tech brand Another Tomorrow. Their conversation plunges into "the messy parts": childhood adversity, self-editing at work, grappling with loss, relentless drive, self-doubt, and evolving definitions of success. Vanessa shares the nonlinear path from Midwest academia to Wall Street, and ultimately, to redefining ethics and transparency in fashion. Listeners learn how the pursuit of achievement often comes at a personal cost, and how curiosity, resilience, and self-reflection can lead to building something revolutionary from a place of vulnerability.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Multifaceted Upbringing and Childhood Complexity

• Vanessa’s early years: Grew up in the Midwest in an academic-artist family, with a blend of intellectual rigor and creative freedom (01:22).
  • "Grinnell was my dad's first teaching job...my mom was an artist... I now think about it as summer camp for adults because it was an incredible intersection of people." (Vanessa, 01:22)
• Tough transitions: Describes the move from idyllic Grinnell, Iowa, to economically collapsing Meadville, PA, in the late 80s/early 90s, witnessing manufacturing jobs evaporate and increasing social stress (02:24).
• Family's mental health challenges: Discusses her mother's hospitalizations and the stigma of mental illness at the time; the weight and secrecy surrounding these experiences (03:18).

2. Loss, Grief, and Processing Trauma

• Mother’s suicide: Vanessa opens up about her mother’s suicide during her first semester at Berkeley (05:02).
  • "I was literally on my way home for the holidays … I couldn't hold myself together for the first time in my life." (Vanessa, 05:04)
• Taking a pause: Unlike many who push through, Vanessa describes being unable to function, ultimately taking a semester off to support her sister and process the loss (06:12–07:04).
• Bonding through loss: Time off strengthens her relationship with her sister as they process grief together (07:04).

3. Educational Detours and Finding Direction

• Shift from architecture to economics: Vanessa details her move from Berkeley to Cornell and her pragmatic decision to pursue economics over architecture (07:46–08:10).
  • "I started to talk to some architects, and I was like, I don't know if I have the passion ... making 25 grand a year ... didn't seem like an option" (Vanessa, 08:10)
• Responsibility as the eldest sibling: Driven to choose a path that could provide stability for both her and her younger sister (09:18).

4. Accidental Career Beginnings and Wall Street Survival

• Landing in finance by default: Failed to secure fellowships; followed friends into banking after an academic project on electricity pricing, choosing a job based on "gut feel" and company culture (09:47–11:09).
  • "All my plan A's were gone...my friends were applying for these jobs on Wall Street, and I thought, what the hell, may as well." (Vanessa, 09:47)
• Key lesson: The value of "energy and curiosity" in job decisions, and trusting her instincts even in uncertainty (11:23–11:41).

5. Navigating Male-Dominated Spaces and Self-Editing

• Becoming a trader: Vanessa’s boss recognizes her direct, assertive style as suited for trading, despite it being a male-dominated field (12:18–12:46).
  • "A little bit of a pain in the ass...very direct...I loved the idea that it was an even playing field." (Vanessa, 12:49)
• Masking insecurities: Externally confident but “internally overwhelmed,” fearing mistakes and feeling pressured to always be right (13:16–14:23).
  • "I was terrified to not know the answer, and I was terrified to be wrong." (Vanessa, 13:18)
• The cost of self-editing: Admits to curtailing her true self at work, suppressing parts of her personality, leading to disconnection over time (15:46–16:22).
  • "I didn’t show up as my full self...by the tail end of that finance career, I almost was like, where is the rest of me?" (Vanessa, 15:46 & 00:00 repeated)

6. Mindset Shifts: Knowing What You Want and Asking For It

• Repeatedly trying to quit: Vanessa describes quitting multiple times, driven by internal conflict between job security and "selling out" her ideals, often negotiating new roles upon return (17:15–18:58).
• Clarity and assertiveness: Success in pivoting roles derived from knowing exactly what she wanted and making explicit asks (19:27–19:57).
  • "Once I know what I want, I’m a heat-seeking missile...and I’ve been willing to fight for it." (Vanessa, 19:59)

7. Transitioning to Purpose-Driven Work

• Career “intrapreneurship”: Builds and runs new businesses within Morgan Stanley; 2016 promotion to MD coincides with industry downsizing and the realization she can’t delay risk-taking any longer (21:58–22:37).
  • "If you really believe you want to build a more future-relevant world, at some point you gotta be willing to take some risk." (Vanessa, 22:00)
• Family as grounding: Building her own family provides the safety and emotional stability absent from her childhood, enabling her leap into entrepreneurship (23:11).

8. Genesis of Another Tomorrow: Curiosity Meets Mission

• Sabbatical and exploration: After a rejected pitch to start a new venture at the bank, she is granted a sabbatical. Exposure to industry conferences, especially around sustainability, “widens her aperture” and reveals fashion’s environmental and ethical problems (24:12–25:36).
  • "I was just really curious about how all the major industries were messing up the planet...I fell in love with the problem." (Vanessa, 24:23–25:36)
• Building with rigor: Conducts scientific sourcing studies, deep research, and brand-building mentorship before officially launching, treating the process as an industry case study as much as a company (26:38–28:14).

9. Funding Fears, Outsider Perspective, and Learning to Ask for Help

• Self-financing the company: Out of both gratitude and fear of asking others, Vanessa delays outside investment until demonstrating viability (28:42–29:57).
  • "The sheer terror at the thought of asking anyone for money... I hated asking for help." (Vanessa, 29:57)
• Overcoming self-reliance: Forced to ask for help by venturing into a new industry—shifting from shame to seeing it as offering opportunity ("If I believe in something ... I will ask in a heartbeat." 31:17).

10. Launching Amid Crisis & Evolving Leadership

• COVID-19 disruption: Another Tomorrow launched as the pandemic began, derailing strategic plans and forcing Vanessa to slow down and fundamentally reassess leadership (32:01–35:08).
• Embracing coaching and meditation: Invests in coaching and a meditation practice (Transcendental Meditation), bringing self-awareness, stress release, and depersonalization of setbacks (35:08–37:13).
  • "It was the first time I was able to create some distance from my thoughts ... and it transformed every relationship I had." (Vanessa, 36:26)

11. Relentless Drive, Accomplishment, and Redefining Success

• Desire to earn love: A lifelong feeling of needing to achieve to be worthy of love; accomplishments as a metric for identity (37:40–38:30).
  • "I didn’t have this sense I was enough independent of what I accomplished." (Vanessa, 37:40)
• Shift to inner fulfillment: Success redefined as peace, depth in relationships, and positive impact over money or status (39:02).
  • "My feeling of success is peace...it's how you’re showing up every day, and the quality of your relationships." (Vanessa, 39:02)

12. Partnership Over Competition

• From individualism to collaboration: Former “solo sport” mentality replaced by partnership and abundance, seeing competition as collaborative opportunity (39:35–40:52).
  • "You can look at the world as a zero sum game, or a place of an ever expanding frontier of possibility." (Vanessa, 40:04)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On self-editing:
  "I didn’t show up as my full self...by the tail end of that finance career, I almost was like, where is the rest of me?”
  (Vanessa, 15:46, echoed from opening quote)

• On needing external certainty:
  "I was terrified to not know the answer, and I was terrified to be wrong. Outward confidence was very much: I know, I’ve got this. I somehow thought not knowing was weakness."
  (Vanessa, 13:18)

• On the key to getting what you want:
  "Every time it worked, I was explicit about what I wanted and why I was the best person to do it. Once I know what I want, I'm a heat-seeking missile."
  (Vanessa, 19:59)

• On fashion industry environmental impact:
  "Here’s this behemoth of an industry that’s basically as impactful as energy, and really complex. And I didn't see an alternative vision ... I fell in love with the problem."
  (Vanessa, 25:36)

• On the discomfort of asking for help:
  "The sheer terror at the thought of asking anyone for money, you know, to believe in you."
  (Vanessa, 29:57)

• On the power of meditation and self-observation:
  "It was the first time I was able to create some distance from my thoughts and observe myself, and it transformed radically, every relationship I had."
  (Vanessa, 36:26–37:08)

• On redefining success:
  "My feeling of success is peace. And that does not come from how much is in the bank. It’s how you’re showing up every day, the quality of your relationships, are you leaving this place better than you found it?"
  (Vanessa, 39:02)

Important Segment Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------------------|---------------| | Early childhood and family dynamics | 01:22–03:18 | | Loss of mother and grief processing | 05:02–07:42 | | Shift from architecture to economics, responsible choices | 07:46–09:18 | | Accidentally entering finance, choosing culture | 09:47–11:09 | | Experience of self-editing at work | 15:46–16:22 | | Negotiating role changes and pivots | 17:15–19:59 | | Final break with finance, leap into purpose-driven work | 21:58–23:38 | | Discovering fashion’s impact, building Another Tomorrow | 24:12–28:14 | | Fears around self-funding and asking for help | 28:42–31:17 | | Launching right as COVID strikes, leading through crisis | 32:01–35:08 | | Meditation, mindset transformation | 35:08–37:13 | | The root of relentless drive | 37:40–38:30 | | Redefining success, partnership and abundance | 39:02–40:52 | | Rapid fire Q&A | 40:52–41:39 | | Final word: "Have faith. Even when it’s really, really, really.." | 41:23 |

Rapid Fire Round (40:52–41:39)

• Karaoke/walk-on song:
  Alicia Keys, "Girl on Fire"
• Potluck dish:
  Lasagna
• Alternative career:
  Architecture
• Currently reading:
  Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
• Surprising fact:
  Did hip hop dancing as stress release during the pandemic
• Parting advice:
  "Have faith. Even when it’s really, really, really..." (41:23)

Takeaways

• Embrace the messiness: Even elite careers are shaped by pain, pivots, insecurity, and self-editing; no path is perfect.
• Ask for what you want: Clarity and specificity fuel change; don’t expect others to solve it for you.
• Curiosity is vital: Creating space for exploration outside comfort zones leads to transformation.
• Redefine success: Inner peace, relationships, and impact matter more than external validation.
• Partnerships over isolation: True innovation and fulfillment come from collaboration, not competition.
• Learn to ask for help: Vulnerability and openness unlock growth, resilience, and connection.