Founder & CEO of Squad; Competitive Skydiver
Isa Watson: Biography at a Glance
- Isa Watson is a chemist-turned-social scientist who founded Squad, a popular app among gen-z that aims to address the loneliness epidemic through social connectivity.
- She is one of the highest fundraising Black women tech founders in Silicon Valley and was named Inc Magazine Top 100 Female Founders and Top 100 MIT Alumni in Technology.
- Isa is the author of the bestselling book, Life Beyond Likes, which provides a guide to achieving balance between the curated online world and the enriching, emotionally nourishing world right in front of us.
- She fell in love with STEM disciplines at a young age, teaching herself organic chemistry at 14 years old and becoming the youngest known published chemist in the world at age 20.
- She has previously worked as a metabolic diseases chemist and neuropathic pain data scientist at Pfizer and as a Strategy Executive at JPMorgan Chase.
- Isa has given keynotes at various organizations including Disney, LVMH, American Express, Wells Fargo, and Coca-Cola.
- Isa is currently training to compete in the 2024 US Nationals for Skydiving and is a classical pianist of 25 years - two important sources of her joy.
Media
Official SiteApp: SquadBook: Life Beyond LikesFast Company: It’s time to spring clean your calendar—and your work-life boundar...Learn How to Cultivate Joy ‘Beyond Likes’ With Author and Entrepreneur Isa Watso...The Bakari Sellers Podcast: Life Beyond LikesWell + Good: ‘Digital Wellness’ Is Here To Save Your Mental Health
Videos
Biography
Isa Watson is the founder & CEO of Squad, a new social frontier and an app that is emerging in popularity among gen-z. Addressing the loneliness epidemic through genuine social connectivity, Isa built Squad to make it easy and fun for everyone to communicate and stay in touch with their friends without the endless newsfeed and incessant flex culture we all get from social media. She has become one of the highest fundraising Black women tech founders in Silicon Valley.
She is also the author of the bestselling book, Life Beyond Likes: Logging Off Your Screen and Into Your Life, and one of the very few Black female competitive skydivers in the U.S. Isa is best known as the pro-therapy, piano playing, crepe-obsessed child of immigrants who is building a new playbook on how we live with intentionality in this intense digital age. Isa has been featured in Marie Claire, Fast Company, Forbes, CNBC, Sports Illustrated, and Inc Magazine to name a few..
Coming from a family of engineers, Isa fell in love with STEM disciplines at a very young age and taught herself organic chemistry at 14 years old at her first job as a lab researcher at UNC-Chapel Hill under a chemistry faculty member. She studied Chemistry & Mathematics at Hampton University, and at age 20 became the youngest, known published chemist in the world for her work on glucokinase activators. She later earned a MS in Pharmacology from Cornell University, and worked at Pfizer both as a metabolic diseases chemist and neuropathic pain data scientist.
Eager to expand her knowledge and experience (and not be put in a box), Isa decided to do a 180 in her career track and earned an MBA with an Economics focus from MIT during which she was recruited to join the JPMorgan Chase and quickly rose to Vice President of Strategy & Execution, directly reporting to their C-suite executives. By 27, Isa had led the development of products that resulted in over $5bn in incremental business to the firm. But soon a personal tragedy forced Isa to reconsider her career choices again and she decided to become a tech entrepreneur to make an impact on a social issue important to her: digital wellness and friendships. Isa made a move most people didn’t understand, but it was one rooted in intentionality and purpose.
Isa has given keynotes at a variety of organizations including, but not limited to, the following: Disney, LVMH, American Express, Wells Fargo, Spotify, Snap, Twitch, Coca-Cola, Dallas Mavericks, KKR, United, Northwestern & Cornell. She has been named Inc Magazine Top 100 Female Founders and Top 100 MIT Alumni in Technology. She is currently training to compete in the 2024 US Nationals for Skydiving, and is a classical pianist of 25 years. To learn more about Isa, visit isawatson.com.
Topics
The Power of Intentionality
In this era where we’re overstimulated by our technology, forced to consume the curated positioning of everyone’s lives, and pushed to do more with less, intentionality has never been more important. It is the way that we tap into joy, purpose, and meaning.
In this talk, Isa explores how the potential of our minds and the power of our actions can set us up to live a life more rooted in joy. Through stories, data, and even humor, Isa helps attendees unlock the tools needed to live life with more intentionality, and thereby have a stronger joy journey. And spoiler alert: the journey isn’t always pretty. On the contrary, it can be filled with ups, downs, and everything in between. It requires discipline, introspection, and vulnerability. But the true north star–and the thing that makes it all worth it– is reaching the point on the journey where joy becomes your lifestyle. Attendees will leave feeling inspired, empowered, and equipped to spruce up their journeys with intentionality–and step into a lifestyle of joy.
Great for: anyone looking to elevate their personal or professional lives; employees at all levels
Life Beyond Likes
Navigating Change with Confidence, Courage, and Clarity
In a world where hardly anything feels like a constant anymore, we are frequently up against some type of change. Whether it's a personal change that has dropped us to our knees in life, or it’s navigating professional change during uncertain times, it’s something that all of us will undoubtedly experience–over and over again.
Isa’s framework for tackling change is rooted in her experience of navigating heart-wrenching personal tragedies, to starting her career as a decorated chemist, followed by a successful career on Wall Street, and a successful career as a tech entrepreneur. Change is inevitable, but doesn’t always have to be the struggle we make it out to be. In this talk, Isa provides a framework for (1) digesting change that is sprung upon us, or knowing how to recognize when change is needed, and (2) navigating that change with confidence, courage, and clarity.
Great for: business leaders, and employees at all levels who know that embracing–and leading into smart change is a significant business value add
The Art of Building Something from Nothing
From teaching herself organic chemistry at the age of 14 when she landed her first job as a research scientist in the labs of the UNC-Chapel Hill, to building brand new multi-billion dollar revenue products on Wall Street at the age of 27, to building a venture-backed tech company, Isa has demonstrated success in building high impact products from scratch across a multitude of industries and skill sets.
In this talk, Isa discusses (1) the power of cultivating, or owning, your vision, (2) the tools needed to successfully navigate the environment you’re in, and (3) how to build for success. Whether you find yourself stuck on the vision part, the execution part–or both–attendees will leave this talk feeling empowered to make the next move in their building journey.
Great for: entrepreneurs, business leaders, young adults
The Flex of Friendships
While countless experts predicted an economic recession, I don’t think a friendship recession was on this year’s bingo card. Loneliness and social disconnectedness are quickly emerging as a public health crisis. So much so that researchers have now equated loneliness to smoking 15 cigarettes a day from a health perspective.
This era of social media has made it easy for us to conflate consumption with connection. The added pressure of doing more with less–at work and at home–has us living near the edge of burnout more than we’d like to admit.
In a digestible way, Isa breaks down what a friend actually is–and how to build and grow friendships with intentionality. From friendships at work, to friendships at home–and even those that cross both, there is infinite value in cultivating, and growing productive friendships. In this talk, Isa breaks down topics like how to make new friends as adults, how to set up a friendship for success, how to shift a friendship when it’s not serving you, and even how to integrate friendship in our busy calendars.
The pandemic taught us that our friendships weren’t on as solid ground as we thought, and attendees will leave this talk equipped to invest in their health, happiness, and quality of life through quality friendships.
Great for: all homosapiens, basically
