Amanda Calabrese was a middle schooler at a swim meet when she got her period for the first time. Her team captain told her to figure it out in thirty minutes or she was off the relay. That moment stuck with her all the way to Stanford, where she met her future co-founder Greta Meyer and started sketching what would become Sequel, the first tampon redesign in nearly a hundred years. On this episode of She Pivots, Amanda talks about the four-year fight to get a tiny piece of cotton past the FDA, why she treats the tampon as game-day equipment rather than something to whisper about, and how Sequel landed in locker rooms from middle schools to Audi Field, Yankees Stadium, and the Indiana Fever. Now a nine-time champion turned product design engineer, Amanda is on a mission to change how period care is talked about in sports and in every space where women show up to compete.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome to She Pivots

01:46 Amanda's Childhood in East Hampton

05:43 From Junior Lifeguard to National Champion

12:14 The Challenges of Periods in Sports

16:09 Amanda's Journey to Product Design

21:01 The Birth of Sequel and the Spiral Tampon

27:02 Overcoming Obstacles and Securing Funding

29:37 The Evolution of Tampon Design

35:44 The Power of Self-Awareness in Team Building

38:13 Navigating the Challenges of Fundraising

42:16 The Rise of Women's Sports and Sequel's Timing

48:12 The Future of Sequel and Period Care

49:46 Low Point to Launch

50:52 Closing Thoughts

51:44 Podcast Credits

You can keep up with Amanda’s work with sequel at www.trysequel.com

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She Pivots is a podcast created by host Emily Tisch Sussman to highlight influential women voices, share stories of bold career moves, and inspire women with interviews about career reinvention and how personal pivots can redefine professional success.

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