Anaïs Sägesser on regenerative leadership, acting from connection and scaling for good

In this episode of Out of the Clouds, host Anne Mühlethaler welcomes Kulsum Shadab Wahab, a Bangalore-based philanthropist and social entrepreneur, Executive Director of the Hothur Foundation and founder of Ara Lumiere. Kulsum has dedicated her life to empowering women who have survived acid attacks. Through Ara Lumiere, she creates sustainable livelihoods through handcrafted garments and accessories that not only foster economic independence but also restore dignity, confidence and purpose.

In this episode of Out of the Clouds, host Anne Mühlethaler welcomes Dr. Paule Valery Joseph: nurse scientist, clinician, entrepreneur, writer and 2025 Guggenheim Fellow. Born in Venezuela to Haitian parents and trained at Hostos Community College, Pace University and the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Joseph is a Senior Investigator at the National Institutes of Health, where she leads the Section on Sensory Science and Metabolism. She is also the co-founder of the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research, a network spanning more than 70 countries, and the founder and CEO of Anchor Health. Her work sits at the intersection of neuroscience, nutrition, behaviour, and prevention — and her driving question is both simple and radical: what if our senses are not secondary to health, but among the body's earliest and most intelligent warning systems?

Saskia Wheeler is a strategist and researcher working at the intersection of neuroscience and design, translating cognitive and sensory science into frameworks that guide how creative work is felt and experienced. For the past six years, she has worked with designers, agencies and hospitality brands to help them close the gap between the experience they intend to create and the one people actually feel. Saskia studied philosophy at Trinity College Dublin before completing a Master's in Neuroaesthetics at Goldsmiths, University of London.

In this episode of Out of the Clouds, host Anne Mühlethaler welcomes back Caitlin Krause for their second conversation. Caitlin is a globally recognised experience designer, educator, author and founder of MindWise, whose work spans digital wellbeing, immersive design, contemplative practice and creative expression. She holds an MFA in poetry, has taught internationally across Belgium and Switzerland, and built the digital wellbeing program about wellbeing and technology at Stanford University. She teaches at the University of Oregon. She advises organisations including TED, The U.S. Air Force, LinkedIn, Google, Meta, Oracle, Evernote, and the U.S. State Department. Caitlin creates human-centered experiences mediated by technology, fusing creativity, meditation, storytelling, collaboration, and emotional intelligence for full life thriving. She is the author of six books, including her most recent work on digital wellbeing and a forthcoming collection of poetry, Poems of Root and Light. Caitlin and Anne first met at TED 2023, whose theme that year was Possibilities — and the thread of possibility runs through their exchange.

In this episode of Out of the Clouds, host Anne V. Mühlethaler welcomes Katia Dayan Vladimirova, a senior sustainability policy expert with almost fifteen years of research experience at the intersection of fashion, policy, and social change. Katia is the founder of the Post Growth Fashion Agency, a boutique advisory service working with local and national governments and NGOs to transform how we consume and dispose of fashion. She is also the author of the Substack Post Growth Fashion, the founder of the International Research Network on Sustainable Fashion Consumption — now hosted at Yale and bringing together close to 180 researchers globally — and the founder of Well Rounded, the first plastic-free underwear brand made in Europe, with a supply chain traced all the way to cotton fields in Greece. She holds a double PhD in climate ethics and political science, and has studied and worked at institutions including the London School of Economics, MIT, ULB in Brussels, LUISS in Rome, and UNIGE in Geneva.