Most people think of bone health as something you deal with later in life, if you think about it at all. Marie Berry thought the same thing until a diagnosis of osteopenia forced her to rethink everything she assumed about her own body. That wake-up call became the spark for YVO, a women’s wellness brand built around the idea that bone health can be modern, measurable, and designed with women in mind. In this episode, Marie shares how she went from global marketing executive to serial founder to the creator of a weighted vest that sold out twice before the company was even a year old.
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Marie Berry is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and exited two companies before launching YVO. Her career spans leadership roles at Adidas, WPP agencies working with Chanel and Ford across Asia, and serving as CMO and operating partner at an early-stage venture fund. She holds a triple master’s in international business from ESCP Business School and lives in Miami with her husband and two daughters.
One of the most striking moments in the conversation is when Marie describes being at an investor dinner, two weeks before her due date, when her contractions started before dessert. She went home, her water broke, and she went straight to the hospital. That story is not just colorful. It captures something real about the impossible overlap between building a company and building a family, and the way female founders are expected to minimize one for the other. Marie also names a truth that deserves repeating: “There’s never a good time to have a child. And when you’re a founder, you just do it.”
The themes that run through this episode connect directly to the decisions CEOs face every day. First, community as a growth strategy is not a backup plan. Marie’s 30-day rucking challenge, which she expected would attract a handful of friends, turned into a hundred women within a week and became the foundation for demand that outpaced her inventory twice. That is not an accident. It is what happens when a founder builds something rooted in a real need and lets the community pull the product forward instead of pushing it out through paid channels. Second, your previous career is your unfair advantage, even when you are building something completely different. Marie’s Adidas network helped her source manufacturers, get prototypes made, and set up her supply chain. Every step of her hardware and logistics learning curve was shortened because she was willing to call on people she had worked with years earlier. Third, the “sandwich generation” reality for women in their thirties and forties, caring for young children and aging parents while building a company, is not a side note. It is the operating context, and the founders who acknowledge it and build support systems around it are the ones who sustain the work.
Marie’s partnership with Body Spec, which gives every YVO customer a free DEXA scan, is a standout example of how to build credibility into your product experience. It turns a purchase into a measurement moment. Customers do not just buy a vest. They get a baseline for their bone health, which deepens their connection to the brand and gives them a reason to stay engaged over time.
A sincere thank you to Marie Berry for sharing her story with such openness, from her adoption in Bolivia and childhood in Germany to building brands across four continents and now creating something deeply personal in Miami. To learn more about YVO, visit the link in the show notes.
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