In a world where visibility often feels like the currency of leadership, what if real influence was measured by legacy, connection, and wisdom? In this episode of the Executive Connect Podcast, Melissa Aarskaug sits down with Kristin Thomas, founder and CEO of The Marble Collective, an AI-powered platform redefining how women leaders preserve their stories, amplify their voices, and build lasting digital legacies.

Kristin shares how her two-decade career in luxury real estate inspired Marble’s creation, why community and visibility remain unequal for women leaders, and how AI is changing the way we document, discover, and preserve human insight. She also explores the intersection of technology, purpose, and digital legacy and how every story we share today becomes part of our permanent footprint tomorrow.

Chapters
00:00 The Rise of Digital Legacy
02:00 From Real Estate to Tech Founder
05:30 Why Social Media Misses the Point
08:00 Turning Content into Digital Assets
13:00 Capturing Wisdom for Future Generations
18:00 The Power of Community and Visibility
23:00 How AI Protects Authenticity
25:00 Building a Legacy with Intention
30:00 Final Reflections on Impact and Purpose

Kristin Thomas

(0:00) It’s valuable to see who’s looking at your content. (0:03) It’s interesting to see who’s paying attention. (0:05) We’re calling it a digital asset.

(0:07) It’s something that can be recycled and reused over and over again. (0:11) Our digital legacy is our digital footprint that we leave in the world. (0:16) And now that we’re living in a world driven and consumed by AI, our digital legacy right now is more important than it’s ever been.

(0:25) Everything we put out into the world is going to be much more easily tracked and found. (0:30) It can continue to be discovered and read and assumed in perpetuity, even after they’re no longer with us. (0:37) What AI can do really well is it…

Melissa

(0:40) In a world where visibility often feels like the currency of leadership, what if real influence was measured by legacy, meaningful relationship, and shared wisdom? (0:53) Not just being seen everywhere all the time. (0:57) On today’s episode of the Executive Connect podcast, we welcome Kristen Thomas, the founder and CEO of the Marble Collective, an AI powered platform built to help women leaders preserve their stories, leverage knowledge, deepen their relationships, and scale their impact.

(1:18) If you’ve ever left an amazing event full of ideas and connections, only to feel them fade into inboxes and fragmented chats, this episode is for you. (1:31) Kristen is building a platform for women leaders that bridges the gap between powerful in-person moments and building powerful professional networks, elevating the visibility, accessibility, and collective wisdom of remarkable leaders around the world. (1:49) Welcome, Kristen.

Kristin Thomas

(1:51) Thank you so much, Melissa, for that wonderful introduction. (1:56) It’s really an honor to be here.

Melissa

(1:59) You’ve said that in-person moments are so powerful, but that the real challenge is staying connected and the in-between. (2:08) What do you see that made you want to build with a Marble Collective?

Kristin Thomas

(2:12) Well, just that. (2:13) So I come from a long two-decade career selling luxury real estate in New York City. (2:19) And I’m also an events junkie.

(2:22) I love going to events, being surrounded by other people, and getting lit up by luminaries on stage who are innovating new companies, sharing their thoughts, and really connecting the audience. (2:38) And I find that you really can’t get that magic of in-person on a podcast, even though I’m also a podcast junkie. (2:47) So I used to go to every time there was a women’s event going on, especially in New York City where I am, I’d go and come home with a stack of business cards and little notes in my Evernote and screenshots of LinkedIn after I connect with somebody.

(3:06) And you come back to the desk the next day, and it’s really a total mess. (3:10) And it really takes a good week or two to really keep those connections going in an ongoing way. (3:18) It can start with a text or an email or a LinkedIn connection, but it’s really hard to build meaningful connection after that in real life magic or to find somebody up on stage who lights you up, who inspires you, and then what?

(3:33) Beyond social media and the self-promotion that social media requires, it’s really hard to get plugged into inspiring leaders that light you up, that inspire you beyond social media. (3:47) So I really wanted to create a more efficient system. (3:52) And originally, I set out to connect people like myself to the inspiring individuals that I saw on stage.

(4:01) But as I got more and more ingrained in the startup ecosystem and started to look at the data surrounding women leaders, I learned that it’s women who really need the amplification and who lack the community that men often benefit from. (4:22) So I’m talking about golf outings, happy hours, because women usually take on the majority of household responsibilities, plus they build big careers. (4:35) It’s harder for women to find that type of community that helps our counterparts raise more capital, get promoted, and really progress at the speed that we want to progress in the career world.

Melissa

(4:51) Ready to lead smarter and invest wiser? (4:55) On the Executive Connect podcast, we unpack executive strategies for wealth and influence. (5:01) Hit the subscribe button now.

(5:04) Don’t just watch, act. (5:06) Yeah, absolutely. (5:07) I’m also a fellow junkie of connecting with people at events, and it’s funny that you mentioned the stack of business cards.

(5:14) Now a new kind of, I would say new, not really new, but over the last five years, I’ve really leaned in to LinkedIn, and I feel like it’s so full of noise. (5:24) Vanity metrics, algorithms, how do I get my stuff seen? (5:29) So I want to talk a little bit about how Marble is structured differently, if you could share with our listeners.

Kristin Thomas

(5:36) Yeah, thank you for asking that. (5:38) So I love LinkedIn. (5:40) I use social media.

(5:41) It’s a great way to follow people, and we all go there to keep up with what others are doing and to inspire ideas and just to stay plugged in. (5:52) But like you said, vanity metrics are really at the core of how we validate an individual. (5:59) So I don’t know about you, but I often go to LinkedIn and my eye goes to the number of followers versus exploring their profile.

(6:07) And those vanity metrics of numbers of followers, that really is relying upon how often and consistently they post. (6:16) So you have really inspiring, successful, brilliant individuals, and they may not be consistent content creators on social media like LinkedIn. (6:28) So that affects how many followers they have, that affects their visibility.

(6:32) And in addition to those who are consistent posters on social media and LinkedIn, we’re really targeting those exceptional leaders who may not be regular content creators to help the world get plugged in to what they’re doing, their insights, and their wisdom. (6:54) So instead of focusing on vanity metrics like likes and number of followers, what we do is Marble goes out into the internet, onto YouTube and podcast platforms, and it follows and tracks our members who are industry diverse women leaders. (7:18) So if you’re a member and you’re in a podcast, or you’re in the press, or you’re speaking at an event, Marble will grab that information, pull it into a beautifully designed public-facing portfolio that other people can get plugged into.

(7:35) We don’t have likes, we have views because like on Instagram stories, it’s valuable to see who’s looking at your content. (7:46) You can connect with them. (7:48) It’s interesting to see who’s paying attention.

(7:50) So we’re going to have views and we’re getting rid of number of followers and we’re really focusing on directing everybody on Marble into the comments so that we can exchange ideas and have conversations, which we found based on interviewing a lot of people. (8:11) That’s where the most meaningful interaction happens on social media.

Melissa

(8:16) I love that. (8:17) I’ve been using LinkedIn forever, so I have all this content and things I’ve written, or posts I’ve come up with, or ideas I brought forward. (8:26) I know I even struggle trying to find…

(8:29) I had this really one good quote so long ago. (8:32) How do I find it? (8:33) So I find that so much of our stuff now or the older we get and the more we progress in our career, it gets buried and then somebody will say, hey, you spoke once about that.

(8:43) I’m like, oh right, I did. (8:45) So I personally forget a lot about all the good work that we’re all doing. (8:51) And so I think kind of flipping that on its head a little bit, and I love the kind of discussion around AI to amplify and not replace the human connection.

(9:04) So let’s talk about what that means. (9:07) So how does AI serve women leaders at Marble?

Kristin Thomas

(9:13) So all of your points are so valid and I’m really excited to talk about all of them. (9:17) So when you put something out into the ethos, out onto the internet, when you tell a story on a podcast, even in the comments, what AI can do is it can take everything that you’ve put out there about yourself, by yourself, or if you’ve been say featured in a publication and centralize it into one LLM, that’s you. (9:41) You mentioned, you create valuable content, maybe a quote, or you write an article, or you record a podcast.

(9:50) And what happens is that content often gets buried in the feed. (9:55) You might post it to LinkedIn. (9:58) Within a week, it’s gone.

(10:00) Probably never to be seen again, just because it’s not our behavior to go into LinkedIn and just scroll, scroll, scroll. (10:06) But that story that you said on that podcast might be super valuable. (10:11) So what we’re doing is we’re gathering all of your digital assets.

(10:15) Digital assets are podcasts, press, blogs, videos, and other recordings that might be out there about you or featuring you or by you. (10:26) We pull it into one central place so that for you, you can go back to Marvel and you can type in that keyword from that quote that you know is there, but you’re either going to be Googling it or trying to find it by going through the podcast platform. (10:43) So you can type in the quote and it pulls up every time you said that quote or that keyword in any digital asset out there.

(10:50) You can find it and it might inspire another idea. (10:53) You can push it out to social media and it also enables anybody that comes to Marvel and wants to learn about that topic that you were talking about, your piece of content will populate. (11:05) So we’re calling it a digital asset because it’s something that can be recycled and reused over and over again in the future by somebody else who wants to hear what you were saying based on that topic or if you want to recycle it and create a new piece of content from it in social media.

(11:26) So it aggregates everything that’s you (11:28) and as we’re heading into the AI future, (11:32) there’s so many new tools out there (11:35) we can’t even keep up with (11:37) and it’s hard for us to even envision (11:39) where AI is taking us, (11:41) but what Marvel does, (11:43) particularly for women leaders, (11:45) is it aggregates and takes everything valuable, (11:48) all of your digital assets (11:49) that you’ve put out into the world (11:51) and centralizes it into one place (11:53) so that you can create content from it (11:56) and that others in the future (11:59) can go back and hear that story (12:01) you told three years ago (12:02) and gain value from it.

Melissa

(12:34) And I love that. (12:41) I think all of us have so many years of knowledge and lessons learned and things that came easy to us. (12:49) I call it the dumb tax we’ve paid on life, the mistakes we’ve made more than once.

(12:54) And if we could compile all that and introduce it to other people, I think it’s safe to say that we say our younger years, we made all these mistakes, I wish I wouldn’t have or I wish I should have. (13:07) And sharing it with the younger generation just sounds so interesting to me. (13:11) These are the things I talk about that I wish I would have done differently and I’d be X years ahead.

(13:19) But you’re right. (13:20) It gets buried and we forget that we experienced having a child or losing a job or losing a parent. (13:28) And those takeaways are so important for when others go through those big life steps.

Kristin Thomas

(13:36) Yeah, no, absolutely. (13:38) There might be a recent college graduate who wants to start a podcast or dreams of authoring a book. (13:45) And we want to create a place that they can go and they can pull up authors in various industries or podcast hosts talking about how they did it and learn from them and allow them to be guiding lights for their own path.

(14:03) So that’s really what we’re trying to do (14:05) is taking everything that women (14:09) who have worked really hard (14:11) to get where they are, (14:12) which comes with a tremendous amount (14:14) of knowledge and wisdom (14:16) to be centralized and captured (14:19) so that the woman leader (14:21) can leverage it to inspire others (14:24) to elevate their own brand presence (14:27) by centralizing it (14:29) and allow that recent grad (14:32) or ambitious professional (14:34) to get plugged into them (14:36) after watching them on a panel (14:38) so they know the next time (14:39) they’re going to be speaking on a panel (14:41) or they know when they’re going to be in a podcast (14:43) and be able to really get plugged (14:45) into that individual. (14:47) I like to think of Marble as the substack of women leaders surrounding digital legacy because right now, believe it or not, it’s easy to follow individuals on social media.

(15:00) But if you’re not an avid content creator and if the algorithm decides not to show you or your post to your audiences, nobody’s going to see it. (15:10) And if they’re off social media for a few days or miss it, it’s going to be buried and nobody’s ever going to see it again. (15:19) And that’s a lot of wasted time and wasted value that could really serve as insight, learning and inspiration to others.

(15:28) So we’re building that ecosystem to keep it alive, to preserve the time of the women leaders, which is the one asset they don’t have a lot of so that they can record a podcast or put an article out and it can continue to be discovered and found and read and consumed in perpetuity even after they’re no longer with us.

Melissa

(15:54) I love it. (15:55) I know I’m involved in a lot of different organizations and communities where they do a really good job of keeping different leaders and a little bit about them. (16:06) But I think kind of going back to what you’re saying at the beginning, kind of what I want to hear about why you started, but I want to dive into is there any research that you found or how did you come up with kind of the idea?

(16:22) And was it something you did prior to starting Marble?

Kristin Thomas

(16:28) So going back to women lacking the community, I’ve been in the real estate market, which is very male dominated. (16:40) I worked really hard to get where I got and really did it alone, though I had clients who became mentors and many of them were high profile. (16:54) They were public figures, fashion icons.

(16:59) I’ve worked with diplomats. (17:01) I’ve worked with founders, entrepreneurs and C-suite executives. (17:06) And I got to really understand in an intimate way how they interacted with the world.

(17:15) Real estate agents often blend into personal therapists just because we’re representing them on often the largest transaction of their life. (17:26) And we hear about their family. (17:29) We hear about their work life.

(17:31) We spent a lot of time driving around the city together, looking at apartments. (17:35) And I learned a lot from them, just like I learned from hearing inspiring women on stage. (17:45) I learned from inspiring men, too.

(17:48) But I’ll talk about women just because I think our brains work differently, right? (17:53) Science says that. (17:55) And the data actually shows that women leaders are incredibly effective.

(18:02) The data shows that women led venture backed startups are more capital efficient and actually provide higher returns for their investors. (18:14) So there’s something we’re doing differently and we’re doing right. (18:19) So I wanted to create a place that focused on the mind of the woman leader who’s worked really hard to get where they are.

(18:30) And that comes with an incredible amount of wisdom and insight. (18:35) So like I said, I love going to events. (18:40) I love listening to panels.

(18:42) I wake up every morning, go for a run and listen to podcasts. (18:46) And it’s easy to find good content because there’s so much of it. (18:52) But you have to sort through it.

(18:54) It’s really hard to find an individual who inspires you and continue to find content, interviews or event appearances or panel discussions or keynotes about them. (19:07) So I think I saw this gap in the ecosystem of inspiring people. (19:13) And I wanted to solve two problems.

(19:17) One, the higher women climb, the often lonelier they feel. (19:23) Women leaders lack that community simply because they’re often the only in the room. (19:29) And then on the counter, on the flip side, audiences have a hard time finding them and getting plugged into them.

(19:38) So I’m really solving two sides with Marble. (19:43) Inspiration, insight, learning and following from individuals who want to learn from women leaders. (19:49) And also solving the problem of community for the women leader because they can connect with each other, get plugged into each other.

(19:58) And know what each other are doing in the world. (20:01) We’re all so busy. (20:03) And knowing when your, you know, woman leader friend Sally is in Forbes, you want to be able to reach out and congratulate her without her having to email me and say, hey, by the way, I was in Forbes or what if I missed it, you know, missed that post on LinkedIn.

(20:21) So it’s really making the whole system of following inspiring individuals more efficient. (20:28) And AI is enabling us to do that really effectively.

Melissa

(20:32) And that’s a really good point, being visible on what actually matters, right? (20:37) Like if she’s in that Forbes magazine, we want to make sure we’re actually seeing it versus, you know, seeing and not that random thoughts aren’t great, but that’s a big milestone. (20:46) How many people are actually in the Forbes magazine?

(20:49) I’m not even sure. (20:50) But how does Marble rethink that? (20:54) Is it because there’s a lot on the Internet?

(20:57) I know I have things about me that I weren’t even about me or things that somebody’s posted my name wrong or pictures that aren’t my face. (21:05) So how do we actually be discoverable on the things we want to be known for? (21:10) I think is the real key in the world today.

(21:14) So because we’re all trying to build our own brands. (21:17) So how does Marble rethink that and the way leaders are showing up in the world?

Kristin Thomas

(21:22) That’s such a great question. (21:24) So I’ll just I’ll rewind and give you an example. (21:27) When I was talking about real estate and I had these clients, once we close, the only way to keep up with what they’re doing, if they’re on the more prominent side, is to set a Google alert.

(21:38) And I had I had lots of Google alerts set. (21:43) So my inbox got blown up and about five to 10 percent of the alerts were actually about the correct individual. (21:50) So that was a problem right there.

(21:52) And the whole system was was so inefficient. (21:55) So I thought, you know, this is a problem for me with my clients. (22:00) It’s also a problem with following those individuals you see on panels and speakers and on podcasts.

(22:09) So what AI can do really well is it can consume an article in a few seconds or the transcript of a podcast. (22:19) It can it can determine whether the Melissa that we’re tracking is you or one of the other 100 Melissa’s with a similar name. (22:29) So what AI does within Marble is a podcast comes in and we make sure it’s about the right individual.

(22:36) We consume the transcript so that it’s easy to find in the future for the member and also for others. (22:44) And it can be, you know, categorized really easily through AI. (22:50) Now, once you have the digital assets of an individual, it’s then easy to go through them without looking through the whole Internet and find a topic that you want to create a piece on or, you know, create a LinkedIn post based on 10 things you’ve said over the course of your career.

(23:13) So AI is really enabling us to do that much more efficiently. (23:17) And it also lays the foundation for the future of AI avatars, you know, and what that’s going to look like and how people are going to interact with them as they get better and smarter. (23:33) But digital legacy, your own digital legacy is yours.

(23:37) It’s, you know, it’s everything that you put out into the world. (23:40) It’s the way you show up in the comments, in posts, in articles, in podcasts, and collectively your digital legacy lays the foundation for all the ways that you can leverage it and utilize AI tools in the future as we head into this new world.

Melissa

(24:37) And I love you said the word legacy. (24:42) It’s something I’ve thought about a lot in my life is because I’ve worn so many hats since my first job to where I am today. (24:50) So what I was known for, you know, 20 years ago is so different than what I’m known for today.

(24:58) So I really think about what do I want to be known for when people say my name, how do I want people to feel or what do I want them to say? (25:07) And a lot of that is crafted in how we show up, what we write about, what we talk about, who we interact with. (25:14) And so I want to get your bigger vision for Marble and, you know, who is it built for and how do you see it, you know, shaping the future for different leaders?

Kristin Thomas

(25:26) So legacy is something we often think about as what we leave behind. (25:33) Our digital legacy is our digital footprint that we leave in the world. (25:39) And now that we’re living in a world driven and consumed by AI, our digital legacy right now is more important than it’s ever been because everything we put out into the world is going to be much more easily tracked and found.

(25:57) So my request to all the audiences and the listeners is, you know, for everybody, whether you’re a woman leader or a student just starting out in your career, what you put out into the world digitally is your digital footprint. (26:14) It’s your digital legacy and it’s not going to go away. (26:17) And I think now more than ever before, it’s critical to do it intentionally.

(26:25) How we show up in an interview, how we show up at home with our friends, at the workplace, as a leader. (26:35) That is the ripple that we’re going to have on others, you know, for generations to come. (26:43) Maya Angelou, I always think of Maya Angelou’s quote for many, for many.

(26:51) Oh, here we go. (26:54) So Maya Angelou said something that’s very tied to legacy. (27:01) And I always think about it.

(27:03) She said, people will forget what you said. (27:06) People will forget what you did. (27:08) But people will never forget how you made them feel.

(27:14) And that ties to everything we’re talking about with legacy. (27:20) And now that we’re living in this digital age that’s going to be consumed by AI, what we put out into the world is going to impact how others feel and how what we say, how we show up in the comments, how it makes other people feel. (27:39) So I think, you know, living with intention right now, just really paying attention to what you put out there, how it’s going to make other people feel is a great, great way to navigate this new digital world ahead of us.

Melissa

(27:58) Yeah, and I often think like, I don’t, a lot of times when I sit down with my parents, Chris and I talk to them about the past, or, you know, what are the key takeaways growing up? (28:08) Sometimes I feel like it’s lost. (28:09) I’m like, okay, I want to write that down and save it for later, or even on these podcasts for my children, for them to go back and learn different things or see a different side of me that maybe they didn’t see growing up.

(28:24) And so I love this idea of really creating that environment. (28:30) I think it’s so important. (28:32) And the other thing is security of it too.

(28:34) The security of what you’re putting out there. (28:36) Is it correctly you? (28:38) And if you’re showing up one way or you’re angry and it’s recorded and you say something silly, it could affect you future and your potential job or however else that we show up in the world today.

(28:54) I want to get any final thoughts or anything you want to share with our listeners that we haven’t talked about.

Kristin Thomas

(29:04) So I’m going to talk to our target members who are women leaders and how powerful that is for this and for future generations. (29:16) The core reason why I built Marble that I haven’t talked about yet on this podcast was my grandfather. (29:26) He was my role model.

(29:29) He was a legend himself. (29:31) He was probably one of the most powerful prolific voiceover narrators that ever lived. (29:36) And I had the benefit of him reading stories to me every night of going to school and seeing him on a documentary or in a commercial.

(29:46) And it made such an impact on me. (29:50) He showed me what was possible in life. (29:54) And about 10 years ago, he passed away.

(29:58) And this was really before this digital AI era had taken hold. (30:06) And I felt as though everything died with him. (30:10) He has all of his reels and recordings locked up in boxes and probably in the basement somewhere.

(30:16) And you can Google his name and all these things pop up. (30:20) But it felt very messy. (30:23) And I felt like there was so much value that was lost when he died.

(30:29) So I really wanted to create a better way (30:32) for the remarkable individuals (30:35) in your family, in your life, (30:37) and the role models you look up to (30:39) to centralize all of your insights and stories (30:43) in an organized, clean, and beautiful way (30:46) so that it can be more easily accessed (30:49) by the next generation of leaders, (30:52) other ambassadors, professionals, (30:54) and future generations, (30:56) as well as grandkids, great-grandkids, (30:59) and your future generations within your family.

(31:02) Because it’s not an easy place to get to. (31:07) Women leaders have worked so hard to get where they are. (31:10) And that comes with such incredible insight and wisdom.

(31:15) So if you are an ambitious professional or a student that’s recently graduated college, check out Marble Collective because we’re really trying to create a place where you can find that role model or 10 role models. (31:31) Get plugged into them and choose a place like Marble or Masterclass or other inspiring information-focused platforms where you can find inspiration and insight to keep you on track as an alternative to the junk food that we often consume on social media.

Melissa

(31:54) It’s so true. (31:55) I’m so guilty of it. (31:57) Sometimes I’m like, I’m scrolling mindlessly.

(31:59) I heard a quote recently that if we stop scrolling every day for an hour, we have like 14 years or something over the course of our life if we start scrolling when we’re in our 20s. (32:12) It’s so crazy to me. (32:13) I just, I don’t even know who I read that from, but that’s really scary.

(32:18) So I agree. (32:19) Stop mindless scrolling and really tune into the things that make and bring you joy because we’re looking to do that. (32:28) Kristen, I appreciate your time and you sharing your journey and sharing a little bit about Marble with us.

(32:36) And that’s the Executive Connect Podcast.