The host with the most – from roundtables, to podcasts, to meals
Vallabhi Singh hosts ‘The Almost Era’ podcast, which embraces the uncertainties faced in a successful and meaningful life.
It didn’t take long for Northeastern University graduate Vallabhi “Val” Singh to develop an impressive resume.
She graduated from Northeastern in 2017 with a degree in finance and entrepreneurship and began her career working in business at companies in New York City, Oslo, Norway, and in Mumbai, India.
In 2020, Singh founded and launched Creatives Around the World, which connects founders, designers, and creative leaders through media, strategic advisory, and curated experiences.
The roundtables she hosted with Creatives Around the World were successful and led Singh to a position building brands at a leading venture capital firm in India. She had also been named as a recipient of the Women Who Empower Innovator Awards from Northeastern.
Still, Singh said she felt she was not quite there yet.
“I was in this middle phase where sometimes you feel very sorted out in life; sometimes you feel very lost,” Singh said.
She wanted more as the world opened up following COVID. Add in a 30th birthday, a diverse and international friend group — some of whom were making major life decisions about marriage, having kids, and career changes — and a genuine curiosity about how people “get to where they are,” according to Singh, and she realized she was not alone in her “almost era.”
“I started talking to friends and realized our lives were not a polished narrative, but that we were just figuring it out,” Singh said. “Everybody was in that kind of figuring-it-out era, and that’s where it started.”
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Rather than be intimidated, however, Singh embraced “the almost era.”
So, in the fall of 2025, she started a podcast of the same name by interviewing her friends about their “pivots.” A lawyer friend became a children’s book author after motherhood, for instance. A banker broke up with a longtime boyfriend and moved to a tiny island in Indonesia to work as a dive instructor.
“I knew that I had a gap, I had something missing in my life that I really wanted to fulfill,” said Daisy Kendrick, a fellow Husky and Woman Who Empower honoree whose “side project,” as she called it, of making bespoke shirts for women has turned into the fashion house Daisy K.
“It was really important for me to be part of [“The Almost Era”] because I know that I learned from other people that had been on that podcast and I wanted to try and contribute to that as well,” said Kendrick, who appeared on the podcast in November 2025. “I wanted to be part of that bigger mission and vision that I know Val is on in creating this podcast.”
Those who know Singh aren’t surprised by her success.
“Val’s key strength is and was her ability to connect with people,” said Mark Bernfeld, a retired professor of practice who taught Singh in an entrepreneurial finances course at Northeastern. “She connects people around the world because of her genuine interest and compassion for people.”
Now, like many of her guests, Singh has pivoted as well.
A business student at Babson College, Singh recorded some of the second season of the podcast at Northeastern’s 2026 Global Leadership Summit in London and said she wanted to focus the season on entrepreneurship, ownership, autonomy and “designing a career in multiple areas.”
An upcoming episode features an owner of the popular Backyard Gym in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood and discusses how Hyrox, an indoor fitness race combining running and functional workouts, has become a way to build community, Singh said. She described another episode as focused on a friend who was expected to join his family business breeding race horses, but instead ended up in politics and building startups.
“This was a conversation about ownership, curiosity, powerful rooms, and building a life that doesn’t follow a linear path,” Singh said.
A third season will take advantage of her study abroad experience in Paris to explore culture, taste, luxury and aspirations, Singh said.
“I think Paris is a very appropriate place for that,” Singh said.
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Singh also plans to develop another way to bring interesting people together.
On the first day of the Global Leadership Summit, Singh recalled how British philosopher A.C. Grayling, who was among the speakers at the Summit, advised students of their responsibility in life to show up as curious, thoughtful and engaging guests at a dinner party.
That inspired Singh to move beyond hosting people on her podcast to hosting guests, including the kinds of people who’d be guests on her podcast, for meals.
As to where that leads, not knowing the exact answer at the moment is just fine with Singh.
“I move forward and am a curious person and a creative person,” Singh said. “Because of the number of interesting people I know and interesting conversations I have, ideas come.”
