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From Surrogate to CEO: How Sunshine Hanson Built a National Surrogacy ...
Sunshine Hanson didn’t set out to disrupt an entire industry. She set out to give the ultimate gift, three times over. As a gestational surrogate, she experienced the profound joy of helping families achieve their dreams of parenthood. She also witnessed critical gaps in care, support, and ethics that left both surrogates and intended parents feeling alone, exploited, and underserved. Where others might have walked away, Sunshine built something instead. Today, she’s the founder and CEO of Surrogacy Is, a full-service agency that has grown from a pandemic-era startup into one of the largest in the United States, entirely self-funded and fiercely independent. In an industry long criticized for treating surrogates as vessels rather than whole people, Sunshine’s approach looks different by design. Her “human-first” model offers generous compensation, ongoing mental health support, and proactive care coordination. Over the past six years, her agency has supported more than 3,000 women in starting their surrogacy journeys. That growth hasn’t come without cost. She and her partners relocated from California to Georgia when cash flow got tight. They’ve turned down venture capital to protect the mission. They’ve faced antagonism from established agencies that didn’t appreciate having their shortcomings exposed. And they’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, that doing the right thing rarely comes without friction. Featured in Business Insider, Cosmopolitan, LGBTQ Nation, and Authority Magazine, Sunshine brings tactical clarity to what it actually takes to build a business from deep personal expertise and scale it without selling out your values. Below, she shares what she’s learned about resilience, partnership, and the real cost of building the agency she wishes had existed when she needed it most. Sunshine Hanson, founder of Surrogacy Is You served as a surrogate three times before founding Surrogacy Is. What was the pivotal moment when you realized you needed to transition from practitioner to entrepreneur, and what gave you the confidence to make that leap? There wasn’t one pivotal moment. The path that brought me here and brought Surrogacy Is to life was a compounded series of experiences that showed me the need, and then ultimately led me to feel confident that I had something to offer to fill that need, and it was a worthwhile thing to pour my everything into. As a first-time surrogate, I was really naive, and I put a lot of trust into the agency re...
I Left Finance, Consulting to Start a Surrogacy Agency As a Surrogate ...
I'm a 6-time surrogate who wasn't fulfilled in my finance career. I quit to start a surrogacy agency and make more money now. By Angela Richardson-Mook Angela Richardson-Mook. Courtesy of Angela Richardson-Mook 2026-04-13T09:05:01.324Z Angela Richardson-Mook started her career in finance and consulting while also being a surrogate. In 2019, she quit her consulting job and started Alcea Surrogacy to pursue her passion and help families. Now, she's surpassed her former corporate salary and has immense career satisfaction. For years, I balanced two very different worlds. By day, I was climbing the corporate ladder, eventually leading large operational teams at companies like Bank of America and later serving as a senior executive overseeing multimillion-dollar programs.Outside the office, another calling was quietly shaping my life: surrogacy.I spent years climbing the corporate ladderMy time at Bank of America culminated in 2014, when I led a 100-person team as vice president of program operations. I thrived in the fast-paced corporate environment and felt challenged every day. I next worked as the chief project management officer for a finance company and, at a consulting firm, managed technology projects with an operational lens.My background as a state-qualifying debater and my natural inclination toward systems and structure made my work intuitive. Much of my time at BofA was spent rebuilding inefficient programs and redesigning broken processes. By every traditional measure, I had "made it," but something from my past kept pulling me away. While my career was stimulating, I found myself still chasing fulfillment.I was 26 when I delivered my first baby for another familyI became a surrogate for the first time after having three children of my own and while attending night school to become a nurse, which was my career plan before BofA.As an adopted person, my definition of family had always been broader than most. When my brother came out as gay, I vividly remember the day he confided in me that one of his greatest fears was not being able to become a parent. That moment left a lasting impression.For me, becoming a mother had come easily — but I knew that wasn't true for everyone. I wanted to help people like my brother experience the life-changing joy of parenthood. I loved being pregnant, met all the medical criteria, and applied to be a surrogate.Over the next 13 years, I carried six children for three familiesI helped expand two families thro...
Current Openings - Educated Solutions Corporation
Current Openings -Educated Solutions Corporation (ESC) is a contract for hire and direct placement services firm specializing in placing individuals in careers that match their experience, education and compensation levels.
Alcea Surrogacy - Surrogacy & Egg Donation - Expecting.Ai
Alcea is a surrogacy agency that stands apart with a clear mission to ... Meet the Team. alcea-surrogacy-angela-richardson-mook. Angela Richardson-Mook.
