We are The Verse
We’re a media platform designed and delivered by grown-ups, for grown-ups, built on real talk; action-ready, beyond-the-masses tips; and original ideas.
We’ve lived, loved and learned long enough to know what we know—and what we don’t.
We’re still curious AF, and we serve up the kind of next-verse content our own growth-minded selves crave.
Our publications, tools and live events provide a fresh voice and renewed confidence to help you seize your second half and fearlessly chase opportunities before you.
Because if we’ve learned anything the past 40+ years, it’s this: We are the boss of us. There’s always room for better.
And “too old” is just not a thing.
About our founders
Stephanie Carter
Stephanie Carter’s next verse is The Verse. It’s a mashup of her decades of leadership in business, public service, advocacy and the arts. She is a storyteller, ideas person, mentor, connector, relentless seeker of results and all-around badass. When it came time for Stephanie to explore a new direction for her second half, she realized she was one in an army of grown-ups seeking reinvention and launched a platform designed to lead the way.
Stephanie is not a friend of the status quo. In her previous life as a corporate titaness, she served as General Partner of the growth equity firm ABS Capital Partners, raising $1.6B for the firm’s funds in her 25-year tenure. Official resume stats aside, Stephanie also changed the firm for the better, establishing an investor relations function; evolving marketing, events and investment research; and serving as a go-to for managing partners’ gut checks. Sound advice is one of her superpowers.
Stephanie earned the Distinguished Public Service Award from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2017 for her outreach to military families and veterans during and following her husband Ash Carter’s years as Secretary of Defense. In 2022, Ash sadly passed away unexpectedly, leaving Stephanie to explore yet a new direction for her second half.
Stephanie seeks growth and evolution as their own ends, fueled by a relentless curiosity for all things arts, pop culture, sports, music, literature and beyond. She hopes by sharing her setbacks and wins—and now, her experience of loss and grief—she can help people to view their second half with optimism and anticipation.
Jennifer Handt
Jennifer Handt was born with her nose in a book—and built her career around a love of words and ideas. As co-editor of The Verse, her insatiable curiosity, journalistic instincts and card-carrying Gen X membership let her scope out stuff worth sharing, always with a healthy sense of self-awareness.
Jennifer has spent the past 12 years as an editorial consultant, writing for a wide range of organizations spanning fashion, education, health care and more. What ties her clients together is the need to clearly convey a distinct, often complex, idea. Jennifer’s ghostwritten articles have run in The Wall Street Journal, CommonWealth, Connecticut Cottages & Gardens, The Hill, Inc. and university/corporate magazines.
Before hanging her own shingle, Jennifer held corporate communications roles that cultivated her expansive point of view. As Director of Communications for the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation (NEHI), Jennifer helped elevate a regional group to a national organization transforming health care. In Washington, as Deputy Director of Communications for the Business Roundtable, she conveyed persuasive policy messages on behalf of the nation’s foremost CEOs. (She also learned to simultaneously write a speech, eat lunch and give a statement to The New York Times.) Her work on a national advertising campaign earned a Bronze SABRE award.
Jennifer also held roles in corporate affairs at Fidelity Investments and in cause marketing at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She began her career in public relations with Brodeur Worldwide and Solomon McCown & Company. As founder of Charlie’s Cure, she supports research and funding to cure Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most common genetic disorder among boys.
Jennifer earned a B.A. in English and communications cum laude from Boston’s Simmons College in the late 1990s, when you could still convince the Fenway Park ticket takers to let a ticketless college student sneak by them sometime after the fifth inning.