Business Leader
Richard Harpin, who grew HomeServe from a single idea to a £4.1bn sale, interviews entrepreneurs and business leaders about the moments that shaped their success and failure. The podcast offers original advice and practical insights for anyone building or leading a business.
Episodes
She raised £6.5mn then everything changed - Sharmadean Reid MBE | Part 2
In the second part of our interview with Sharmadean Reid MBE, we chart the rise and fall of beauty tech platform Beautystack, what it really takes to secure venture capital investment, and the launch of her latest venture – luxury bathing brand 39BC. Reid tells Sir Richard Harpin how she "collects people" and turns her network into her greatest business asset, why she swears by a paid business coa
From £5 an hour to £1000 a day: How Sharmadean Reid MBE built her career | Part 1
Sharmadean Reid MBE started working as a hotel chambermaid in Wolverhampton when she was 14 years old, before learning the lingo of business while waiting tables at the business Rotary Club of the hotel. Her career has been driven by the 'two wolves' inside of her – artistic and business. Reid has spent twenty years at the intersection of beauty, technology and women's empowerment. With a real tal
PizzaExpress CEO: "You Need To Obsess About Your Product"
When Paula MacKenzie took over as CEO in 2022, PizzaExpress had been through seven CEOs in eleven years, a billion-pound debt restructuring, 73 restaurant closures, and a pandemic that decimated the casual dining sector. Four years on, she has refurbished three quarters of the estate, grown a loyalty app to four million members, and is targeting 1,000 restaurants worldwide by 2030. In this episode
How Quooker UK Built a £100m business out of hot water taps
Sir Richard Harpin talks to Stephen Johnson, Managing Director of Quooker UK & Ireland, about how to scale a business to a £100m turnover without sacrificing culture. Stephen Johnson spent 26 years in his father's fitted furniture and kitchen business, Neville Johnson, then couldn't get hired anywhere else. Rejected by employer after employer who saw no value in "just working for your father,"
Emmie Faust secured a Dragons' Den deal - now she's helping Female Founders Rise
Emmie Faust founded 11 businesses - some of them failed and some of them succeeded - one sold for £7 million. She now runs Female Founders Rise, a 12,000-strong community helping women build, grow and scale their businesses. Faust talks to Sir Richard Harpin, host of the Business Leader Podcast, about the advantages of bootstrapping and scaling a business without outside investment, the real
How a Police Officer built a £100m business: Mehma Bridgen's Fuel Store
Mehma Bridgen co-founded The Fuel Store with her husband Jamie after leaving the police force — where she was working on a covert operation at just 22. Starting with nothing but cold calling and a small Birmingham office, she helped build a fuel card and fleet management business turning over more than £100 million. Bridgen talks to the host of the Business Leader Podcast, Sir Richard Harpin, abou
Moonpig Founder Nick Jenkins: "We Came Close To Failing Several Times"
Nick Jenkins, founder of Moonpig, former Dragons' Den investor, and now a prolific angel investor with over 38 investments to his name, talks to Sir Richard Harpin on the Business Leader Podcast about the lessons he has learned along the way. Jenkins reveals how the business nearly collapsed several times and how a single comment from an investor director (raising the price of a card from £1.99 to
Dame Irene Hays: “Never one penny of debt” | How Hays Travel reached £3 Billion
In 1980, a young couple opened a travel agency in the back of a baby-wear shop in County Durham. Forty-six years later, Hays Travel is the UK’s largest independent travel agency with over 500 branches and more than £3 billion in annual turnover. It has never taken on a penny of debt. Dame Irene Hays talks to Sir Richard Harpin, the host of the Business Leader Podcast, about acquiring the entire re
She turned £6k into a £1bn business
£6,000, 399 meetings and one idea. Mia Drennan, founder and CEO of GLAS, turned a gap in bank-led loan administration into a global platform for servicing institutional debt that manages over $850 billion assets under management. GLAS, Global Loan Agency Services Limited, is now valued at over £1 billion. On this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, host Sir Richard Harpin unpacks how she boots
Loveholidays CEO: From Covid to £350m revenue and the road to IPO
Donat Rétif joined Loveholidays in December 2019 — just three months before Covid shut down global travel. In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, the CEO of the UK's largest online travel agent for package holidays talks to Sir Richard Harpin about how he not only survived that crisis but used it to triple the size of the business, build one of Britain's most impressive tech-driven growth
Barclays CEO Venkat: business turnaround, cancer, capital requirements and an £800m crisis
C.S. Venkatakrishnan — known as Venkat — took over as Barclays CEO in 2021, inheriting a bank with a share price under pressure and no shortage of sceptics. Four years on, profits are up, returns are up, and Barclays has committed to returning over £15 billion to shareholders by 2028. In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, host Sir Richard Harpin asks the Barclays chief executive to unpac
Seams Impossible: How Nadine Merabi built a £40m fashion brand
Manchester-based Nadine Merabi played Hockey professionally for England, bought a £250 sewing machine from Argos and taught herself how to sew. With no formal training she sold a collection to Selfridges and from there she stitched together a £40 million luxury fashion business. She talks candidly with host Sir Richard Harpin about the resilience needed to build a business from scratch —the only t
The CEO who doubled Blue Light Card membership in 3 years
Alidad Moghaddam, CEO of Blue Light Card the UK's leading discount platform for frontline and emergency service workers, talks to Sir Richard Harpin about what he's learned on his journey as a first-time chief executive and from his experiences in a private equity environment. Blue Light Card has grown from a small startup founded by a serving police officer into a platform supporting more than si
How Little Moons went from family bakery to TikTok star
Vivian Wong, co-founder of Little Moons, shares the unfiltered story of building the UK's most talked-about mochi ice cream brand — from a small family bakery to a £27mn pound run rate overnight.Vivian talks to Sir Richard Harpin, founder of Homeserve, about how a single TikTok video sent shoppers queuing outside Tesco at 7am, and why ten years of groundwork meant Little Moons was ready to seize t
Vinted nearly went bust, now it's worth €8 billion
Vinted wasn't an overnight success. The game-changing decision that saved it from failure? Making selling completely free. Adam Jay, CEO of Vinted's Marketplace arm, talks to Sir Richard Harpin about how he helped perfect the Vinted playbook and rolled it out into 26 markets worldwide – France was the first success story.Adam reveals the mistakes made along the way, the pivots that mattered, and t
How Humble Crumble went from viral video to stores across London
Kim Innes, the founder of the dessert brand Humble Crumble, recounts her extraordinary business journey to Sir Richard Harpin. It begins with tough shifts at a vendor's stall in Spitalfields market in east London and ends with a chain of successful shops devoted to her product, the fruit crumble pudding. She didn't get it right at first in the market stall, she explains. She was too fixated on exo
How to build an AI startup in the UK
Nnamdi Emelifeonwu left a top London law firm to set up one of the UK’s fastest-growing legal tech companies. He talks to host, Sir Richard Harpin, about how building a tool to help his visually impaired colleague to navigate complex legal documents led to co-founding Definely. It is an AI-powered legal tech platform designed to help lawyers access definitions, clauses and key information instantl
From €2.5bn to €16bn: How Sephora redefined beauty retail
Chris de Lapuente, former Executive at LVMH and CEO of Sephora, played a pivotal role in scaling the business from €2.5bn to €16bn during his 13 years at the helm of the beauty retailer. He first met host Sir Richard Harpin at Procter and Gamble and shares reflections on their training which led to many successful business leaders. Chris describes how he grew Sephora, expanded globally and learned
Using AI to fight cyber risk
Jonathan Spry, co-founder and CEO of reinsurance startup Envelop Risk, talks to Sir Richard Harpin about how cyber-attacks are now inevitable for modern businesses — and how business leaders can mitigate the risks. From ransomware and Black Swan events to AI-generated threats, Jonathan reveals how his company uses AI and advanced analytics to model catastrophic cyber scenarios for insurers around
The art of the possible: Scaling to £240M
If something isn’t working in your business – at what point do you say – let’s adapt and change course? Sir Richard Harpin talks to Kai Feller, the co-founder of Bark.com, the online marketplace that connects you to a local gardener or event planner. Kai Feller had a make-or-break moment and changed his business model in response. After that the company grew by 200 percent over three years and Kai
Can BT beat the odds?
BT's chief executive, Allison Kirkby, talks to Sir Richard Harpin about how her working class upbringing and training at Procter & Gamble set her up for becoming CEO. Kirkby built her reputation as a straight-talking turnaround leader and since taking the top job at BT, over two year’s ago, she’s been cutting costs, reshaping the leadership team, and trying to bring clarity to the business. As
How the UK was Omazed
Omaze's co-founder and CEO Matt Pohlson learnt the art of storytelling in Hollywood and used it to build a £200m revenue, for-profit, prize-draw business. He tells Sir Richard Harpin how two near-death experiences made him more determined to grow the company and how intuition is more powerful than he realised. The sweepstake specialist is a rare example of a business idea born in the US
'Value people - especially those closest to the customer'
Mitie may not be a household name, but its services are woven into the fabric of British life. It outsources key government services, including everything from facilities management of hospitals and data centers to security services for events. Its Chief Executive, Phil Bentley, who previously led British Gas, tells Sir Richard Harpin that the key to his success is 'managing your energy and the en
From £500 To Millions: The Mindset That Changed Everything
Harry Stebbings gave up on his law degree in 2015 to take a chance on podcasting – a novel idea back then. He was an early mover in the world of entrepreneurship podcasting and built up a large, loyal following. But just as important, he explains to Sir Richard Harpin, were the guests he was meeting from the worlds of business and investment. He used his contacts to start the 20VC fund, named afte
"I can't quit" - Olivia Jenkins built a jewellery brand in honour of her mum
At the height of Covid in 2021, Olivia Jenkins felt her life was in "the perfect storm". Foremost in her mind was the loss of her mother, to cancer. It was at this moment that she decided with her partner (and now fiancé) Jack, that they would start a jewellery business, named after her mother. Jewellery was an area she was passionate about and had some retail experience in. She developed stylish
"I don't like being switched off" - Stuart Machin, CEO of M&S, on work-life balance
Stuart Machin, CEO of Marks and Spencer, talks to Sir Richard Harpin at the Business Leader Summit about leadership and encouraging "positive dissatisfaction". He also says he doesn't like to use the c word - cyber - as that was one of the hardest things he and the company have ever gone through. He gives a run through of his typical morning as a CEO, how he walks the floors of stores and the secr
'From €200m to €24bn - How I built a global glass empire'
Gary Lubner, the former CEO of Belron, discusses his journey scaling the vehicle glass giant from a value of €200 million to €24 billion over 23 years. Lubner explains to Richard Harpin how the company achieved global dominance through strategic acquisitions, a standardised operational model known as 'The Belron Way', and the iconic "Autoglass repair, Autoglass replace"&nb
Rentokil CEO: ‘This industry is unglamorous but gets in your blood’
After just over 12 years as CEO of global pest firm Rentokil Initial, Andy Ransom shares what he has learned as he prepares to step down. In that time the share price has quadrupled and profits breached $1bn. Ransom discusses how he progressed from a working-class background to a legal career at ICI, where he took charge of a legal case in the US that c
Dash Drinks: The challenger brand scaling patiently
Dash Water is a UK-based, challenger drinks brand that was founded in 2017 by Alex Wright and Jack Scott. With a team of just 35 people, it sells more than 60 million cans of fruit-flavoured, sparkling water drinks a year. It focuses on a new category of mass market drinks which promise to be healthy and sustainable. In this Business Leader episode, Wright explains his growth strategy with Richard
The Beauty Tech Group: From start-up to IPO
The Beauty Tech Group is a British business success story. Laurence Newman founded the home-use beauty tech firm in Manchester in 2009. It’s probably best-known for its LED face masks for skincare treatments. In late 2025 it went public on the London Stock Exchange, valued at more than £300m. Newman explains to Dougal Shaw how he scaled the business, in an emerging category that not everyone
Ben Askins of Gaia: Scaling and exiting with a healthy company culture
Ben Askins is the co-founder of Gaia, a green technology company that builds online tools for companies within the environmental space. But he cut his teeth as an entrepreneur by creating a digital marketing business for luxury brands, which he scaled and successfully exited. He shares with Richard Harpin practical advice on interview techniques to hire the best candidates, building an engaged and
Sam Stoffel and Outplayed: Betting against yourself to make millions
Sam Stoffel is the entrepreneur who founded the matched betting platform Outplayed, taking a punt on the online betting space. He explains to Richard Harpin how he bootstrapped a simple idea into a multi-million pound enterprise by copying and refining existing business models and mastering digital marketing. He shares the leadership lessons he picked up along the way, includin
Tenzing: How to scale a challenger energy drink
Hub van Bockel shares his story with Richard Harpin about founding Tenzing, a natural energy drink brand inspired by Himalayan sherpas. Drawing on his marketing background at Unilever, MTV, and Red Bull, van Bockel explains how he identified a gap in the market for low-sugar, plant-based alternatives to artificial energy drinks. But how do you take on incumbents in such a competitiv
Caspar Lee: ‘How I turned attention into business leverage’
In this episode of The Business Leader podcast, Richard Harpin interviews Caspar Lee, the YouTube pioneer who successfully transitioned from influencer to powerhouse entrepreneur. Lee reveals the strategies behind co-founding Influencer.com, a marketing agency with multi-million pound revenues and his subsequent move into venture capital with Creator Ventures. The conversation explores vital insig
Rory Sutherland: The advertising guru's tips to scale your business
Is cost cutting really a strategy or is it quietly holding businesses back? In this episode of the Business Leader podcast, Sir Richard Harpin sits down with advertising and marketing legend Rory Sutherland. Sutherland challenges some of the most deeply held assumptions in modern business, from efficiency and procurement to marketing, pricing, and customer experience – all through the lens of a ma
Rohan Blacker: Learning the lessons from Sofa.com
Rohan Blacker is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Sofa.com. Blacker shares his journey with host Dougal Shaw, from an unfulfilling legal career to becoming a pioneer in UK e-commerce. He left Sofa.com in 2015 when a private equity firm took over. Today he’s still very much in furniture retail, running Pooky.com and Schplendid sofas. Blacker tells the story behind acquiring the Sofa.com doma
Skin + Me: James Mishreki on scaling a UK skincare phenomenon
James Mishreki is the founder of the UK-based, fast-growing skincare brand Skin + Me. In this episode Mishreki discusses with host Richard Harpin his unconventional entrepreneurial journey. It began in childhood with selling copied CDs at school and included a stint as a professional poker player, a role he credits with building his resilience. The conversation explores how Skin + Me aims to disru
The FlightStory ‘sisters’ helping Steven Bartlett scale Diary of a CEO
FlightStory CEO Georgie Holt and Chief Revenue Officer Christiana Brenton discuss with Dougal Shaw how they are pioneering podcasts and new media alongside Steven Bartlett, creator and host of The Diary of a CEO. Moving beyond traditional audio, they operate an end-to-end studio scaling global IP across newsletters, live events, and commerce. The duo explains how they "kil
The banking CEO helping 'extraordinary' people afford homes
Sue Hayes, CEO of Nottingham Building Society, joins Dougal Shaw on the Business Leader podcast to explore how she’s been transforming a 175-year-old institution into a modern mutual. Hayes discusses her key strategy, defined as "together we fight for the extraordinary". Her mission is to target underserved borrowers, like Gen Z and side hustlers with irregular incomes, and help them buy homes. Sh
The AA
Few businesses have more than 17 million customers and can say the Queen was one of them. But that's the AA. However, it has had a difficult time recently. It was drowning under £2.7 billion of debt and was taken off public markets following a takeover by the private equity firms Warburg Pincus and Towerbrook. Since then chief executive Jakob Pfaudler has been working on a turnaround of this uniqu
Sanjay Poonen: Getting fired was the best thing to happen in my career
He leads a US tech firm valued at $8bn, but Sanjay Poonen puts his success down to a major career setback. Poonen is CEO of US cybersecurity and AI company Cohesity, based in Silicon Valley. He grew up in Bangalore, India, but a scholarship to Dartmouth College in the US to study computer science brought him to the US. On graduation, he rose up the ranks of a Who’s Who of Silicon Valley tech compa
From elite sport to elite business: Bob Skinstad’s journey
In this episode, host Josh Dornbrack speaks with Bob Skinstad, former Springbok and Rugby World Cup winner, about leadership, elite performance and transitioning from professional sport into business. He shares lessons from rugby, venture capital, consulting and building winning teams in high-pressure environments.Business Leader is a membership community for ambitious CEOs and founders of mid-siz
The revival of Debenhams
The department store chain Debenhams was founded in 1778 but went bust in 2020, leading to thousands of job losses and the disappearance of one of Britain's best-known high street names. But now it is back, reimagined for the digital age. In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Debenhams chief executive Dan Finley tells the story behind this turnaround. Dan Finley was appointed the boss of
Alibaba.com's president explains how AI tools let SMEs access global supply chains
It’s a magnet for side hustlers around Europe. The CoCreate event was held this November in London, the first time it’s come to Europe. It’s an event run by Alibaba.com, a global online marketplace for b2b wholesale trade. Small businesses use it to source in bulk products from manufacturers and trading companies to then sell to consumers themselves. Alibaba.com is part of Alibaba Group founded by
Katharine Viner: The editor taking the Guardian into the TikTok age
Many prime ministers don’t make it to 10 years in office. US presidents only get eight at most to secure their legacy. Katharine Viner has had a decade and counting as editor-in-chief at the Guardian newspaper. She is also the first woman to hold the role. She’s made radical changes to an institution more than two centuries old, while returning it to profit. Dougal Shaw took a trip to the Guardian
Viral video to viral brand
In this episode, Lucie Macloud reveals the unexpected story behind Hair Syrup’s meteoric rise—from a homemade solution shared on TikTok to a multi-million-pound beauty brand. In this episode of the Business Leader podcast, she joins Lucy McPhee and Josh Dornbrack to talk about battling self-doubt, navigating Dragons’ Den, handling explosive growth and learning how to lead long before she felt read
Mountain Warehouse and Mark Neale
The story of how one of the best-known high street chains was built. Mountain Warehouse now has more than 400 shops and generates more than £450m in annual revenue. But, as founder and chief executive Mark Neale tells Graham Ruddick, this story starts with a shop selling roller blades...Business Leader is a membership community for ambitious CEOs and founders of mid-sized UK companies, designed to
Thea Green: The beauty entrepreneur behind Nails.INC
Thea Green, the founder of Nails.INC, is one of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs in the beauty and self-care space. Her early background was in journalism, but she spotted a gap in the fashion market back in the late 1990s – and grabbed the opportunity. When the world was crazy about everything “dot com” and coffee shops, she saw that the UK hadn’t caught up yet with the American trend
The business funding SMEs
Iwoca is one of the UK's most promising new businesses. It has a fascinating mission - to finance one-million small businesses. Christoph Rieche and James Dear founded Iwoca in 2011 to solve one of the biggest problems facing the UK economy - how to get more funding to small and medium-sized businesses to help them grow. As Christoph Rieche tells Graham Ruddick, they are making real progress, but
The truth about personal branding and what leaders get wrong
Most people measure success in likes and views — but not Amelia Sordell. In this unfiltered discussion, she sits down with Lucy McPhee and Josh Dornbrack to explain why virality is meaningless without credibility and connection. Sordell shares the frameworks she uses with CEOs, founders and global enterprises to turn content into clients. She also demystifies what actually works on platforms like
Airwallex: The founder explains the incredible story behind his fintech unicorn
Jack Zhang founded Airwallex in 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. It has now gone global and is valued at more than $6bn by investors. Zhang has moved to London in order to help Airwallex scale globally. He tells Dougal Shaw why there was a unique window of opportunity to build his fintech platform and why traditional banks still have a lot of catching up to do if they want to capitalise on the new re
The mindset behind a World Cup winner
Former England scrum-half, British & Irish Lion and Rugby World Cup winner Matt Dawson joins host Josh Dornbrack for an honest and inspiring conversation about performance, leadership and reinvention. The conversation goes far beyond rugby. Dawson shares how the values forged on the field - discipline, communication, accountability and the idea of “borrowing the shirt” - have shaped his life i
James Reed on building a family business and why capitalism needs to change
James Reed is the chairman and chief executive of Reed, the recruitment business, which was founded by his father. He has also written a new book called Karma Capitalism, in which he says capitalism needs to change. In this podcast episode, James Reed speaks to Graham Ruddick about building a family business with annual revenues of more than £1 billion and his big ideas about the future of capital
Bloom & Wild: The business that blossomed with feedback
Aron Gelbard is a founder and CEO obsessed with feedback. The business he has built is Bloom & Wild, which made its name with flower delivery but has now expanded into other gifts, such as brownies and whisky. It pioneered the idea of letterbox delivery, where flowers are packaged in flat boxes that can be assembled into bouquets at home. Gelbard tells Dougal Shaw how an obsession with feedbac
Zygi Kamasa: How to build a movie business
Zygi Kamasa is building a new movie business called True Brit, which is focused on British films. Kamasa is the former chief executive of Lionsgate UK and Europe as well as Marv Studios, one of Business Leader's Growth 500, the fastest-growing businesses in the UK. He tells Graham Ruddick the story behind why he is building his own business, the story behind his global hits like Bend it Like Beckh
From pop star to founder: Rochelle Humes on reinvention and resilience
From chart-topping pop star to powerhouse entrepreneur, Rochelle Humes has built a career defined by creativity and reinvention. As the founder and creative director of My Little Coco, one of the UK’s best-selling baby and family brands, Humes has shown how passion and purpose can drive lasting success.In this episode, she opens up about the challenges of starting a business during a global pandem
The transformation of Autotrader
Autotrader has gone from a dying print magazine to one of the UK's biggest tech businesses. Autotrader made 60 per cent of its revenue from the print magazine in 2007. But today it makes nothing from the magazine, having stopped it in 2013. Yet Autotrader is now a much bigger business. It is part of the FTSE 100 and valued at £7bn. So how did this extraordinary transformation take place? Graham Ru
Beyond the Game: Francesca Brown on leadership, sport & social impact
Francesca Brown is the award-winning founder of Goals4Girls and a champion of female youth development. She has turned her love of football into a transformative programme that empowers girls aged 11-16 in marginalised communities, boosting their confidence, leadership skills and educational outcomes. Josh Dornbrack and Lucy McPhee dive into her journey from aspiring athlete to social impact pione
British Land: Making big strategic calls
How do you make the big strategic decisions that will define the future of your business? How do you gather the information to make that decision? Simon Carter, chief executive of British Land, one of the biggest property companies in the UK, bet on offices when many said that office-working was dead. Graham Ruddick speaks to Simon Carter about making that contrarian decision, running a FTSE compa
John Amaechi: It’s not magic, it’s leadership
John Amaechi is an organisational psychologist, best-selling author and a professor of leadership at the University of Exeter Business School. He is quick to dismantle the myth that great leaders are “born, not made.” In this candid conversation, he reveals that the skills which make leaders exceptional, from emotional literacy to effective storytelling, aren’t magic tricks. They’re basic, learnab
Saul Klein: The top investor in promising businesses
The biggest investor in promising businesses in Europe is Saul Klein's venture capital firm, according to new research from Dealroom. He is the name behind many of Britain's fastest-growing tech businesses. So what does he look for in a business? How can UK businesses take on the US tech giants? And what did he learn from being co-founder of LoveFilm, the UK answer to Netflix? Graham Ruddick went
Plusnet boss Joanna Carman on modern leadership
Joanna Carman leads the Plusnet broadband brand, which is owned by BT, and also serves as its chief marketing officer. She joined BT in 2019 and took up the Plusnet role two years later while still in her mid-thirties.Dougal Shaw caught up with Joanna Carman at BT's London HQ to learn about forging a leadership style that appeals to Gen Z...Business Leader is a membership community for ambitious C
PocDoc: A son's quest to tackle heart disease with tech
Steve Roest experienced a traumatic event 25 years ago that changed his life. When he was 14 his father collapsed in a restaurant, crashing through a table, due to an undiagnosed heart condition. He survived but was left with long-term health issues.Steve Roest wants to prevent other families from experiencing a similar episode. He co-founded PocDoc with his wife in 2019. It makes at-home digital
Hilton Hotels
How do you build one of the biggest hotel brands in the world? Simon Vincent is president of Hilton hotels in Europe, Middle East and Africa. He is responsible for around 1,000 hotels. Vincent joined Hilton in 2007 and looks after more than 85,000 employees, 18,000 of whom are based in the UK. In this episode, Simon Vincent takes Dougal Shaw on a personal tour of the Park
How Thierry Garnier turned around Kingfisher, owner of B&Q and Screwfix
B&Q and Screwfix are two of the biggest retail brands in the UK, but when Thierry Garnier arrived as chief executive of Kingfisher, the owner of the chains, it was a business under pressure. Thierry Garnier has got Kingfisher firing and is pioneering new ways to shop, including online deliveries within 30 minutes. Much of what he has learned about retail and leadership comes from China, where
The 100-day blueprint for business turnarounds
What would you do if your company had just 90 days to survive? That’s the reality turnaround expert Bill Canady has faced more than once. In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, we speak with him to unpack the three drivers of business transformation: growth, fear and exit. Canady shows how focusing on profitability first, leveraging the Pareto 80/20 principle and taking tough but necessar
OakNorth and Rishi Khosla
Rishi Khosla, the co-founder and chief executive of OakNorth, joins Graham Ruddick to tell the story of how OakNorth was built. Founded in 2015, OakNorth was valued at $2.8bn (£2.1bn) in its last funding round and is generating annual profits of more than £200m. Khosla and co-founder Joel Perlman set-out to revolutionise banking for small and medium-sized businesses. Despite some ups and down
The secret to building a truly innovative culture
Innovation isn’t reserved for tech giants. It’s the beating heart of any business that wants to grow and stay relevant. In this episode, we dive into what it takes to build a culture where innovation thrives. From uncovering hidden skills in your workforce to reshaping how teams collaborate, you’ll discover practical steps to spark new thinking.We speak with David Keene, the co-founder and CEO of
Coffee Nation, Costa Express and the UK's coffee revolution
It was not until 1998 that Starbucks opened its first UK coffee shop. Around the same time, Martyn Dawes, who suspected that people wanted easier access to quality coffee, started putting Coffee Nation coffee machines into shops.Today, coffee shops are everywhere and Coffee Nation has become Costa Express, which is owned by Coca-Cola after a blockbuster £3.9bn takeover. In this episode of the Busi
What AI can really do for your business today
AI has been called the biggest business shift since the internet but what does that actually mean for your business? In this episode, Matt Weaver of OpenAI explains how businesses can move beyond experiments and embed AI into daily operations. He reveals why literacy, executive sponsorship and experimentation are the three critical levers leaders must pull.You’ll also hear how Virgin Atlantic is u
The British CEO behind WD-40
WD-40 is one of the world's best-known brands. You probably keep a can somewhere in your house for unjamming locks and stopping squeaks. The company was founded in San Diego, California in the 1950s and the secret formula used in WD-40 was devised by a team working on missile maintenance in the aerospace industry. Today the company is worth around $3 billion and listed on the stock market in the U
The real power of emotional intelligence in business
In today’s competitive business landscape, technical skills and strategy are no longer enough to lead effectively. Emotional intelligence, the ability to understand yourself, manage your emotions, and connect with others, is increasingly becoming the defining trait of successful leaders. In this episode, we speak to Amy Jacobson, who has written a book titled The Emotional Intelligence Advantage:
Vue cinemas and Tim Richards
Tim Richards tells the story of how he founded Vue International and built it into one of the biggest cinema chains in the world...Hosted by Graham RuddickProduced by Anouszka Tate Business Leader is a membership community for ambitious CEOs and founders of mid-sized UK companies, designed to help them grow with purpose through strategic support, peer-to-peer learning, expert coaching, and hi
CLASSIC EPISODE: Wizz Air
This is one of the busiest weeks of the year for travelling as people enjoy their summer holidays. Many of you will have travelled on Wizz Air, one of the biggest airlines in Europe and a business that has emerged as a new low-cost rival to Ryanair and EasyJet in recent years. In this classic episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Graham Ruddick speaks to Jozsef Varadi, the founder and chief exec
The Turnaround episode 5 - Success, succession and starting again
In the finale of series 1, we look at Chiefs' attempt to achieve their goal by winning the double, when to take tough personnel decisions and break down the full anatomy of the turnaround.Business Leader is a membership community for ambitious CEOs and founders of mid-sized UK companies, designed to help them grow with purpose through strategic support, peer-to-peer learning, expert coaching, and
CLASSIC EPISODE: Castore
The start of the new football season is here, which means lots of new football kits, including many made by Castore, the UK's answer to Nike and Adidas. In this classic episode of the Business Leader Podcast from early 2024, Graham Ruddick sits down with Castore co-founder and chief executive Tom Beahon to hear the story of how he and his brother Phil have built a new sportswear giant...Business L
The Turnaround episode 4 - How culture can beat complacency
What happens after you reach the top?In the fourth instalment of our five-part series, Exeter Chiefs claim their first Premiership title but then face a new challenge: staying there. We explore how a solid culture can negate complacency, how focusing on what they could control got Chiefs through a major scandal and the Covid lockdown and much more.Business Leader is a membership community for
CLASSIC EPISODE: Gordon Sanghera and Oxford Nanopore
Gordon Sanghera, the co-founder and chief executive of Oxford Nanopore Technologies, has announced he will step down as boss after more than 20 years of building the business into a £2bn unicorn at the forefront of science and technology.In this classic episode of the Business Leader Podcast from early 2023 (back when it was called Business Studies!) Graham Ruddick speaks to Gordon Sanghera about
The Turnaround episode 3 - The final they had to lose
What do you do when you've come so close, only to fall short again and again? In this third episode of our five-part series, we dive into Exeter Chiefs’ toughest year, which included four major heartbreaks in 14 months, a painful Premiership final loss and a crisis of confidence.We find out about the behind-the-scenes team meeting that changed everything. It’s a raw and inspiring look at resi
CLASSIC EPISODE: Monzo
You asked, we delivered. Our fantastic Business Leader audience is growing fast and you have been asking us to share our favourite episodes from the back catalogue. So throughout August we will be doing just that and re-publishing some of our best founder and scale-up stories.This episode on Monzo is a classic scale-up story. How do you turn a popular consumer brand into a business that actually m
