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Business Leader

Business Leader

187 episodes

2 weeks ago

Business Leader's team of top journalists - Graham Ruddick, Sarah Vizard, Josh Dornbrack, Dougal Shaw and Lucy McPhee - look at stories of success and failure, provide masterclasses from world-leading experts and guide you through what matters in the business world

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Entrepreneurship

All content for Business Leader is the property of Business Leader and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Business Leader's team of top journalists - Graham Ruddick, Sarah Vizard, Josh Dornbrack, Dougal Shaw and Lucy McPhee - look at stories of success and failure, provide masterclasses from world-leading experts and guide you through what matters in the business world

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Show more...

Entrepreneurship

Episodes (20/187)

Business Leader

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. She explains how her building society leverages AI and fintech partnerships to modernise mortgages while maintaining its purpose-driven ethos. From rebranding to the future of high street branches, Hayes shares insights on leadership and staying relevant in the modern banking sector. She was speaking to Dougal Shaw in early November 2025.

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4 days ago

31 minutes 15 seconds

Business Leader

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 unique business. This is the story of the AA and that turnaround...

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6 days ago

35 minutes 34 seconds

Business Leader

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 companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Symantec, SAP and VMware. It was while he was vice president of marketing at Informatica that he suffered his first major career setback – he was fired. Poonen explains to Dougal Shaw why this moment of rejection ultimately made him a better, more mature and compassionate leader. He also gives advice on how to hire the best talent in the competitive world of tech.

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2 weeks ago

32 minutes 50 seconds

Business Leader

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.

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3 weeks ago

39 minutes 20 seconds

Business Leader

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 Debenhams in 2022 after the brand was bought by Boohoo. Now he is chief executive of the whole Boohoo group, which has been renamed Debenhams. That has brought its own unique challenges...

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3 weeks ago

45 minutes 17 seconds

Business Leader

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 Jack Ma in China in 1999. Alibaba.com now connects 50 million buyers with 200,000 global suppliers, many of them based in China. At CoCreate there are suppliers showing off their wares, including everything from robot vacuum cleaners to skincare products and fashion items. Dougal Shaw spoke to the entrepreneurs who flocked to this event before catching up with Kuo Zhang, the president of Alibaba.com, to find out how small companies can access global supply chains, with AI making the task increasingly sophisticated.

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1 month ago

23 minutes 13 seconds

Business Leader

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 HQ in London to learn about the reader revenue model that took everyone by surprise, commercial innovations like The Filter and how she plans to attract younger audiences while navigating the perils of social media.

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1 month ago

34 minutes 45 seconds

Business Leader

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 ready.

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1 month ago

46 minutes 8 seconds

Business Leader

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...

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1 month ago

45 minutes 17 seconds

Business Leader

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 for getting a regular manicure at nail bars. She first built her beauty empire around nail bars on the high street and in department stores. These days she presides over a multi-million-pound retail business that is based on innovative nail products like varnish, art packs and polishes. Last year Nails.INC was acquired by a private equity firm in a reported £30m deal. Thea Green remains at the top of the company she founded. Dougal Shaw went to her HQ in Mayfair, London to learn how she has evolved as a leader and what others can learn from her experience...

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1 month ago

34 minutes 17 seconds

Business Leader

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 this is just the start...

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1 month ago

35 minutes 25 seconds

Business Leader

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 LinkedIn and reveals why leaders must stop outsourcing their voice. Learn how to build a brand that survives algorithm changes, drives revenue and resonates long after the scroll stops.

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1 month ago

46 minutes 17 seconds

Business Leader

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 revolution in artificial intelligence.

Airwallex is a tech-first financial operating system helping businesses scale across borders faster, by doing things like processing international payments. Zhang was born and raised in China but moved to Australia aged 16, without his family, to pursue his education. While working for several large companies as a computer programmer, he also ran multiple side hustles. It was a coffee shop venture that led to the idea for Airwallex, as he encountered the high costs associated with global payments between currencies...

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1 month ago

24 minutes 2 seconds

Business Leader

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 in the corporate world. Now working with global real-estate firm JLL, he reveals how elite sporting principles can transform businesses, strengthen team culture and help leaders unlock performance in fast-moving environments.

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2 months ago

45 minutes 13 seconds

Business Leader

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 capitalism...

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2 months ago

51 minutes 25 seconds

Business Leader

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 feedback, including A/B Testing and NPS (Net Promoter Score), has been the secret to growing his business, which is now international and has annual revenues of more than £110m. If you truly embrace feedback you can turn disappointed customers into your greatest fans...

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2 months ago

34 minutes 25 seconds

Business Leader

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 Beckham, and how to deal with the setbacks, like turning down blockbusters such as Slumdog Millionaire...

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2 months ago

40 minutes 54 seconds

Business Leader

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 pandemic, learning the power of saying no and building a brand that celebrates inclusivity and family. Humes also shares her lessons on leadership, trusting your instincts and embracing vulnerability as strength.

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2 months ago

46 minutes 18 seconds

Business Leader

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 Ruddick speaks to Nathan Coe, chief executive of Autotrader, to find out...

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2 months ago

37 minutes 7 seconds

Business Leader

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 pioneer, her vision for sustainable development pathways and the unique role sport plays in unlocking opportunity.

If you’re a founder, executive or aspiring leader seeking tangible inspiration from outside of the boardroom, this episode will leave you equipped with both mindset shifts and actionable takeaways. From leveraging networks and finding mentors, to creating a culture of opportunity and designing programmes with real-world impact, Brown's journey is a powerful case study in leadership, social enterprise and growth.

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2 months ago

44 minutes 5 seconds