Career Talk University of Birmingham Careers Network

Here's your opportunity to find out more about freelancing. Our special guest today is Jack Williams who is the co-founder of freelance specialists Underpinned. Bob asks the questions as we find out more about what freelancing is, to find out the benefits and how you can create your own freelance project.

Learn how you can take a passion and create your own opportunities in the world of work. Get tips on creating a pricing strategy and get advice about developing a brand for your service and building your portfolio.


Underpinned help UK freelancers to thrive in the ever evolving gig-economy. They can help connect you with a vibrant freelance community and bring people together using their platform to help reshape the future of work and championin creative freedom. You can get further support for your freelance idea by visiting the Underpinned.com website

Shahbaz Khokhar is an entrepreneur with a wealth of experience working for different start-ups. He graduated from the University of Birmingham with a degree in Maths in 2010 before securing a Corporate finance role with Deloitte. In this episode, host Nicola Gittins chats to Shahbaz about his experience creating side-hustles and businesses.

Shahbaz has created start-ups in different sectors including fitness, property and marketing. One of his current businesses Venture Beyond, actively helps businesses grow their brand through Direct to Consumer advertising and video production. Shahbaz uses his knowledge and experience to mentor and help aspiring entrepreneurs and he has raised over £200K for charitable projects including a project in Malawi.

He chats to Nicola about his experiences and offers tips how university students and graduates can act on their passion projects and find enterprising opportunities by thinking outside of the box and going the extra mile.

In this episode Bob Lee chats to changemaker, speaker and University of Birmingham alumnus Daniel Bridgewater who is the founder of start-up business Buckt.

Buckt is inspired by a real life bucket list and is described as the UK's only mystery ticket subscription service, where customers receive 5 mystery tickets to top attractions and activities each month. The business currently has around 8000 subscribers, over 1000 partners and operates in Greater Birmingham, London, Greater Manchester and Liverpool and Merseyside.

Daniel graduated from the University of Birmingham with a degree in Business Management and Communications in 2014. He gives an open and honest account of life as a business founder and reflects back on how it all started: remembering his time at university, his experiences in community leadership roles and an invitation to meet King Charles (before he was King).

Learn about start-up life through the lens of an experienced start-up founder and hear top tips about starting out, finding support and adding value to your start-up idea.

Dr Sam Decombel is the co-founder and CEO of FitnessGenes Ltd, a direct-to-consumer DNA testing company and world leader in the analysis of genetic and environmental data as applied to fitness and nutrition. Fitness Genes was many years in the making, and built on the platform developed under Sam's first start-up, DNA artwork company PlayDNA. With a PhD in Genetics from the University of Birmingham and several years working as a Technology Transfer Manager, her skillset in science and experience gained in intellectual property and business were an ideal combination to help her create her own start-up projects.

In this episode, Nicola Gittins talks to Sam about the journey faced including the personal and serendipitous events that inspired her route as an entrepreneur. Sam provides an expert view to life as an entrepreneur offering her own personal advice to starting a business and also the advantages of having a mentor.

Sam experienced great success with her first business PlayDNA and featured in Forbes magazine, Lab Times and BBC radio and she even ventured into the BBC Dragon Den itself. Sam was able to use the associate publicity to raise the profile of her next start-up FitnessGenes Ltd.

In 2018, she received the Alumna of the Year award from the University of Birmingham to recognise both her entrepreneurial successes, and the positive role she is playing in tackling discrimination and giving back to the community by supporting the development of young people through training and mentoring, something she is passionate about.

Looking for tips to get investment for your start-up idea? In this episode, Nicola Gittins interviews special guest Elizabeth Gooch MBE who has been described as one of the most disruptive entrepreneurs by The Telegraph. Elizabeth built up her own software company which was listed on AIM (Alternative Investment Market) before it was acquired by a US Software company in 2017. Her business eg Solutions traded in 50+ countries and employed 150 staff from all over the world.

We find out about her start-up journey of building a successful tech business from scratch, and hear about her role helping young entrepreneurs. Many start-ups can struggle with a lack of investment so Elizabeth is on a quest to help provide support and investment advice to growing start-ups. Through her experience she supports businesses as a Non-Executive Director (NED), Board Advisor and also an Angel Investor.

Find out how you can value your start-up and get tips on finding investment to take it to the next level.

This episode is all about giving back through lived experiences and we have tips to help you start a charity. Host Bob Lee chats to University of Birmingham student Zaynab Sohawon who is a mental health advocate, a speaker and founder of charity organisation Emotion Dysregulation in Autism (E-DA). She has a moving personal story and we hear about her work with mental health partners to help young people between 12-25 facing similar struggles.

The charity has been set up as a result of her advocacy work and own experiences as she vows to keep a promise she made to herself as a patient to: "be the person to others that my past-self needed". Through her work she has featured in TED talks, films and International Conferences.

Zaynab is studying for a Human Neuroscience degree at the University of Birmingham and we find out how she balances campus life with her charity projects.

Find out the difference between a charity set up and social enterprise and hear how time management and finding downtime is so important.