Working Hard, Hardly Working Grace Beverley

Ella Mills is an award-winning author, entrepreneur and champion of plant based living. She was the founder of Deliciously Ella in 2012, a plant-based food & wellness platform sharing delicious ways to feel better. Although it originated as a recipe website, Ella Mills has developed the business into a restaurant, a range of plant based food products, an app, a podcast and a collection of best-selling recipe books. 
Prior to starting Delicious Ella in 2011, Ella was diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome as well as ehlers-danlos and mast cell activation disorder, which followed four months in and out of hospital. The condition affected Ella’s autonomic nervous system and also meant she struggled with digestive issues, chronic fatigue, a series of infections and a whole host of other symptoms. After being prescribed a cocktail of medication that had no effect Ella hit rock bottom, both physically and mentally.
It was at this point that Ella looked into other ways of managing her condition and turned to whole foods, a plant-based diet, and overhauled her lifestyle. 
Deliciously Ella has become a leader in the plant-based space. Together with her husband and Deliciously Ella CEO, they’ve published six best-selling cookbooks, including the fast-selling vegan cookbook ever; a lifestyle app with recipes, workouts and meditations; a central London cafe and several ranges of food products in over 7,000 stores across the UK, with customers ranging from Tesco to Boots, Waitrose and Costa. 
- the early life of Ella Mills
- how Ella knew something was wrong with her health
- the symptoms she developed
- how her illness affected her physical and mental health
- how Ella's illness changed her university experience
- what caused Ella's lifestyle change
- the start of Deliciously Ella
- the media's response to plant based eating
- would Ella have been treated by the press differently if she was a man?
- dealing with judgement
- how Ella met her husband and moved in after a week
- Ella's mindset over her 8 year career
- how Ella evolved Deliciously Ella
- Ella's experience opening her first restaurant
- Ella closing her restaurant and the media storm it ensued
- the affects of the media storm on her employees
- Ella's biggest learnings

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Jenna Meek is a Manchester-based entrepreneur and CEO, whose passion for all things beauty led her to creating two powerhouse beauty brands. Her latest venture is as co-founder and CEO at REFY, Instagram’s hottest and most disruptive beauty brand, famous for its three-step brow collection which became an overnight social media sensation.
Jenna launched her first business SHRINE, formerly Gypsy-Shrine, from her bedroom in Manchester. A brand born out of the festival culture in 2016, Jenna set up a cosmetic glitter and gem business initially bought and sold in festival tents around the country. However, within 2 years SHRINE saw worldwide success, hosting residencies at festivals including Under the Stars and Coachella, and being stocked at global brand Topshop. After creating an entire line of festival gems and starting the ‘glitter boob’ movement, Jenna relaunched SHRINE to sell creative hair products and dyes. Most notably, Jenna created the world's first line of reusable, semi-permanent hair drops that mix when mixed with ordinary conditioner would produce a colour customised to you.
In November 2020 Jenna launched her second beauty brand REFY with model and influencer Jess Hunt. Launching with innovation at its core, REFY’s first product - the Brow Sculpt - was revolutionary, selling out within 6 weeks and becoming a firm fan favourite. After expanding its product range to include lip-liners, blush and primers, REFY is now stocked in Selfridges & Sephora across the UK, US & Canada and has online customers worldwide. The brand has also captured the attention of celebrities including Bella Hadid and Shay Mitchell and makeup artists Patrick Ta and Hugo Vango. They've since sold more than 2.5 million products, with more than 8 million visitors to their website and a 50 million GBP valuation.
Today, Jenna shares her story of how she engineered one of Instagram’s favourite beauty brands and made REFY defy the odds of entrepreneurial success.
- brief overview of Jenna’s career
- the beginning of SHRINE
- why did Jenna want to be an Entrepreneur?
- how was the idea formed in SHRINE?
- the effect of the pandemic
- how did Jenna keep up with the demand the pandemic generated
- Jenna’s decision to take on the hair industry
- how the REFY partnership first started with Jess Hunt
- why Jenna decided to start REFY
- the timeline of REFY
- what Jenna’s expansion plan looked like
- how did the 1st launch go?
- would Jenna have done anything differently?
- how Jenna hired well
- biggest hiring mistakes Jenna has made
- Jenna’s experience as a working Mother
- what is next for REFY and SHRINE?

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Will Stirrup is the Co-Founder of Maeving, the UK’s first electric motorcycle manufacturer, but after going totally bankrupt in his first year as an entrepreneur, Will’s journey is one of honesty, realism and business burnout. Raised in South Africa, Will came to the UK for university and quickly found himself on a career trajectory to working in finance. After becoming the youngest person ever to become double ACA CFA qualified, and securing a role within the M&A team of a top tier investment bank, Will packed it all in and chose his dream of being an entrepreneur. He didn’t have a business idea, only the knowledge that whatever it was had to have a positive impact on the climate crisis. Fast forward 4 years, and his business Maeving have developed an affordable, lightweight urban motorcycle with removable batteries you can charge at a standard plug socket, selling out their first production run almost immediately. Will’s story is one of toxic work cultures, intense burnout and of someone who is still looking for the right way to do it all - if such a thing exists. 
- Trailer
- introduction into having an honest conversation about entrepreneurship
- a brief overview into the start of Will's career
- what Will learnt from his career in finance
- Will's experience with burning out and feeling out of his depth
- going from corporate careers to starting a business 
- how to handle financially starting a business
- the side hustles that you can do whilst beginning a business
- why his business felt like passion project
- the 1st year of Maeving
- getting to the point of 'can we keep doing this?' 
- what would Will do if his business fails now? 
- how has Will become so resilient? 
- how the pandemic nearly bankrupted Maeving
- how Will has hired well
- who is entrepreneurship for? 
- what is this Entrepreneur's biggest mistake?

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Sarah Tilse, more commonly known as ‘Sarah’s Day’ is an Australian fitness influencer and YouTuber best known for her fitness, diet and wellness content. Whilst studying to become a teacher, Sarah began her online journey by posting about her hormonal acne online as a way to source advice but also to help others who were struggling with it as well. This expanded into fitness, wellness and lifestyle content, and on the date of this recording Sarah has over 3 million followers across her Instagram and YouTube channels, and is the founder of multiple companies including Sarah’s Day, her personal brand, fitness ebooks and app, Sunee App - her recipe app, The Healthcode Podcast and The House of Groms, a creative strategy and production company. Sarah has also created products with several global brands including multiple drops on her own activewear line with White Fox, and her own protein and supplement powders with Tropeaka. 
Having shared her life online for over 10 years including the birth of her two sons, Sarah has grown up in the digital space, and has had a lot of learnings along the way. Going from 5am wake ups and spending hours in the gym each day adhering to an incredibly strict diet, to juggling several businesses and two children, Sarah has seen incredible success from her work online but of course there have been some sticky moments too.
- brief overview of Sarah's backstory
- how Sarah blew up on social media
- Sarah's health and fitness journey
- how Sarah met her husband
.- the creation of her first e-book and how it caused a viral event
- the financial success of the ebook and paying off $40k in debt
- dealing with cancel culture and being part of toxic Fitspo culture
- losing her period due to weight-loss
- should we platform 20 year olds?
- moving from fitness content to family vlogging
- the concept of context collapse
- would Sarah's Day do anything differently?
- Sarah on becoming a Mother
- do we really want children? Sarah on questioning having children
- dealing with Mum advice online
- mum guilt and being a working Mother
- how Sarah dealt with the tough news about her second pregnancy
- why Sarah doesn't speak about her son's condition

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Shimona Mehta is an acclaimed tech pioneer with extensive experience in retail, technology, food and beverage. Awarded for being one of the UK’s most influential retail leaders, Shimona is best known for being the Managing Director of EMEA for Shopify - the leading e-commerce hub for independent brands. Designed to make buying and selling easy, Shopify offers businesses a range of tools to design, manage and grow an online store, hosting numerous high-growth brands including Deliveroo, Lindt, and Heinz. 
Delving deeper, Shimona and I get real on female leadership in the tech industry touching on the uphill battle for women to reach the top and also so they feel like they belong there. We have a Q&A on side hustles, we answer all your questions on Instagram on when you should know you need to leave your job, how you should build your business and how you should overcome failure.

- The career path that took Shimona Mehta to become MD
- Making the move from consumer goods to tech
- How Shimona built career progression
- The journey of setting up Shopify in London
- What Shimona looks for when she hires
- Shimona's experience with imposter syndrome
- How Shimona became a good leader
- The barriers Shimona has come across
- The importance of managerial training
- Why we need women in tech
- Diversity and recruitment
- How to start your side hustle


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Josephine Phillips is the 24 year old visionary behind the Sojo app, the online platform on a mission to make clothing alterations and repairs mainstream. Founded to shape a more sustainable fashion future and dubbed by Vogue as the ‘deliveroo of clothing repairs’, Sojo connects buyers of pre-loved clothes with local seamstresses who can tailor the garments to fit. The app not only extends the lifespan of our clothes but allows us to fall in love with them all over again and has already been integrated by several brands including Ganni and Hurr.
Sitting within the Gen Z category herself, Josephine is startlingly aware of her eco-conscious yet convenience-obsessed generation and her aim is to shift the mindset within this space, making sustainable choices more accessible for the masses. Having recently raised over $2.4 million in pre-seed funding invested by the likes of the Founder of Depop, Pangaia’s former COO, the president of menswear at Tom Ford and myself, this is just the beginning for Sojo, and the start of Josephine Phillips becoming a force of her generation within the sustainable fashion space.

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