Adam Asks

Professional actor, Jim Murray, has had a successful career as a professional actor – accumulating an eclectic portfolio of roles across the globe in the last 20 years – famously starring in the BAFTA-nominated series Primeval for ITV. In his time off-camera, Jim and his wife, Sarah Parish, also run a charity [The Murray Parish Trust] that supports children's emergency services by raising money and awareness to enable pioneering research and provide life-saving equipment.

Jim joined our Founder and Director, Leon Milns, to share how he overcame the odds to break into a saturated market. Fuelled by an ongoing passion for his vocation and ardent love for his family, Jim provided a heart-on-sleeve account of persevering through the tragedy of losing a child and how it affected his outlook.

The heart-wrenching beginning undoubtedly demonstrates Jim’s remarkable determination to channel adversity into a positive and character-strengthening experience and powerful legacy. The poignant takeaway will leave listeners moved to seek the good in every situation and take a moment to reflect in gratitude on their situation.

Newly equipped with insightful questioning and tools to help reframe your mindset, Jim revealed how the influence of adversity, shifting cultures and self-actualising can assist in harbouring a productive environment. He also shares his advice for others going through a difficult time and how to navigate your way through a sea of opinions.

Dan Forth has an impressive CV and has progressed rapidly in his HR career.  At just 30 years old he became HR Director at Pilot Group, an international electronics and technology business with North West roots.

Dan joined our head of HR, Vanessa Jackson, to share his story and tell us how he's risen up the ranks so quickly.  Dan explained how he's navigated his career, explored some of the challenges he's overcome so far, and shared what it's like to be someone so young in such a senior position.

He also gave his thoughts on some of the biggest challenges businesses face when it comes to people management.  He covered topics such as engagement strategy, onboarding staff, and employee retention, and provided advice to HR leaders on what they need to focus on as we move into a new year. He also gave his advice to HR professionals on the key areas they need to develop to progress in their careers, particularly if they are looking to move into an HR Director role.

Holly Moore is Managing Director of Make Events. Holly joined us a week after receiving the WOMANC award at this year’s Talk of Manchester business awards. She shared her story of how she’s grown the business from scratch over seven years, built a talented team of event planning consultants and creative professionals and scaled the business rapidly. Tune in to hear Holly explore a range of subjects including:

· Why Oprah Winfrey and Tony Robins are her inspirations

· The importance of focussing on profit when growing a business

· Why employee engagement has been key to the success of the business

· How to stand out in a crowded market place and leverage your network

· Dealing with mental health and stress

Formerly a Head of Customer Service at AXA, Derek has over twenty years’ experience of directly leading people and delivering business results in high volume and complex environments. As experts on culture change, leadership and human behaviour change, Derek and the team work with fast growth SMEs through to multi-nationals to create high-performance cultures where everyone thrives.

He co-authored a book titled ‘Building a Culture of Innovation’ which was in the top 5 management books on innovation in the 2017 CMI Management Book of the Year awards and is also an Amazon bestseller.

In this episode of the #AdamAsks podcast, Derek reveals why human beings are the most complex part of any organisation and why he fundamentally believes competitive advantage and business success can only be delivered by enabling your people to be their best. Derek advises agencies on:

Steven Bartlett needs little introduction, but if you need one, his LinkedIn profile describes his inspiring background perfectly:

"Steven is the 27-year-old CEO Founder of Social Chain which uses owned media, marketing and technology to build Social Brands. In the last few years, he has become an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker and investor, and now leads a company of 700+ individuals across 5 countries, who are quickly disrupting the ever-changing social world. Social Chain now operates through six locations: Manchester, London, Berlin, Munich, New York and Bangkok.

We were honoured to have Steven take time out of his hectic schedule to sit down with Leon for the next episode of #AdamAsks, the day Social Chain officially went public, another landmark step in their business journey.  Steven joined us to tell us about his background, what it's taken to grow Social Chain in such as short time, his thoughts on education, the future of marketing and why he puts his and Social Chains success down to focussing on more than just money.

Richard Hayes is Co-Founder and CEO of Mojothe UK’s #1 mortgage broker. Mojo is an exciting and disruptive fintech company with a fascinating journey. The business is focused on giving customers a better platform to compare and buy financial products and offers advice and expertise to ensure the customer gets the right option for them, so they can buy with confidence.

Having worked in the financial services sector for over a decade, Richard realised the system was broken and that the customer was being let down. With a passion for technology, he realised there had to be better way, which led to the creation of Mojo.

Richard joined Leon for a fascinating interview where he opened up about what it takes to grow a tech busines from start-up to a multimillion-pound company, the challenges he has overcome when pitching for investment and Mojo’s strategy to attract and retain top tech talent.

Mentor and consultant Robert Craven has helped more than 1,000 companies to revolutionise the way they work. An international keynote speaker and business coach, Robert heads up the team at The Directors’ Centre. He has written over ten books on business strategy and specialises in helping Digital Agency owners grow their businesses.

Robert joined us to share his experience and advice to agencies looking to drive real growth in their agencies.  He reveals numers pearls of wisdom on topics such as profitability, building a culture of excellence and how the agency market is changing.

EJ Flynn is Managing Director of the Supper Club, an organisation for high growth entrepreneurs post-startup with typical turnovers from £1m £250m.  She works with business owners at all stages of their business journey.  From those running their first business and just reached the £1m turnover mark to those with private equity-backed £40m plus turnover businesses and everything in between. 

EJ joined us to tell us about the challenges many of The Supper Club's members face and shares insight into what some of the highest performing businesses are doing differently.  In this fascinating discussion with Adam Founder, Leon Milns, EJ shares the importance of having a solid 'vision' and a plan on how you're going to achieve it, why culture and values are imperative to profitable growth and what business leaders can learn from the new generation of superstars. She also reveals how the best performing business leaders are continually improving their leadership skills, how they are building high-performance leadership teams and the importance of systemising.

Atheer Al-Salim is Head of Social at The Marketing Store and Founder at Headstock Festival. Ath joined us to share his experiences of mental health and tell us why he is launching a brand new festival in Manchester in 2020, specifically focussed around the core theme of mental health.  Headstock will be the UK’s biggest ever mental health music festival, launched in partnership with Help Musicians & Manchester Mind. Across 7 days and 9 iconic venues, the festival will bring the biggest music artists from Manchester, the North West and beyond.  In this candid and thought provoking interview Ath explained how the North West is falling behind the capital when it comes to mental health awareness, why it could be at crisis point and why he decided to take on the stress of organising a festival to help tackle the problem.  

For more information on Headstock visit https://www.headstock.live/

John Shinnick is a Portfolio Non-Exec Director, supporting business owners through coaching, mentoring and advising. A former partner at Grant Thornton for 21 years, John spent his career working with dynamic people to help make their businesses great; 12 years of which also involved leading Grant Thornton locations. 

John holds two Board Adviser roles and also Coach-Mentors 4 or 5 CEO's or Managing Partners at any one time. Current assignments range from FTSE 100 to professional services firms.  Additionally, he's an  NLP Practitioner and a Coach-Mentor qualified under the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. 

With a background like that it's no surprise this podcast was packed full of fascinating conversation.  So much so that we had to split it into two parts.  

In part two John discusses how business leaders can identify a crises in confidence in their teams and help empower them to make decisions.  He also covers topics such as the importance of ethics and values in business, the difference between coaching and mentoring and how to read people's real intentions. Don't miss another inspiring and thought provoking episode of Adam Asks.