Tired of cookie-cutter LinkedIn posts and empty personal branding advice? In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Josh Dornbrack sits down with Amelia Sordell, an online marketing expert and author of The Personal Branding Playbook, to uncover the truth about building a personal brand that actually works.

Forget chasing viral fame – Sordell reveals how authenticity, clear goals and strategic content can transform your reputation into a powerful business tool. Whether you're a CEO, founder or just starting your career, you’ll learn how to leverage your personal brand to win clients, attract talent and open doors you never thought possible.

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 high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here.

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Allica Bank has been Britain's fastest-growing company over the last few years according to a collection of different reports that track this. This growth has been driven by Richard Davies, the chief executive, who arrived at Allica in 2020 from Revolut to what was effectively a blank sheet of paper - the bank had a licence and funding, but its founder had departed and it made only £5m of loans. Since then Allica has been transformed into a thriving digital bank for small and medium-sized businesses. At the heart of this transformation has been an approach inspired by what Davies has learned from his varied career and a book, The Geek Way, that provides a playbook for modern businesses...

In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Graham Ruddick speaks to Richard Davies about the story behind Allica, why small and medium-sized businesses need a better bank and the outlook for the UK economy.

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 high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here.

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The UK economy is stagnating, productivity is falling and fewer than one in 20 promising businesses goes on to become a large company. So how do we fix this? It is a question that politicians, economists, and investors are struggling to answer. But there are solutions. The Business Leader team - Graham Ruddick, Sarah Vizard, Dougal Shaw and Josh Dornbrack - get together to discuss the state of play and the way forward. In the process they preview the new edition of Business Leader magazine and the Business Leader Summit...

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 high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here.

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David Abrahamovitch founded the Grind coffee brand in 2011 in Shoreditch, east London. Its pink branding made the company stand out in our coffee-obsessed world and it has built a cult following. Grind now has more than 14 physical locations serving coffee and food, as well as a huge roastery where it prepares its coffee. It has also expanded into a direct-to-consumer offer (which sends its compostable coffee pods to homes) and is in supermarkets. Dougal Shaw went to meet David Abrahamovitch at Grind's headquarters in Shoreditch, a stone’s throw away from the original café where it all began, to find out how he built his coffee empire and its loyal customers

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 high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here.

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LinkedIn is the leading social network for businesses around the world. Now it wants a stake in real-life interactions too. Dougal Shaw has been given exclusive access to its new Experience Centre, which has just opened in central London, where he meets Janine Chamberlin, head of LinkedIn in the UK. The space is designed to foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing in the new world of hybrid work. Chamberlin explains her personal remit in the UK, the way LinkedIn has evolved from primarily a recruitment platform into a place for sharing original content, especially in video, the impact of AI – and much more.

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 high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here.

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Timo Boldt is the founder and CEO of Gousto, the company that sends out recipes in a box for people to cook at home. The business started in 2012 and now has annual revenues of more than £300m. In this episode of the Business Leader podcast, Boldt offers Dougal Shaw a tour of the company’s kitchens in west London where chefs experiment with new recipes. Boldt explains how AI tech has been deeply embedded within Gousto since the outset. He also explains how coaching and mentorship has transformed him as a leader. He is a certified coach, which has helped him spot his own biases and “flex his style”, he admits. And to this day he still sends out up to 100 cold emails and letters a year asking people to mentor him.

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 high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here.

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Nicola Hodson is the chairman of IBM in the UK and Ireland and one of the most senior women in tech. IBM has a long legacy in pioneering technology. It’s working closely right now with British businesses to implement artificial intelligence, while also working at the cutting edge of Quantum computing. In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Nicola Hodson and Dougal Shaw discuss what could happen next, including how the Wimbledon tennis tournament and a football club looking to improve its talent scouting operation are already using the new technology...

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 high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here.

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The turnaround of Sainsbury's under Justin King is one of the most famous in UK corporate history. This episode of the Business Leader Podcast is the story of how it happened.

When King arrived as chief executive of Sainsbury's in 2004 the supermarket chain was in crisis. It had gone from the biggest food retailer in the UK to the third biggest behind Tesco and Asda, and sales were still falling. By the time King stood down in 2014, Sainsbury's sales had grown by more than 50 per cent, profits had tripled and the brand had been revitalised.

More than a decade on, King now looks back on the story with more candour and insight than ever before, including the story behind his rivalry with Tesco and chief executive Sir Terry Leahy.

With Graham Ruddick

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 high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here.

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Ever feel like you're stuck in a loop, doing the same things but hoping for different results? In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Josh Dornbrack sits down with Duncan Wardle, former head of innovation and creativity at Disney, to explore how breaking the mould can transform a business.

From his humble beginnings as a Disney coffee boy to orchestrating some of the company’s most iconic creative campaigns, Wardle shares his toolkit for fostering innovation. Learn how exercises like “yes and” and “what if” can unlock your team’s creativity, build collaboration, and propel your business into a new dimension. Whether you’re leading a team or looking to spark change, this is a masterclass in creativity and a guide to thinking differently.

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 high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here.

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Serial entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore has scored several hits in beauty and wellness since the 1990s, including Bliss Spas (sold to LVMH), FitFlop sandals and the Soap & Glory bath range (sold to Boots). Since 2016 she’s been working on Beauty Pie, a membership club that lets people buy cosmetics online, bypassing traditional retailers. This is her most disruptive concept to date. Beauty Pie currently has 200 employees in the US and UK and annual revenues of $100m. 

In this episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Kilgore shares the secrets to her success, including how to develop original consumer products and hire the right people...

With Dougal Shaw

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 high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here.

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