Guest: Jane Sartin – Executive Director, The Flexible Space Association (FlexSA)

Jane Sartin is Executive Director of The Flexible Space Association (FlexSA), the trade body representing the UK’s flexible workspace sector. FlexSA supports and advocates for more than 1,000 flexible workspace locations across the country, championing the interests of operators and the wider industry.

Where we work has changed dramatically in recent years – but what does that mean for how people actually experience work?

For younger employees in particular, the workplace can be much more than somewhere to sit with a laptop. The right environment can provide opportunities for connection, collaboration and creativity, while flexibility over where and how we work can play an important role in wellbeing, work-life balance and people’s sense of autonomy.

In this episode, Jane joins us to explore the relationship between workspace, flexibility and employee engagement – and why creating a great place to work increasingly means thinking about both the physical environment and the different ways people want to work.

Join us as we ask: if we want people to feel engaged, connected and able to do their best work, how much does the place where they work matter?

Host: Andy Goram

Special Guest: Lara Morgan – Scentered and KitBrix

When a business comes under financial pressure, what happens to engagement — and how do leaders communicate difficult news without pretending everything is fine?

This conversation covers pay reductions, restructuring and uncertainty: how to be transparent without simply dumping anxiety onto employees, how to retain trust when you can’t give people everything they want, and what founders trying to “keep morale up” need to do more of. We’ll also touch on where AI creates room for people to focus on better, more interesting work.

Join us as we discuss how to keep people engaged when you have to make unpopular decisions.

Lara Morgan is a British serial entrepreneur, investor, bestselling author and internationally recognised keynote speaker. She founded Pacific Direct at just 23 and grew it from a bedroom start-up into a global leader in luxury hotel amenities, ultimately selling the business 17 years later for £20 million.

Having built and exited a multi-site international company spanning brand licensing, global distribution and manufacturing, Lara brings practical, hard-earned insight into leadership, sales, resilience and scalable growth. Her entrepreneurial journey is captured in her bestselling book More Balls Than Most, an honest and often humorous account of building a business from nothing and learning to win commercially.

Today, Lara leads a brand ownership and investment strategy, backing purpose- driven consumer and wellbeing brands that enhance everyday performance and save time, life’s most precious asset.

Her portfolio includes Scentered, the mindful aromatherapy brand she helped conceptualise and scale; SOMO, a pioneering sleep fitness brand delivering science-backed recovery tools; KitBrix, a modular performance luggage system engineered for endurance athletes, actively minded individuals and highly organised professionals and amateur competitors alike; Gate8, which designs intelligent travel solutions for airline crew and frequent flyers; BetterSpace, a corporate wellbeing and rewards platform supporting employee performance; and Parcca, a premium warming coat brand designed for athletes, outdoor enthusiasts and spectators in colder climates.

Lara speaks with authenticity, commercial sharpness and infectious energy. She shares real-world lessons on high-performance leadership, sales mastery, customer obsession, resilience and the critical link between wellbeing and sustained success.

A co-founder of StartUp Britain, she is also a proud mother of three daughters and lives the performance mindset she teaches, balancing global work with endurance training and charitable cycling challenges.

Host: Jo Moffatt

Special Guest: Dan Sodergren – Author and keynote speaker on AI and the future of work

Leadership, AI and what this means in this… the Fifth Industrial Revolution

We’ll explore this through Dan’s Fifth Industrial Revolution framework of artificial, emotional, independent and organisational intelligence, and consider how those capabilities connect with Engage for Success’s four enablers.

We’ll also look at the choices organisations now face: whether to use AI simply to cut costs and reduce headcount, or to retrain, retain and equip people so they can become more productive, innovative and capable of scaling.

Join us as we discuss why we may be the last generation to manage only human beings, and what leadership looks like when teams increasingly include people, AI systems and “automated interns”.

Host: Jo Dodds

Guest: Gustavo Razzetti – CEO of Fearless Culture; Bestselling Author of “Forward Talk”

Gustavo Razzetti is the bestselling author of Remote, Not Distant and Stretch for Change, and his forthcoming book, Forward Talk. He is a culture strategist, workshop facilitator and keynote speaker with over 25 years of experience — first as a marketing and advertising executive, now as CEO of Fearless Culture, a culture design consultancy. He has facilitated more than 1,500 workshops with leadership teams at Mars, Microsoft, Merck, the Inter-American Development Bank and hundreds of organisations worldwide. Gustavo is the creator of the Culture Design Canvas, now used by over 500,000 practitioners globally, and the Forward Talk framework, which helps teams surface issues early, challenge groupthink, and turn avoided conversations into decisions that stick.

U.S. organisations lose an estimated $359 billion every year to what Gustavo calls conversational debt — the silent accumulation of avoided conversations, unchallenged assumptions and false harmony. It’s the hidden force behind circular meetings, “alignment theatre” and leaders mistaking motion for progress. AI tools only amplify existing dynamics: high-trust teams get smarter, while low-trust teams fall into faster groupthink, performative agreement and decision paralysis.

Join us as we discuss why AI didn’t break workplace culture, it exposed it, and how teams can rebuild the conversational agency needed to turn avoided conversations into decisions that stick.

Host: Jo Moffatt

Special Guests: Sarah Pass and James Court-Smith, EFS Advisory Board Members

The 2026 Engage for Success (EFS) Annual Survey is built around one central message: productivity starts with people, and people perform best when they are engaged. Strong performance does not come from investment, systems, or technology alone. It depends on whether people are trusted, supported, listened to, and equipped to contribute their skills, judgment, and ideas effectively.

Dr Sarah Pass is Senior Research Manager at CIPD. She is a member of the Engage for Success Advisory Board, sits on the steering group, chairs the East Midlands Area Network, the Line Managers TAG, the Engagement Champion TAG, and co-project lead for the EFS annual survey.

James Court-Smith leads Stillae Ltd – helping companies make sense of the data they collect, and put it to profitable use, across multiple industries in Europe. He chairs the Engage for Success Steering Group and is a member of the Advisory Board. James is the co-project lead for the EFS annual survey and is a Visting Fellow at Nottingham Business School.

Join us as we discuss the Engage for Success Annual Survey results 2026.

Host: Jo Dodds

Guest: Fiona Stephens – Director of People and Culture, Migrant Help

Fiona Stephens is a senior people and culture leader with more than 35 years’ experience across the public sector, NHS and not-for-profit organisations. She is Director of People and Culture at Migrant Help, an advisory charity for people affected by displacement and exploitation, where she has built the people and culture function from the ground up.

She has previously brought HR leadership to the civil service, the NHS and the British Council, with deep expertise in change management and organisational development. She holds an MBA, is a chartered fellow of the CIPD, and has a postgraduate qualification in coaching and positive psychology. She was named on HR Magazine’s Most Influential list for 2026.

Seven years after building her people strategy on the Engage for Success model, Fiona reflects on what it takes to keep that approach alive inside a charity — working with budgetary constraints, emotionally demanding frontline work, and constantly shifting demand.

Join us as we discuss what happens when you build a people strategy using the Engage for Success Four Enablers, seven years in.

Host: Andy Goram

Guest: Emerson Resende – Founder, Zeno Life Plan | Former UN Climate Finance Leader

Emerson Resende is the founder of Zeno Life Plan, a structured framework that helps organisations align business mission with employees’ life purpose. His work focuses on helping teams build clarity, engagement and long term meaning at work through practical life planning tools that translate personal purpose into professional performance.

Emerson has applied this approach with organisations including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and several UN system agencies, supporting leaders and teams in strengthening engagement, reducing burnout and improving retention.

Before founding Zeno Life Plan, Emerson spent 15 years working internationally on climate policy and finance across the United Nations system, living and working in over ten countries. His work today sits at the intersection of employee engagement, personal development and organisational culture.

Join us as we discuss how institutions perform best when people understand not only what they do, but why they do it.

Host: TBC

Guest: Angela Rixon, CEO of The Centre for Meaningful Work and author of Meaning Over Purpose:

Despite decades of focus on employee engagement, global engagement levels remain stubbornly low. Many organisations have invested heavily in purpose statements and values frameworks — yet employees increasingly report feeling disconnected from their day-to-day work.

Angela Rixon is CEO of The Centre for Meaningful Work and author of Meaning Over Purpose: The CEO’s Strategic Blueprint for Growth and Lasting Engagement.

With over 25 years’ experience in HR, leadership, organisational transformation and consulting across financial services, technology and professional services, Angela combines executive insight with research in applied positive psychology to help organisations embed meaningful work at scale.

Her work focuses on closing the Purpose-to-Meaning Gap, enabling leaders to drive performance, retention and resilience by designing cultures where people don’t just understand the mission, but feel it in their daily work.

Join us as we discuss the Purpose-to-Meaning Gap – the disconnect between what organisations say and what employees actually experience.

Host: Andy Goram

Guest: Chris Houston: Managing Director of Tadweld

Chris Houston is the Managing Director of the steel fabrication business, Tadweld, which he joined in 2022. Prior to this, Chris held a number of senior positions in the Aerospace & Defence industry, including Managing Director of a private equity backed distribution business in the US. He began his career at Rolls-Royce, where he developed a lean manufacturing, people centred and quality focused mindset.

In this podcast we’ll be exploring how Chris joined a traditional manufacturing business that had been trading for over 40 years and set about changing its culture. We’ll be covering topics like line manager development, employee engagement, and bringing company values to life.

Join us as we discuss what ‘engaging for success’ means to him and his business.

Host: Jo Moffatt

Guest: Michelle Mook: Founder and Managing Director of Pro-Development (UK) Limited

With over 30 years of experience of improving performance through people strategy, training, coaching and team/leadership development, Michelle founded Pro-Development in 2011 to help the growth of businesses in and around Yorkshire and the Humber. Michelle has built up a strong reputation and grown the business over the years and Pro-Development now have a team of talented people who help many local businesses to retain their talent, engage and develop their people, leaders and teams along with improving morale, motivation and culture within the business. Having worked with businesses across our region for 15 years, Michelle speaks at numerous events across the region helping to share learning, insights and tips to help with the growth and profitability of businesses. Winning awards from “Trainer of the Year” Gold Award in 2006 with the LPI to York Press Business Personality of the Year in 2018 and Small Business of the Year in 2022, Michelle always inspires people with her energy and enthusiasm and ability to speak to people in a way that connects with them at every level. Michelle undertakes a range of voluntary roles to support businesses in the region. She has been involved with Engage for Success for over a decade and is the Area Network Ambassador Engage for Success Yorkshire and the Humber to help raise awareness of the impact of employee engagement on our local economy.

Having worked with SMEs for 15 years, Michelle understands the specific challenges the sector faces and why engagement can feel hard to prioritise when you’re focused on delivery, growth and firefighting. As an SME business owner, she will share how she focuses on the four enablers of engagement in her own team, what that looks like in practice, and the impact it has on performance, retention and culture. The conversation will cover simple, realistic actions that help line managers create clarity, build trust, coach effectively, and treat people as individuals – without adding unnecessary process.

Join us as we discuss how she focuses on the four enablers of engagement in her own team, what that looks like in practice, and the impact it has on performance, retention and culture.

Host: Jo Moffatt