Evolve to Succeed

Host Warren Munson counts down the ten most popular episodes from 2023. This episode features Jo Barry, Carly Jermyn, Kate Adie, Adam Walker and Marc Trent.

Jimmy Glass is the general manager at Wimborne Town Football Club. Between 1989 and 2004 he made over 160 professional appearances as a goalkeeper and is perhaps best remembered for scoring the last-minute goal that kept Carlisle United in the Football League in 1999. As well as touching on his football career, Jimmy talks openly about life after the game and what he's learned from both his successes and failures.

Dom and Elliot Chapman are co-founders of venture capital firm Chapman Capital, which acquires and grows boutique agencies. Chapman Capital was was born on the back of the brothers' experience of trying and failing to sell their B2B lead generation agency Social Chaps, and they're using the knowledge and resources gained from that to help agencies who are struggling to build a strong pipeline.

In another one of our special, quick fire episodes we cover the topics of sales and winning and retaining new business. With us for the conversation is Kristy Davies-Sumpter, MD and sales expert at Zest Consultancy, a sales and customer experience consultancy that aims to help clients win new business and retain loyal customers.

John and Mark X. Cronin are the dynamic father-son team behind John's Crazy Socks, a social enterprise with a mission to spread happiness. They bootstrapped their business into the world's largest sock store with multi-million dollar revenues, and won Ernst & Young's Entrepreneurs of the Year in 2019. What makes their story particularly special is that 27 year-old John has Down syndrome, and is constantly challenging preconceptions about differing abilities, exemplifying the remarkable achievements that can arise when inclusion takes centre stage.

Paul Lester is a man of incredible wisdom and experience in the realm of business and leadership. He is or has been chairman of a number of businesses, including several FTSE 250 companies. Among other topics, Paul discusses what he learnt from extended management stints in the States and France, his views on private versus IPO companies, how the boardroom and his leadership style has changed over the years, and what an owner managed business should be looking for if they feel the need to put a chairman or non-exec in place.

Lee Hill is MD and founder of Insightful, Runway and The Study. Lee works with individuals and businesses who are not only striving for growth but are customer obsessed. He believes that being customer obsessed will lead to faster growth whilst retaining larger profits.

Factors such as Brexit, Covid and geopolitical instability continue to have a major affect on the world economy, and the natural consequence is that businesses are struggling for consistency and direction.

Warren sits down with Evolve's delivery lead and advisor David Mutton to talk about the challenges and barriers to growth and the various routes and structures one can follow to achieve growth.

The second element of the conversation introduces Mark Northey, founder and MD of Norco, a composites engineering, design and manufacturing company. Under Mark's guidance, Norco has achieved phenomenal growth, going from £12-million to £20-million in the past five years. Mark shares his thoughts on the approaches he's adopted and how he's maintained this amazing momentum.

Sally Henderson is a leadership mentor whose practice is founded on the belief that senior teams and leaders shouldn't have to choose between being effective or being happy. Sally, who came from a recruitment background, has worked with leaders and teams from a number of large companies including British Red Cross, Coca-Cola, Forbes, NatWest, Nestle and Shell. Amongst other topics, Sally talks about her trademarked RealMethod, which aims at giving executive teams and senior leaders the practical and emotional toolkit to re-frame their mindset, give them a clear perspective and help them perform even more effectively.

To celebrate our 200th episode, we've lined up a very special guest in the form of Kate Adie. Kate was Chief News Correspondent for BBC News between 1989 and 2003, during which time she reported from war zones around the world. She retired from the BBC in early 2003 and now works as a freelance presenter on BBC Radio 4. Kate's 14 year career as a news correspondent saw her cover everything from The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Lockerbie bombing and the Tiananmen Square protests, to the wars in the Gulf and Yugoslavia, and the Rwandan genocide. She has met with leaders such as Colonel Gaddafi, and survived being shot at point-blank range.