Inside The Maverick Mind

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At 38, Darren Briggs had to borrow £2.50 from his mother for deodorant before walking to the job centre. He had lost his business, his savings, his relationship - everything. Today, he is the founder and CEO of Ascona Group, a nationwide roadside retail business with 74 forecourts, 910 employees, 350,000+ customers, and over 6 million litres sold every week.

This is not a story about petrol. It's a story about resilience, reinvention, and refusing to roll over.

Darren takes us through a jaw-dropping journey that spans childhood paper rounds in his parents' newsagent in Milford Haven, a catastrophic business failure that cost him £250,000, a brutal David-vs-Goliath legal battle with a corporate giant that nearly broke him, and the maverick decision to chase high growth when most people would have walked away.

From renting a single unloved forecourt in Pembroke to building the UK's seventh-largest independent fuel retailer with £200 million in committed funding - Darren's story proves that rock bottom can be a location without becoming an identity.

In this episode:

🔹 Growing up in a community newsagent and the three golden rules from his father

🔹 Losing everything at 38 - and the £2.50 that changed his mindset

🔹 The Costcutter legal war: 18 months of fighting for survival

🔹 The maverick moment: deciding high growth was the only way out

Surviving COVID when cash dropped from £4 million to £30,000

The health wake-up call: losing five stone and a near-death experience

What comes next: 100 sites, a Sahara trek, and building on his parents' land

Key quote: "Don't be afraid of failure. Be afraid of regret."

—

📌 Guest: Darren Briggs, Founder & CEO of Ascona Group

🎙️ Host: Emyr Afan

📺 Show: Inside the Maverick Mind - Ep 28

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 - Introduction

01:36 - From paper rounds to Pam's newsagents

04:18 - Three golden rules from his father

07:08 - Losing his dad and what it taught him

08:09 - The full-pay cancer policy

09:30 - Spotting a gap in the market: BigOil.net

12:46 - The media venture that went up in flames

16:39 - Losing £250,000 and signing on the dole

19:39 - Why he didn't declare bankruptcy

21:20 - Renting Bush Hill: the first forecourt

27:02 - The Costcutter deal that turned toxic

38:50 - The bridge moment: hitting rock bottom

40:06 - "Costcutter Are Fucking Wankers": renaming the company

48:18 - Valentine's Day mediation: drop hands

50:24 - The maverick moment: going for high growth

54:06 - When Barclays pulled the rug

59:06 - Winning Fast Growth 50 - with Barclays as sponsor

1:06:35 - COVID: cash down to £30,000

1:10:05 - The health crisis: losing five stone

1:14:30 - Near-death on the operating table

1:16:49 - What a petrol station becomes when petrol isn't the main event

1:19:43 - Wales Air Ambulance & giving back

1:23:00 - Flying helicopters: the one place he can't multitask

1:23:45 - Maverick Maxims

1:29:10 - Building on his parents' land: the final chapter

1:31:03 - "A maverick is someone who never gives up"

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💬 What would you have done at Darren's lowest point? Let us know in the comments.

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#InsideTheMaverickMind #DarrenBriggs #AsconaGroup #Entrepreneur #BusinessResilience #PetrolStation #Turnaround #StartupStory #WalesBusiness #MaverickMind

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Born with cerebral palsy and deafness. Four days old when doctors said there was nothing more they could do. Bullied at school for her disability. Dropped from a Paralympic relay team an hour before the race. Told by her own parents to walk away from the sport.

Livi Breen didn't just keep going. She became a world champion, Commonwealth gold medallist, and captain of Wales.

In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, we go far beyond the medals to understand the person behind the smile - the family that refused to overprotect her, the twin brother who was her first competitor, and the coach in his 70s who learned to understand her body before he taught her anything.

We cover:

The meningitis that nearly took her at four days old

Discovering she could run at a school sports day

London 2012 - competing at 16, the false start she didn't hear, and Paralympic bronze

Rio 2016 - the heartbreak of being dropped from the relay and how it changed everything

Moving to Loughborough and becoming world champion within ten months

Coach Aston Moore - patience, honesty, and breaking everything down

Paris Paralympics - jumping the same distance as bronze and losing on countback

The Adidas briefs controversy that went viral and changed the rules

Captaining Wales to gold and silver at the Commonwealth Games

The psychologist she's worked with since she was 15

Why she face-plants after her best jumps - and why she laughs about it

Her maverick mindset: "Never say you can't, because you will."

This is a conversation about resilience, identity, leadership, and what really sits behind that extraordinary smile.

Hosted by Emyr Afan OBE

New episodes every Monday at 6pm. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.

#InsideTheMaverickMind #LivvyBreen #Paralympics #ParaAthletics #TeamWales #WorldChampion #CommonwealthGames #Resilience #DisabilitySport #AstonMoore #CaptainOfWales

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In August 2022, Amar Akhtar stepped off a train in Cardiff with £3,600 in his pocket, £28,000 of debt, and nowhere to live. Nobody would rent him a room.

A few years later, he's leading Final Rentals — a company valued at £14 million, operating across 65+ countries and 200+ locations, with a 28-person team spread across 12 countries. Revenue has grown 15-fold in three years. Final Rentals became the only Welsh company on the Sifted 100, and Amar was named Fintech Leader of the Year at the Fintech Awards Wales.

But this isn't really a story about car rental or awards. It's about what happens when an outsider keeps building.

In this episode, Amar speaks with Emyr Afan about:

🇵🇰 Growing up in Pakistan as the eldest of seven siblings

💻 Discovering he could code at a young age — and reading 2,000 lines of code in 10 minutes

🌍 Moving to Dubai at 19 and stumbling into the car rental industry

☁️ Telling a sheikh his servers would become obsolete — and being right

🇵🇱 Living in Poland as the only brown person in the room

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳 Why Cardiff felt like home — and became his launchpad

🚗 Building the world's first car rental company that doesn't own a single car

📈 Scaling through COVID instead of shutting down

💰 Why he's building a "zebra," not a unicorn

🤝 The 50/50 gender balance in his leadership team

📛 Why a top branding agency told him the name "Final Rentals" would fail — and why he kept it anyway

Guest: Amar Akhtar, Founder & CEO of Final Rentals

Host: Emyr Afan

—

⏱️ Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

01:50 – Welcome, Amar

02:00 – The Fintech Awards and a growing trophy cabinet

04:30 – Arriving in Cardiff with nothing

08:40 – The meaning of the name "Amar"

10:30 – Being the eldest of seven

13:30 – Faith, Zakat, and wealth as responsibility

16:30 – Creating wealth vs. worshiping wealth

18:30 – Bringing Amazon mentality to car rental

20:30 – Coding in nine languages: a gift from God

24:30 – Engineering, MBA, and compulsive problem-solving

27:30 – Leaving Pakistan for Dubai

31:30 – Finding car rental by accident

33:30 – Telling a sheikh the cloud would make his servers obsolete

38:30 – Building cloud systems and the origins of Final Rentals

41:30 – Poland: the only brown person in the room

45:00 – Outsider as competitive advantage

47:00 – Building a 50/50 gender-balanced team

49:00 – Starting Final Rentals with AED 15,000

52:30 – Democratizing car rental for independent operators

56:00 – The founder as first salesperson

59:00 – Cardiff, Fintech Wales, and the angels who backed him

1:01:30 – Surviving COVID and building proprietary AI

1:05:30 – What AI really means for business

1:08:30 – Amar's maverick moment: coming to Cardiff

1:11:00 – The no-deposit revolution

1:13:00 – Aled Miles Global Impact Award

1:15:30 – What Wales gets right and wrong for entrepreneurs

1:23:00 – The Sifted 100: the only Welsh company

1:25:00 – Building a zebra, not a unicorn

1:28:00 – Studying Rockefeller, JP Morgan, and Ford

1:32:00 – Leading a distributed team across 12 countries

1:35:00 – The story behind the name "Final Rentals"

1:38:30 – Launching in Pakistan from Cardiff

1:41:00 – Maverick Maxims: rapid-fire round

1:47:30 – Best and worst decisions

1:51:00 – "Welcome home, son. We'll make it big."

—

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#FinalRentals #AmarAkhtar #Entrepreneurship #Cardiff #Wales #Fintech #CarRental #Startup #MaverickMind #TechFounder

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Luke Evans grew up in a strict Jehovah's Witness household in the Welsh Valleys, left home at 16 with nothing but a voice and a work ethic, and defied every odd to become a Hollywood leading man. In this episode, Luke opens up about leaving his faith, finding his identity, and the bullying that nearly broke him.

From the West End stage to The Hobbit, Fast & Furious, and Beauty and the Beast, to launching his own fashion label BDXY and winning a BAFTA for his Christmas special back home in Wales — Luke has never played it safe. This is a conversation about faith, fear, regret, resilience, and what it really means to be successful.

Chapters:

0:00 - Intro

0:10 - Growing up as a Jehovah's Witness

1:52 - Leaving the faith at 16

5:46 - Being bullied and finding strength

9:50 - Breaking into acting

13:40 - The agent who changed everything

16:40 - Dracula Untold: The moment everything changed

21:20 - Coming out in Hollywood

28:30 - The BAFTA-winning Christmas special

36:40 - Launching BDXY fashion label

46:20 - Life with Lala the dog

55:50 - Maverick Maxims rapid-fire round

1:09:56 - Outro

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#LukeEvans #InsideTheMaverickMind #MaverickMindset #WelshPride #Hollywood #BDXY

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She skipped six weeks of school, rang in pretending to be her own mother — and that same school later celebrated her as one of its most successful former pupils.

Hayley Parsons OBE didn't follow the system. She built it her way.

In this Season 1 finale of Inside the Maverick Mind, Emyr Afan sits down with the founder of GoCompare — one of the most recognisable brands in British business history. Hayley shares the real story behind walking away from a 13-year career at Admiral, launching a comparison site from scratch, taking on Tesco Compare with 6 staff against their 200, and creating one of the most iconic advertising campaigns the UK has ever seen.

This conversation is about more than business. It's about instinct, visualisation, reinvention, and the courage to back yourself before anyone else does.

In this episode:

• How she got away with six weeks off school — and what it taught her
• Building Confused.com from a windowless room
• Why she ignored her board and ran the GoCompare opera ad anyway
• The phone call from Norwich Union that made them profitable overnight
• Taking on Tesco — and why they never recovered
• Selling GoCompare for £190M and what came next
• Her one regret from the exit process

"Game on. Challenge accepted."

🎙️ Inside the Maverick Mind is back for Season 2 in September.

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He Died at 21. This Is What He Did Next.

At 21 years old, Andrew Jenkins was dragged from a car wreck, lost six pints of blood, and was pronounced clinically dead at the scene. He spent four weeks in a coma. Doctors told his family he would never walk, talk, or recognise them again.

He proved every one of them wrong.

But surviving was only the beginning. For the next 24 years, Andrew carried the weight of that moment in silence - battling depression, a loss of identity, and the invisible aftermath of a traumatic brain injury - all while wearing a smile and holding down a career in banking.

Then came The Traitors. And a walk of 750 miles across four nations. And the conversations he'd been putting off for two and a half decades.

In this episode, Andrew sits down with Emyr Afan on Inside the Maverick Mind to talk about:

• 💥 The night of the accident - and what his parents were told at the door
• 🧠 Waking from a coma to be told he'd never walk again - and arguing with the doctor
• 😶 Why he never told his son "I love you" until he was 22 years old
• 🎭 What it was really like being a Traitor - and why he says he was "too honest to win"
• 🚶 Walking 750 miles for Headway brain injury charity - and who was waiting at the finish line
• 💬 The conversations he avoided for 24 years - and what happened when he finally had them
• 📱 Why he's known as "the antidote to Andrew Tate" in schools across the UK
• 🪞 How holding a mirror up to yourself changes everything

This is one of the most honest, moving, and quietly powerful conversations you'll hear this year. Andrew is a normal guy from a council estate in the Welsh Valleys. And that's exactly what makes this so important.

"85% of what we worry about never comes true. Be brave. Have the conversation."

🔔 Subscribe — new episodes every Monday at 6pm

👇 Who in your life needs to hear this? Share it with them.

📌 Chapters:

00:00 — Introduction: Clinically dead at 21

02:30 — Growing up in a Welsh valley — rugby, masculinity & silence

08:00 — The night of the accident

15:00 — Waking from the coma & proving the doctors wrong

21:00 — 24 years of hidden depression

27:00 — The maverick moment: finding the surgeon who saved his life

33:00 — Telling his son "I love you" for the first time

38:00 — The Traitors: being too honest to win

45:00 — Walking 750 miles for Headway

52:00 — Being the antidote to Andrew Tate

57:00 — What strength really means

🔗 Find Andrew Jenkins: [Add his social links here]

🔗 Headway Brain Injury Association: headway.org.uk

#AndrewJenkins #TheTraitors #MentalHealth #MensHealth #BrainInjury #Coma #Resilience #InsideTheMaverickMind #Podcast #Wales #Headway #Courage #StrengthInYou

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What does it take to lead a national institution through budget cuts, crumbling buildings, and a crisis of relevance - and come out the other side with a bolder vision than ever?

Jane Richardson, Director General of Amgueddfa Cymru / National Museum Wales, joins Emyr Afan on Inside the Maverick Mind for a conversation that's as surprising as it is inspiring. From a 400-year-old clam that witnessed the Sistine Chapel being painted, to tiny marine worms tracking climate change in real time, to a Welsh hip-hop exhibition sitting next to Turner - Jane is rewriting the rules of what a national museum can be.

In this episode:
🐚 Why Wales's national museum isn't "distinctively Welsh enough" - yet
🔬 The marine worm researchers whose skills could disappear forever
🦣 Tom Bones the mammoth - and why he's actually 3D printed
🎤 Hip-hop next door to Turner, and why that matters
🌍 New international partnerships with Japan and why Wales needs to be round the table
🏛️ The vision for a cultural quarter in Cardiff
💛 Be curious, be brave, be kind - and what those mean when everything's falling apart
🏓 Pickleball, biscuits, and the China trip she'll always regret
Jane is a leader who steers by her own North Star. This one will stay with you.
🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode of Inside the Maverick Mind.

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She started with £5, two puppies, and a husband who'd just left. That's not a crisis - that's a maverick opening line.

Nicola Venetia Steele is the founder of Venetia Steel Boutique in Bridgend, South Wales - a woman who turned dyslexia, redundancy, hand-me-downs, heartbreak, and a garden shed into one of the most distinctive boutique brands in Wales.

But this isn't really a story about clothes. It's a story about identity. About what happens when a little girl grows up feeling overlooked, underdressed, and underestimated - and turns all of that into style, grit, commercial instinct, and fierce self-belief.

In this episode, Nicola talks about:

• Growing up as the youngest of four, excluded and in hand-me-downs that didn't fit

• Turning up to school in her uniform on wear-your-own-clothes day - because she had nothing else

• How dyslexia became her greatest business superpower

• The mentor who gave her wings - and the lesson that changed how she handles people forever

• Building from a kitchen table to a garden shed to a standalone store

• The dream that told her to sign the lease

• Why she built a boutique specifically for women over 40 who feel invisible

• Losing her dog Zosia - and what that taught her about love and priorities

• Why independence has been both her greatest strength and her greatest cost

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction - "£5, two puppies, and a dream"

01:10 Were you born a maverick or did life force you to be one?

05:30 The Fiat Panda - what freedom really looks like

10:30 Wear your own clothes day

14:00 Fashion as control, confidence, and belonging

17:00 How dyslexia became a superpower

22:30 The mentor who changed everything -Linda

28:00 Dreams, instinct, and signing the lease

33:00 From kitchen table to garden shed to boutique

38:00 The redundancy - and protecting her team

43:00 Building Venetia Steel Boutique

50:00 Women over 40 - visibility, style, and confidence

56:00 Zosia

1:02:00 Maverick Maxims - quick fire

1:08:00 "A maverick is someone who..."

ABOUT INSIDE THE MAVERICK MIND

A podcast hosted by Emyr Afan exploring the minds of unconventional thinkers, builders, and creators. Each episode goes beyond the business story to ask what really drives the people who refuse to play it safe.

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What does it take to survive a dictatorship, build a career across five continents, beat leukaemia - and then run 270 kilometres across the Sahara?

In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, host Emyr Afan sits down with Lucia Rowe - linguist, travel industry leader, cancer survivor, and ultramarathon runner -to explore one of the most extraordinary life stories you'll ever hear.

Lucia grew up in Ceaușescu's Romania, where the knock on the door in the night was a constant terror. Two of her school friends were killed in the street during the revolution. And yet, from those dark beginnings, she built a 25-year career in the travel industry, helped launch and scale A-Rosa River Cruises in the UK and beyond, and became a powerful voice for breaking down barriers in business.

Then came the diagnosis nobody wants - leukemia, during COVID. With no immunity and a global pandemic raging, Lucia chose to fight. She made a plan. She drew on something bigger than herself. And five years later, she is in full remission.

Not content with that, she took on the Marathon des Sables - one of the world's toughest ultramarathons - was medically withdrawn the first time, and went straight back to finish it in 2026.

This is a conversation about fear, endurance, sunshine moments, solidarity in the sand, and what it really means to keep moving towards the light.

Topics covered:

Growing up under Ceaușescu and the lasting trauma of the Securitate

Building A-Rosa River Cruises from scratch in the UK market

Facing a leukemia diagnosis during COVID and choosing to fight

Running 60+ marathons and 15 ultramarathons post-illness

The camaraderie and raw humanity of the Marathon des Sables

Raising £50,000+ for Ruben's Retreat and the Family Holiday Charity

What success, freedom, and resilience really mean

Ruben's Retreat:

Family Holiday Charity: 

Inside the Maverick Mind - conversations with people who do things differently.

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Nick Hounsfield didn't set out to build a tourist attraction. He set out to build the kind of medicine you can't prescribe.
A former osteopath, Nick spent 18 years treating the symptoms of stress, burnout, and disconnection — until he realised the real problem wasn't in the treatment room. It was in the environment people were returning to.
So he left his practice, made a promise to his dying father, pitched to over 230 investors, fought for planning permission on greenbelt land, and built The Wave — the UK's first inland surf destination, just north of Bristol. A place designed to make people healthier, happier, and more connected, without them even knowing.
Then, just months after opening, Nick had a major stroke.
In this episode, we explore what it means to build a place of recovery and then become the person who needs it most — and how that experience reshaped everything Nick thought he knew about ambition, resilience, and what actually matters.
We cover:
* Why Nick walked away from a thriving osteopathy practice to build something "impossible"
* The 10-year journey from £500 and a sketch to a £30 million destination
* What 230 investor rejections taught him about vision, timing, and personality fit
* The stroke that stopped everything — and the clarity that came with it
* Blue health: the science of why water makes us happier and healthier
* His new mission, One Blue World, and why it goes far beyond surfing
* The difference between stubbornness and vision
* Why pause is as important as push
Nick's story is a masterclass in maverick thinking — and a timely reminder that sometimes the boldest thing you can do is build the world you think people need.