Jazz Shapers

Cameron Leslie is the co-founder of fabric the iconic London nightclub and record label. With the club now 25 years old, Cameron joins Elliot to share his tales of surviving administration and the loss of their licence as they built a platform for the unsung heroes of electronic music.

Amy Taylor is the Co-Founder and Director of Tap Social, a craft brewery & social enterprise, employing and supporting people in prison and prison leavers. Amy joins Elliot to chat about taking on a broken system and their aim to prove that employing people from prison works as a business decision. 

Chip Conley is the founder of Joie de Vivre, the US boutique hotel operator, and co-founder of Modern Elder Academy, the midlife wisdom school. Chip joins Elliot to chat about growing the second-largest operator of boutique hotels in the USA, and how mentoring a small tech startup (called airbnb) led to an epiphany about how we could re-imagine the 2nd half of our lives.   

Josh White is the co-founder and Global Brand Director of the water brand, Cano Water - a fully recyclable alternative to single-use plastic bottles. Josh joins Elliot to talk about how a holiday in Thailand with his best friends led to the 3 of them taking on the corporate giants of plastic pollution.

Melissa Odabash MBE is the Founder & Creative Director of the eponymous luxury swimwear brand, Melissa Odabash. She shares with Elliot the stories behind her successful, global modelling career and how she grew a business creating - as Vogue describes them -  ‘The Ferraris of the bikini world'. 

Elliot welcomes back a past business shaper - Richard Hilton - who first joined him in 2013. Richard is the Founder of Gymbox, the fitness brand, and now the Co-Founder and CEO of Fairgame, a first-of-its-kind immersive, fairground experience.   He shares with Elliot why his retirement plans didn't quite work out - thanks in part to the waltzers and whack’a’moles at Hampstead Fair.

Sean Dixon is the co-founder and Managing Director of Richard James, the Savile Row tailors. Sean joins Elliot to chat celebrities and burglaries, and what happened when they brought bold, disruptive design to London's most famous tailoring street. 

Andrei Papancea is the Co-Founder and CEO of AI platform NLX. Andrei joins Elliot to share his journey from running his own business in Romania - while still at primary school - to operating on the edges of technology in New York.  

Jazz Shapers is back!  To kick off the new season,  Elliot is joined by James Brown, journalist, Founder of Loaded (the men's lifestyle magazine) and author (most recently of his autobiography ‘Animal House'). James shares his tales of passion and addiction and how a single-minded focus on writing for music magazines took him from fanzine-creator, to features editor for the NME, to launching an  award-winning, hedonistic magazine that broke the rules.

Joining Elliot for the last Jazz Shapers of 2023 is Luke Boase, Founder of Lucky Saint, the alcohol-free beer brand. Luke tells his story of how, against the advice of many (and despite having no experience in the industry) he chased a dream to overcome the pre-conceptions of alcohol free lager, and build a better tasting, aspirational brand.