Joyful Ambition

🎙️ EPISODE OVERVIEW

📅 Recorded in 2024. Figures in the episode reflect Rachel’s business at the time.

In this joyful and refreshingly honest conversation, Bryony sits down with Rachel Harris, known online as Accountant She and co-founder of StriveX, one of the UK’s fastest-scaling accountancy practices.

A careers adviser once told Rachel she had “too much personality” to be an accountant. She was a charity-shop kid, a free-school-meals child and a young carer for her identical twin. She skipped university for a £3-an-hour apprenticeship. When we spoke, she had built a 20-person, million-pound firm from her dining room table in just three years, entirely self-funded, and had joined the AAT as a director and trustee. Strive X is now reported to be worth £2.5m.

This episode is about what happens when you stop shrinking to fit the stereotype and build the thing you needed but couldn’t find.

🔑 KEY THEMES COVERED:

• Being told you have “too much personality” for your chosen career
• Growing up as a young carer and how it shaped Rachel as an employer
• Why a £3-an-hour wage taught her that underpaid people can’t give their best
• The gender gap in accounting: roughly even at entry, but only around 30% of management roles held by women (2024 figures)
• “You can be what you can see”: building for young Rachel on her pink tricycle
• How an MBA felt like “untangling Christmas lights” and led her to quit her job
• Leaving a workplace that shut the door on her ideas, and not glamourising the risk
• Five years alcohol-free at the time of recording: sobriety as self-respect, not a label
• Monk mode: 5am starts, face masks, slippers and inbox zero
• Flexible working, hearing fatigue and designing work around how people actually function
• How to get onto a board: ask existing members which skills they need next
• Corporate bursaries and philanthropy as the reason to scale

💬 STANDOUT QUOTES:

“The people whose businesses are the most successful are the ones who wholly lean into who they are rather than trying to pretend to be someone else.”

“The point isn’t to not drink. The point is to fundamentally love and respect yourself so much that you don’t need to drink.”

“Productivity doesn’t have to be painful.”

“You don’t email the fire brigade. Close your bloody emails.”

“You don’t have to take yourself too seriously, and you don’t have to exchange that for who you are as a person.”

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• StriveX – Rachel’s accountancy practice
• Accountant She – Rachel’s free financial content, online courses and speaking
• AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians), where Rachel served as a director and trustee
• The StriveX corporate bursary scheme for aspiring accountants
• Rachel’s TED talk on scaling a business as an introvert
• Dry January
• The Spice Girls, Rachel’s soundtrack pick (she wanted to be Baby Spice at seven)

🔗 CONNECT WITH RACHEL:

• Instagram & TikTok: @accountant_she web: https://www.accountantshe.com/
• StriveX
• LinkedIn: Rachel Harris

🎙️ EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this energising conversation, Bryony sits down with Liz Gebhard, transformation and data leader at World of Books, whose career has run from Target to Amazon, across the US to Seattle and on to the UK, and from tech and commercial leadership into global HR.

Liz has spent over two decades at the intersection of retail and technology, from the days of paper catalogues and faxed orders to next-day delivery and generative AI. Her story isn't a ladder climb. It's a landscape of bold sideways moves, a health crisis that forced a rethink, a year off that became "the best year ever", and a return to work built on relationships rather than job applications.

At the heart of it all are two ideas: courage and curiosity. And the reminder that you don't always have to move up to move forward.

🔑 KEY THEMES COVERED:

• Why the opportunity that scares you most is usually the one to lean into
• From a marketing and journalism degree to supply chain analytics to tech
• The "two-way door" test: is this move reversible, or is it final?
• Staying relevant through curiosity and hiring people smarter than you
• Growing up with a breadwinner mum and entrepreneurial dad as role models
• Small steps of courage: how small wins build the confidence for big leaps
• Eight roles in nine years at Target, then a solo move to Amazon in Seattle
• A life-changing health crisis and the question: am I still interested in this?
• Making a lateral move into global HR to lead teams in twelve countries
• Taking a year out: wine certification, investing, board roles and rest
• Untangling self-worth from your job title
• Networking that's relational, not performative, and nurturing old connections
• Focusing on the problem you can solve, not the title or the checklist

💬 STANDOUT QUOTES:

"The more something scares you, the more likely you should probably lean in to try it."

"You don't always have to move up to move forward."

"Small steps of courage don't have to feel like a big step."

"Sometimes people see things in you that you don't yet."

"I had put a lot of value of my self-worth in my career."

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• The Culture Map by Erin Meyer
• World of Books
• The two-way door vs one-way door decision framework
• Liz's must-have tech: her phone, a music app and Google Maps!

🔗 CONNECT WITH LIZ:

• LinkedIn: Liz Gebhard

🎙️ EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this episode, Bryony sits down with Danielle Sissons - Founder of Ivey Financial Planning and a financial adviser with 12 years in the industry, to unpack one of the most loaded topics in women's careers: money.

Danielle knew at 15 she wanted to be a financial adviser. But it was the birth of her daughter Grace, plus 90 minutes on the phone to HMRC and £2,000 lost at the end of her maternity leave, that exposed how badly the system serves women. So she stopped knocking on doors and built the firm she couldn't find: one that helps mothers and founders take real control of their wealth, not in a decade's time, but at the messy, transitional moments when it matters most.

This is a conversation about confidence, structural inequality, and why "I'm just not good with money" is a story worth rewriting.

🔑 KEY THEMES COVERED:

• The confidence gap - women are statistically better with money, yet invest less and hold less wealth
• Why financial advice is still built for high-net-worth men (only ~13% of advisers are women)
• "If you get tired of knocking on doors, build your own house" - Danielle's founder moment
• The money conversation women get left out of - even in their own households
• Reframing "I'm not good with money": money is a tool, not a personality trait
• The marketing divide - women are sold savings and cashback, men are sold investing
• Budgeting without shame: the 50/30/20 split and why lifestyle spend is allowed
• The one non-negotiable: a 3–6 month emergency buffer
• Bringing career strategy into the money conversation - asking for what you're worth
• Why financial control is really about freedom

💬 STANDOUT QUOTES:

"If you get tired of knocking on doors, build your own house."

"Would you say 'I'm just not good with a hammer'? Money is a tool - it's something you can learn."

"They don't know any more than us about investing. They're just spoken to about it more, so they have the confidence."

"Lifestyle spend is whatever makes you feel like the hard work is worth the life you're living."

"If you take nothing else away from this, have an emergency buffer."

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Ivey Financial Planning - Danielle's Firm
• The 50/30/20 budget (essentials / lifestyle / future)
• Junior ISAs & junior pensions
• The gender pension gap and the impact of maternity leave
• "Firestarter" by The Prodigy - Danielle's fired-up track

🔗 CONNECT WITH DANIELLE:

• Company: Ivey Financial Planning
• LinkedIn: Danielle Sissons
• Instagram: @iveyfinancialplanning

In this heartfelt conversation, Bryony sits down with Charlotte Clark - founder of the Happy Human Project - to explore what happens when a career starts not from a five-year plan, but from healing your own inner child.

Charlotte has spent nearly a decade teaching children emotional wellbeing and nervous system regulation in schools, holiday camps, and after-school clubs. She's just graduated with a degree in counselling, deepening her ability to work with trauma. But the real story is what she discovered along the way: that the work she built for children was really the work she needed for herself.

🔑 KEY THEMES COVERED:

• Starting a business fresh out of university with "no idea what she was taking on" and why that lack of fear was a gift
• The privilege of timing: leaping into entrepreneurship when young, unattached, and low on outgoings
• Becoming "a victim of her own success" recognising burnout before it recognised her
• Why building a team was a survival strategy, not a growth strategy
• The nervous system as the real starting point - for children and for the adults coaching them
• Why dysregulation is contagious - in classrooms, in homes, and in the workplace
• Practical regulation tools: naming the emotion, movement over "just breathe," and the power of play
• Soul care vs self care, building systems that protect you
• Redefining career advice for the next generation: you cannot overlook the importance of looking within
• Why the landscape of Charlotte's career (founder → counsellor → programme director) grew from purpose first, strategy second

💬 STANDOUT QUOTES:

"I'm probably never going to get a time in my life where I'm this young and have no dependents, no mortgage... throw caution to the wind and just see if it works."

"Emotions live in the body... if we're not processing those feelings, they become disease and we become unwell."

"You cannot overlook the importance of self-care - I hate using that word, but it is so much more than a bath."

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• The Happy Human Project (Charlotte's company)
• Charlotte's dissertation on embodiment and trauma in children
• McKinsey & LeanIn.org-style workplace burnout parallels (referenced conceptually by Bryony)
• EFT, breath work, and Lego as regulation tools (Bryony's practice)

🔗 CONNECT WITH CHARLOTTE:

• Website The Happy Human Project
• Instagram: @happyhumanprojectltd

🎙️ EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this episode, Bryony sits down with Sophia Hermens - employment lawyer turned fundraiser turned psychotherapist-in-training, and founder of Rising Sons UK - to talk about what happens when you stop climbing the ladder and start following your fizz instead.

Sophia's career reads like a landscape, not a ladder: law, charity fundraising with Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Foundation, international school work in Geneva, psychotherapy training, and facilitating for Rights for Girls. All of it led her to found Rising Sons, a program connecting 8–10 year old boys and their dads before the teenage years hit, so families don't have to repair what's broken later.

🔑 KEY THEMES COVERED:

• Rising Sons - a preventative, pro-active, father-son bonding programme for boys aged 8–10
• Breaking generational parenting patterns: "I knew what I didn't want to do, but not what to put in its place"
• Sophia's squiggly career - law, Jamie Oliver, Geneva, psychotherapy, Rights for Girls
• Why empowering girls isn't enough if the system boys grow up in doesn't change too
• Boys and emotional suppression, the playground pressure to stop crying starts as early as Year 2
• "Follow the fizz, not the ladder" - landscape careers over linear ones
• The crowdfunding journey, and the long-term vision to make Rising Sons as normal as Saturday football
• Why people doing meaningful work deserve to be paid properly for it
• The corporate opportunity: supporting fathers as an untapped DEI and wellbeing gap
• Soul care vs. the Instagram spiral, Sophia's honest take on running a startup while trying to protect her own headspace
• The Netherlands' "papadag" model and what a four-day week could mean for families

💬 STANDOUT QUOTES:

"We need to change the system."

"Follow the fizz, not the ladder."

"It's that whole bringing myself to the table, as opposed to going out to look for the job description."

"A happy father is a happy employee."

"I want to work for someone who is changing the world."

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Rights for Girls
• Journeyman and A Band of Brothers (programmes for older boys/young men)
• Joyful Men Coaching (Hake, Rising Suns facilitator)
• Mother Pukka - Anna Whitehouse (paternity leave advocacy)
• Elliot Rae - "Parenting Out Loud"
• UK four-day working week trial results
• Rising Sons UK crowdfunder and prize draw

🔗 CONNECT WITH SOPHIA:

• Instagram: @risingsonsuk
• LinkedIn: Sophia Hermens

🎙️ EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this warm and energising conversation, Bryony sits down with Abbey Booth - personal stylist and author of Don't Save It For Best - to explore something most career conversations completely overlook: what you wear and how it shapes the way you show up.

Abbey's journey is anything but linear. From receptionist to advertising sales at the Mirror Group's Racing Post, from window dresser to boutique owner to full-time personal stylist to author - she's navigated more pivots than most. And threading through all of it is one consistent theme: style as a tool for confidence, access, and identity.

This is not a conversation about fashion. It's a conversation about women taking up space.

🔑 KEY THEMES COVERED

• Style as a career tool - how Abbey used vintage fashion to get into rooms that felt firmly closed
• The psychology of dressing for the job you want, not the one you have
• Why women are conditioned to shrink and how clothes can start to shift that
• Abbey's pivot from corporate sales to visual merchandising to personal styling to published author
• The disconnect between where your business is and how you're showing up and how to close it
• "Style can take you somewhere before you feel ready" why we always think we need to be 100%
• The 40/100 rule: men back themselves with 40%, women wait until they hit 100%
• Three top styling tips you can implement today without a shopping trip
• Why less wardrobe often means more clarity
• Dipping your toe into colour - the power of a bold shoe, a bright lip, an earring that starts a conversation
• Wellness after anxiety: plant watch, slow mornings, and the power of ritual

💬 STANDOUT QUOTES

"Style can take you somewhere before you feel ready. And we're always ready, by the way. We just don't think we are."

"I'm fascinated about the story of the woman behind the clothes and how I can evoke her story so she can get to where she wants to get to."

"Your style is an invitation to people. It draws people in."

"Women experience a lot of guilt and shame around their bodies, around spending money, around enjoying time with themselves. I really wanted to change all that."

"Less clothes does not mean less outfits. Don't be afraid to get rid of things that are no longer serving you."

"Yellow makes people smile. If we can walk around making other people smile, I think that's gorgeous. Let's bring the human sunshine."

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Don't Save It For Best by Abbey Booth - available on Amazon and to order at your local independent bookshop
• Stories with Clothes - Abbey's personal styling business
• Gardner's & Ingram Spark wholesale book stockists
• The Racing Post / Mirror Group - Abbey's corporate background

🔗 CONNECT WITH ABBEY

• Website: storieswithclothes.com
• Book: Don't Save It For Best - order via Amazon or your local bookshop
• Instagram: @Storieswithclothes
• LinkedIn: Abbey Booth

🎙️ EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this episode, Bryony sits down with Claire Shaw - vocal and communication coach, former opera singer, and the woman helping professional women reconnect with the voice that's already theirs.

With more than 20 years behind her and a background that spans Wigmore Hall, The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Claire now works with lawyers, founders, executives and engineers - mostly women navigating rooms where they've been conditioned to take up less space. Her message is refreshingly counter-cultural: you don't need to become louder, harder, or more "male" to lead. You need to feel safe in your voice.

This is a conversation about presence, breath, and the overlooked truth that how you sound shapes how you're heard - long before anyone weighs what you actually said.

🔑 KEY THEMES COVERED:

• Presence as a skill, not a personality trait, and why your body is your instrument
• The 0.2-second judgment: people decide who you are from your voice before they see your face
• Why women are conditioned to take up less space and how to breathe low and reclaim it
• "As authoritative as a woman" leading from feminine power instead of the patriarchal mould
• Get into your body and out of your head: Claire's three tips before a high-stakes room
• FOFBOC - feet on floor, bum on chair - grounding in 30 seconds anywhere
• Why voice is dismissed as a "soft skill" and left out of leadership programmes
• The apology habit: how the language that got you here won't take you higher
• Body → breath → sound: the holistic vocal warm-up that fits a busy life
• Soul care vs self care: restorative Sundays, nature, Feldenkrais, and showing up recharged
• Comparison as the thief of not just joy, but confidence

💬 STANDOUT QUOTES:

"Your voice is as unique as your fingerprint."

"Somebody makes a decision about who you are in 0.2 seconds of hearing you - they don't even have to see your face."

"What would it mean if you were as authoritative as a woman in the courtroom?"

"Get into your body and out of your head."

"Comparison is not only the thief of joy, it's the thief of confidence." - Bryony

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Reshma Saujani's TED Talk on teaching girls bravery, not perfection
• Stephen Fry - the opening line of his memoir on resolving to stop apologising
• Frances Frei's communication "triangle" - lead with the point, then the detail
• The Feldenkrais Method
• Wild Women - Claire's women's group in Dorset

🔗 CONNECT WITH CLAIRE:

• Website: clairequinnshaw.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/claire-shaw-voice
• Book a consultation: calendly.com/claireqd/connect-with-claire
• Free programme: The Communication Lab for Lawyers

🎙️ EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this inspiring conversation, Bryony sits down with Angie Vaux - British entrepreneur, executive coach, angel investor and founder of Women in Tech Forum and Women Leaders Forum - to explore what it really takes to build a career, a community and a movement in one of the most male-dominated industries in the world.

With over 25 years in senior leadership at global tech companies including SAP, TripAdvisor and Mimecast, Angie didn't set out to become an entrepreneur. But when she started noticing how differently women showed up in interviews - downplaying their experience, underselling their worth - she felt a calling she couldn't ignore. What began as a passion project in 2018 has grown into a global community of over 20,000 members, a powerful platform for career acceleration, and now, a pioneering Career Returners Initiative.

This episode is rich with practical wisdom, honest reflection and the kind of strategic thinking that Angie has become known for.

🔑 KEY THEMES COVERED:

• How a pattern Angie spotted in senior hiring interviews sparked the entire Women in Tech Forum
• Why the Boys' Club in tech is still very much alive - and what women can do about it
• The power of your Personal Career Board and how to build one intentionally
• Rules of engagement: how to structure board relationships so they're effective and reciprocal
• How Angie balances running two global communities with four children, yoga, and yes, paper-based to-do lists
• The geopolitical shift around DEI language and how Women in Tech Forum is evolving
• The Career Returners Initiative - partnering with Workday to bring economically inactive talent back into the workforce globally

💬 STANDOUT QUOTES:

"Setting up my businesses was almost a happy accident - but I felt the calling to create a platform to support other women and help them overcome the visible and invisible barriers in the tech industry."

"Your personal career board is almost a group of independent career advisors who each bring different skills and different perspectives to help you move forward."

"All of us need to take collective action to drive change. It's not the responsibility of a CEO or HR department or government. Each of us can take action - and it's the small steps we take every day that really drive change over the long term."

"If it takes me longer to write the task down than to actually do the task, I'll just do it in the moment."

"Make sure you build a diverse board. You don't want lots of people who look and think like you - because you won't get the diversity of perspective you need."

🔗 CONNECT WITH ANGIE:

• Website: womenintechforum.co.uk
• Women Leaders Forum: womenleadersforum.com
• LinkedIn: Angie Vaux

🎙️ EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this energising conversation, Bryony sits down with Pieta McCrum - Founder of Body by Pieta, former MTV Senior Director, and women's wellness evangelist, to explore one of the most overlooked pillars of career success: your physical foundation.

Pieta's journey is anything but linear. From New Zealand's first reality TV show, Treasure Island, to a decade at MTV Viacom, to building a thriving online fitness community for women 40+ from a playground during school drop-off - her story is a masterclass in following what truly serves the soul.

Now she helps busy professional women feel leaner, stronger, and more confident without crazy cardio or crash diets and her message has never been more relevant.

This episode bridges the gap between physical strength and professional performance in a way that will make you look at your wellbeing strategy (and your workplace's) completely differently.

🔑 KEY THEMES COVERED:

• Pieta's pivot from TV celebrity and MTV Senior Director to wellness entrepreneur and why kids and a growing corporate environment were the catalyst
• Building a business from a playground: how community and consistency created a loyal following long before a formal launch
• Why COVID became a gift - taking Body by Pieta fully online and unlocking real scale
• The 5 ways a stronger body directly improves your performance at work: energy, mental clarity, emotional regulation, confidence & presence, and fewer sick days
• Brain fog, perimenopause, and why women are leaving the workforce and what physical strength has to do with all of it
• The case for bespoke wellness: why generic gym culture fails women and what cycle-aware, hormone-led training actually looks like
• The two-pronged approach to keeping women in work: educating the woman AND reforming the workplace culture
• The 4.5 million women aged 50–64 in the workforce and why their peak career years collide dangerously with hormonal transition
• Why wellbeing strategies in most workplaces are "lip service" and what real support looks like
• Getting back to fundamentals: strength training, protein, healthy fats, and treating your mindset like a muscle
• How Pieta looks after herself: the 5am start, the hot tub, the wine, and why laughing is her favourite tonic

💬 STANDOUT QUOTES:

"It's the foundation to everything. If we want to perform really well at work, we've got to have that strong foundation and stamina to be able to juggle everything else."

"The more muscle you have, the better you think. You're going to be sharper, more alert, clearer in your thinking - and that's hugely helpful."

"Stop with the silly calorie counting. It's got to be hormonally mindful - and mindset, treating your mind like a muscle too."

"We're not a straight line - particularly women are not. You just need your toolbox. Go back to your fundamentals."

"A lot of the reasons why women are leaving work is because they are suffering massively from health and fitness struggles connected to their hormone changes."

🔗 CONNECT WITH PIETA:

• Website: bodybpieta.com
• Instagram: @bypieta
• LinkedIn: Pieta McCrum

🎙️ EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this powerful conversation, Bryony sits down with Katherine Wintsch - bestselling author of Slay Like a Mother and founder of The Mom Complex - to explore what happens when high-achieving women finally stop hiding.

Katherine has spent her career consulting for Fortune 500 companies, helping them build better products for mothers but her most transformative work has been in the discovery that women everywhere, regardless of culture, are pretending to be fine when they're not.

🔑 KEY THEMES COVERED:

• The "leaky bucket" - why external accolades never fill you up from the inside
• Studying mothers in 17 countries and the universal mask women wear
• Imposter syndrome reframed: why it's an environment problem, not a personal failing
• The McKinsey data - for every 100 men promoted, only 55 women of colour are promoted
• Creating psychological safety so women can speak their truth at work
• How vulnerability, not hiding, is what earns real admiration
• Redefining success on your own terms - when is enough, enough?
• Soul care vs self care: building systems that protect you long-term
• Katherine's "personal board of directors" and conscious decision not to grow
• Running a $2M company with 7 people - intentionally flat, intentionally enough

💬 STANDOUT QUOTES:

"If you're only putting half truths out into the world, you'll only ever feel half loved back."

"When is it enough? When can you say what I am doing is enough and who I am is enough?"

"Self care is taking a bubble bath. Soul care is building systems that protect you."

"It's one big honesty party - and it has to come from the top, bottom, and the middle."

📚 MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Slay Like a Mother by Katherine Wintsch
• The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav
• McKinsey & LeanIn.org Women in the Workplace Report
• The Mom Complex (consulting company)
• Katherine's TEDx Talk, Richmond Virginia 2013

🔗 CONNECT WITH KATHERINE:
• Website: themomcomplex.com
• Book: Slay Like a Mother (available everywhere books are sold)
• LinkedIn: Katherine Wintsch