Leading with James Ashton

John Holland-Kaye and Kate Mavor join James Ashton to discuss investing in the past, building for the future, being yourself as the boss, changing staff culture and selling the best cake.


John Holland-Kaye is the chief executive of Heathrow, the UK’s largest airport through which more than 80m passengers passed last year. It’s no slouch at cargo either, handling about £130bn of goods annually.


If all goes according to plan, Heathrow should become significantly larger in 2026 when a third runway opens after years of political to-ing and fro-ing and significant opposition.


Holland-Kaye is used to big building projects. He oversaw development of Heathrow’s new Terminal 2 which opened in 2014, the year he got the top job.


Kate Mavor is the chief executive of English Heritage, the protector some of the country’s oldest historical sites and monuments including Stonehenge, Dover Castle and Hadrian’s Wall. She joined in 2015 when the organisation gained charitable status and began the countdown to 2023 when its government funding will disappear.


On Mavor’s watch, English Heritage now has more than 1m members and recorded 6.5m visits to its main sites last year. She was formerly the chief executive of the National Trust for Scotland and earlier in her career led a management buyout of the interpreting service, Language Line.

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Amanda Mackenzie and Matt Hyde join James Ashton to discuss promoting better business behaviour, mobilising a volunteer force, magpieing great ideas and showing some vulnerability.


Amanda Mackenzie is the chief executive of Business in the Community - The Prince of Wales’ Responsible Business Network. Its 700 members seek to do business better - whether that is helping the environment, their own staff, or society at large. If they get it right, they might even boost levels of public trust in large enterprise.


Mackenzie has over 25 years of commercial experience, including director roles at British Airways Airmiles, BT and British Gas. She joined Aviva as chief marketing officer to change its name from Norwich Union.


Matt Hyde is chief executive of the Scouts, the fast-growing youth movement with 640,000 members in the UK. While for some adventurer Bear Grylls is the organisation’s public face as the Chief Scout, Hyde has spent the last six years working on strategies that have developed the Scouts far beyond their campfire heritage.


A Million Hands has reasserted the Scouts’ strength in volunteering while Skills for Life has taught youngster about teamwork and leadership. Hyde was formerly chief executive of the National Union of Students.

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Paul Farmer and Paul Geddes join James Ashton to discuss staying in touch with the frontline, respecting the past, picking the right mentor and the importance of leaders’ own wellbeing.


Paul Geddes is the outgoing chief executive of Direct Line, the £5bn insurance group whose brands include Churchill, Privilege and Green Flag.


In a decade at the wheel, Geddes has demerged the business from its former parent company Royal Bank of Scotland, overseen a successful stock market flotation and grown the firm so that today it insures one in six cars on the road and 2.6m homes.


His background is in marketing, starting with Procter & Gamble then as marketing chief for retailers Comet and Argos.


As the chief executive of Mind, the leading mental health charity, Paul Farmer has seen how we feel and the permission to talk about it become a mainstay of the national conversation. Contributions by Mind’s president Stephen Fry to Ruby Wax and the Royal Family mean that mental health has never had a higher profile.


For Farmer, who has run the organisation since 2006, it has led to record income of £48m last year – meaning he can help many more of the one in four people that experience a mental health problem annually.

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David Sproul and Kate Collins join James Ashton to discuss humanising tough decisions, being elected as leader, retaining a maverick spirit and making staff talk in the lift.


David Sproul is senior partner and chief executive of Deloitte, one of the Big Four accounting firms that offers a multitude of services to companies including audit, tax, deals advice and consulting. Coming to the end of his time in charge, Sproul has increased sales eight years running, but is among leaders who have failed to dispel concerns over audit quality and conflicts of interest in the profession.


Sproul joined Arthur Andersen’s tax division in 1984 and negotiated the sale of the UK practice to Deloitte when the American firm was heading for collapse because of its involvement with scandal-hit energy trader Enron.


Kate Collins is chief executive of Teenage Cancer Trust, a trailblazing charity which has funded 28 specialist units in hospitals across the UK to care for young people diagnosed with cancer. It raised £16m last year, helped as usual by a string of sell out gigs staged at the Royal Albert Hall.


Collins joined the charity a decade ago to develop a regional fundraising programme and became chief executive in 2018. Earlier in her career she worked at Children in Need and Cancer Research UK.

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How do leaders learn to lead? In this podcast, journalist James Ashton brings together people from the top of very different organisations in the worlds of business, charity, the arts and beyond to discuss their take on leading vital causes, famous brand names and multi-million-pound enterprises. His two guests swap stories of success and failure, the skills they have picked up, the challenges they face every day and the advice they offer to others.

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