Raise The Bar

Today’s guest is an activist, refugee rights campaigner and co-founder of The Worldwide Tribe charity, Jaz O’Hara.In 2015, Jaz visited the so-called Calais Jungle refugee camp in France. Shocked and emotional about what she found, Jaz wrote a Facebook post that gathered over 65,000 shares overnight, reaching millions of people and raising £150,000 in a matter of weeks. Shortly afterwards, Jaz and her brother Nils set up the Worldwide Tribe charity, producing creative content to bring a person...

Today’s guest is Romina Savova, CEO and founder of PensionBee.In the six years since Romi founded the company, PensionBee has almost 300,000 customers and £800MIL under investment, demonstrating the extraordinary success of its customer-centric approach.Romi tells us how she tried to consolidate her own pension and experienced the painful process for consumers, knowing that there had to be a better way.She explains how PensionBee developed a “minimum loveable product”, raised their first mill...

Today’s guest is Davinia Tomlinson, founder and CEO of Rainchq, the membership platform that helps women to take control of their financial futures.At retirement, a woman’s average pension wealth is roughly a fifth of a man of her age.* Davinia is on a mission to help close that investment gap.In today’s podcast, Davinia shares with us her path to building Rainchq and the process to identify the real solutions that would help solve this almighty problem. Dav is methodical and grounded i...

Today’s guest is Kayleigh Benoit, founder of fashion athleisure brand BIND London, which offers culturally inclusive headwear to make sports and fitness more accessible for Black women and women of colour. According to Sport England, 40% of women say they are put off by exercise altogether because of fear of judgement and 45% of Black women avoid exercise because of their hair. Kayleigh is on a mission to change that. Despite trying to raise money during a global pandemic, Kayleigh’s Natwest ...

Today’s guest Jumi Akinfenwa is a music supervisor and freelance journalist and, in this episode, draws our attention to the disproportionate representation of Black people as artists versus commercial decision-makers in the music industry.We talk about the response of brands to the Black Lives Matter protests and the compounding system changes that need to be addressed to make long-term change.Jumi tells us about her initiative ‘Make Noise’ which exists to encourage the creative industries t...

Over the past fortnight, long-overdue conversations about race, diversity, oppression and discrimination around the world have been ignited following the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery in the US, and the assault and subsequent death of Belly Mujinga in the UK.These conversations about racism are imperative. I will be hosting some of these conversations right here on the podcast.Whilst these conversations can be intense and uncomfortable, they are also inspirin...

Hello podcast listeners, Frankie here. Just a very quick message from me to say that we’ve changed the production schedule for Women On Top and we will only be broadcasting black women’s voices for the month of June. This means there will be a short delay in getting the next episode to you, as we are parking what we planned to release this week. I created this podcast to offer solidarity and connection for all women in relation to their work, businesses and personal finance. This podcast was ...

My guest today is Dr Mandeep Rai, author of the Sunday Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller ‘The Values Compass’.Endorsed by the Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra, The Values Compass explores the values of 101 countries around the world, sharing stories of how these values cascade through our global culture and act as guardrails for decision making and action.In this episode, we discuss the importance of having clear values and how they tangibly impact our lives, both as individuals and in com...

My guest this week is entrepreneur and Executive Editor of the Times Money Mentor, Gemma Godfrey. In this episode, Gemma tells us how she built her fintech business Moola, launching in 2015 and selling in 2018. Those three whirlwind years saw Gemma raise multiple investment rounds, build a strong team and ultimately navigate a divorce and the business sale concurrently.Reflecting on our personal finances during the Covid-19 pandemic, Gemma says: “the crisis will disproportionately affect wome...

My guest this week is work happiness consultant and author of ‘Love It or Leave It: How To Be Happy At Work’, Samantha Clarke. Sam helps both companies and individuals to make work happiness a reality. In this episode, Sam tells us that finding work purpose doesn’t mean poverty, and that we can find happiness at work without having to sacrifice financial security and wealth creation - it’s actually the opposite. We discuss how communication frameworks (i.e. how to use Slack/Zoom) can help cul...