In this eye-opening finale of Series 5, Sophy Norris speaks to Clare Willetts, the CEO and Founder of Not Only Pink and Blue, on how and why gender stereotypes that start in the playground continue into the workplace. 
 
Clare began her business after noticing how starkly children’s products were divided into pink and blue, and recognised the same patterns reappearing later in workplaces and boardrooms. Not Only Pink and Blue works with organisations to uncover and change the hidden beliefs that start in the playground to shape culture, unlock talent, engagement, and retention. Clare goes beyond policy to tackle the root causes of gender bias, so culture, people, and performance can thrive.

Her work has been featured on the BBC, The Independent and Business Matters, and recognised by Theo Paphitis’s Small Business Sunday. And now on The Dangerous Women Podcast, where we find out that gender stereotypes are not only deeply entrenched, but pervasive, and at times insidious. Even down to the clothes we buy our children; animals on boys’ t-shirts are often predatory and on girls they are prey. Pretty dark stuff. 
 
The conversation is wide ranging, at times jaw dropping, and always enlightening. Discussions cover:

• Gender stereotypes start as early as eight, when girls lose confidence and boys empathy; and we take this gap with us from the playground into the workplace
• Male and female confidence is different; for women is tends to centre around being proud of achievements, for men it is the feeling of being able to do anything 
• Confidence does not mean being the loudest person in the room, or the one that takes up the most space 
• We need to be clear, down to granular detail, what we mean when we ask people to be confident, or a leader etc. 
• Empathy and kindness are vastly underrated skills 
• The language we use with girls and boys is very different 
• Bias is embedded from the get-go - in the book we read, the clothes we wear, the programmes we watch, the heroes we reference, the way we are taught 
• The gender pay gap starts young, there is a 20% disparity between boys and girls’ pocket money 
• Our brains are capable of change, and we can relearn, remove limits, and challenge stereotypical norms
• Children need to be taught the power of critical thinking 
• Paternity leave is a necessity not a perk 
• Gender division is not a PHSE module, it should be systemic change across our education system 
• The Hobbit has 1900 "hes" to every one "she"
• The importance of sport in redressing gender stereotypes

Links:

Clare Willetts LinkedIn
Not Only Pink and Blue
Sophy Norris LinkedIn
The Alligator Pi Agency LinkedIn
The Gendered Brain by Gina Rippon
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams 

In this Episode, we are channelling positivity, something we could all do with in such a chaotic world. 
 
Nonie White, former documentary Director, turned Founder, turned ICF ACC Executive Coach and accredited Positive Psychology Practitioner. She is a BAFTA-nominated storyteller who works with the science of flourishing to help ambitious entrepreneurs step into their next level of leadership and impact. Her clients are award-winning founders scaling service, tech, and product-based businesses. And Nonie helps ambitious - dangerous women - lead powerfully, calmly, and sustainably by building unshakeable performance, confidence and leadership from who they are at their best.
 
 She has co-authored the Forbes-featured report, The True Cost of Female Entrepreneurship, the result of interviews with hundreds of women, and that showcases patterns that lead to burnout or breakthrough. What separates those who thrive is not more strategy. It is deeper self-knowledge and stronger internal foundations.
 
In this podcast our host Sophy speaks to Nonie about what drives her, how positive psychology has helped her, and how this evidence-based practice helps the leaders she coaches. They discuss some of the biggest issues facing entrepreneurial women as we ride this period of immense business transition, including:

• Getting to know ourselves better and how that shapes our lives and taking the appropriate action.
• Understanding what makes us thrive. 
• Radically putting ourselves as the centre of our own lives
• If psychology is getting us to 0% (even) then positive psychology is getting us to +5%
• Understanding who we are at our best and not performing a version of ourselves.
• Just knowing our character strengths means we perform 9% better, and if act on then we can perform 18% better.
• Entrepreneurship is one of the most challenging things we can do, and when we are women, which comes with a new set of challenges.
• It is important to experience joy at work, and to know we do not have to be our thoughts. 
• Successful female entrepreneurs rewrite the rules and do things differently. They flourish despite the challenges, and they get better results. These are the Positive Deviants. 
• And there is an emerging blueprint to do things differently (The True Cost of Female Entrepreneurship is linked below)

 Links:

Nonie White LinkedIn
Sophy Norris LinkedIn
The Alligator Pi Agency LinkedIn
Nonie's Website
Nonie's Leadership Test
VIA Institute Character Strengths
The True Cost of Female Entrepreneurship
Martin Seligman
Barbara Fredrickson
Emmie Faust LinkedIn

In this Episode, Sophy talks to a woman who defines the meaning of a portfolio career, a carefully crafted series of roles and services that enable her to share her expertise, support and lift those she works with and lean into the industries she is passionate about.

Monica Chadha's story is one of grabbing opportunities, following instincts, harnessing mentorship and sometimes stepping into the unknown. This is a woman who knows her value and shares it. Today, she is the Chair of a PwC Advisory Board; sits on the Advisory Board for the 30% Club, a Non-Executive Director of the British Film Institute; and a Senior Advisor to Digital Entertainment Group International (DEGI); British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE); and the International Union of Cinemas (UNIC). She is a member of the British Screen Forum and a voting member of BAFTA. 

Of course, she didn’t begin with such an illustrious portfolio, but she did start making waves early on.  She started her career at Technicolor Distribution in supply chain management and was appointed to the Board of the British Video Association aged 24. She became Production Director of Prism Leisure Corporation PLC aged 25. Since then, she has held several roles including CEO of MyMovies.Net; Non-Executive Director of Obviously Creative; Chair of the British Independent Film Awards Advisory Board; a member of the BAFTA Digital Communications Board; Advisor to Marlow Film Studios; a member of the Bias in AI Research Group at Durham University; and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for AI; and Vice Chair of Queen Mary University of London.

Monica is a faculty member of the Financial Times Board Director Programme and a confidential thinking partner and coach for senior executives. In 2019, she was named as one of the top 50 Women to Watch in the UK Female FTSE Board Report. 

It's an impressive list, daunting even.  But, as you will hear as you listen to this podcast, Monica is anything but daunting. She is fun, mischievous, insightful and generous.  She shares her experiences and wisdom widely, and there is much to learn from her discussions with Sophy.  

Just some of the MANY takeaways include:

LINKS:

Monica Chadha LinkedIn

Sophy Norris LinkedIn

The Dangerous Women Collective LinkedIn

The Alligator Pi Agency LinkedIn

In this episode we are talking money, or at least how we, as women, need to become more financially literate and future-focused. We are, as we all know, living longer, sometimes much longer, lives. I suspect many of us are preparing for financial security until we are 85, but the truth is, many of us will live well past that. What happens then? These are the sort of questions the smarter amongst us are preparing for now.

Which is why our host Sophy Norris is speaking to an expert on personal finance, and pensions in particular, and someone who happens to be pretty dangerous! Maike Currie is an author, award-winning financial commentator, and advocate for improving women’s financial resilience. With more than two decades of experience in markets, money, investments, and pensions, she has held senior roles across the investment industry. She is a familiar voice in the media, regularly appearing on TV, radio and in national newspapers to explain what’s happening in the economy - and what it means for your money. 

In particular, Maike specialises in helping women take control of their financial futures, with a particular focus on pensions, investing and closing the gender wealth gap. She is also a working mother with two children, an expat living far from home and like so many of us, juggles work and life!  Sophy and Maike discuss all of this and more in an educational episode.  

Just some of the areas they cover include: 

Links:

Maike Currie LinkedIn

PensionBee UK

Sophy Norris LinkedIn

The Alligator Pi Agency LinkedIn

Romi Savova LinkedIn

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

Untamed by Glennon Doyle 

In this week's Episode, our host Sophy Norris speaks to Birthe Mester, board advisor and award-winning organisational development and culture change expert. She is also a thought leader, facilitator, conference speaker, accredited mediator and coach with a 30-year cross sector track record and deep expertise in transforming performance, engagement and culture of complex global organisations.

As with so many dangerous women, Birthe’s career has been expansive. Before launching her current business Culture Dividend, she was a Senior leader at Deutsche Bank for 15 years, working closely with the board and leadership team on the employee effectiveness agenda. Responsible for embedding significant enterprise wide behavioural and culture change in a sustainable manner and in line with strategic and commercial objectives as well as corporate values.

We have talked on this podcast before about riding the transformation wave, and how exhausting battling every wave can be, finding a way to skim across the crests seems to be the trick, Culture change is part of our everyday lives now, whether it is complex, matrixed, enterprise organisations, or the solo worker finding a fresh path and everything in between, and Birthe and Sophy explore this across their conversation.

In this Episode we cover: 

Links: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/birthemester/

culture-dividend.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophy-norris/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-alligator-pi-agency/

Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kayhneman

Brian Eno - Oblique Strategies 

This week's guest is Sarah Thomas PhD, Chief Marketing Officer and EVP of Consultancy giant Capgemini. Sarah is an experienced B2B marketing and communications leader with a passion for innovation, creativity, and technology. She has spent her marketing career in global roles within the business services and technology sector. 

Before her role at Capgemini, Sarah led the Brand-led Employee Experience practice for award-winning brand consulting, design and experience agency, Landor and spent a significant part of her career at Accenture, where she held senior Marketing and Communications leadership roles, including Chief Marketing & Communications Officer for the Accenture Operations business.

Sarah has a scientific background, gaining a PhD in molecular biology at Warwick Uni, becoming a virologist, and specialising in the HIV virus in the 90s, at the height of the epidemic, and fear. It is unsurprising that Sarah is a passionate advocate for STEM education for girls and is a champion for growing the next generation of innovators.

In this episode, we cover what it means to become and be a leader, and how to craft our own careers.  Areas we discuss include: 

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsarahthomas/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophy-norris/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/capgemini/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-alligator-pi-agency

https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryambanikarim/ 

TED Talk - Life's an obstacle course - here's how to navigate it

https://www.themessypartspodcast.com/

Instagram - @nickd_rebelcoach

In our latest Episode, Sophy Norris interviews a dangerous woman who has done that most dangerous of things; she has followed the opportunities.  So much so that she now has a dual career as a marketer and a published historian.  

Michelle McCann PHD has an Irish/American heritage and has lived in the UK for over thirty years. She has created a dual portfolio: on the one hand, a senior advisor and CMO; on the other, a passionate academic and visiting scholar at Queen's University Belfast. 

From a marketing point of view, Michelle is a B2B Marketing/Propolis Expert and Senior Advisor at M&A advisory company Collingwood. She specialises in delivering innovative and tailored GTM solutions to founder-led and PE-backed companies with ambitious growth targets and focuses on driving value by building award-winning, high-performing teams. She has worked for enterprise businesses in the US, Ireland, and the UK.

Michelle is also an accomplished professional historian and published author, specialising in nineteenth and early twentieth century Irish social and political history, with expertise in topics ranging from death investigation and the Great Famine to gender studies and the Irish Civil War. As an enthusiastic speaker, she shares her knowledge on diverse subjects, including administrative history, art history, innovation, and Irish estate life and management. Her published works, Melancholy Madness, published in 2003 and The Irish Coroner: Death, Murder and Politics in Co. Monaghan, 1846-78, released in 2023, unite Michelle’s passion for Irish social history, rigorous research, and storytelling.

In this Episode Sophy and Michelle discuss how to take the road less travelled, crafting a career that works for each of us individually, and the power of being unconventional.  Amongst other things, they discuss:

Links and References

Welcome to Episode One of Series Five; you are listening to The Dangerous Women Collective, hosted by Sophy Norris.

The launch guest of this Series is the mightyvAlev Scott, a writer whose journalism has graced The Times, Sunday Times, Guardian, and New Statesman. Following her Turkish heritage, Alev became a journalist in Istanbul, where she covered politics and cultural change, which culminated in a ban from Turkey in 2017.

After this seismic change, Alev found a new life in marriage and motherhood, but the call of investigative reporting never left her. An abundance of breast milk was the initial inspiration for her latest book Cash Cow.

In Cash Cow, published 26 February 2026, Alev lifts the lid on the booming global fertility market—egg freezing, surrogacy, breastmilk—and the complex web of profits, ethics, and human stories behind it. Her reporting blends undercover work with first‑hand accounts, bringing us close to a surrogate of twelve children, an international embryo courier, and the people who profit—and pay the price—from this industry.

Alev and Sophy explore what it takes to tell these stories with honesty, courage, and nuance, and what motherhood, career, and risk Alev must navigate in the pursuit of truth. Highlights include:

• The bravery and naivety of youth when it comes to breaking barriers and exploring new territory

• Ottoman Odyssey - Amazon

In the Series 4 Finale, Sophy Norris speaks to a true trailblazer, a woman unafraid to work in the worlds seen as typically male: politics, rugby and the great British pub.

Emma McClarkin is the current Chief Executive of the British Beer & Pub Association (BPPA), a role she has had since 2019. A passionate beer and pub lover, Emma is the voice for the beer and pub sector, leading them through the pandemic and interfacing with Government and stakeholders to secure vital grant support and economic stimulus to aid the Sector's recovery.

Before joining the BBPA, Emma served as a Member of the European Parliament for 10 years and as a true beer lover, she also served as Vice President of the European Parliament Beer Club. Before that, she was the Government Relations Executive for the RFU.

Outside of work, Emma is a big fan of music and sport, closely following rugby, football, and cricket – as well as watching them in her local pub!

In this Episode, Sophy and Emma discuss:

• The importance of grabbing the opportunities in front of you and being open to them at all times

• The Rest Is Entertainment | The Rest Is Entertainment

In this, our penultimate Episode of Series 4, our host Sophy Norris speaks to the, quite simply, inspirational Ama Frimpong: self-confessed tinkerer, creator, engineer, fixer, representor and mother (plus so much we have missed out).

Ama is Head of Product Development at 52 North Health, where she leads development across the company’s portfolio of healthcare solutions, including Neutrocheck® developed to help cancer patients avoid sepsis. She is also a multi-award-winning biomedical engineer, named the 2022 Young Woman Engineer of the Year by The Institution of Engineering and Technology, and one of the Top 50 Women in Engineering (Inventors and Innovators). With expertise spanning medical device development and global health innovation, Ama has contributed to the design, safety, and commercialisation of technologies addressing critical gaps in healthcare.

She is also an active advocate for diversity in STEM, herself growing up between the UK and Ghana (where her parents were born), working with organisations such as the IET, Women’s Engineering Society, and Bridges for Enterprise to support and equip the next generation of innovators. And she has achieved all this by the age of 35, and as the mother of two young girls.

Always passionate about creating and building things, and in the medical profession (her mother was a nurse), Ama has brilliantly combined these loves, and works tirelessly to spread this word to other women (and men) of colour – letting them know engineering is a dynamic and viable pathway.

Sophy and Ama cover so much in this Episode including being the child of immigrants, raising her own children, a relentless persuit of career goals, representation, and leaning in (and out) of the village she has created around her family. Highlights include:

1. The power and problems of growing up in two very different countries

• Patricia Obo-Nai - LinkedIn