The Edge of Transformation

Andrea Gamson is joined for our final episode of Season 1 by conflict resolution specialist, mediator, author and social entrepreneur Maria Arpa, MBE. Maria shares how her work began in response to gang violence in her community, why she believes conflict can be approached with radical empathy rather than fear, and how her organisation, Peaceful Solutions funds its work through a network of 7 charity shops.

They explore the Dialogue Road Map, the connection between conflict in prisons and workplaces, the value of boundaries and self-awareness, and why lasting change begins with examining our own patterns. Maria also reflects on relationships, leadership, rehabilitation, and building a legacy through training the next generation of conflict resolution practitioners whilst at the same time creating jobs for people coming out of prison, who notoriously find it hard to secure work on release.

Most businesses get sustainability backwards. They skip straight to offsetting, buy a badge, and call it done.

Rondi Allan has worked with over 450 of them. A former Price Waterhouse chartered accountant who sat on boards in six countries - and flew a million miles in two years doing it - she co-founded Sustainable X to bring corporate sustainability experience down to the SME sector that regulation hasn't reached yet.

Her most uncomfortable finding: there's a hard limit on what most businesses can do on carbon. You put in sensor lights, switch to a renewable tariff, cut your miles, ask your landlord - and then you hit a ceiling. That's just the fact.

This episode is about what happens next. Why the E in ESG is the hardest letter. Why "carbon neutral" is being restricted as a claim in Europe. Why one badminton club's question to a shuttlecock manufacturer might change a global product line. And why the biggest barrier isn't cost or knowledge - it's the echo chamber both of us are sitting in.

If you run a business and you've ever wondered whether any of this is worth the effort, this one's for you.

• Why the refuse → reduce → reuse → recycle → offset hierarchy matters, and what it costs you to skip to the end
• The hard ceiling on carbon reduction - and why the social side is where the real headroom is
• Which sustainability accreditation to choose, and the question to ask before you choose any
• Scope three explained without the jargon
• What the offset market doesn't want you to look at
• The one question that unlocked a £1m contract for a client

Resources mentioned

Sustainable X - sustainablex.co.uk. Free resources including seven ways to use sustainability as a commercial value lever with customers. Contact: info@ or [email protected]

The People's Emergency Briefing - nebriefing.org A 50-minute film introduced by Chris Packham CBE, following the National Emergency Briefing at Westminster Central Hall. Screenings are in-person only by design - the model exists to get MPs into rooms with constituents. Workplace screenings are available, so Rondi's lunch-and-learn suggestion holds.

Books:

Regenerative Leadership - Giles Hutchins & Laura Storm.

Net Positive - Paul Polman & Andrew Winston.

Accreditations discussed: EcoVadis, B Corp, Planet Mark, ISO, SEDEX.

Rondi Allan is co-founder of Sustainable X, a UK sustainability consultancy working with SMEs, which celebrated its sixth birthday on the day this was recorded. A former chartered accountant with manufacturing and supply chain expertise, she has worked across four continents and sat on boards in six countries. Originally from Australia. She co-founded Sustainable X with Nick Reilly, a Practitioner of the Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment.

In this episode, titled The Breakdown, Andrea is joined by Ben Kench - a former nightclub owner, high performance sales coach, speaker, author of Selling for Dummies, and memoir Son of a Preacher Man; and founder of the Evolve leadership, business mastermind and self development programme. He joins her for a candid conversation about success, collapse, self-worth, masculinity, and bringing more humanity into business.

Ben reflects on growing up as a son of a Jehovah’s Witness, building a high-pressure sales career in the 1990s, the excesses of his years in Tenerife running a nightclub, and the breakdown in 2008 that became a turning point for his life & career. Together, he and Andrea explore why many people chase achievement for validation, how fear drives resistance, and why love can be a practical compass for leadership and change.

In this episode:-

Ben’s unconventional route from sales into transformational coaching

Childhood, confidence, and the “cloak” of high performance

Tenerife, hedonism, risk, and the moment Ben chose to leave it all behind

Business collapse, burnout, and rebuilding from a breaking point

Self-worth, inner-child work, and the value we place on ourselves

Why growth-at-all-costs business models lose their humanity

Heart-centred leadership and changing old systems from within

Masculinity, vulnerability, resistance, and fear

Why human connection matters more than technology alone

Ben’s Evolve programme and his vision for more loving work

Timestamps 

00:32 — The story of how Andrea met Ben at a networking event

02:09 — Ben’s introduction: sales, coaching, and transformation

02:49 — Childhood, family dynamics, and discovering sales

04:56 — From business coaching to deeper people-focused work

08:15 — Confidence, vulnerability, and the stories we tell ourselves

11:01 — Tenerife, high-pressure sales, money, and escapism

13:19 — Returning to the UK and building a coaching business

14:25 — The 2010 collapse and the beginning of a major shift

17:14 — Nervous breakdown, loss, and asking what needed to change

20:17 — Learning to love the younger self

23:01 — Self-worth, work, and the systems that keep people small

25:25 — Social impact, commerce, and redefining value

30:22 — The Tenerife nightclub years and organised crime

33:12 — The moment Ben realised he needed to leave that life

35:33 — Why lived experience matters in coaching

39:34 — Masculinity, love, and challenging old leadership norms

43:14 — Love as a guiding principle for people and organisations

45:29 — Going into resistant environments to create change

47:16 — Why resistance is rooted in fear

50:43 — Business, social impact, and serving customers more deeply

55:06 — Ben’s next edge: choosing human connection over tech dependency

58:17 — Ben’s memoir, his work, and the invitation to connect

59:54 — The Evolve programme: personal growth, business, and technology

60:56 — Where to find Ben

Connect with Ben

• Website: benkench.com

What does it actually mean to be anti-racist? And what happens when we move beyond intending to be a good person and start examining how racism shapes the systems, cultures and behaviours we participate in?

In this episode of The Edge of Transformation, Andrea Gamson talks to Amy Barbor, founder of Niya Associates, about the uncomfortable - but necessary - work of understanding racism and moving from good intentions to anti-racist practice. Particularly as white leaders.

Amy's journey into this work began through her career in social justice, international aid and social enterprise. While working at the School for Social Entrepreneurs, she became increasingly interested in the experiences of global majority social entrepreneurs navigating predominantly white organisations and programmes. That led her into research, co-design and eventually into specialising in racial equity and anti-racism work.

The conversation explores why racism needs to be understood as a system rather than simply a personality flaw, why good intentions don't necessarily prevent harm, and why white people need to be willing to examine their own behaviours rather than only identifying racism in other people.

Amy also explains why she and her associates run a dedicated programme for white people and a specific programme for people from the global majority, why creating spaces where people can be honest and uncomfortable can enable deeper learning, and why she believes white people can often go further in their anti-racist practice when they aren't worried about being judged in the room.

We talk about:

•⁠ ⁠Moving from good intentions to anti-racist practice

•⁠ ⁠The difference between intent and impact

•⁠ ⁠Understanding racism as a system rather than a personal character flaw

•⁠ ⁠What "global majority" means and why language matters

•⁠ ⁠Why Amy works specifically with white people on anti-racist practice

•⁠ ⁠The discomfort of examining our own racial conditioning

•⁠ ⁠Why belonging isn't simply about making everyone feel comfortable

•⁠ ⁠Creating organisational cultures where people can challenge and be held accountable

•⁠ ⁠What white leaders need to examine in themselves

•⁠ ⁠The relationship between leadership, curiosity and difficult feedback

•⁠ ⁠Why bringing more diverse people into a broken organisational culture isn't enough

•⁠ ⁠The problem of performative allyship

•⁠ ⁠What Black and brown colleagues may be navigating inside predominantly white workplaces

•⁠ ⁠Why social enterprises aren't automatically immune from racism

•⁠ ⁠Amy's own leadership edge: becoming more visible and using her voice publicly

•⁠ ⁠And the final challenge: is doing the work ultimately easier than resisting it?

--

The Edge of Transformation is hosted by Andrea Gamson, author of Social Starters: Make Changing The World Your Business and founder of Regenerous.

This podcast explores the people, ideas and uncomfortable questions that sit at the edge of personal, professional and systemic transformation.

A chance encounter at a New Year's Eve dinner party. A Facebook post years later in a season of saying 'Yes!'. A talk neither of them knew would change everything. Charlie Peschardt has spent a career running toward crises: from a Navy cockpit to a hurricane-hit island, within the NHS and toward environmental sustainability - and somehow, serendipity kept weaving our paths and careers together in the most unexpected ways. In this conversation we explore what it really means to transform, not just recover, and whether resilience is a superpower or just a sophisticated way of asking people to endure more. One of those episodes that reminds you the universe has a plan - even when you can't see it yet.

Ben Hunter, who works in a children's home, looking after children and young people, who has been trained in safeguarding and supported young people through various online safety issues over the last two years, weighs up whether the proposed social media ban in the UK for under 16s is a good thing and will protect children and young people, or whether it could cause even more harm.

What does transformation actually look like from the inside - and what does it ask of you?

In the first episode of The Edge of Transformation, Andrea Gamson sits down with children's home support worker and former caravan salesman Ben Hunter to explore the journey of career change and recovery from addiction: what triggers it, what gets in the way, and what it means to lead differently once you've been through it.

This is a conversation that doesn't flatten the hard parts.

🎙️ The Edge of Transformation is hosted by Andrea Gamson, founder of Regenerous - a leadership development consultancy connecting corporate teams and social entrepreneurs through skills-based mentoring.

👉 Find out more about Regenerous: www.socialimpact.support

📬 Subscribe to the Edge of Transformation newsletter on LinkedIn. Follow Andrea and her work on Instagram @andreagamson and @socialimpact.support