THE SLOW DOWN

Grace Williams grew up in Buckinghamshire, the eldest of three, watching her father build a career in banking through long hours - an early blueprint that welded success to hard work. She followed a version of that blueprint into law, training as an arbitration lawyer and measuring her days by billable hours and how late she stayed at her desk. At 21, on the eve of her first legal internship, she woke up numb down one side of her body and was diagnosed with MS.

She kept working. In 2019 her mother, Amanda, was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour, and six months later her father was diagnosed with cancer too. For three years Grace worked full-time as a lawyer AND cared for her mother, refusing to let anything visibly slip - an armour, she says now, that let her avoid ever asking how she actually felt until in 2021, an MS attack coincided with full burnout. Her mother passed away in the summer of 2022 and a year later, still working the same hours, a blunt conversation with her aunt on a Friday night ended with Grace handing in her notice the following Monday.

Now re-trained as a Health Coach and Nutritionist, Grace specialises in high-performance wellbeing, working with corporate women to help them reconnect with the bodies they've learned to override.

In this episode we cover:

• Early definition of success built on hard work and long hours 

• Being diagnosed with MS at 21

• Why answering "I'm exhausted" is armour

• Her mother's terminal brain tumour diagnosis, and caring for both parents through COVID

• Why work became the easiest place to hide from grief

• The Friday night conversation with her aunt that moved her into action 

• Building her new coaching business and relearning her own boundaries

• Redefining success as peace, and what legacy means to her

Mentions:

The Way (2010), dir. Emilio Estevez, starring Martin Sheen

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/g_documented/

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, Greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com. Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

Adot Gak is a Sudanese-American supermodel, writer and former contributing editor at The Standard, named BFA Model of the Year, who has walked for Rick Owens, Vetements, Richard Quinn and Tony Ward, and fronted campaigns for SKIMS and Alexander Wang. Born in Sudan, Adot's family fled to Egypt when she was four; at nine, she witnessed a violent police attack on a group of Sudanese refugees in a Cairo park that killed her older sister, then just 13, and changed the course of her family's life forever. At ten, she relocated to Iowa with her mother, growing up as the child of immigrants before being scouted in a shopping mall and moving to New York to build one of the industry's most recognisable careers.

Since then, Adot has become known as much for her voice as her face — outspoken on the modelling industry's relationship with race, unafraid to set boundaries and say no, and using humour as a way of carrying what she's survived. In this episode, we talk about what "booked and busy" actually looks like behind the scenes, when she stopped waiting for permission to belong in fashion, and what she wants to build next.

In this episode we cover:

• Early memories of Sudan and her family's move to Egypt

• The police attack in Cairo that killed her sister, and how she holds that now

• Getting scouted in a shopping mall in Iowa and moving to New York

• Deciding to stop waiting for permission to belong in the industry

• Race and diversity in fashion: what's real progress and what's performance

• Being told she "looks like AI"

• Modelling as an "extreme sport" — burnout, boundaries and saying no

Mentions: 

‘Becoming’ - Michelle Obama

Links: https://www.instagram.com/adotthegreatt/

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, Greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com. Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

Laurence Stoffel grew up in the Swiss mountains. A shy, dreamy child who liked to observe the actions of adults, she went on to study industrial design at ECAL, one of Switzerland's most competitive art schools, talking her way back in after being rejected on her first attempt. Her early career took her from a Munich furniture studio to Freitag, the Swiss bag brand and eventually to a design research grant that sent her and her partner to Ghana and Burkina Faso, where six weeks spent weaving baskets with local designers under a mango tree unravelled everything she thought she knew about "correct" design.

Laurence then joined On, the Swiss running brand, when it was a handful of people selling shoes out of Zurich, and spent the next decade building its Creative Studio from scratch, scaling the team from 1 to over 100 people and helping steer the company to an IPO now valued at $11.8 billion. Along the way she became a mother of two, weathered a burnout serious enough to stop her mid-marathon, and rebuilt her relationship to work around one rule: choose it, don't owe it. Now, having recently left On and turned down several seven-figure job offers, Laurence is deciding what comes next. 

In this episode we cover:

• Growing up in the Swiss mountains and the ideas of success inherited from her parents

• Studying industrial design and talking her way back in after rejection

• Early career: a Munich furniture studio and Freitag

• A design research grant that took her to Ghana and Burkina Faso 

• The unconventional path into On, and why she doesn't believe in job applications

• Scaling On's Creative Studio from 1 to 100+ people

• Becoming a mother of two, choosing not to marry, and letting go of milestones

• What burnout actually looked like for her

• Why she is turning down seven-figure job offers right now 

• Ultra-running as a mindset

Mentions:

On

ECAL

Stefan Diez - Munich furniture/industrial designer Sibylle Stoeckli - Lausanne-based female industrial designer

Freitag (Swiss bag brand) and its co-founder Daniel Freitag Pierrot le Fou (1965), dir. Jean-Luc Godard

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurence-stoffel/

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, Greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com. Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

Gina Martin is a multi award-winning gender equality advocate, writer and facilitator. At 25, after a man took photos up her skirt at a music festival and police told her nothing could be done because she was wearing underwear, Gina launched the 18-month campaign that led to the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019, making upskirting a criminal offence in England and Wales — all while working full-time and facing hundreds of online threats.

She's since written three books, writes for outlets including The Telegraph and the World Economic Forum, and was named on TIME's 100 Next list. We talk about the cost of activism, life as a public figure, escaping social media vitriol, and what happens when your thoughts change but the media wants you fixed in place. It's been seven years since her law passed, and Gina now believes prevention and education matter more than punishment.

Her activism happens both on the ground - she worked in schools for three years unpacking gender stereotypes with teenagers and now is a practitioner and facilitator in primary prevention of gendered violence with adults who work in the sector, as well as training adults to support and engage young people - and at scale, through her writing, speaking and media work.

In this episode we cover:

• Hyde Park, 2017: what happened, and the police response that started it all

• 18 months of campaigning, a full-time job, and hundreds of threats

• Why passing the Voyeurism Act felt like relief, not pride

• Moving from "carceral feminism" to believing in prevention & education

• Her 2023 PTSD diagnosis, stepping back from social media, and rebuilding around real capacity

• The importance of facilitation work 

• Redefining success as sustainable, lifelong work

Mentions: 

Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019

Nyome Nicholas-Williams' #IWantToSeeNyome campaign, which changed Instagram's nudity policy for Black and plus-size bodies

Angela Davis, Audre Lorde and bell hooks

Richie Reseda and The Feminist on Cellblock Y (2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYxTzsabkH8 

Songs from the Hole (Netflix, 2025)

A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot (2026)

Aja Barber - Sustainability Activist, writer and consultant 

Links: 

https://www.instagram.com/ginamartin/

https://ginamartin.substack.com/

https://ginamartin.online/

https://www.tiktok.com/@ginamartinuk 

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, Greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com. Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

Justine Palefsky grew up in San Francisco, raised by open-minded, community-oriented parents who treated their home as a shared asset and took her to Burning Man. That ethos of hospitality, gifting and non-transactional exchange became the foundation for everything that followed.

After studying cognitive neuroscience at Brown, she moved into customer experience roles at OpenDoor and Homebound. When she decided to take the leap into building her own company, she made a deliberate and unusual choice: she wanted a co-founder first. Matchmade by OpenDoor's CEO Eric Wu, Justine and Tasneem Amina spent four days locked in a cabin in Calistoga doing what Justine calls "co-founder dating".

What emerged was Kindred: a members-only home-swapping platform now with over 350,000 members across 150+ cities, 450,000 nights booked and $150 million raised. The radical bet at its core? Remove money from the guest-host relationship entirely. No buying credits. Every home is equal. A give-to-get economy where the most generous members hold the most power (not the wealthiest). It's a small pocket of the world built the way Justine wishes the rest of it worked.

In this episode we cover:

• Growing up with community values in San Francisco 

• Studying cognitive neuroscience at Brown 

• Why she chose her co-founder before her product idea

• The "co-founder dating" cabin retreat - questions to ask before you commit 

• The history of home swapping, from Intervac in the 1950s to today

• Why Kindred removes payment between guests and hosts — and why Silicon Valley thought she was crazy

• Building a platform based on Radical Generosity

• How handwritten thank-you notes became a cultural pillar of the platform

• Raising $150 million while refusing to grow at all costs — the "no assholes rule" for investors

• What it means to lead as a woman who is "not Zuck" — and dropping the CEO mask

• Burnout, the cost of giving a damn, and how to pull yourself back

• Defining the meaning of life for yourself and sticking to it 

Mentions: The Partnership Charter by David Gage The New York Times 36 Questions to Fall in Love Intervac: https://www.intervac-homeexchange.com

Links: Kindred: https://www.instagram.com/livekindred/ Justine: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinepalefsky/

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, Greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com. Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

After being fostered, Andrew Missingham became a drummer and musical director on gold-certified UK records, then spent three years running British Council music programmes across 43 countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, then lead arts programming at the ICA. He later moved into data and strategy, becoming a Chief Data & Insights Officer and AI adoption pioneer for clients including Nike, Google, Unilever, Discord and the Southbank Centre, and a serial entrepreneur who founded 8 businesses and built and exited a 30-person consultancy. 

In 2020, the pace caught up with him. A nervous collapse forced Andrew to rebuild his life from the ground up, and 1,300 consecutive days of vipassana meditation later, he's become one of the most thoughtful voices on what it looks like for a man to lead by listening instead of force. Andrew now lives by a mantra tattooed on his arm: Live to Listen. Listen to Learn. Learn to Share. 

Andrew is one of the most genuinely curious people I've met, and someone who has spent decades doing the connective, uncredited work of bringing people, culture and data together without ever chasing recognition for it.

In this episode we cover:

• Choosing to be fostered

• How drumming led to managing and producing 

• Blacktronica Club nights at the ICA and other memorable events

• What is an ‘insight’? 

• His 2020 nervous collapse and what it forced him to rebuild

• The 4 key steps of his recovery: his new tools  

• A 10-day Vipassana that led him back to his foster parents 

• What gentle masculinity looks like in practice, and leading by listening

• His fears of being a good father & his relationship with his daughter 

Mentions:

Emergency on Planet Earth by Jamiroquai (1993 album)

The Messengers (1995) by Barungwa

Blacktronika https://www.blacktronika.com/ 

The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) 

Dhamma Sukhakāri https://www.dhamma.org/en/schedules/schsukhakari 

The Eye's Mind by Bridget RileyAbout a Boy (film)Shakara by Fela Kuti, ft. Tony Allen on drums

Links: 

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

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

June Angelides MBE believes that what is meant for you will find you — but only if you make the space to let it. Growing up in Lagos, she arrived in the UK and built a career in finance that, on paper, made sense. It wasn't until her second maternity leave — when she found herself the first woman at Silicon Valley Bank's UK office to take mat leave, confronting a company with no infrastructure for mothers — that she understood what she was actually meant to build. Mums in Tech, the community she created to teach mothers to code, earned her an MBE. What followed was a portfolio that was always, deliberately, many things at once: venture and angel investing, advisory work, a column in the Financial Times, board seats, and now a debut book — a biography-come-love-letter to the grandmother who shaped her. She is interested in not just how we build successful careers but how we build ones we can actually sustain. 

June is an extraordinary friend, mother of 3  and one of very few senior black women in venture capital. She juggle A LOT with so much grace and intention - I wanted to know how she finds the balance and how she sees her journey so far. 

In this episode we cover:

• Growing up in Lagos

• Being the first woman at Silicon Valley Bank UK to take maternity leave 

• The motherhood penalty

• Building Mums in Tech & getting an MBE for it 

• Starting The Portfolio Method to support people with portfolio careers 

• Leaving full-time corporate life and sitting with the uncomfortable silence

• Her grandmother's legacy and the book written in her honour

Mentions: 

Ejeka Jo by Ecstasy (her aunt and uncle's band) 

Mindset by Carol Dweck 

Links: https://www.instagram.com/juneangelides/

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on www.kiohne.com Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer.

Rollo Skinner is a British artist, author and botanical set designer (clients include: Gucci, Barbour, Mulberry, and renowned fashion photographer Tim Walker) whose work is rooted in a deep love of the natural world. Based between Dorset and London, Rollo feels most at home amongst the trees in the woods by his family farmhouse, dreaming up stories and new creations with Ben (the family sheepdog who’s terrified of sheep). Having taken a series of self-described wrong-turns throughout his twenties, reconnecting with the natural world of his childhood has become both his inspiration and his anchor. 

Rollo has grown a practice that spans illustration, storytelling, painting, botanical installations and set design. He realised that by creating things, he was recreating the self that he had lost along the way, and is now committed to following his curiosity, repeatedly, over and over again – his mission is to inspire others to do the same.

In this episode we cover: 

• Growing up queer in the countryside

• His acting career & saying no to a Netflix TV deal 

• Why the advertising years broke him 

• How lockdown led him to flowers 

• Reframing Return: Why going home isn't going backwards

• Working with Tim Walker & other dream jobs 

• Building a practice where you can explore our multitudes 

Mentions:

Lifeboat (Lovers Rock) by The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIgrtSkUOEc) 

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/rolloskinner/ 

rolloskinner.com 

This season of The Slow Down is sponsored by female-founded, greek swim and resortwear brand Kiohne. The Slow Down listeners can use code theslowdown for 20% off their first shop on kiohne.com Enter their world, explore their collection and buy beautiful pieces designed to be enjoyed while slowing down this summer. 

Award-winning psychologist Dr. Lalitaa Suglani unpacks why the most capable people in the room are often the most anxious — and how to stop performing wellness and start feeling it. A conversation about burnout, workaholism,  inner child work, and what real success actually looks like. Dr. Lalitaa is a renowned speaker, somatic practitioner, and the author of High Functioning Anxiety — a book that has helped thousands of high achievers move from survival mode to intentional living. Her holistic approach combines science-backed strategies with practical tools for personal growth to help people rebuild self-trust from the inside out.

In this episode we cover: 

• Her own childhood  as 1 of 5 kids and examples of success
• Following her intuition to psychology 
• The Swan Analogy to help explain High Functioning Anxiety 
• Shifting from anxiety-driven doing to grounded, intentional being. 
• Her step-by-step clinic exercise: The Trigger Worksheet 
• Every yes is a no to you - A reframe on people-pleasing.
• Why highly sensitive individuals unconsciously absorb other people's emotional states
• Why real-world interactions are the antidote to the highlight reel
• The connection between menstrual cycles, mood, and anxiety

Mentions: 

• Kirtan - singing
• Omnom restaurant  

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/dr.lalitaa/

Sex, Death, Comedy: Enter the nuanced world of Shannon Murphy

Shannon Murphy is the director of 2019 debut hit Babyteeth (94% on rotten tomatoes at last check). I was moved to tears many times by the film and have since gone on to watch other things she has directed including Killing Eve, her episode of which was nominated for 3 EMMYs, Dave which is literally one of my favourite TV series and Dying for Sex, for which she won the Outstanding Directorial Achievement at the 2026 Director’s Guild of America (DGA) Awards.

I know being a female director of the highest calibre is not easy - add onto that being a single mother, continents away from your family. I wanted to know how she finds her voice and stands her ground in her industry, how she practices patience between projects and creates such emotionally sensitive and nuanced work. 

In this episode we cover: 

• From Nairobi to Hong Kong: how a globally nomadic childhood shaped her creative voice

• The reality of being a female director: bias, breakthroughs, and finding your own path in film & TV

• Why the “female gaze” isn’t just important—it’s where the most exciting stories are right now  

• What it really feels like to premiere at Venice—and survive an 8-minute standing ovation

• Why comedy is so hard: what works, what bombs, and how great directors fix it in real time

• Inside high-pressure film sets: chaos, creativity, and leading hundreds of people 

• Creative intensity & recovery: the ebbs and flows of a creative life and how to balance it 

Mentons:

Bertolt Brecht 

Jim Henson’s Storyteller series by Anthony Mingela

Winnie (documentary film) by Pascal Lampshe

Santiana - old fishing folk song 

Links: 

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2221724/ 

https://www.instagram.com/shannnnnny/