This episode’s guest is someone who’s been shaping the leadership landscape for over two decades. Katy Mason is a pioneering leadership coach who’s been on the frontlines of coaching since the early 2000s—well before it became a mainstream leadership tool. She helped create one of the UK's first corporate coaching cultures at O2, where she built a 54-strong coaching team and later transformed how leadership development was delivered across the business.

Katy is the founder of Another Way, her own coaching consultancy, and she also works with the CVP Group as a skills coach—training leaders to become qualified coaches themselves.

A passionate advocate of the "challenging coaching" methodology by Ian Day and Dr. John Blakey, Katy believes in striking a powerful balance between empathy and accountability—what she calls the yin and yang of leadership. Her mission is to normalize coaching as a superpower for high performers and to create more inclusive, self-aware leadership cultures across industries.

Get ready for a conversation packed with insight, honesty, and practical tools you can use right away.

You can reach out to Katy via her website here.

In this episode I speak with Jo Howard, Primary Teacher & Leader turned Certified Coach, Therapist & Business Strategist.

Jo gets it! She understands the toll of burn out because she’s been there. When she looks back on her teaching career she can see how there were very few weeks (even days) where she wasn't suffering with incredibly high levels of stress and like many normalised this way of living - the reactiveness, the dis-regulation, the lack of time to recover before starting again.

Jo talks about how she turned pain into power by setting up her business Adventures After Teaching, helping 100s of teachers to understand how to use their transferable skills and walk away from the classroom - without the guilt!

This episode is not just for burnt out teachers. It’s for anyone who is in a career that is causing burn out, maybe you think this is your lot? But it’s not. Jo shows us how any career change at any time of life is possible.

To find out more about Jo's work visit her website here.

What if taking a breath was the most radical thing you could do? Chandrika’s story— from state-school kid in Preston to advising the likes of Chanel, Soho House and Sony—shows that calm confidence can be a quiet act of defiance against the odds.

A first-generation graduate who speaks three languages, Chandrika sits in the rare 5 percent who rise from her starting point to earn a degree. Yet her greatest insurgency isn’t the résumé; it’s choosing to move through elite rooms relaxed, refusing to shrink or tense up for anyone. In this episode, she explores how “relaxed” becomes a form of rebellion—especially for women expected to hustle, apologise, or over-prove.

We dive into:

• The Relaxed Woman mindset – why ease, presence and boundaries are power tools for people from under-represented backgrounds.
• Social mobility in action – leading Teach First’s Socio-Economic Affinity Group and coaching creative-industry giants through the Creative Mentor Network to build equitable policies and mentoring systems.
• Psychotherapy meets boardroom – how Chandrika’s clinical training helps brands foster inclusive environments where everyone can exhale.
• Mindsets that let you keep the shoulders down while smashing glass ceilings—and how that very poise invites others in.

Listen for a fresh take on resilience: not white-knuckling your way forward, but claiming the radical right to relax, succeed and pull more chairs up to the table.

Chandrika’s Recommended Reads on social mobility:

1. Inheritocracy: It's Time to Talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad by Eliza Filby
2. Natives by Akala
3. People Like Us by Hasi Mohamed

Yamina Bibi is the author of ‘The Little Guide for Teachers: Thriving in Your First Years of Teaching’, Project Specialist for the Chartered College of Teaching and Chiltern Learning Trust, a former Deputy Headteacher, English teacher, Coach and Consultant in East London.

Yamina has vast experience within education.

She is a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, a Diverse Educators’ Associate as well as a network leader for WomenEd.

In this powerful episode Yamina explores how, as a hijabi South Asian woman, she is on a mission to empower women from the global majority to lead boldly and unapologetically.

We dive into race, intersectionality, and how the language we use can shape — or shift — our path toward social equity.

Follow Yamina on X: @msybibi

or

Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

Money isn’t just about numbers—it’s about mindset. And for many business owners, deeply ingrained beliefs about wealth and worth can hold them back from true financial freedom.

In this episode, we’re joined by Debbie, a Chartered Management Accountant and Certified Financial Coach with over 16 years in the finance world. After spending 11 years thriving in corporate finance, she realized her true passion wasn’t just in the numbers—it was in helping business owners overcome the mental and emotional barriers keeping them from financial success.

It was a money mindset shift that finally allowed her to break free from her own limiting beliefs. Debbie supports clients whose fear and self-doubt are holding them back from charging what they are truly worth. Now, as a Certified Money Mindset Coach, she helps business owners:

✅ Reframe the money stories that are holding them back

✅ Unlock their full earning potential to create a life they love

✅ Combine financial strategy with mindset work for lasting change

In this conversation, we dive into why so many women feel uncomfortable talking about money, how societal conditioning influences our financial beliefs, and what steps you can take to shift your money mindset today.

🎧 Ready to break free from limiting beliefs and step into financial confidence? Hit play now!

Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn here.

Visit her website here.

I recorded this episode with, Olympic Weightlifting Coach, Erann Royle during the 2024 Olympics and it was inspiring to hear her talk about an Olympic sport that positively changes the way we feel about our bodies.

Women have been tirelessly chasing the low numbers on those scales for too long so it's refreshing to hear of a sport that focuses on a more empowering mindset: women are encouraged to be stronger, healthier and increase weight rather than shrinking themselves into waif-like figurines.

Erann is an Olympic Weightlifting Coach and competitive Olympic Weightlifting athlete. She has been weightlifting for the last 12 years in Crossfit and focused Olympic Weightlifting. Erann has competed at English and British championships.

Her ambition for her coaching, especially women, is to spread knowledge that weightlifting can be for everyone. It’s not all about competition. Erann wants women to know, in what has been traditionally a male dominated sport, that Olympic weightlifting can also be about future proofing your body and mind and having some fun in the process.

You can follow Erann on Instagram for more weight lifting inspiration: @erannroyle

Kate Waterfall Hill isn't your typical leadership coach and it’s fair to say she is a woman disrupting.

Through comedy Kate challenges leadership paradigms that are no longer serving us. While she holds the expected credentials (ICF and ILM qualifications) and brings over 30 years of business experience, she’s mastered the rare art of blending sharp leadership acumen with engaging humour.

In this episode, we discuss her newly released book, 'How to Lead', how she’s used her signature blend of humour and expertise to create a huge following on Tiktok, her alter ego ‘Linda the Bad Manager’ and how one of her most viral TikTok videos ended up back firing.

Watch some of Kate's skits on Tiktok here

Find out more about Kate's work on her website here.

I am delighted to speak with Transformational Coach, Emma Eldershaw, today. Emma is a certified NLP coach and also runs her own business as a Tropic ambassador. As a Transformational Coach Emma helps women in business overcome the anxiety and limiting beliefs, that are holding them back from having the business and life they deserve and desire.

But Emma hasn’t always been in this line of work; earlier in Emma’s career she worked as a Telecoms engineer.

When Emma first started in this industry it was even more male dominated than it is today. Emma had to navigate gender stereotypes and prejudice for just being a woman.

Listen to Emma talk about how she challenged sexist behavior and made her mark as woman in the world of telecoms.

You can find Emma on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram: @emma_eldershaw_coaching

Does the thought of networking make you feel nervous?

For some, the idea of networking even feels a bit cringe!

I certainly felt this way before I experienced a networking space designed by women for women.

Let me introduce you, in this episode, to the wonderful woman who ripped up the old rule book for networking and started her own: Sarah Hulme.

Sarah is proud mother of three and the founder of the Ladies Empowerment Circle™.

Her goal has always been to empower women, create a safe community for those in business, or for those thinking of starting a new chapter in their life, or for those who want to spend a couple of hours as part of an inspiring group of like-minded individuals.

She is a positive ‘networking’ disruptor, challenging the status quo in the world of networking.

The Ladies Empowerment Circle has flourished since 2023 and, in this episode, Sarah busts some myths about networking for women. She talks about how she has created a networking space for women that is underpinned by abundance, collaboration, community and connection.

You can find more about the Ladies Empowerment circle on their website here: www.ladiesempowermentcircle.co.uk

In this episode, Laura McDermott, Women’s Fitness Coach, talks about a new paradigm for Women’s Fitness.

Through her work coaching women, Laura helps women disrupt unhealthy fitness norms so women can lead more healthy and empowered lives.

Laura encourages her clients to prioritize getting stronger over hours of endless cardio.

She encourages her clients to eat to be strong and lift weights for better well being, both physically and mentally.

Paris Olympics 2024 saw the first ever Gender equal Olympic Games.

How inspiring it was to see women doing their thing at the games: female athletes proudly breastfeeding on the sidelines, Simon Biles advocating seeing her therapist hours before showtime and male athletes like Adam Peaty unafraid to share their tears with the world in post-performance interviews.

This episode's Woman Disrupting, Laura, embodies this Olympic mindset, talking to me about how she handled push back in relation to her own performance as a female athlete with higher than average muscle mass. As well as challenging unhealthy fitness norms for women, Laura also talks about her fantastic recent achievements in qualifying for the English Championships in Olympic weightlifting.

You can find Laura on Instagram: _lmcoaching_