advice Archives - Don't Stop Us Now

Menopause Trailblazer – Dr Louise Newson

August 21, 2024
by Claire

Our guest this week is known globally for kickstarting a menopause revolution.

UK-based Dr Louise Newson is a physician, menopause specialist, businesswoman, educator and author. Not only that, she’s the founder of the award-winning Balance menopause app which has had more than one million downloads, and she hosts a weekly podcast as well!

As you’ll hear, Dr Newson is also making big inroads into educating the medical profession about menopause and perimenopause, with more than 30,000 clinicians globally downloading her online program. And believe us it’s needed!

In this fascinating episode that every woman should listen to you’ll hear:

How Louise missed identifying her own menopause symptoms for months
What keeps her keep going despite attacks and criticism from some in the medical world
How even today, many Doctors are never taught anything about women’s hormone health, and
How hard this passionate campaigner has found running her medical clinics business.

We were so impressed speaking with Louise, and it really is incredible that today, in 2024, there is still so much misinformation about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) out there.

As you’ll hear, her work has also had a direct and positive impact on our own lives and health.

Enjoy this episode with the determined and passionate Dr Louise Newson …

Useful Links:

Dr Louise Newson’s website

Louise’s UK theatre tour dates (Sept to Nov 2024)

Balance app info

Interview

Not Your Everyday Lawyer – Sarah Davis

December 6, 2023December 6, 2023
by Claire

Our guest this week is someone who’s never been one to sit around and rest on her laurels. What’s more, Sarah Davis is not what you’d describe as your everyday lawyer.

Sarah’s high profile career in the UK has seen her garner much recognition for her legal career including being shortlisted for the Black British Business Awards and the UK’s Hot 100 Lawyers to name a few.

London-based Sarah, has a broad non executive board career these days and also advises other organisations as a General Counsel. During her executive career she spent more than 15 years as General Counsel at The Guardian Media Group. That meant she was there in the thick of it when The Guardian was publishing the first Wikileaks stories, the Edward Snowdon stories, and of course so much more, which we’ll hear about.

We think you can tell from Sarah’s Board career which includes Unicef UK and the Women’s Prize Trust (which awards the highly regarded Women’s Prize for Fiction) that Sarah has a huge heart and clearly a love of the written word.

In this episode you’ll hear more about Sarah’s love of books as well as:

How she came to be a lawyer and what drew her to the Media
How Sarah made a transition after nearly 17 years at one company
The challenges she faced (& lessons learnt) when things just didn’t feel right whilst navigating her new role during lockdown
How Sarah’s coped with the micro aggressions and slights she’s received during her career as a woman of colour; and
Her advice to others who are at the receiving end of similar behaviour.

There’s lots of great insights in this conversation so enjoy this episode with the warm and impact-focused Sarah Davis.

Useful Links

Unicef UK

Women’s Prize for Fiction

RGSI – global think-tank for the legal industry

International Catalogue Raisonné Association

How To Episode

How To Be Heard

August 29, 2023August 30, 2023
by Claire

We’ve all been there, sitting in that meeting trying to get our point across and becoming infuriated because someone we work with repeatedly ignores what we say in meetings.

Being heard at work isn’t as simple as just speaking up. Research shows that particularly if you’re a woman or a minority it’s harder to have your ideas, your comments and contributions acknowledged and accepted.

But there are things we can do to help overcome the challenges we sometimes face and in this episode Claire and Greta take you through numerous ways you can improve your influence at work and ensure your messages and communications are landing as well as they can.

They look at tactics and tools you can use before, during and after important meetings, plus share stories from some of the most senior guests we’ve had on the show including a member of the House of Lords in the UK and the President of a large global health business.

In this episode you’ll learn:

When, and with whom, Claire typically finds it difficult to be heard
How to piggyback off someone else in a meeting when you’re having trouble finding the moment to speak
Why you have to stand up for yourself
And, an important meeting tactic everyone should use.

This episode is jam packed with tips and tools that can help us all increase our influence, and that we use regularly. If you know someone who’s complained of not being heard at work then why not share this episode with them as well.

Enjoy!

Useful Links

Martha Lane Fox episode

Que Dallara episode

Interview

Inspiring Others with Her ‘Why’ – Lina Xu

July 26, 2023July 26, 2023
by Claire

If you’re inspired by people who have a worthy and clear purpose or mission then you’re going to love our episode this week.

Our guest is Lina Xu, co-founder of a Medtech startup called Telecare which offers under-served people living in regional and rural areas virtual access to specialists and other healthcare professionals.

When Chinese born and raised Lina moved to Australia seven years ago and became a mum shortly after, she felt very isolated, out of touch with her new country and alone.

Whilst still breastfeeding her second son four years ago, Lina realised she needed to make a change and do something more in her new country and so this quietly spoken and determined woman, along with her husband, co-founded Telecare.

Two doctors joined them as co-founders and all were inspired by the potential of Telecare to fill a vital healthcare gap by enabling regionally based patients to have affordable access to city based specialists and allied healthcare professionals.

As luck would have it, Telecare was founded just 6 months before Covid happened, so their foresight and careful stakeholder management has really paid off. So much so that Lina was awarded a Cartier Women’s Initiative Fellowship this year as one of Oceania’s leading female entrepreneurs.

In this episode you’ll hear how:

A family tragedy helped Lina develop the resilience and adaptability that’s so valuable as a female founder
How having a clear and impact-focused Mission has made it much easier for Telecare, and Lina personally, to garner supporters
How she and her co-founders are making headway with innovative technology in what is a very conservative and risk averse healthcare sector; and
Why relationships are so important to her.

What struck us about this inspiring conversation with Lina is how clear she is about her ‘Why’ and how that’s morphed into becoming something much bigger and even more meaningful with her business.

We think you’ll love this episode with the humble and mission-driven Lina Xu.

Useful Links

Telecare Website

Lina Xu on LinkedIn

Cartier Women’s Initiative

Interview

Taking on Goliath – Sue Fennessy

July 11, 2023July 11, 2023
by Claire

We have a truly incredible guest in this week’s episode. We don’t think we’ve ever met someone with so much drive and conviction as serial entrepreneur, Sue Fennessy.

Sue’s vision for her latest, purpose-led-business ‘WeAre8’ is absolutely epic. So large is the vision, that she’s spent the past 8 years building the technology platform required to take on the social media giants of the world. Yes, this one woman ‘tour de force’ is taking on the goliaths of social media with a determination to make social media better for all.

She’s also invested more than $11 million of her own money to get WeAre8 to where it is today. She’s been able to do this because of her phenomenal track record building and exiting businesses. To date, she’s scaled and sold three previous businesses.

The last business that Sue co-founded and then sold in 2022, the global Standard Media Index, was bought for $200million. SMI, as it’s also known, was a pioneering data and technology business recording global media spends across different advertising channels. It required years of persistence and serious influence skills to get all the world’s largest media agencies on board to have access to all that data. Sue has these in spades!

These days, after numerous years living in New York, Sue is based in London where we visited her at her HQ in central London.

In this epic conversation you’ll learn :

How Sue thinks about her Purpose in life
How she plans to transform the worlds of social media AND digital advertising
The high personal cost of Sue’s single minded focus on making WeAre8 a success; and
The crazy and sexist things Venture Capitalists have said to her.

In short, this is a truly memorable conversation so please enjoy this episode with the purposeful and driven, Sue Fennessy.

Useful Links

WeAre8: https://www.weare8.com/

Sue on LInkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-fennessy/

Interview

Deep Tech Community Builder – Sally-Ann Williams

June 26, 2023June 26, 2023
by Claire

We’re really excited about the wonderful guest we have for you on episode 169 this week: Sally-Ann Williams.

Sally-Ann (aka Sally) is CEO of Cicada Innovations, Australia’s leading deep tech incubator for startups and scaleups with everything from quantum computing to life sciences, ag-tech, space and hydrogen startups. Cicada provides office space, custom labs, specialised equipment and training.

Over the years, Cicada has helped its resident companies raise 1.7 billion dollars in funding and they’ve also had 1.4 billion dollars in successful exits.

And right at the heart of the Cicada ecosystem is Sally.

Before joining Cicada, Sally spent nearly 13 years at Google in diverse roles mostly in the engineering team. There she was responsible, amongst many other things, for bringing street view to Australia and influencing school curriculum to ensure better teaching of technology and STEM subjects. She’s also always been a huge proponent for the start up ecosystem and women in particular.

In this episode you’ll hear how

Sally coped working with Google’s tech engineers without any technology background
How she goes about building or harnessing diverse systems to deliver positive long term change
The biggest challenge Sally faces running a deep tech incubator
Why she thinks seaweed is actually more exciting than generative AI; and
Her strategies for coping with chronic imposter syndrome.

Sally definitely sits in the box seat of what’s happening at the forefront of tech so we’re confident that you’ll find this conversation with her super interesting.

Enjoy this episode with deep tech and community champion, Sally-Ann Williams.

Useful Links

Sally-Ann on Linkedin

Cicada Innovations website

Interview

Championing Equality – The Honourable Nicola Roxon

January 30, 2023January 31, 2023
by Claire

We’re excited to bring you our first show for 2023.

Our guest today is a topical choice given the recent surprise announcement by New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, that she was stepping down. Topical because we’re speaking with another female political trailblazer.

The Honourable Nicola Roxon was elected to Australia’s Federal Parliament at the age of just 31. She became Australia’s Health Minister for 4 years and then the country’s first Attorney General.

After 15 years in politics she decided it was time for a change and she now has a portfolio of board roles as director and Chair.

In this episode you’ll hear:

How a High Court Judge joked Nicola may cause a constitutional crisis when, as a young Associate, Nicola shared her plans for her next career step
How Nicola handled and navigated the cut and (sometimes brutal) thrust of politics without taking things personally
About the world leading health initiative she introduced that’s been copied around the world and received special recognition from the World Health Organisation; and
How Nicola made the transition from politics to corporate boards after 15 years in Parliament.

We think you’ll glean lots of useful nuggets from this conversation with the thoughtful and purposeful Nicola Roxon.

Enjoy…

Useful Links

Nicola’s website: https://www.nicolaroxon.com/

Nicola on Linkedin

Interview

Marching to Her Own Beat – Dot Bustelo

December 8, 2022December 23, 2022
by Claire

Our guest on the show today pivoted away from a long standing career in the music industry to found a venture focused on the visual arts.

Dot Bustello is founder and CEO of a business called Loupe, which streams and sells art from around the world and in doing so helps make all those black TV screens in our daily lives way more interesting and appealing.

Not only that, Loupe is ranked number one lifestyle app in 73 countries on Apple TV.

Dot founded Loupe seven years ago after spending nearly ten years at Apple as well as being a music producer.

Never one to believe in having a conventional career, in this episode you’ll hear Dot explain:

How she came up with the idea for Loupe and why she couldn’t believe it hadn’t already been done
The key thing she learnt after nearly a decade working at Apple
Why she thinks NFTs (non fungible tokens) are so revolutionary
Dot’s firm belief that we all have more control over what we do in our careers than most people think; and
The number 1 habit Dot relies on to stay focussed and centred.

Enjoy this fascinating conversation with the uniquely creative and entrepreneurial Dot Bustelo.

Useful Links

Loupe website – stream for free and buy art here

Loupe Insta

Dot on LinkedIn

Interview

Become Boss of Your Brain – Professor Selena Bartlett

November 23, 2022November 23, 2022
by Claire

Our guest on the podcast this week is Professor Selena Bartlett, an Australian neuroscientist who’s life’s work is all about understanding how our brains work.

Selena has held senior roles with leading research institutes in the US and Australia and she’s currently leading pioneering research into addiction and obesity at the Queensland University of Technology.

What drew us to Selena’s story is not only her passion to understand how our brains work but also her mission to educate us non-neuroscientists about the things we can do to improve our brain’s health and even completely change our lives.

In this episode you’ll hear:

The very personal reason Selena switched her career path away from pharmacy towards neuroscience as a young woman
Selena’s fascinating explanation of what causes mental illnesses such as schizophrenia
How she overcame her sugar addiction when she realised the impact it has on the brain
Some radically simple things we can all do to improve our brain’s health; and
Why Selena thinks becoming ‘boss of your brain’ can completely change the direction of your life.

Enjoy this fascinating conversation with the passionate and pioneering Professor – Selena Bartlett.

Useful Links:

Selena’s website: https://www.profselenabartlett.com/

Selena’s podcast: Thriving Minds

Selena on LinkedIn

Interview

A Rare CFO – Madeline Ling

November 8, 2022November 8, 2022
by Claire

Our episode this week features the first Chief Financial Officer we’ve had on the show, however Madeline Ling is not your ‘ordinary’ CFO.

We don’t think we’ve met a CFO who values diversity and building relationships the way Madeline does, not to mention the articulate and creative way she speaks about the stories the numbers can tell her.

Madeline has held multiple CFO roles throughout her 20-plus year career to date which has seen her work far and wide, including in the U.S., China, Mexico, Europe, and Thailand. A tech-company veteran, these days she is CFO of US-based Boomi, a fast-growing global SaaS company, focussed on easy software integration, now owned by two blue chip private equity firms.

Before taking on CFO roles, Madeline spent twelve years consulting including the Boston Consulting Group where she was a Principal. She also has an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

In this episode you’ll hear:

What Madeline learnt as an impressionable teenager when she moved to the US not speaking a word of English
How she thinks about leveraging her differences to add value
Madeline’s recipe for building awesome working relationships; and
The two questions she asks herself before changing roles or company.

In short, this was a fabulous conversation and you’ll really be inspired by the thoughtful and articulate Madeline Ling.

Useful Link

Boomi website

Below you can see how the cake turned out that Madeline talked about in the interview (top right) – looks delicious!