career journey Archives - Don't Stop Us Now

Championing Creativity – Lucinda Barlow

April 12, 2022April 12, 2022
by Claire

It’s not everyday you come across a global marketing leader who trained as an engineer and computer scientist! But that’s true for our visionary guest this week, Lucinda Barlow.

Lucinda is Senior Director, Head of Marketing for Asia Pacific for Uber. Before joining Uber two years ago, Lucinda was global Marketing Director for YouTube, with its 2 billion daily users.

With more than 20 years of experience working in Internet and mobile in Asia, the US and UK, Lucinda has some incredible and varied experience coupled with a true passion for championing creativity.

In this episode you’ll hear how:

How Lucinda changed her life, and her job, after receiving some wise advice from fashion designer and icon Diane von Furstenberg
How she thinks about making big career transition decisions
Why she believes failure should be celebrated more
And how Lucinda brings creativity out in her teams.

Enjoy this episode with the incredibly passionate and creative Lucinda Barlow.

P.S. A reminder that our mini episodes are taking a little break right now so we’re back with a new episode every 2nd week.

Links

Sonika Manandhar – & Her Fintech Changing Lives in…

August 31, 2021August 31, 2021
by Claire

Our latest episode takes you on a journey all the way to Kathmandu in Nepal.

We speak with Sonika Manandhar, a Nepalese entrepreneur and former senior software developer for Microsoft, who’s now a fintech founder committed to improving the lives of women small business owners in Nepal.

Sonika is co-founder and CTO of Aeloi Technologies, an innovative social enterprise and fintech that uses digital tokens to facilitate affordable loans to Nepali small businesses that are working in a sustainable and climate-friendly fashion. Think things such as electric mini buses and sustainable agriculture.

She also happens to be one of Nepal’s highest flyers, almost literally, as she was selected to participate in International Space training at the Korean AeroSpace Research Institute.

Not only that. Sonika was named a National Geographic Explorer for 2020, a UN Young Champion of the Earth in 2019, and she attended Singularity University where exponential thinking is cultivated.

In this episode you’ll hear:

How Sonika is going about creating change when her customers have low literacy levels
Her advice for introverts
How her use of digital tokens is helping to build trust between financiers and female-run businesses; and
Her inspiring advice for women who want to start their own business.

So come on this journey with us and enjoy this episode with the purposeful and pioneering Sonika Manandhar.

Useful Links

Sonika on LinkedIn

Sonika on Instagram

Aeloi Technologies Website

Singularity University

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me – Citizen Branding

July 27, 2021
by Claire

This week’s mini episode features a global branding and design icon talking about the renewed power branding has in today’s ‘social’ world to create change-making movements.

When we invited the designer, author and podcaster, Debbie Millman, on the show last year she talked about how branding has evolved in the past decade and how the power has shifted to us as consumers and citizens. She explained it in a historical context that really stuck with us and we thought it was so important, we wanted to share it with you again.

Debbie is a global authority on brands, as well as creating them, she co-created and teaches a Masters in Branding at New York’s famed School of Visual Arts.

Understanding how branding, as well as content, has been democratised and how it can be harnessed for good and even turned into social movements is important; not just for future proofing our careers but also for future proofing our planet as well.

On that note, sit back, pretend you’re in NYC and drink in Debbie’s wise words now!

Useful Links

https://www.debbiemillman.com/

Debbie’s TED talk – How Symbols and Brands Shape our Humanity

Society 6 Debbie Millman – various designs by Debbie that you can buy

How to Build Your Personal Brand – A Course with Debbie Millman

The Art of the Story – Creating Visual Narratives

Debbie’s reading list

Interview

Dr Jacinta Jiménez – Fixing Burnout

March 16, 2021
by Claire

We’re excited to bring you this week’s important conversation with psychologist, burnout expert, author and leadership coach, Dr Jacinta Jiménez.

We’ve actually known Jacinta for some years and followed her great work on leadership, coaching and high performance with keen interest. We were really excited when she told us about her new book, The Burnout Fix.

Jacinta had broken new ground with this book deconstructing and presenting burnout in an actionable way we’d never seen before, and all of it is science backed.

Jacinta studied and obtained her doctorate in Psychology from Stanford University where she focused on peak performance, motivation and behaviour change.

What makes her so interesting to speak to and learn from is that she has also more recently spent several years in the tech startup world helping to build a coaching-at-scale business called BetterUp, in San Francisco.

In this episode and in her new book, Jacinta deconstructs burnout and you’ll hear how:

Her own 2 burnout experiences changed and shaped her career
The telltale signs of burnout may not be what you think they are
How the focus of her work has been influenced by being one of the few Latina women in her field; and
You’ll learn about a model you can use to help prevent burnout happening to you.

So without further ado enjoy this episode with the passionate and learned Dr Jacinta Jiménez …

Useful Links

Jacinta’s new book: The Burnout Fix

Amazon Kindle link

Amazon Hardcover link

Jacinta’s website

Jacinta on LinkedIn

Interview

Lesley Eccles – When Founding Another Global Startup was…

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021
by Claire

Have you ever felt totally blindsided or cheated?

That’s exactly what happened to our guest this week who spent more than ten years building a startup into a huge success, only to find the company sold by the other investors without receiving a cent. Just two years later the business was valued at over 11 billion dollars!

There’s no doubt that serial Scottish entrepreneur Lesley Eccles has ridden the startup rollercoaster on a grand scale. What we find so incredible and inspiring is how she’s bounced back from the devastating loss of her and her co-founders’ first business hit, FanDuel, to focus on starting a business all over again.

Lesley says she felt she had no alternative but to start from scratch again – but this time she’s brought her knowledge of running and scaling a technology business to build the number one relationship and self care app, Relish.

As Lesley shares her fascinating journey you’ll learn how:

Lesley, her husband and their 3 other co-founders weren’t sure if their start up would be successful until they were 7 years in
How their team, headquartered in Scotland, managed to become successful in the US market of fantasy sports building a team of 500 employees with 6million users
What lessons Lesley learnt as a result of the gut-wrenching sale of FanDuel
And why Relish is all about making the world a happier place.

Lesley’s story and lessons really are remarkable so don’t miss this episode with the resilient and gutsy Lesley Eccles.

Useful Links

Relish in the Apple App Store

Relish website

Lesley Eccles on LinkedIn

Interview

Claire Hatton – Living Life to the Full

February 2, 2021
by Claire

By popular demand, we’re excited to share a unique episode with you today. We’re pretty excited because we’ve been asked to do this since we launched the podcast nearly 3 years ago.

If you haven’t already guessed, we’ve finally relented and will be sharing our own career stories and journeys with you. Today you get to hear all about Claire’s extraordinary career and journey.

Whilst normally you’d hear both of us asking questions, of course today, only Greta is asking the questions. Claire, of course, will be answering them. (Yippee!)

Greta was blown away by Claire’s remarkable career to date. In this episode you’ll learn how Claire:

Received an award from the UK Prime Minister as one of Britain’s People of the Year at the age of 26
How a tragedy changed the course of her life
What it was like working at Google and why they’re so innovative
And finally, why she left her plum job on the Google Australian leadership team

Without further ado please enjoy this episode getting to know our co-host, the amazing Claire Hatton.

Useful Links

Claire on Linkedin

Don’t Stop Us Now! Website

Full Potential Labs Website

3P Learning Website

APT Travel Group

Episode Photo credit: Mark Rogers

Interview

Brianne West – Running the World’s most Sustainable Cosmetics…

July 28, 2020
by Claire

Our guest on the podcast this week is Brianne West, the New Zealander serial entrepreneur and founder of global sustainable cosmetics company, Ethique.

Brianne has a bold and pioneering mission, to rid the world of single-use plastics. She started Ethique to replace all those bottled products we use in our bathrooms, from shampoos to moisturisers, with solid bars of concentrated product.

We’ve been so impressed with the degree of sustainability and ethical practices that Brianne has baked into her business, from sourcing her products directly from around the globe, to being a B Corp, to donating 20% of profits to charitable causes. It really is a business that walks the talk.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How Brianne displayed the entrepreneurial gene very early
How she’s funded Ethique with two very successful crowdfunding campaigns, as well as what it takes to crowdfund successfully
What Brianne does to manage her anxiety; and
How Huffington Post and Britney Spears changed everything for her business overnight!

We hope you come away as inspired by this conversation as we were. It’s a real demonstration of what’s possible when a business decides to make a reasonable profit whilst also caring for planet and people.

Finally, a quick request from us, if you enjoy our podcast and have yet to rate or review us on your listening platform of choice, we’d so appreciate it if you would. This is a passion project for us and it would really make a positive difference.

Interesting Links

Ethique Website

Brianne on Instagram

Interview

Mitra Azizirad – How Resilience and Persistence Can Make…

June 16, 2020June 17, 2020
by Claire

This week’s episode features a trailblazing woman in tech who’s had an extraordinary 28 year career at Microsoft.

Mitra Azizirad is Corporate Vice President of AI and Innovation Marketing at Microsoft based in Seattle.

As you’ll discover, Mitra’s heard it all, including a senior Defence executive telling her he had shoes older than she was! This indomitable woman has also got used to hearing plenty of ‘No’s’ at work but has repeatedly found ways to prove the naysayers wrong.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How it’s almost an accident Mitra got into tech in the first place, given she studied and wanted to work in International Relations
What it was like being Chief of Staff to the CEO of Microsoft and why she turned the job down several times in the first place
Why she’s never taken anyone’s advice
And the secrets of innovation she’s learnt from working on the cutting edge of technology.

We spoke with Mitra in Seattle during the coronavirus shutdown but before the Black Lives Matter protests.

Without further ado enjoy this episode with the forward thinking and very persistent Mitra Azizirad.

Links of interest

Mitra on LinkedIn – see her speeches here too! Well worth a look!

Microsoft Innovation – Mitra’s team

Microsoft AI – also Mitra’s team

Microsoft’s AI Business School – Free Course