Femme & Fortune

Everyone tells you that you need a completely original idea to build wealth. Here's why that's nonsense. In this Femme and Fortune deep dive, Ayesha breaks down one of the biggest myths in business: that you need a never been done before idea to build real wealth. Drawing on a conversation with Vivian Wong, cofounder of Little Moon's Mochi Ice Cream, Ayesha unpacks the concept of an ed...

Because for every Revolut, there are thousands of startups that go to zero and take every penny with them. In this Femme and Fortune deep dive, Ayesha Ofori breaks down how angel investing actually works, why you don't need to be wealthy to start (you can invest from as little as £10), and how two UK government schemes, SEIS and EIS, can give you back up to 50% of what you invest through tax r...

A high salary is not the same as wealth. For years Ayesha Ofori managed money for some of the wealthiest people around, and the thing that surprised her most was that almost none of them had a remarkable salary. What they had was ownership. In this Femme and Fortune Deep Dive, Ayesha breaks down the four shifts that separate people who earn well from people who actually build wealth, drawn from he...

I managed half a billion pounds for some of the wealthiest people in the country. Not one of them built that wealth from their salary. To close out Season 1 of Femme & Fortune, Ayesha Ofori turns the tables. After a whole season asking other women how they built their wealth, this time she's in the guest seat, answering the questions she gets asked most about her own journey. From a state...

She Turned a Loyalty Card Into £92 Million | Edwina Dunn OBE Every time you scan a supermarket Clubcard at the till, you are using something Edwina Dunn created. In this episode, Ayesha sits down with the woman who changed the way the entire retail world understands its customers. Edwina co-founded Dunnhumby with her husband Clive Humby, built the data engine behind the Tesco Clubcard, and went on...

From medicine to millions - Dr Ifeoma Ejikeme on building wealth through expertise Dr Ifeoma Ejikeme didn't follow the traditional path. She trained as a doctor, studied business management at Imperial College London, completed a fellowship at Columbia University, and then walked away from surgery to build something that didn't exist yet. Today she is the founder and medical director of Adonia Med...

Charlotte Baroukh is a chartered accountant and tax expert at Pie, the UK's first free tax app. She has built one of the most engaged finance communities on Instagram, breaking down the tax rules that most people were never taught. In this episode, Charlotte and Ayesha get into why your salary will never be enough to build real wealth, the tax mistakes that are costing self-employed women thou...

What happens when you give up everything for love and it still isn't enough? In this episode of Femme & Fortune, Ayesha sits down with Nathalie Lethbridge, a powerhouse who built an extraordinary career across three continents, rose to senior management at Disney, advised corporations on multi-million pound deals and still found herself starting over financially in her 50s. Nathalie opens...

Most people read picture books at age 8. Yvonne Bajela was reading the Financial Times. Growing up on a council estate in Mitcham, South London, Yvonne's father made sure of that. That early conditioning set her on a path to Goldman Sachs, strategy consulting, her own startup, and eventually a decade-long career in venture capital at some of Europe's most respected funds, including Local G...

What does it actually take to build a 30 million business and then sell it? In this episode of Femme & Fortune, Ayesha Ofori sits down with Thea Green MBE, founder of Nails Inc, to talk about the journey from starting a company at 23 with 250K to selling it to private equity in 2024. Thea was working as a fashion editor, earning 11K a year in London, when she spotted a gap no one else was seei...

In this episode of Femme & Fortune, Ayesha Ofori sits down with Vivien Wong, co founder of Little Moons, the mochi ice cream brand that went from a homemade idea to a global business. Vivien shares how she started with a simple ice cream machine at home while still working in finance, and how she turned that into one of the UK’s most recognisable food brands. This is not a “perfect plan” story...

In this episode of Femme & Fortune, Ayesha Ofori sits down with Lamide Elizabeth, former investment banker turned founder, investor and creator of Building Wealth Without Borders. Lamide didn’t follow a traditional path. She grew up in Hackney, got herself into private school on a scholarship, went on to LSE, and started her career in investment banking. But early on, she realised something mo...

Maxine Laceby didn’t grow up around business. She grew up on a council estate, left school at 16, and built her career in a completely different world before ever thinking about starting something of her own. She didn’t start Absolute Collagen until her 50s. No background in beauty. No experience building a company. Today, it’s a £42M brand. In this episode of Femme & Fortune, she sits down wi...