How To Own The Room

How do you manage the pressure of being in the hot seat, day in day out? Viv speaks to Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of The Guardian since 2015, when she became the first woman to hold the position in the newspaper's 194-year history. Under her leadership, the paper has created a successful strategy of reader funding and become an increasingly international business, with Viner overseeing a sta...

How do you find the courage to keep changing the course of your career and try something new?   Viv speaks to Amy Poon, who grew up in her family's famous Poon's restaurant business, and pursued various careers including art dealing and PR, before settling on her current career as a food entrepreneur. Her Chinese food heritage brand, Poon's London, produces award-winning sauces, while her beautifu...

How can you use disappointment to fuel your future success?   Viv talks to Maria Semple, who wrote the bestselling novel, Where D'You Go, Bernadette, after bouncing back from the disappointment of her first novel not making it big.  Her new book, Go Gentle is the darkly funny story of Adora Hazzard, a woman who thinks she's got it all figured out in later life — she lives in a "coven" with other c...

How do you cultivate self-belief when barriers get in the way of your goals?   Viv talks to I.Stephanie Boyce, a solicitor who went on to become president of the Law Society - the first person of colour to hold that title. Yet, in her early years, she had been told that law would not be an attainable career for her. This year, she was awarded a CBE in the New Year's Honours list, in recognition of...

How can you develop a leadership style that is calm and non-forceful?   Viv talks to Sanna Marin, the former Prime Minister of Finland, who was the youngest ever elected female leader of a country, when she took that position at the age of 34.  One of her major achievements when in power was overseeing Finland joining NATO in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and she lead Finland's...

How do you build the confidence to risk being more off-the-cuff in professional life?  Viv talks to Cariad Lloyd - the actress and comedian - about making things up on the spot whilst being both in control and really, really funny.     Cariad has acted in Peep Show and Inside No 9 and is a regular on shows like QI and Have I Got News For You.  One of the creative forces behind the hit Jane Austen...

Welcome back to How to Own the Room with Viv Groskop: the podcast where inspirational women reveal the secrets of brilliant speaking.  Yes! A new series of How to Own the Room is about to land. So make sure you're subscribed, clear your diary and get ready for a brand new set of tips and tricks from women who have been there, done that, and kept a spare T-shirt in the dressing room for spillages!...

How do you swap a soul-crushing job for one that sustains you? Viv talks to the writer, Carrie Sun, whose new memoir, Private Equity, is about to be released in US and UK. The story draws on Carrie's own experience of being headhunted to be Executive Assistant to a billionaire. The competitive role was glamourous but 24/7, unrelenting and led to burnout in the face of a pitiless boss. Carrie criti...

How do you find the confidence to pursue the work you want and ace an interview? Viv chats to Kate Stephens, the CEO of Smart Works, an amazing charity with celebrity backers whose mission is to help marginalised women break the cycle of rejection and deprivation that comes from long-term unemployment. Since 2013 they've helped over 30,000 women prepare for job interviews by giving them coaching,...

How do you find the self-belief to pursue a brilliant idea, convince investors in your vision and pick yourself after setbacks? Viv chats to Joanna Jensen, the founder, former CEO and now brand ambassador of Child's Farm, a family skincare brand she developed from her kitchen table. It's an unabashed success story, built from the challenges of a recent divorce and two young children, and driven fo...

How do you connect with audiences on a deeper, truer level? Viv talks to award-winning journalist and author , Angela Saini , about combatting pseudo-science and reaching people by peeling back the layers of thinking. Her celebrated books include: Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, Superior: The Return of Race Science and her latest The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule. Angela tells Viv how he...

How do you create the best panel experience? Viv talks to professional moderator, Alexandra Antwi-Boasiako, about managing nerves, getting the best out of interviewees on stage and handling feedback. Based in her home city of Hamburg, Germany, Alexandra hosts an array of sessions – from author interviews to tech start-up pitch events and festivals such as the African Book Festival in Berlin. It's...

How do you learn to say no and do what makes you happy? Viv talks to the actress, Patsy Palmer, best-known for her role as Bianca Jackson in EastEnders, who now lives in Malibu, California. Exuding chill vibes from the sofa, Patsy talks to Viv about how finding her happy places – including weekly DJ sets - came from following her own instincts for joy and not living up to anyone else's expectation...

How do you find your voice and your confidence when people expect you to be only one thing? How can you overcome thoughts that keep you small? Actress and writer Evanna Lynch joined the cast of the Harry Potter series as Luna Lovegood for the fifth film in 2006 at the age of 14. She went on to star in a number of independent films and in the TV crime series Silent Witness. In 2021 she published he...

How do you bounce back from a major knock to your confidence? How do you maintain focus and poise even when you're exhausted or overwhelmed? In this fourth in our series of Happy High Status takeover episodes, Viv talks to Sophie Ellis-Bextor, singer/songwriter and the powerhouse behind one of the best things to come out of the pandemic: Kitchen Disco. Sophie first became known in the late 1990s a...

Can you be "too confident"? How entitled is too entitled? In this third of a series of Happy High Status takeover episodes, Viv talks to broadcaster and journalist James O'Brien, LBC presenter and author of How They Broke Britain (coming in Nov 2023), about challenging difficult and entitled people (especially certain privately-educated politicians), coming to terms with his own insecurities and f...

What happens when you swivel the lens away from yourself? In this second of a series of Happy High Status takeover episodes, Viv talks to Olympic athlete and world champion javelin thrower Fatima Whitbread, star of I'm a Celebrity and Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Win and fundraiser for Action for Children. Fatima examines how the extremes of a difficult childhood and of athletic excellence in adulthoo...

Can you be both insecure and confident at the same time? In this first of a series of Happy High Status takeover episodes, Viv talks to award-winning comedian Tom Allen, star of The Apprentice: You're Fired and Bake-Off: Extra Slice, about his life on and off stage and what he has learned about managing nerves, coping with the reactions of audiences and critics and, most of all, living with self-c...

How do you achieve and stay authentic? Viv talks to Angela Cretu, CEO of Avon, one of the biggest beauty brands in the world. Growing up in Communist Romania she says she learnt about gender and social equality, while ideas of self-expression or personal ambition weren't present. After the revolution in 1989, Angela joined Avon at the age of 24 as the company moved into this emerging market and sh...

How do you follow a dream? Viv talks to the fashion legend, Lucinda Chambers, who worked at Vogue from the age of 21, eventually working her way up to become fashion director at the iconic magazine. Chatting in Lucinda's beautiful west London home, she tells Viv about how she learned graft in her childhood and about working hard to follow creative sparks. Despite being in the glamorous world of fa...

How do you simply get things done? Viv talks to the American writer, Curtis Sittenfeld , whose new novel, Romantic Comedy , is already a bestseller and has been selected for Reese Witherspoon's Book Club. They chat about feminist breakthroughs, navigating the room – literally and metaphorically, and what to do with your hands in a photoshoot with an A-list movie star. She tells Viv that it's a fem...

How do you nurture self-belief? Viv talks to the bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson, about cultivating gentle trust in ourselves. The Pulitzer prize-winning writer of narrative nonfiction, whose latest book, Caste , explores the inner workings of an American hierarchy, talks to Viv about bringing your absolute all to the stage and creating an experience of communion w...

How do you keep going when your mouth turns 'sticky'? Viv talks to the award-winning writer, Claire Fuller about lessons from life, digging back into tales from when Claire worked in marketing and a pitch ran aground. Offering tips and tricks for persevering through awkward moments, Viv celebrates Claire's honesty for admitting when things haven't gone well and also for celebrating the moments tha...

Launching series 20 with a splash of colour and pizazz, Viv talks to fashion label guru, Marielle Wyse, about finding that thing you love and doing with all your heart. Having worked in TV documentaries, Marielle took time out to look after her small children and then found a spark, pursuing her own childhood passion for clothes and making, setting her on a new, exciting path, founding Wyse London...

What is the secret of fearlessness? How do you focus if you're feeling nervous?   In this final episode of the How to Own the Room masterclass series, we dive back into the back catalogue for key tips and tricks on How to Be Confident. Actress Petra Massey ( Sandstrom, Miranda ) is best known for clowning and physical theatre - she carries herself with a profound inner confidence, and talks to Viv...