Inside The Maverick Mind

What does it take to survive a dictatorship, build a career across five continents, beat leukaemia - and then run 270 kilometres across the Sahara? In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, host Emyr Afan sits down with Lucia Rowe - linguist, travel industry leader, cancer survivor, and ultramarathon runner -to explore one of the most extraordinary life stories you'll ever hear. Lucia grew...

Nick Hounsfield didn't set out to build a tourist attraction. He set out to build the kind of medicine you can't prescribe. A former osteopath, Nick spent 18 years treating the symptoms of stress, burnout, and disconnection — until he realised the real problem wasn't in the treatment room. It was in the environment people were returning to. So he left his practice, made a promise to...

Andy Middleton is a pioneering force in sustainability, ecologic thinking, and biomimicry - and he happens to be based in one of the most breathtaking corners of the world: St Davids, West Wales. As founder of the TYF Group, co-creator of the World Freestyle Kayaking Championships, and a key contributor to Wales' groundbreaking Future Generations Act, Andy has spent decades helping individual...

From 100% commission door-to-door sales to co-creating a Glastonbury for Business - Frankie James joins Emyr Afan on Inside the Maverick Mind. Frankie is the force behind the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and Ideas Fest , an outdoor business festival that blends entrepreneurship with music, wellbeing, and genuine human connection. Co-created with economist Dylan Jones Evans, Ideas Fest has gro...

The Voice Behind the Anthem: John Parr on Fame, Betrayal & Never Giving In In 1985, a song exploded out of a Hollywood cinema and never really stopped playing. That song was St. Elmo's Fire — and its writer and singer, John Parr , joins Emyr Afan on Inside the Maverick Mind for one of the most honest, surprising and inspiring conversations you'll hear this year. Born on the wrong sid...

Henry Engelhardt didn't just build a successful company. He built one of the most loved workplaces in British corporate history - and did it by betting everything on a single, radical idea: that happy people build better businesses. Starting as a complete outsider to the insurance industry - a Chicago kid who'd worked a hotdog stand, the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and McDon...

YOUTUBE DESCRIPTION: In 2022, Craig Maxwell OBE was told he had a rare form of cancer and 12 months to live. Most people would stop. Craig accelerated. In this extraordinary episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, Craig — a former Welsh Rugby Union executive and one of the youngest commercial directors in world rugby — sits down to talk about the moment that changed everything. The diagnosis. The fea...

What does it take to build a premium national brand when you couldn't write your name at age 10? Chris McNamara, founder of The Brogue Trader, is living proof that instinct and resilience can outrun any traditional path. In this raw and refreshingly honest conversation, Chris opens up about struggling with dyslexia and ADHD in a school system that didn't know what to do with him, moving...

What does it take to captain your country on the pitch, then go on to shape how that country governs itself?  This week, we sit down with Professor Laura McAllister CBE - former Wales women's football captain, Vice President of UEFA, co-chair of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, and one of the most compelling voices in Welsh public life. Laura takes us from kic...

**Inside the Maverick Mind | Episode: Spencer John What happens when a boy from Port Talbot - no father, raised by his nan, told at 12 he had three choices: the cemetery, prison, or the forces - refuses all three and builds option four? Spencer John went on to a 25-year career in investment banking across London, New York, Sydney, and the Middle East. Today he's the founder of Ethos Chain, an...

**Inside the Maverick Mind | Blanche Sainsbury - From Boardroom to Purpose: Power, Sacrifice & the National Children's Awards What does it really take to reach the top of British media - and then walk away from it all? In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, host Emyr sits down with Blanche Sainsbury, former board-level executive at Trinity Mirror and Daily Mail General Trust, to exp...

Inside the Maverick Mind | James Sills — The Choirestarter: On Fear, Belonging & Why Everyone Can Sing What if the most powerful tool for connection, wellbeing, and culture in your workplace isn't a strategy, a workshop, or a wellbeing app - but singing? James Sills is the man they call the Choirestarter. A musician, author, facilitator and founder of Sofa Singers - the online singing com...

What does it take to build a standout hospitality business — and make it feel personal at every level? In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind , Emyr Afan sits down with Giovanni Malacrino — restaurateur, entrepreneur, and one of the driving forces behind Cardiff’s modern food and hospitality scene. From his Italian roots to building a name in Wales, Giovanni shares the reality behind running...

What does it take to build one of the UK's most celebrated sports production companies from scratch - with a new baby, a gut feeling, and no safety net? Emyr Afan sits down with Sunil Patel, CEO and co-founder of Whisper, the award-winning team behind Channel 4's Formula One coverage, the Paralympics, International Cricket, and the BAFTA-winning  A United Kingdom: Women's Euros 2022...

What if you stopped chasing success — and started feeling alive instead? In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, Emyr Afan OBE sits down with the extraordinary Mykel Dixon — author, creative catalyst, and one of the most refreshingly honest voices on what it means to live and lead with aliveness. Mykel challenges one of the biggest myths of modern life: that joy, vitality, and fulfilment are...

What does it take to build a high-growth tech business from Wales and compete on a global stage? In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, I sit down with Mark Sweeny, Founder and CEO of de Novo Solutions — one of the UK’s fastest-growing cloud consultancies and winner of this years Welsh Government St Davids Awards for business. Mark walked away from corporate security to build something of hi...

In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, Emyr Afan sits down with Dr Julia “Rock” Jones - a neuroscience-led performance and habit specialist who’s spent years helping leaders rethink how they think. Dr Julia’s work sits at the intersection of brain science, behaviour and high performance. But this isn’t about hacks or hustle. It’s about understanding how the brain actually works - and how sma...

In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind , Emyr Afan sits down with Simon Powell , one of Wales’ most influential and quietly disruptive tech entrepreneurs. With more than four decades at the forefront of travel technology, Simon’s story starts in a traditional family travel agency and evolves into building systems that powered thousands of UK travel businesses. Long before “digital transformat...

Picture it: 2006 . A twenty‑something at a kitchen table with a battered laptop, a pile of receipts, and an idea most accountants would’ve called ridiculous… Instead of charging by the hour, she turned accountancy into a subscription — like Netflix, but for tax returns. That founder is Lucy Cohen , creator of Mazuma . She’s rock‑chic disruptor, not grey‑suit stereotype — and she built a model that...

Inside the Maverick Mind: Aled Miles - From Bridgend to Boardrooms Join us for an extraordinary conversation with Aled Miles, Welsh-born tech leader who's led Symantec's Norton Division, TeleSign, Source Labs, and now heads IntelliStack. As Welsh Government Envoy to the US, Aled bridges Wales and Silicon Valley. In this episode:   🔥 Surviving the LA Palisades wildfire - a harrowing acco...