Millennial Masters

James Fleming had everything you’re meant to want: a senior exec role in oil and gas, the house in Dubai, the pool, the salary, the status. But he realised he wasn’t happy. Then life stepped in. A corporate reshuffle made him redundant, and overnight his three-year plan to start a business became a three-month deadline to survive. He and his wife launched The Power Within from their living room, s...

Most people complain about the office, but Joe Averill built a business by rethinking it. He launched Level in the middle of a so-called office apocalypse: no co-founder, no funding and a young family depending on him. But Joe saw what others didn’t: companies still want space, they just don’t want old-school leases, hidden costs or landlord games. Before Level, Joe cut his teeth in Manchester’s t...

People talk about connection, but this week’s Millennial Master builds it. Lara Varjabedian is the founder of UBQT , a platform reconnecting people in real life. Before launching her startup, Lara spent 13 years inside the global corporate machine. Then she moved into the startup world, helping VC-backed companies scale at speed... until she realised she was ready to build something of her own. Sh...

Most people chase money. Jason Graystone chases freedom. He’s not your typical wealth guru. Jason quit a safe career when his first child was born, blew £40k learning the hard way in the markets, and then built digital assets that went on to make millions. His philosophy is simple: buy time, not things. In this episode, Jason shares why financial freedom starts with mental freedom, what losing big...

Simon Penson went from journalist to exited entrepreneur, building one of the UK’s fastest-growing digital agencies and selling it in a £20m deal to one of the world’s biggest advertising groups. In this episode, he opens up about the hidden costs of scaling, from early hires who become blockers, to the harsh reality of earn-outs that can make or break your outcome. Now through Scaled , Simon help...

Confidence isn’t free. As Lauren Currie puts it, “as your confidence increases, you will lose people.” She’s built Upfront into a global movement helping thousands of women step onto stages, into boardrooms, and into leadership roles that were never designed for them. In this episode, Lauren shares the reality of building confidence as a muscle, not a finish line. We explore tall poppy syndrome, t...

Petr Kozyakov didn’t set out to build a crypto company. He set out to solve a problem. After struggling to make a simple cross-border payment, he realised the gap in how money moves, and turned that frustration into Mercuryo , a 300+ person fintech bridging crypto and traditional finance. He talks candidly about building a culture that survives hypergrowth, learning where not to waste energy, and...

Kevin de Patoul walked away from a secure consulting career to build Keyrock , a digital asset firm that’s now raised over $80 million and employs nearly 200 people worldwide. His mission is to create the infrastructure that will power the next generation of financial markets. In this episode, Kevin breaks down the lessons from scaling a startup at hyper-speed, navigating volatile crypto cycles, a...

This week’s Millennial Master is Emma Mills, founder of MiPA . Emma started out answering calls and managing inboxes. Seventeen years later, she built MiPA into a seven-figure executive assistant business serving more than 500 clients. Along the way, she’s learned how to protect her own time, escape the bottlenecks, and build a culture that scales. In this episode, Emma shares the systems, mindset...

This week’s Millennial Master is Brad Mac, co-founder of Unreasonable . Most brands are burning cash on lazy ads and chasing the wrong metrics. Bradley McDonald (aka Brad Mac) thinks it’s time to do the opposite: cut the noise, go deep on what actually moves people, and treat creativity as a profit centre, not a gamble. He’s scaled Unreasonable into the marketing agency everyone’s watching, provin...

Augustin ‘Gus’ van Rijckevorsel has built his career on bold bets and stubborn ambition. By his 30s, he’d launched seven companies: some collapsed in spectacular fashion, others scaled fast enough to put him on the radar of Europe’s top investors. Gus is the kind of founder who hacks the system, takes bets most would avoid, and believes the only real risk is standing still. Now, as CEO at Ultra ,...

This week’s Millennial Master is Jordan Stachini, Founder of Co & Co . Jordan never planned to be an agency boss. She went from flying around the world in high-pressure marketing roles to starting a consultancy that, thanks to her “no BS” style and obsession with results, quickly snowballed into a boutique agency with clients across the globe. She’s honest about slow, sustainable growth, why she t...

Andrew Steele is the founder who went from Olympic medal sprints to building startups with nothing but a risk appetite, relentless honesty, and a knack for ignoring the “safe” option. After a decade chasing medals, he fell into tech with zero business experience, helped turn DNAfit into a global health brand, stuck it out through an IPO, and is now back at it with Stride : a membership for people...

Tyler Dunagin never set out to become “the bathtub guy,” but that’s what happens when you turn burnout into a platform business and outpace almost everyone around you. After growing up in an entrepreneurial family, Tyler hustled his way from odd jobs to flipping houses, only to hit the wall. He rebooted, switched from working on homes to scaling businesses, and now runs Turnserv , one of the faste...

This week’s Millennial Master is Archie Mackintosh, founder and coach at TruProductive . Archie doesn’t look like your typical productivity guru, and he’s not. He went from falling asleep in lessons and nearly dropping out of Cambridge to obsessing over neuroscience and building a new playbook for getting things done. His approach skips the hustle and strips back the “just work harder” noise. Inst...

Every founder knows the pain: killer idea, flat pitch. The harsh truth? Most pitches fail not because of the product, but because the story gets lost in translation. I’ve learned this the hard way, and so has Millennial Master Andrea Pacini , presentation coach, author, and the guy behind Ideas on Stage . This week, we break down what actually builds confidence on stage (spoiler: it’s not talent)....

This week’s Millennial Master is Oliver Yonchev, founder of cocreatd . What does it take to break out of low-aspiration roots, ride the startup rollercoaster from failed indie rocker to Social Chain and then build a venture studio in the middle of an AI revolution? For Oliver Yonchev, the answer is relentless ambition, and a kinda toxic work ethic. In this episode we get into everything: * Buildin...

Tom Wallace-Smith never planned on becoming a deep tech founder. He started out in nuclear engineering, working on the technology that powers Britain’s submarines, then took a left turn into startups via a Zoom call and a wild idea. Today, as co-founder and CTO of Astral Systems , Tom is leading a team building compact fusion reactors: not to power the grid, but to tackle one of the most stubborn...

Ask any Millennial Master what really matters as you grow, and most will say the same thing: scale means nothing if you lose your soul. This week, I’m joined by Lydia Snape former rock band frontwoman turned hospitality entrepreneur, who set out to prove you can grow fast and keep your values. As owner of Warwick Street Kitchen , Lydia built a business around the radical idea that great coffee and...

Ask any Millennial Master how they stay sharp, and nearly all of them mention some version of the same thing: movement. Whether it’s morning runs, strength training, or squeezing in walks between meetings, exercise has become a non-negotiable for high-performing founders and execs. This week, I’m doubling up: speaking with someone who’s in the business of keeping entrepreneurs sharp, and building...

What happens when you quit a cushy job, sell your house, and move to Dubai with zero contacts? Freddie Pullen did just that and built The Healthy Entrepreneur brand from the ground up. T oday, he helps entrepreneurs turn their story into strategy, using podcasts and positioning to build trust, create leverage, and land clients without the hard sell. This episode is for every founder who’s tired of...

I met Meagan Kaiser at Sustainability Week in London back in March, where she spoke about global trade, soy innovation, and the future of sustainable agriculture. I knew instantly I wanted to continue the conversation, but this time, for Millennial Masters. Meagan is a fifth-generation farmer, a trained soil scientist, and a board member at the US Soy Board. She runs a soil lab with global clients...

The healthy eating revolution is here, and Liam White is on the frontlines. The ex-banker turned co-founder of Dr Will's is taking on Big Food with a simple mission: better ingredients, no shortcuts, no ultra-processed junk. In this episode, he breaks down what it really takes to build a challenger brand, stay ahead of the health trends, and scale without selling out. This one’s packed with real-w...

Noel Andrews is the CEO of JobRack , a niche job board he spotted in a forum and turned into a global hiring service helping founders recruit top talent from Eastern Europe and South Africa. After 15 years in the corporate world, Noel left to start an interview coaching business, only to realise he couldn’t scale it. But it was in trying to solve that failure that he found the business he would gr...

This week’s Millennial Master is Will Polston , high-performance strategist and author of North Star Thinking . Will once believed money was the key to happiness. That belief made him rich early, but left him unfulfilled. After a life-altering “lightning moment” at a Tony Robbins event, he uncovered what was really driving him: the desire to help others unlock their potential. Since then, Will’s c...