Ollie on Work

Today’s guest is George Bettany, co-founder of Sanctus, a mental health gym that supports thousands of people at businesses across the UK with coaching that blends personal and professional development with proactive mental wellbeing support. We had a fantastic conversation covering a range of topics, not least why, despite the challenges presented by Covid and multiple lockdowns, one lasting posi...

Today’s guest is one of the biggest writers on the internet. He’s written over 5,000 articles online, ghost-written for 300+ business leaders and was previously the most-read writer on the social platform Quora, which has 200 million users.  Nicolas Cole, or Cole to his friends, has amassed hundreds of millions of views of his writing, written over a dozen books, and is co-author of...

Today's guest is an incredible example of why it's never too late to pivot careers.  For 30 years, Jeff Kofman was a journalist, winning an Emmy award for his coverage of the Arab Spring. During his journalism career, he: Travelled to over 50 countries Lived in South America for 10 years Was first on the scene during the Chilean miners' crisis Created a nature documentary on the Galapagos Isl...

Today’s guest is Stephanie Nadi-Olson, founder of We Are Rosie.   After a decade in advertising sales, working for companies like Microsoft and Yahoo, Stephanie recognised an industry ripe for disruption. When she returned to work following the birth of her first child, she experienced for herself the lack of options for people wanting or needing to work flexibly and independently.  Her...

In today’s show, we consider a question that I’ve always been intrigued by: are some people luckier than others? My guest is Prof. Dr. Christian Busch, bestselling author of Connect the Dots: The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck . Christian is director of the CGA Global Economy Program at New York University (NYU), and also teaches at the London School of Economics (LSE).  He’s also th...

In today's show, I speak to Tim Oldman, Founder and CEO of Leesman, the world leader in measuring and analysing employees' experiences in their places of work.   Leesman helps organisations understand and measure how employees are supported in their workplaces, which has led them to build the world's largest independent benchmark of employee workplace experience - be that in their offices, th...

In today’s show, I welcome Lynda Gratton, London Business School professor and author of several books, including her most recent,  Redesigning Work: How to Transform Your Organisation and Make Hybrid Work for Everyone. Lynda is one of the world’s most well-respected thought leaders on the future of work and has been named by Business Thinkers 50 as one of its’ top 15 business thinkers. She h...

My guest this week has had an exciting and unusual career journey. After studying finance at university, Kathrin Hamm went to work for an NGO in Afghanistan, which led her to pursue a PhD in international development. However, following four years of travelling the globe in her role as an Economist at the World Bank, she began developing sleep issues.  Kathrin searched far and wide for a solu...

This week's guest is Andy Ayim. He's an angel investor and founder of the Angel Investing School, which teaches professionals from all backgrounds how to begin investing in startups. Its mission is to get women and people of colour onto the cap tables of the world's best performing startups. Andy grew up in Tottenham, which is just around the corner from me and after starting his career as a manag...

We're often told we should have clear goals for ourselves. In fact, as we've heard from guests like Marc Effron and Grace Lordan in the past, there is a connection between effective goal-setting and high performance. The thing is, many of us still really struggle with this idea, so I wanted to explore it some more. And I figured if you want to dive deep into a subject, we may as well invite one of...

In this episode, my guest is Tom Haak.  Tom runs the HR Trend Institute, which he founded in 2014, and he spends much of his time analysing trends in organisational design, people and workplace culture. We had a really interesting discussion. You'll hear us talk about the increasing trend towards personalisation of work, why it's currently trailing behind the consumer industry and what we can...

In today's episode, you'll hear the incredible and inspiring story of the journalist and author, Laura Price. After making the switch from financial journalism to writing about food, she's now a freelance writer and her new novel, Single Bald Female is out in the UK on the 14th of April. Laura and I discussed how her cancer diagnosis in 2012 changed her perspective on life and work, inspiring her...

Today’s guest is Andrew, Associate Editor and Management Editor of the  Financial Times.  As well as writing the FT’s weekly column on management, Andrew is a previous winner of Business Commentator of the year and the Decade of Excellence award for sustained achievement in business and financial journalism. Most relevantly to you perhaps, he’s one of the writers I’ve referenced most in...

My guest today is Hung Lee. He’s the writer and curator of Recruiting Brainfood, a newsletter read by nearly 30,000 people interested in recruitment, talent, and HR, among other things. He also writes This Week In Recruitment and hosts a popular job board. Hung has worked in recruitment for over twenty years and knows the market inside out. As well as dedicating time to saving his readers time – b...

Like many others, I've been down the rabbit hole of crypto and web3 over the past year or two. I've met some fascinating people doing what I can only describe as some next level shit as they explore new ways of building communities, creating new business models and generally exploring what's possible with blockchain and tokenomics. Today, I'm speaking to Pedro Oliveira (CEO) and Filipe Macedo (CMO...

The theme of my new book, Work/Life Flywheel, which will be published in January 2023, is reimagining your career without fear. As well as the fantastic podcast interviews you've heard over the past few months, I've been deep into the research phase since the start of the year. I've spoken to all sorts of people from different industries and backgrounds. Everybody has a unique story to tell about...

It’s likely that if you listen to this show, you’re also a reader of business books. In which case, you’ll be very familiar with today’s guest. He is one of my favourite authors, and his books have probably influenced my work more than any others. I suspect many of you have experienced the same, so I’m absolutely delighted to bring you my conversation with Daniel H. Pink. Dan is the author of five...

If you invite someone back on the show, they have to be legendary - Christopher Lochhead is just that.  He’s a nine-time bestselling author, number one business podcaster, and the Godfather of Category Design. He’s also a thoroughly nice guy who’s been very supportive of this podcast, so I was delighted to chat to him again a couple of weeks ago about what he’s been working on and thinking ab...

Joining me this week is Erica Young, Head of Community and Network at Anthemis Group, a venture capital firm that focuses on investing in companies that will help drive change in the financial system. Erica is a life-long student of networks and is also the founder of The Reliants Project, where she helps people and organisations understand how networks shape our wellbeing, relationships and commu...

Today’s guest is Bruce Daisley. Bruce is the host of one of the UK’s most popular business podcasts,  Eat Sleep Work Repeat , and until January 2020, was Vice President of Twitter, having previously run YouTube in the UK. Nowadays, he writes about workplace culture in his newsletter,  Make Work Better , and is an author. His first book,  The Joy of Work , was a bestseller when it wa...

In today's episode, my guest is Nik Whitfield, Chairman and Chief Seer of Panaseer, the cyber security business he founded in 2014. Nik’s is a computer scientist and technology entrepreneur who is now a passionate advocate for wellbeing, exploring consciousness and learning new ways to help entrepreneurs and leaders to stay well. After reading about Panaseer’s work and coming across Nik’s LinkedIn...

After a short interlude over the Christmas holidays, we're back with a brand new series. Back, in fact, a little earlier than planned. Why? Partly because I've got some wonderful guests lined up to share their stories and insights with you over the next couple of months, but more specifically to today's episode because we start by talking about new year's resolutions and goal setting. My guest is...

Today, we examine the ways new technology will change how we manage our careers. My guest is Dror Gurevich, CEO of Velocity Career Labs and the Velocity Network Foundation. During our conversation, you'll hear Dror explain why he set these organisations up and how they'll shape what he calls the Internet of Careers.  We started by discussing some macro trends affecting the way we work before...

This week, my guest is Damian Hughes, organisational psychologist and author. He's written several books about leadership and high-performance culture within some of the world's most successful businesses and sports organisations, including Barcelona Football Club, and Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson.  You'll probably know him as the host of one of the UK's top podcasts, which he pr...

In today's episode, we'll be talking about writing with Alison Jones. Alison is the founder of Practical Inspiration Publishing, a publishing partner for businesses, and host of The Extraordinary Business Book Club, a podcast and community for writers and readers of extraordinary business books. She has written and edited several books herself, including This Book Means Business: Clever ways to pl...