The HOW of High Performance

Andrew Powell joined the British Army at 16, spent six years with the Special Forces and walked away at 27 to start again in business. Now Group Chief Commercial Officer at Robert Walters, he has led across private equity, corporate, start up and scale up environments. In this episode of The How of High Performance he shares what happened when he was handed a global restructure affecting several h...

Rebecca Hirst is the Global Brand, Marketing & Communications leader for EY Global Consulting, with a career spanning Kimberly Clark, seven years at Coca Cola, marketing director at Samsung and five years across EY's UK and now global operation. In this episode of The How of High Performance, she shares what it was like to step onto one of Samsung's biggest global stages to present a product l...

James Williams spent 16 years at Coca Cola, the last ten leading their Olympic and Paralympic sponsorship from London to Rio to Tokyo. In this episode of The How of High Performance, he shares what happened when spectators were pulled just 11 days before the postponed Tokyo games and the photo he put in front of his team the next morning that said more than any strategy deck could. James talks abo...

Jon Dutton OBE has spent 30 years in senior leadership across sport, from the European Golf Tour at 22 to the Rugby League World Cup and CEO of British Cycling. Since this conversation was recorded he will be moving into the role of CEO at Team GB in July this year. In this episode of The HOW of High Performance, he shares what happened when key partners pulled out of a major global event just two...

Colin Burgess is Executive Director of Operations at BAFTA, but his career started at Sandhurst at 17, took him through infantry tours in Northern Ireland, helicopter flying in Central America, two years as equerry to the Queen Mother, and senior roles at Sky Studios before landing in the world of film and television. In this episode of The How of High Performance, he shares what happened when a s...

Jackson Wray spent 20 years at Saracens, made 309 appearances and won five Premierships and three European Cups before retiring on his own terms with years still left on his contract. In this episode of The How of High Performance he talks about the morning his team were told they were being relegated, the away game two days later where none of it counted on the scoreboard but everything counted i...

Kerttu Inkeroinen built her career at Kimberly Clark and Coca Cola before taking a salary cut to join a specialty coffee startup with no marketing budget, and is now CMO of Lucky Saint, a promotion that came since this episode was recorded. In this episode of The How of High Performance she talks about the morning COVID wiped out most of Union Coffee's revenue and how the leadership team she calls...

Nicky Bullard is a Chief Creative Officer, creative activist and founder of Elevator, the UK's only creatively led intermediary for creative pitches. She was also one of the first female creative leaders in the UK to take on full P&L responsibility when she stepped into the chairwoman role at MRM. In this episode of The How of High Performance, she shares what it was like to weigh up the risk...

Claire Hollands started out heading for medical school before finding her way into advertising, spent 14 years at AMV rising to chief client officer, became CEO of Mullen Lowe and is now CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi. In this episode of The How of High Performance she talks about the merger she led at Mullen Lowe where the real job wasn't the finances or the client proposition but bringing three fier...

Rak Patel is Chief Commercial Officer at Channel 4, with 26 years across media owners and platforms including EMAP, the Financial Times, Microsoft, AutoTrader and seven years at Spotify where he grew the UK advertising business into a pan European operation. In this episode of The How of High Performance, he shares what it took to persuade an organisation to back a bold growth strategy that would...

Pete Markey is the former CMO of Boots and president of ISBAR, with 30 years spent across British Gas, One Tel, More Than, Post Office, Aviva, TSB and Boots, every role defined by coming into new sectors and driving change. In this episode of The How of High Performance, he shares what it was like to arrive at Boots post COVID when the business was underperforming and marketing had lost the confid...

The How of High Performance is a podcast hosted by Sally Henderson, High Stakes Leadership Mentor, Author, TEDx and Keynote Speaker with 26 years of experience mentoring senior leaders. Why you lead gets all the attention, but it's HOW you lead that makes the real difference, especially when the stakes are high and the pressure is permanent. Every episode, Sally talks with a leader who has been te...