The Unlock with Oliver Bruce

After burning out and quitting his job due to the poor selection of employee benefits when he needed support with his mental health, Ally Fekaiki founded Juno, the company reimagining how we access support from our employers.  Conscious of the seemingly accepted notion that stress, and burnout are an endemic of work, Ally set out to improve employees’ lives inside and outside of work. Replacing fo...

Earlier in 2021 the co-founders of Thursday (the dating app) boldly announced to LinkedIn that over the next 12 months they would take their start-up from a valuation of £0 to some £50m; brave to say the least. Where do you even start?  What started as a dating app called HoneyPot, founded in an Officers’ Mess whilst Matt was serving in the British Army, is now undergoing a Series A fund for £20m...

How do you build what is fast becoming the nation's favourite nut butter brand? With a creative mind, dyslexia but no clear career plan, founder Pip Murray launched her business off the back of a Government Startup grant. With a love for marathons, nut butter and health, the three go hand in hand and Pip & Nut was born!  Founder of Pip & Nut launched her nut butters into the relatively unt...

With aspirations of becoming a dinner lady, Cathy Moseley was born into a family with very little. Poverty however didn’t stop her, Cathy forged a career in the City trading commodities. Working her way up the corporate ladder Cathy eventually decided to pack her job of 25 years in and follow her passion for food... What began as a kitchen experiment due to a diagnosis affecting her gut health tur...

From a milkround to Cambridge University and now founder and CEO of one of Europe's largest energy providers, Greg Jackson of Octopus Energy knows a thing or two about disrupting a market. A 21st century energy provider, Octopus put innovation and sustainability at the forefront of everything they do to drive a faster, green and cheaper solution for their customers. It’s clearly an approach that i...

Closing Series 4 with a bang Oliver has hand-picked his favourite nuggets, or what he calls “the tapas of conversations” so you can recap and refresh!  From making £1bn in a year to not paying the VAT. Oliver’s spoken with entrepreneurs long in the tooth and those just starting out. From S4Capital to MOMA Foods, UpTime to Tenzing, we’ve covered failures and successes across multiple industries.  W...

In this episode we go deep into the revolution that’s sweeping the world, that of the Oat Milk revolution. Founded in 2006 by Tom Mercer from a stall at Waterloo East and now, over a decade on, MOMA Foods has recently won a great taste award for it’s oat milk barista edition. Tom, whose market research strategy was nothing short of ingenious, discovered 4 years after MOMA’s founding in 2010 that h...

Husband and wife duo Johnny and Pauline Paterson founded much loved brand Dr. PAWPAW in 2013 after their daughter was diagnosed with Eczema. Their main mission was to create multi-use products for use across everybody’s face and body.  The brand which turnover c£5m tells Oliver how in business you can have a win-win situation, how they’re looking to scale to c£30m in the next 5 years and how openi...

From his parents having meetings around their breakfast table, Thomas Wynne was born into the world of Insurance. In 2020 the business his parents built (Kingsbridge Insurance) sold for an aggregated total £168m in total.  In 2020, mid pandemic, Thomas Wynne decided it was a good idea to fly the nest and founded Capsule with his business partner Liam. A true disruptor in the insurance world and a...

Famed for being labeled ‘England’s leading adman’ , Johnny Hornby founder of The&Partnership spoke to Oliver about how he founded and runs the now global agency.  With some 1,400 staff, working on some of the globe's biggest campaigns it wasn’t all jets, whisky and red carpets.  Johnny, who struggled for the first 6 months to make any sales then forgot to pay the VAT and instead bought a ping...

Former Scottish footballers Mark Corcoran and Steven Robb launched their clothing line Bee Inspired as a bedroom brand in 2013. From then their social presence has grown to have nearly 1 million followers on Facebook, and 250,000 on Instagram! With the likes of Lionel Messi and Craig David donning their streetwear designs, Oliver chats with the co-founders about why they exited the world of footba...

Serial entrepreneur Jamie True set up his first business at the age of 17 turning over circa £6 million! Over the past 20 years Jamie founded a further 8 successful businesses and invested in 4 before launching his latest venture Uptime in 2020. It’s clear Jamie has an entrepreneurial spirit in his blood and, despite the ups and downs, across his multiple businesses he is on an upward trajectory....

Popcorneur, Co-Founder and Director of Joe & Sephs, Adam Sopher didn’t follow the normal route to the kitchen. With a background in corporate businesses such as Adam Smith, Company Law International, Deliotte and Dixons, founding a gourmet popcorn company was unconventional to say the least. But it was clearly a winning idea as now Joe & Sephs produce the self-proclaimed ‘best tasting popc...

Ex-professional rugby player Elliott Herrod-Taylor’s career was cut short thanks to a spider’s bite! He founded his first business UP4 Events whilst at university thanks to his love of music and juggled this alongside his degree and starting The Bunch. As the designated bill payer in his university house Elliott dealt with the frustrations of setting up contracts with utility providers and knew th...

The former Head of Marketing at Red Bull in Europe, Huib van Bockel quit his high-profile job to create a brand with purpose and an energising drink that was plant-based, low-calorie & sustainable. He shares how he got started, dealt with knock backs and his plans for the future! Over the past 20 years, Huib has worked in the fashion, television and consumer brand world. Now he is taking on th...

Sir Martin Sorrell, famed for 'inventing the earn-out', taking over WPP and aggressively scaling the largest Ad Agency in the world talks to Oliver about his greatest successes and biggest regrets.  Founding S4 Capital Group in 2018, Sir Martin grew a Unicorn (£1bn company) in under a year, he tells Oliver about his 'twenty squared' strategy and the future of the economy, why D&I is critical f...

Series 3 saw the winning of awards, international conversations, tonnes of bloopers and even more inspiration. Join Oliver as he looks back at some of the best (and worst) takes of the last series.   With the inauguration of the new studio, the winning the Business Media Podcast of the Year award and an abundance of wisdom from fascinating guests, the series has been jam-packed with energy💪 From...

As a founding team member and Head of Avatar SDK and API at Genies, Izzy Pollak is no stranger to the technology startup world. 💥 Branded as ‘the next generation of humans’ and allowing you to create the ‘fantasy version of you’, Genies avatar creator allows you to bring your personality to the digital space. With a background in film and television production and an interest in technology, there...

For our charity special podcast episode, Oliver Bruce chats to Julie Kent MBE about how she is a self-proclaimed go-giver 🥰 👏 “Always giving”, Julie is the Vice Chair at the Pied Piper Appeal, a Trustee for Goals Beyond Grass and Chairman for Cheltenham Open Door 🤯  Born and bred in Gloucester and now a pillar of the Gloucestershire charitable community, she emphasises the importance of giving...

Oliver Bruce talks all things startup with Alizé Marchand, co-founder and CEO of Impresm; a marketing company specialising in helping the financial industry build solid online presence in order to engage with millennials and Gen Z in the digital age 💻 📱 Dialling in from Switzerland, Ali’s American charm began at odds with the culture she found herself in, but she quickly started to change conver...

Ann Perkins, co-founder and CEO of health snack brand Perkier, started out making healthy snack bars with co-founder Steve Turner in their kitchen to help with her gluten and dairy free diet. Jumping ship from global food brand Kraft Heinz to pursue her passion for not only tasty but ethical food, Ann saw the gap in the market and proceeded to launch Perkier into it. 🌍 💚 By managing cash careful...

From being handed the reins to a business turning over £700k in 1995 and growing it in 4 years to £2.5m turnover, SLG brands (as it's now known) currently boasts a turnover of some £32m+ with over 120 staff and are currently undergoing rapid expansion into the US. 🇺🇸 Oliver sits down with Miles Dunkley owner of SLG and an entrepreneur investor himself to talk about how in 1995 he received a call f...

Now a Forbes 30 Under 30 alumni and one of 5 children from a migrant family, Jay had a rebellious start to life whilst at school. The born salesman, Jay sold Beats by Dr Dre to his peers for a small markup, however, It was with the support of his mother and this natural ability to sell that saw Jay and his business partner found Imagen Insights, a business harnessing the power of Generation Z to s...

From hiding behind her desk in an operational role, to backing out last minute on a move to Frankfurt, redundancy and entering the male dominated tech world, Lorrin White is a trailblazer! 🔥 Despite texting being her only knowledge of mobiles, over the last 20 years, she has risen through the business to become the CEO of Bamboo Technologies. As well as her role as CEO, Lorrin is a female leader,...

Having left a comfortable career with a management consultancy business Jay and his co-founder Henry decided it was a good idea to start a last minute travel business in the height of a pandemic.💪 As management consultants Jay's background is analytical, number driven, metric orientated and process led. This analytical and detailed approach however is the backbone to this startup. Jay and Henry e...