Women of the Future Podcast

Sir Nicholas Young is a solicitor and charity worker; operating as Chief Executive of Macmillan Cancer Relief between 1995 and 2001, and Chief Executive of the British Red Cross from 2001 to 2014, stepping down from the position following the tragic death of his son Alex.   Having studied law at the University of Birmingham, he made a somewhat unconventional career pivot in the mid-80s when he bec...

A career diplomat with a wide range of experience both in policy and service delivery, Vicki Treadell is the current High Commissioner of the United Kingdom to Australia, having taken up her posting in April 2019. Vicki previously held the same role in Malaysia, and also served as the first woman British High Commissioner to New Zealand and Samoa, and Governor of Pitcairn; before this Vicki was Br...

What a year it's been! For our final, very special podcast of 2020, Kim Rowell speaks to Hannah Ingram-Moore.   The owner and Director of recruitment, brand development and business training company Maytrix, you’ll probably know Hannah better from seeing her appear alongside her father, Captain Sir Tom Moore, who raised millions of pounds for charity in the run-up to his 100th birthday in April, 2...

Heidy Quah founded Refuge for the Refugees, a non-profit organisation that seeks to raise awareness regarding the status of refugees in Malaysia as well as provide education for refugee children, when she was just 18 years old.   Refuge for the Refugees supports and empowers refugee schools, halfway homes, and a refugee vocational training school across Malaysia and Myanmar, ensuring and fighting...

Dhruti Shah is an award-winning journalist, writer, producer and storyteller. Well-versed in creating digital strategies from scratch, debunking fake news, as well as training and motivating young journalists, Dhruti describes herself as innately curious, having written on subjects including technology, business, women changing the world, comics and science. With a grounding in local papers before...

Julie Brown is Chief Operating and Financial Officer of Burberry, having joined the company from Smith & Nephew, where she was Group CFO from 2013 – 2017. Julie has spent the majority of her career to date at AstraZeneca; working with them for a total of 25 years, undertaking 11 different roles in 4 countries, across 3 continents. With a great many strings to her bow, Julie is also a Non‑Executive...

Susie Hills is joint CEO and co-founder of management consultancy Halpin Partnership. Described as ‘an insightful consultant and a big thinker’, Susie is a very talented fundraiser and advises higher education institutions in this capacity.  Susie was chosen as one of 2019’s 'Kindness and Leadership 50 Leading Lights' by the Women of the Future Programme, showcased in the Financial Times and suppo...

Doctor Chern Ein Oon has served as an Associate Professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia since 2013. Skilled in cancer research, drug discovery and molecular oncology, Chern has been the recipient of numerous accolades during her career for her work on novel molecular therapeutics in cancer; they include the Exiqon Young Scientist Award, as well as being selected to participate in the Lindau Nobel L...

After studying English Literature at Durham University, conductor Tori Longdon took a circuitous route into music having seriously considered a career in law and starting out as an assistant speech therapist. Achieving a distinction for her MA in Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, amongst many commitments Tori has in her working life, she conducts the Covent Garden Choir and acts as...

Hailing from what she describes as a ‘typical Filipino family’ - Lucille Dejito still lives and works on the island of Cebu in the Philippines.  Studying at a Catholic school, Lucille took early inspiration from Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, and after passing the bar began working for the International Justice Mission as a staff attorney.  Having worked at the company for nearly a decade, Lucille no...

Sonali Shah is a freelance broadcaster best known for being one of the faces of BBC Events, BBC Sport and Escape to the Country, and before that, a long-serving presenter of Newsround. Sonali began her professional broadcasting career in BBC Radio soon after graduating from university and went on to produce and present news and business programmes on the World Service and Radio 5 live. Known for h...

If you search out her Twitter biography, it reads: ‘Deborah Bowman, Professor of Medical Ethics at St George's University, navigating cancer, slow runner, often in theatres, always carrying a book, mostly suffering from enthusiasm’ - which in the mere two times I’ve met her, I would say, sums her up well, but only if limited to a character count.   Cultivating a strong work ethic from a young age...

Created in 2009 in the aftermath of a recession, Stylist magazine intended to buck the trend and set out to treat women and their prospective readership intelligently. Over a decade later when many other publications have come and gone, Stylist remains at the top of its game, and so does Editor-in-Chief Lisa Smosarski. From her first job as a junior writer at Bliss magazine via roles at EMAP and B...

Growing up in Smethwick as one of five children, Balvinder Sidhu was keen to use education to get ahead in life following the death of her father when she was just 8 years old. Hailing from a strict Punjabi family, Balvinder had to act as a carer for both her mum and sister from a young age, and was delighted to become the first in her family to go to university to study Psychology.   After volunt...

Nimco Ali OBE, is a British Somali feminist and social activist. In 2010, along with psychotherapist Leyla Hussein, Nimco founded Daughters of Eve, a non-profit organisation established to help young women and girls, with a focus on providing education and raising awareness on female genital mutilation (FGM). Nimco underwent the procedure herself when she was just seven years old and later suffere...

Describing herself as ‘Principal and Senior Plate-Spinner’ at the critically acclaimed winery Chêne Bleu located in the Rhone Valley, Southern France; Nicole Sierra-Rolet manages the link between the business and the outside world. The daughter of a food critic and wine collector, as part of her truly intercontinental upbringing, as a child Nicole attended French lycées in New York and Milan, also...

*PLEASE NOTE: This episode was recorded before recent tragic events in America.* Jess Phillips is a British Labour Party politician, serving as Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley since the 2015 general election. Currently Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding, Jess was also a candidate for Leader of the Labour Party in the 2020 leadership election; no surprise perhaps, ha...

Rachel and Laura Beattie grew up in the suburbs of Manchester. Keen to marry-up her two loves of Maths and Art, and closely influenced by their seamstress Nana Theresa, Rachel came up with the idea for Careaux when she was just 14-years-old, jotting down the idea in her beloved Harry Potter notebook. Having always loved clothes, Rachel could clearly remember moments in her life by what she and oth...

Danielle Brown MBE is a Paralympic Gold Medallist and law graduate, who now works as a keynote speaker specialising in performance mindset and inclusion. Suffering from a complex regional pain syndrome in her feet, Danielle won gold medals at both the Beijing and London Paralympic Games. She has also won medals shooting in the able-bodied category, including another gold at the Commonwealth Games...

It’s hard to find enough superlatives to describe the force of nature that is Fatima Zaman. A Muslim woman of British-Bengali descent, Fatima is a next-generation counter-extremist. Growing up in Tower Hamlets, she was just 13 years-old when she witnessed the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London; during which her school doubled-up as a evacuation centre for the injured and dying. Citing it as an event...

Cherie Blair CBE QC is a British barrister, lecturer and writer. She is married to former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair, a mother of 4, proud grandmother and founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. At the World Economic Forum this year the Foundation, which has already directly supported over 160,000 women across more than 100 lower and middle income countries since its...

Gillian Charlesworth is Group CEO of BRE - the Building Research Establishment, which is a centre of building science in the UK. Over a career that has taken her from the civil service, via the Institute of Chartered Accountants, to spending most of the 90s in the food and drink industry - having trained as a chef as Prue Leith's School of Food and Wine - Gillian went back to 'the desk' as she cal...

Amy Durrant is a freelance conceptual creative director and copywriter, who has worked in advertising, media and technology for nearly a decade. Having spent her youth in Essex writing stories for her Beanie Babies as well having her sci-fi novel 'Prisms' published when she was just 18, Amy went on to study Journalism at Sheffield University. Starting a music magazine with a close friend she trave...

Sean Tompkins is Global CEO of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and previously Director of financial services company, Prudential. As part of his role at RICS he's been awarded honorary doctorates by Heriot-Watt and Amity University, accompanied UK Prime Ministers on trade missions, and addressed political leaders at the United Nations on furthering Sustainable Development Goals. When it...

Jules Chappell OBE is a communications specialist. After graduating university in 2003, Jules joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and was posted to Baghdad as a member of the coalition's governance team after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime – she was appointed an OBE the following year in recognition of her services. In 2008 Jules became the UK’s youngest ambassador to Guatemala, and no...