Working Hours

Recorded on 23/04/2026 By day, Emma Harper is a Senior Analyst at a stockbrokers’ firm, with 26 years in finance. It's a career she truly loves! Outside of work, Emma is married with two children. She runs two charity groups - a local community fund, now in its 10th year, and a volunteer team supporting the hospice that cared for her mum. She also hosts a monthly bereavement support group in her m...

Recorded on 07/04/2026 Saleem Shafi is a Financial Wellbeing & Workplace Performance Advisor and the Founder of Money Beam. He is enthusiastic about improving people’s lives so they can live in dignity, feel valued and contribute to society. Saleem holds a master's in psychology and has over 20 years’ experience in financial services, including as a financial adviser, bank manager and head of...

Recorded on 08/04/2026 Liza Kellett is the founding Chief Executive of social enterprise Trust Leeds and was awarded the Yorkshire & Humberside ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ in 2025. Liza has set up, led, managed, funded, and advised charities and social enterprises in the capacities of: Chief Executive of social enterprise Emmaus Leeds for which she raised over £3 million in investment to...

Recorded on 28/01/2026 Tony Crooks started LeedsNet.com, the first public information service for Leeds, thirty years ago in 1996, before the internet got to the UK. He had 54 telephone lines, with a modem for each line, in the back to back house in Harehills he lived in at the time. Originally starting his working life in horticulture, Tony became an award‑winning cabinet maker, and he has carrie...

Recorded on 30/01/2026 Leigh Staunton is the Project Lead for the Leeds Mindful Employer Network — a one-of-a-kind, city-wide network bringing employers together across sectors to make work better for mental health. Unique to Leeds, the Network connects organisations of all sizes to share ideas, learn from one another, and take practical action to create positive, psychologically safe workplaces....

Recorded on 08/11/2025 Erene Hadjiioannou is a psychotherapist, supervisor, author, trainer, and (occasional) activist. Erene has worked with adult clients since 2010 and is currently based in her private practice Therapy Leeds. She has specialist skills in supporting survivors of sexual and domestic abuse, including clients navigating the criminal justice process (known as ‘pre-trial therapy’). E...

Recorded on 31/10/2025 Gill Beadle is an ILM7 certified Executive and leadership Coach with two decades’ experience in Technology and change Leadership roles within Health-Tech and Financial services. She decided to become a Coach after seeing first-hand the impact Coaching had when working with her teams, as well as on her own confidence as a leader. Gill specialises in working with teams and ind...

Recorded on 05/11/2025 Dominic Charkin was the CEO of a charity that was established in 2002 to work with local people to identify and overcome issues that affect their health and wellbeing at a community level. In the past few months the Trustees have decided that now was the time to close its doors and Dominic was in the middle of working through that decision. While there is sadness in the deci...

Recorded on 19/09/2025 Helen Underwood is a Former NHS Physio, First Aid Expert, and entrepreneurial-mum on a mission! With over 20 years in healthcare, including time in Children’s ICU and other NHS departments, I’ve devoted my career to helping people. Now, as founder of Underwood Training, Helen is creating a ripple effect of empowerment by making First Aid knowledge more accessible in business...

Recorded on 06/08/2025 Sam Perry is Project Lead for Warm Homes at the Trades Union Congress, where he works to improve job quality in the clean heat and home retrofit sector, promote just and inclusive net zero transitions, and enhance the voices of working people in national and regional decision-making. He established the North East, Yorkshire, and Humber Just Transition Network; leads on the C...

Recorded on 11/09/2025 Jessica Spencer runs Aladdin’s Cave Jewellery, a third-generation family run business in Queens Arcade Leeds, alongside her mum, Roberta. The shop has been in the same location for over 45 years. From being a little girl, Jessica always loved 'treasure hunting'. She’s always loved the stories that antique and vintage Jewellery pieces carry, the idea that someone wore and che...

Recorded on 31/10/2025 J Warren Jones was born in Leeds in the early 70s and lived in Wakefield for most of his life. Travelling extensively in his late teens and early twenties and working in the gambling trade for 20 years before starting Mrs Atha’s café in Leeds in 2012. A fresh start doing something to make people happy rather than the morally corrupt world of gambling. He ran the popular café...

Recorded on 16/09/2025 As a Health and Lifestyle Coach with over 20 years' experience in medical research, including a BSc in Biomedical Science and a PhD in Drug Metabolism, Louise Guilfoyle is passionate about using science to empower people to take control of their health. Through personalised, evidence-based coaching, Louise helps her clients cut through the confusion of conflicting health adv...

Recorded on 04/08/25 Derek Miller is native of Chicago where he got his background in acting and improv at Improv Olympic, Second City and Piven Arts. Derek spent 20 years in Hollywood, teaching and performing at The Second City, iO West, and UCB. His improv show Opening Night! ran for 20 years with over 1,000 (mostly) sold-out performances. He used his improv chops on shows like Scrubs, The Goldb...

Recorded on 22/05/2025 Asma Khanum is a pioneering Speech and Language Therapist of Bangladeshi heritage and the CEO of Chatterbug Speech and Language Therapy Service. With a wealth of experience, Asma is deeply committed to supporting children with SLCN, drawing from her unique perspective as a neurodivergent individual and a mother of neurodivergent children. Her work has earned her the ASLTIP L...

Recorded on 03/09/2025 Dave Pike joined the Trades Union Conference (TUC) from the NEU (National Education Union) where he was leading on activist development and mobilisation. Dave has worked on several high-profile campaigns, including leading the NEU's response to Covid in the East Midlands and mobilising around pay campaigns, as well as a number of local disputes - including with a large educa...

Jin-Theng Craven recorded on 03/10/2025 Infinitely curious and endlessly imaginative, Jin-Theng Craven thrives at the crossroads of art, culture, and storytelling. A former broadcast journalist, banker, and artists’ agent, she brings a rare multi-lens perspective to her work as a filmmaker and arts producer. Her projects span art exhibitions, international festivals, and documentary films — all dr...

Recorded on 27/06/2025 Laura Stubbs runs social media agency, Coucou Social Media, helping small businesses and charities in Leeds get their message out to a wider audience online. She has worked in marketing for 15 years and is also a Trustee of Made with Music, a charity which bring accessible music events to families in Yorkshire. Laura formed her social media agency in 2023 to enable her to su...

Recorded on 05/08/2025 Emlyn Hagan was born in Liverpool and has lived in Leeds for nearly 28 years. Leaving school at 16 Emlyn completed an apprenticeship with Ford Motor Company in Liverpool, following which he worked as an Electrician – Control Specialist. In 1994 he took voluntary redundancy and moved to Ware in Hertfordshire to work as an Electrical Technician in a pharmaceutical factory. A b...

Recorded on 22/06/2025 In this engaging episode, join Kirsty Elton as she shares her unique journey from aspiring teacher to Viking-inspired business coach. Kirsty opens up about her early dreams, her experiences in healthcare recruitment, and the pivotal moments that led her to where she is today. She dives into the challenges of her MS diagnosis, her perspectives on social media, and her passion...

Recorded on 19/06/2025 In this deeply personal and insightful episode, Dr Stewart Manning recounts his lifelong passion for medicine, shaped by childhood experiences and a genuine desire to care for others. From memorable stories about medical school pranks and meeting famous personalities while serving as the Leeds United doctor, to the impactful charity work he now pursues in retirement, this ep...

Recorded on 07/04/2025 Olivia Collins is the Marketing and Communications Manager at Ahead Partnership, a purpose-led business which drives inclusive growth and social impact through bespoke skills and careers engagement programmes that support young people. Olivia is a Philosophy graduate from the University of Leeds, specialising in ethics and aesthetics. Olivia started her marketing career in t...

Recorded on 12/06/2025 Michael Guy is a digital strategist with a background spanning leadership business analysis and accessibility. He spends his time making sense of messy systems. Over the years, he’s worked with charities, membership organisations, and SMEs—often at that difficult, slightly tangled stage where everyone knows something needs to change, but no one’s quite sure where to start. H...

Recorded on 14/04/2025 Britta Ofori-Kuragu is a Purposeful Parenting Practitioner, Young Entrepreneurship Specialist and a Digital Safety Monitoring Analyst. She is also the Founder of Better Being by Britta Ltd and Purposed Potential CIC — the latter being a non-profit community interest company set up to equip and empower young people with entrepreneurial, financial literacy and future-ready ski...

Recorded on 22/04/2025 Richard Michie has been in marketing since before the internet, cutting his teeth in old school Direct Marketing. Then the internet came and made his job 1,000,000 times faster and a lot more fun! Throughout his career he has worked client side in translation (twice), holidays, nursery furniture, big book mail order (ask your mum), and renewable energy and worked for digital...