Women's Business

My guest this week is Sally McLaren, founder of Ivy - a women’s essentials brand made with certified organic cotton. In this conversation Sally traces her early exposure to her parents’ family publishing business, her passion for textiles, and a fashion design/buying degree that led to 12 years as a clothing buyer at Boden, George, F&F at Tesco, and Sweaty Betty, where she learned product development, manufacturing, and the ethical and quality compromises driven by margin pressure. After redundancy and motherhood, she discovered flaws in 50 of her own T‑shirts and launched Ivy in December 2017 with six tees, self-funded by redundancy money and savings, initially fulfilling orders from home while raising two small children. She describes learning marketing, SEO, and e-commerce by doing, using Instagram, gifting to influencers and stylists, building high repeat purchase through product quality and personal customer relationships, choosing Portugal production over higher-margin options, and aiming to make getting dressed simpler through great essentials and community.We also talk growth, future plans, and the virtues of running a lifestyle business. Find Sally and Ivy on Instagram here Find Ivy's website here . Use code TWC20 for 20% off your first orderThe woman Sally shouted out was Leigh Morris (The Redirectory) Join the conversation with me on Instagram here---------This episode is sponsored by Ivy.Ivy makes organic cotton essentials - t-shirts, sweatshirts, Breton stripes and more - designed for women who are done compromising on quality.Founded by Sally, a former fashion buyer, Ivy exists because she couldn't find what she needed: sustainably made, great quality basics that actually fit real women living real lives. So she built them herself.Every piece is made from GOTS-certified organic cotton, produced by a Portuguese factory running on solar power with zero waste to landfill. Good ethics and exceptional quality, in the same place.The fabric is soft, the fit is considered, and the pieces wash and wear beautifully. Which is why Ivy has one of the highest returning customer rates in its category.Use code TWC20 for 20% off your first order and shop Ivy here.

My guest this week is June Angelides MBE, venture partner at Samos Investments, founder of Levare Ventures, and an angel investor. June shares growing up in a Lagos entrepreneurial family, moving to the UK at 17, choosing Reuters for culture fit, and later joining Silicon Valley Bank in London. She describes motherhood reshaping her career and inspiring Mums in Tech, a child-friendly coding school she built in four months with no funding, then ran for three years to teach 250 women, before closing it due to an unsustainable low-price model and burnout. The conversation explores founder grief, boundaries, valuing your time, and how mission and profitability must coexist. June explains VC economics, today’s higher funding bar, bias in fundraising, and choosing capital aligned with your goals, alongside her work backing female-led startups and investing in African pre-seed tech through Levare. Connect with June on LinkedIn here The woman June shouted out was Simona Barbieri Don't forget to follow along with me on Instagram here And apply to join The Wilder Collective here

My guest this week is writer Caro Giles who talks to me about work, motherhood and sustaining creativity amid care responsibilities. Caro reflects on her parents’ contrasting models of work, her determination to train as an actor, and how class dynamics and financial insecurity in London pushed her toward teaching. She describes becoming a mother of four, then ending her marriage, and raising two autistic daughters, including 12 years of home educating largely because school and support systems failed her family. Writing began as connection and selfhood during isolation, leading to an online master’s, a BBC Countryfile New Nature Writer award, and memoirs Twelve Moons and Unschooled, the latter shaped by tribunals and advocacy. Caro discusses stigma around home education and benefits, precarious creative income, what structural changes she’d make, and hopes for an agent, further books, and blended teaching/retreat work.

In this episode I speak to Tara Dixon - personal trainer, business owner, and mum of two, about her early career in performing arts, acting, and plus-size modelling, where she was constantly told she was either too big or too small. Tara shares how years of fad dieting and the pressures of appearance-based industries shaped her relationship with her body, and how motherhood, low mental health, and not recognizing herself in the mirror prompted lasting change through strength training, coaching, and learning how her body works. We discuss balance, patience, goal-setting, and building sustainable habits, as well as how women are treated differently based on how they look, navigating online hate, and the role of therapy and resentment in marriage. Tara explains how she turned her transformation into a fast-growing coaching business and models a positive approach to health for her children.Find Tara on Instagram hereFind Tara's website here Join the conversation with me on Instagram here

My guest today is Holly Brooke, a founder who spent years building a career at the sharp end of the beauty and wellness industry - from the Hut Group to talent management in Australia, from Gleam Futures to running operations at Caroline Hirons' Skin Rocks from its earliest days. She had a front row seat to what it takes to build a founder-led brand that people genuinely trust, and she learned lessons that most people only read about in business books.But the business Holly eventually started wasn't born in a boardroom. It was born from twenty years of chronic constipation, a drawer full of unhelpful medical advice, a pill box containing thirty different supplements, and one colonic that changed everything.We Are Regular is Holly's answer to a problem that affects twice as many women as men and that almost nobody talks about openly. In this conversation, we get into all of it - the career journey, the burnout, the moment she realised she needed to stop searching for a solution and start building one, the nine-month search for the right manufacturer, and what she's learned about building a brand in a category people are embarrassed to discuss.This one is honest, funny, and full of the kind of practical insight that only comes from someone who has done the thing rather than just thought about it.Find Holly here Find We Are Regular here Don't forget to join the conversation with me on Instagram here