Women's Business

Hosted by Nicky Denson-Elliott

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125

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Jun 2026

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About the show

Nicky Denson-Elliott talks to a host of women about their career paths, from early memories of work through careers advice (or lack of it), and first jobs, up to present day. With all their insight and learnings along the way, these conversations are designed to both inspire and empower women in their own career journeys.

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June 14, 2026Episode 1181 hr 6 min

#118: More Money, More Life with Sarah Bennett-Nash

In this episode I interview executive coach and author of More Money, More Life Sarah Bennett-Nash, who spent 20 years in investment banking, including roles at Goldman Sachs before moving into coaching and changing her relationship with work and money. Sarah discusses growing up with a strong work ethic, navigating boys’ clubs, undermining and imposter syndrome, and watching loud voices win while competent people stayed invisible. She shares how a £150K “cowboy builder” crisis pushed her to monetise her skills to build her business and podcast. Loads to get into here around money stories, shame, undercharging, alignment with values, and women finding sovereignty through confidence, community, and visibility.Find Sarah on LinkedIn hereThe women Sarah shouted out were Bijal Shah and Deborah Frances-White (AKA The Guilty Feminist)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.

June 7, 20261 hr 1 min

#117: Innovating with Integrity with Danielle Close: A Visionary in the Beauty Industry

My guest this week is Danielle Close - founder of My Skin Feels - a skincare brand using rescued food. Danielle discusses early lessons about hard work from her entrepreneurial father and teacher mother, struggling in an academic school as a dyslexic student, and finding her way into beauty through makeup training and an early role as Charlotte Tilbury’s PA, where she learned “never take no for an answer.” After years in beauty and burnout, she moved toward natural and ethical wellness, ultimately founding My Skin Feels - initially inspired by her own anxiety and self-care journey and later defined by making skincare from rescued food byproducts. She explains reverse-engineering formulas to meet performance goals, customer education challenges, and the surprising benefits for skin conditions driven by her rescued food ingredients. We get into the detail of bootstrapping the business, building sales through relentless market stalls, turning down a Dragon’s Den deal for a better investment deal and her parallel life as a trained fifth-generation psychic medium whose intuition influences her decisions. This is a fascinating whirlwind! Find My Skin Feels on Instagram hereFind the My Skin Feels website hereFind Danielle's own website here Don't forget to 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.

May 31, 2026Episode 1161 hr 1 min

#116: Redefining the Basics: Sally McLaren on Building A Sustainable Clothing Brand

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.

May 17, 20261 hr 8 min

#115: Where Passion and Purpose Meets Profit with June Angelides

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

May 10, 202658 min

#114 Home Education, Hope and Hardship: Caro Giles Speaks on Writing, Caring, and Survival

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.

May 3, 2026Episode 1121 hr 6 min

#113 From Fad Diets to A Life-Changing Focus on Fitness with Tara Dixon

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

April 26, 2026Episode 1121 hr 12 min

#112: Career, Constipation, and the Company She had to Build with Holly Brooke

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

April 19, 2026Episode 1111 hr 5 min

#111: Becoming Fully Booked with Marketing Guru Niki Hutchison

In this episode I speak to Niki Hutchison, founder of Marketing Insiders Club and Fully Booked Bootcamp. Niki shares how early ad-agency work experience at 14 led to a career in advertising strategy, followed by a pivot into hospitality and then founding a children’s hip hop dance company. We talk about how Niki grew the dance business to 40 staff and 3,000 customers through strong brand strategy, market research, and multiple revenue streams, and about her post-pandemic pivot back into marketing. We discuss multi-channel visibility, women’s fears around being seen, the complications of being direct, revenue-stream discipline, and the importance of clear positioning. Lots of tangible takeaways in this one! And some great grit and determination too. Find Niki's website hereFind Niki on LinkedIn here The person Niki shouted out was Abi Sea Don't forget to join the conversation with me on Instagram here. ---------This episode is supported by Explore Worldwide, who specialize in small group expert led adventures. Instead of waiting a lifetime for a big, expansive trip, microdose retirement with Explore Adventures designed to give you enough space to reset how you're thinking, working and living.Women rarely give themselves permission to properly pause or have a break. So we often end up waiting for holidays that come when we're on the brink of burnout. If that sounds familiar, head to the Explore Worldwide website and take their micro retirement quiz. This will help you work out when a break might support where you're at in life and what kind of adventure you're craving.Take the Micro-Retirement Quiz here Each one is designed to be immersive and meaningful, not escapist, and they're solo friendly, which I love for women too. So if the idea of a proper reset resonates, take the quizTake the Micro-Retirement Quiz here

April 12, 20261 hr 10 min

#110: What Leaving The Ladder Down Really Looks Like with Dolly Jones

In this episode I interview journalist and author Dolly Jones (former editor of Vogue.com and strategy director at Condé Nast) about her early work influences before discussing how Dolly accidentally entered fashion journalism, built a long digital career at Vogue during the rise of the internet, and later questioned status-based definitions of success. She discusses success as financial security, motherhood while working full-time, childcare choices, “mum guilt” versus shame, and her book Leaving the Ladder Down, which argues for more honest, celebratory workplace conversations and flexibility for working parents. There's a lot to get into in this episode and we went there. I loved it. Find Dolly on Instagram here. Join the conversation with me on Instagram here. Find out more about me and apply to join The Wilder Collective here. The two women Dolly shouted out were: Sarah Bennett-Nash June Angelides------This episode is supported by Explore Worldwide, who specialize in small group expert led adventures. Instead of waiting a lifetime for a big, expansive trip, microdose retirement with Explore Adventures designed to give you enough space to reset how you're thinking, working and living.Women rarely give themselves permission to properly pause or have a break. So we often end up waiting for holidays that come when we're on the brink of burnout. If that sounds familiar, head to the Explore Worldwide website and take their micro retirement quiz. This will help you work out when a break might support where you're at in life and what kind of adventure you're craving.Take the Micro-Retirement Quiz here Each one is designed to be immersive and meaningful, not escapist, and they're solo friendly, which I love for women too. So if the idea of a proper reset resonates, take the quizTake the Micro-Retirement Quiz here

March 23, 2026Episode 1091 hr 17 min

#109: Turning Anger Into Action With Joeli Brearley

My guest this week us Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed and we get into it all here. After Joeli's early career we dive into how being dropped from a contract after disclosing her pregnancy -followed by a high-risk pregnancy -radicalised her and led her to launch an anonymous storytelling blog on International Women’s Day 2015. Joeli describes how the project grew into an advice line, tribunal mentoring, and sustained campaigning that helped change laws and influence policy, including extending the employment tribunal time limit, redundancy protections, flexible working, and contributions to childcare investment, while noting change is slow and often unglamorous. She discusses internalised misogyny, workplace culture failing caregivers, burnout from carrying others’ trauma (especially during COVID), and her difficult decision to leave the charity after 10 years at the helm. Jolie shares her new venture Growth Spurt supporting parents returning to work, her podcast To Be A Boy about raising sons amid online harms like pornography, and practical advice for overwhelmed would-be activists to start small and build community. Honestly, this is one of my favourite conversations to date. I really hope you enjoy it. Find Joeli on Insta here Find out more about Growth Spurt here The woman Joeli shouted out was Tinuke AweJoin the conversation with me on Instagram here------This episode is supported by Explore Worldwide, who specialize in small group expert led adventures. Instead of waiting a lifetime for a big, expansive trip, microdose retirement with Explore Adventures designed to give you enough space to reset how you're thinking, working and living.Women rarely give themselves permission to properly pause or have a break. So we often end up waiting for holidays that come when we're on the brink of burnout. If that sounds familiar, head to the Explore Worldwide website and take their micro retirement quiz. This will help you work out when a break might support where you're at in life and what kind of adventure you're craving.Take the Micro-Retirement Quiz here Each one is designed to be immersive and meaningful, not escapist, and they're solo friendly, which I love for women too. So if the idea of a proper reset resonates, take the quizTake the Micro-Retirement Quiz here