Episode #545 - Contrasting Paths to Growth: How Kat Wellum-Kent and Phil Harding Are Scaling Their Businesses
Release Date: 11/28/2025
Episode #545 - Contrasting Paths to Growth: How Kat Wellum-Kent and Phil Harding Are Scaling Their Businesses
ScaleUp Radio
In this edition of ScaleUp Radio Shorts, Kevin Brent and Granger Forson distil powerful insights from two recent ScaleUp Radio interviews with: Kat Wellum-Kent, founder of The Fractionals Group, and Phil Harding, founder and MD of BBB Drinks. While their businesses differ in sector and style, finance/HR versus premium drinks distribution, both founders offer hard-earned lessons on how to scale smartly and sustainably. 🎯 What You’ll Learn in This Episode: ✅ The power of specialisation – Kat’s fractional model brings strategic and operational finance/HR under one...
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Episode #544 - Scaling with Heart and Strategy: How Authenticity and Team Culture Fuel the Fractional Revolution - with Kat Wellum-Kent
ScaleUp Radio
Hi, I’m Granger Forson, and you can find me at or connect with me on . In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, I sit down with Kat Wellum-Kent, founder of The Fractionals Group. A business built on the powerful idea that scale-ups deserve fractional support that truly integrates into their teams. Kat shares her inspiring journey from accountant to entrepreneur, revealing how a chance lunch with a friend in Australia sparked her leap into creating Fractional Finance and later Fractional Human Resources. From just an idea to a 12-person team...
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Episode #543 - Change The Model And increase The Chance of Success - with Phil Harding
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, I’m joined by Phil Harding, the founder of BBB Drinks, a business that’s not only disrupting the traditional drinks distribution model but also redefining how emerging brands grow and scale in an evolving market. From a shift in consumer drinking habits to a unique retainer-based model, Phil shares how BBB Drinks is tackling the industry's deep-rooted inefficiencies head-on – and helping new brands get the attention and traction they deserve. This episode is structured in three parts: The Business & Model: We explore BBB’s innovative business...
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Episode #542 - From Marketing the Cure to Discovering It: Two Founders, Two Frontlines
ScaleUp Radio
In this powerful ScaleUp Radio Shorts episode, Kevin Brent and Granger Forson contrast two founders tackling very different ends of the healthcare and life sciences spectrum: Michael Colling-Tuck, founder of Agency Medical Marketing, is on a mission to ensure life-changing innovations get adopted by clinicians and patients. Prasun Chakraborty, founder of Genevation, is developing personalised cancer vaccines using cutting-edge AI and immunotherapy. One is solving the problem of visibility and market traction. The other is solving for scientific possibility and clinical impact. Yet both share...
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Episode #541 - From Boardrooms to Breakthroughs: Building a Boutique Agency that Gives Healthcare Innovation a Voice - with Michael Colling-Tuck
ScaleUp Radio
Find me, Granger Forson, at or connect with me on . This episode of ScaleUp Radio features Michael Colling-Tuck, founder of Agency Bristol, a specialist marketing agency helping medical and technology innovators reach both patients and healthcare professionals. With over twenty years in healthcare, Michael has seen how even the most brilliant inventions can fail if no one knows they exist. His agency bridges that critical gap, giving groundbreaking products a fighting chance to reach the people whose lives they can transform. What makes Michael’s...
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Episode #540 - Curing Cancer, One Person at a Time: The Power of Personalised Vaccines - with Prasun Chakraborty
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, we're diving into the groundbreaking world of personalised cancer treatments with Prasun Chakraborty, founder of Genevation – a biotech startup on a mission to revolutionise how we treat and potentially prevent cancer. Unlike the traditional one-size-fits-all approach to oncology, Genevation is using advanced AI and genetic sequencing to create custom mRNA cancer vaccines for individual patients – in just 14 days. Prasun shares the inspiring story behind the business, the massive challenges of scaling deep-tech biotech, and his clear vision of a future...
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Episode #539 - Scaling with Heart vs Head: Lessons from Two Founders
ScaleUp Radio
In this special ScaleUp Radio Shorts episode, Kevin Brent and Granger Forson take a step back to reflect on two contrasting founder journeys shared recently on the podcast: Paul Wray, founder of Breakspeare Clinic, a values-driven physiotherapy business Joe van Gelder, founder of fintech firm Powdr, a fast-scaling tech company Although these two founders operate in completely different industries and approach business from opposite ends of the personality spectrum, their journeys reveal powerful shared lessons about scaling, leadership and founder development. What You’ll Learn in...
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Episode #538 - When Pain Sparks Purpose: How a Physiotherapist Built a Thriving Multi-Site Practice through Learning to Lead Every Step of the Way - with Paul Wray
ScaleUp Radio
Hi, I’m Granger Forson from , or find me on LinkedIn, and in this episode of ScaleUp Radio, I’m joined by Paul Wray, the owner of Breakspeare Clinic, a multi-site physiotherapy and wellness practice based in West Oxfordshire. Paul’s story is one of continuous learning, resilience, and a genuine commitment to helping people move better and live pain-free lives. Starting as a physiotherapist over 30 years ago, he worked within the NHS before joining Breakspeare Clinic, eventually buying the business after a decade of hands-on experience. Today, his...
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Episode #537 - Rebuilding Financial Modelling from the Ground Up – with Joe van Gelder
ScaleUp Radio
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent is joined by Joe van Gelder, CEO and co-founder of Powdr – a SaaS-enabled consultancy that’s revolutionising the way businesses build and use financial models. Joe shares the journey of transforming a traditional consultancy into a product-led business by solving a real-world pain point: fragile, expensive, and ineffective financial modelling tools. With Powdr, he’s helping scaling businesses make better strategic decisions – faster and more affordably – using robust, investor-grade financial models. The conversation follows the typical...
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Episode#536 - The 'Needy Dog' Economy: Why Authenticity Beats Corporate Jargon When You're Scaling Your Service Business– Lessons from Harry, Tom & Louise
ScaleUp Radio
Hosts: Kevin Brent & Granger Forson Produced with the help of AI 🔎 Episode Overview: In this week’s ScaleUp Radio Shorts, Kevin Brent and Granger Forson reflect on powerful insights from three of the most recent guests on ScaleUp Radio: Harry Shearer – Shearer Associates (Recruitment) Tom Locke – Habitat+ Architects (Architecture & Design) Louise Hampton – Attend2Health (Healthcare & Wellness) From recruitment to healthcare to sustainable architecture, these founder journeys might seem worlds apart — but Kevin and Granger tease out the surprising commonalities and...
info_outlineIn this edition of ScaleUp Radio Shorts, Kevin Brent and Granger Forson distil powerful insights from two recent ScaleUp Radio interviews with:
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Kat Wellum-Kent, founder of The Fractionals Group, and
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Phil Harding, founder and MD of BBB Drinks.
While their businesses differ in sector and style, finance/HR versus premium drinks distribution, both founders offer hard-earned lessons on how to scale smartly and sustainably.
🎯 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✅ The power of specialisation – Kat’s fractional model brings strategic and operational finance/HR under one roof. Phil, meanwhile, flips the traditional distributor model by offering upfront retainers and full transparency in costs.
✅ Two very different approaches to team building – Kat’s scaling an in-house team with cultural authenticity at its core. Phil relies on a lean, outsourced model supported by dedicated Brand Ambassadors and data-led tools.
✅ Efficiency through structure and systems – From Kat’s time-blocking and letting go of perfectionism, to Phil’s game-changing consignment stock model and custom Amazon dashboards, both founders know how to manage risk and cash flow.
✅ Vision with discipline – Kat aims to build a $7.5M multi-vertical fractional group, while Phil is creating an international machine for bringing drinks brands to market, despite the ever-present funding challenges in early-stage FMCG.
🧠The one key thing: Scaling successfully isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing the right things with structure, focus, and control.
💬 Standout quote:
"Don’t wait for the website or business cards to be perfect – just go and do it." – Phil Harding
🎧 Listen now on your favourite podcast app by searching for ScaleUp Radio, and catch the full interviews with both Kat and Phil.
📩 Quick heads-up, we’re looking for a handful of founders to test our new AI-powered Smart90 Lite app. It’s built to help you stay accountable and actually deliver on your goals, in just a few minutes a day. It’s free while we’re in testing, and your feedback will directly shape the final version.
👉 Just email kevin@biz-smart.co.uk to get access.
👥 Know someone with a great ScaleUp story? Nominate them as a guest for a future episode! Details in the shownotes.
This episode is created with the help of AI