What is the worst thing that can happen?
The Empowered Podcast by Curium
Tru Powell is a multi-award-winning creative entrepreneur, personal brand coach and publicity expert. With over 15 years in business, he is very passionate about supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs to help them build their personal brands. He hosts the Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast and has built the Creative Entrepreneurs UK Clubhouse Club which has reached 20,000 members, as well as a Facebook Group. His other business interests include Kandy Girl. This is the UK’s first children’s pamper salon offering pampering experiences for young kids aged 3-16. As you will hear,...
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The 4 Day Working Week
The Empowered Podcast by Curium
This week’s episode it a little bit different. Today we are talking to Andrew Barnes, an entrepreneur from New Zealand who likes to do things a bit differently. In 2018, Andrew decided to pilot a 4-day working week in his company, Perpetual Guardian, which provides estate planning services. Andrew has always been an innovator. After reading an article that suggested that the typical office worker was only productive for 2.5 to 3 hours a day, he saw an opportunity. The opportunity was to both improve productivity whilst also giving time back to his team. He wanted to offer his teams the...
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Support Through A Crisis
The Empowered Podcast by Curium
Denise Lawrenson has spent to the majority of her career working in the rail industry. After graduating as a software engineer, she worked on major projects including extensions to the London Underground and rail projects in Hong Kong. As a woman, she is still an outlier in the Rail sector, but that only galvanises her. In 2005 Denise joined KeTech, a private equity backed SME technology business who improve the experience of rail travellers around the world. She became CEO in 2019. Denise has worked in a variety of roles within the KeTech business and has experienced many highs and lows along...
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Determination Creates Confidence
The Empowered Podcast by Curium
Kelly Sotherton had immense success as a heptathlete and also raced in the 4 x 400m women’s relay team. A triple Olympic medallist, as well as a Gold medallist at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, she also won further medals at the European and World games. Kelly was awarded an MBE in the for services to track and field athletics and the promotion of women's sport. Once she stepped away from competing, Kelly turned to performance coaching, specialising in running, working in professional rugby for Wasps RFC and in professional cricket with Warwickshire County Cricket Club. She...
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Seizing Opportunity By Taking Action
The Empowered Podcast by Curium
Joe Foster was born into the family shoe business along with his brother Jeff. Joe's grandfather was the founder of J.W. Foster and Sons and the pioneer of the spiked running shoe, and also developed the trainer (sneaker). Upon returning from National Service, they decided that they wanted to do something different. In 1958 they set up their own sports shoes business, which was rebranded to Reebok 18 months later. Like many businesses in their early years, they had their fair share of twists and turns. Succeeding in America was always the dream, but it took years to crack...
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Redefining resilience through adversity
The Empowered Podcast by Curium
Alex Staniforth has achieved an awful lot in a short time. He is a record-breaking adventurer, an ultra-endurance athlete, founder a charity, an author, a motivational speaker and much more. He has faced into and overcome adversity on many occasions. At an early age he fought struggles with epilepsy, anxiety, his stammer, and bullying. After a life changing paragliding trip whilst on holiday in Turkey, his perspective on life changed. He set his goals high, extremely high indeed by setting out to climb Everest in 2014 and then again in 2015. However, two consecutive natural disasters...
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Announcing Series 2 and a Series Partner
The Empowered Podcast by Curium
Listen to Andy Dawson, Co-Founder of Curium Solutions, announcing the upcoming Series 2 of The Empowered Podcast - as well as revealing the new Podcast Partner. Toby Porter is the CEO of Acorn's Children's Hospice and you can find out more about them here: The Empowered Podcast is brought to you by Curium Solutions. We are a transformation company, helping organisations of all sizes realise more of their potential by implementing interventions that change them for the better. And stick. For more info visit or drop us an email at .
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Failure Is Your Biggest Success
The Empowered Podcast by Curium
It’s so great to meet other people who have the same values that we do at Curium and Jordan is definitely one of them. He has such a passion for people and this really comes through in our chat. He’s someone who clearly puts this into practice and he knew from as early as 16 years old he wanted to pursue a career that mixes people with business. Jordan believes in failure as something positive and it’s what makes us, as he candidly puts it, ‘the value of our failure isn’t really realized, you are building success with every failure you have’. Today, Jordan George has grown to be an...
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The Power Of Podcasts
The Empowered Podcast by Curium
As we come to the end of our first series of The Empowered Podcast, we’re so excited to have a podcast legend to help us go out with a bang. If you’ve listened to Don’t Tell Me The Score, then you’ll know exactly who we’re talking about…Simon Mundie! He’s an individual who has interviewed some of the most incredible sports stars of our time and some of the world’s most successful people. From studying Broadcast Journalism at Leeds University combined with his love for tennis, he started out as a roving reporter for Radio Wimbledon covering the Championships...
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Focusing On The Goal
The Empowered Podcast by Curium
Jake Wightman is a British middle-distance runner that represents team GB on the international stage. Born of two athlete parents, Jake knew from an early age that competing at a professional level was what he aspired to achieve. Talking to elite athletes is always exciting, but what really inspired us during our conversation was Jake’s attitude towards the opportunity he has, both on and off the track. We talk to Jake about the importance of goal setting and how, when got right, this creates positive motivation to keep progressing. Jake also has a strong philosophy around...
info_outlineVanessa Vallely is someone who encompasses what true Leadership looks like and is often referred to as the ‘most well networked woman in the UK’.
She grew up in a flat in Hackney with her mum, after her parents divorced while she was still a baby. Vanessa always had big dreams to work in the City from the skyline she could see from her bedroom window. From getting her first job in banking for NatWest fresh from school and being told ‘girls don’t work in banks’ and ‘you’d never get a job’, this gave her a real valuable lesson on resilience in her early career.
Vanessa believes it just takes one opportunity. When she returned from maternity leave, she saw a job opportunity for a PMO Manager, it was that one opportunity she says that led her up the corporate ladder that she’s flourished in for the last 25 years. She is an individual that believes in persistence and having a tenacity to get where you want to be as she puts it in her book, ‘Heels of Steel.’ Her next book is due to be released in 2022.
There came a point in Vanessa’s career where she started searching for her own purpose and wanted to make a real difference. Getting more women on boards, creating a voice for professional working women, having conversations about diversity within the workplace and wanting to make a difference for the younger generation. This passion and purpose led to her setting up her own networking organisation, WeAreTheCity in 2008, to help women progress in their careers. WeAreTheCity has a huge reach, with over 120,000 members!
Her commitment to championing diversity & inclusion goes further than just gender. She received an OBE for Services to Women & the Economy in 2018, along with an impressive list of 22 awards for her work in finance, gender equality, entrepreneurship and charity. Vanessa is a former member of the GDS advisory board, Tech UK's Women's Council, CR-UK Women of Influence board. She has helped to raise over £1m for various charities and is also a regular speaker in schools. An accomplished global speaker and has delivered keynotes for over 600 global organisations both physically and virtually. Vanessa has been featured in over 75 news publications and is a regular guest on radio and TV.
Vanessa’s book Heel’s to Steel: Surviving & Thriving in the Corporate World: Heels of Steel: Surviving & Thriving In The Corporate World: Surviving & Thriving in the Corporate World: Amazon.co.uk: Vallely, Vanessa: 9781909623118: Books
The Empowered Podcast from Curium Solutions is hosted by Andy Dawson and produced by Monkey Pants Productions. We’d love to hear from you. To contact us, email [email protected]