If you feel like you pick up every cold going, regularly get a poor night’s sleep, or experience constant brain fog, you’ll know how much of an energy sap they can be. But what if the secret to no longer feeling like you’re running on empty lies in breast milk? In this episode of Career Interrupted, Joy Foster chats to Stephanie Drax, founder of Leapfrog Remedies, to uncover the story behind the UK’s first dedicated Lactoferrin wellness brand. From a career that began in acting and j...

Four years ago, Fern Fuller was juggling it all – a single mum with a full-time job as an Executive Assistant, COVID-induced home-schooling chaos, and the curveball that is perimenopause. Cue a moment of complete exhaustion that saw Fern sliding down the wall of her home office thinking, “I just can’t do this anymore.” Fern knew something had to change... then she found TechPixies. Why you should tune in Come and discover how, in just 4 years, Fern has: ⭐ Swapped a full-time salary for ...

What happens when your carefully built career suddenly... crumbles? For Susannah De Jager, who was a hedge fund CEO at 32, it was losing her biggest client at work and realising her role was untenable while watching one of her closest friends die of cancer that upended everything. For Patsy Day, it was crashing her husband’s car after months of bone-crushing burnout that saw her hit the pause button. But after resetting the course of their lives, Susannah and Patsy are now collaborating...

There’s been an explosion in the popularity of collagen supplements over the past few years, and social media feeds are now full of posts from influencers bigging up the benefits. If you’re wondering what all the fuss is about, you’ll probably have turned to Google and come across a dizzying amount of information. But there’s one woman who is determined to cut through the noise after founding Ancient + Brave, a company that has gone from being a kitchen table startup to the highest-scoring B ...

What if 12 emails could completely transform how you think about your future? What if you could wake up and find that the familiar voice that says ‘there has to be more to life than this’ has been replaced by a sense of excitement? Because you realise you finally know where you’re headed and exactly what you need to do to get there. Joy Foster, TechPixies founder & CEO, spent years going from one job to the next before finally finding her passion and purpose. And it wasn’t until she re...

Jenn Barnett turned a life-altering health crisis into a life-affirming career pivot. But a comprehensive survey of 600+ mid-career professional women (those with 10-25 years’ experience), commissioned by Jenn in her role as head of equity, inclusion, and diversity at Grant Thornton UK, has revealed that pivoting your career comes with its own set of challenges. So while her report found that: 💠 62% of women have considered switching career paths 💠 With over 25% aiming t...

If you’re neurodiverse… Or know someone who is constantly battling an exhausting cycle of trying to fit in to workplaces that just don’t seem to get them… Or you’re an employer and want to better understand how you create a more inclusive workplace… You need to get Lillie Jamieson and her sister Alex on speed dial. Because after receiving their own diagnoses for ADHD and autism and realising that it was the workplace that needed to change, not them, they created a business helping those ...

We all know gender inequality exists in the workplace. But there’s another kind of bias that’s been quietly derailing women’s careers… and it’s time we brought it into the spotlight. According to Napala Pratini, co-founder of Habitual, a revolutionary digital platform helping people lose weight and reverse type 2 diabetes, studies show that women living with obesity are often seen as ‘less productive, less professional, lacking in self-discipline and less likely to lead’. ...

Feeling like your energy’s on empty? Struggling to climb the stairs without needing a breather? Metabolism slowed to a snail’s pace? Welcome to the rollercoaster of perimenopause and post-menopause, where hormones go haywire, energy tanks, and your body suddenly seems to be working against you. But you don’t have to just push through the fatigue, brain fog, and muscle loss any longer. In this episode of Career Interrupted, women’s health, fitness and wellbeing coach Alison Urquhart reve...

Would you walk away from a high-paying job… …with no backup plan, a new baby, and a hefty mortgage on a new house? This was exactly the situation Dr Victoria Stakelum was faced with when she returned from maternity leave and found the toxic culture she’d worked so hard to transform had returned… in little more than 8 weeks. Faced with a choice between job security and integrity, Victoria opted to take a big, bold leap into the unknown and resigned. And she had one of the best years of her li...

Heavy, painful periods: the £8.4 billion problem nobody was solving. You’ve seen the ads – smiling women skipping through their ‘time of the month’ like it’s no big deal. But if you live with heavy, painful periods, you know the truth is anything but. Crippling pain, constant leaks and anxiety about leaving the house without a change of clothes. And it’s not just your body and emotions taking a hit – your wallet feels it too, from the endless sanitary products to the lost workdays. In fact, p...

If you think it’s too late to reinvent yourself and turn the seed of a business idea into something that can make an impact, Laura Harnett’s story is one for you. After setting up Seep, an eco-friendly cleaning tools business that has sold (among other things) more than a million plastic-free, 100% compostable sponge scourers, Laura went on Dragons’ Den and won investment from the Dragons she came in to impress. Now, this eco-conscious entrepreneur has a hotline to Deborah Meaden and ...

Would a life-changing health diagnosis stop you in your tracks or spur you on to create something extraordinary? For Georgina Colman, being diagnosed with MS has been the catalyst for a business that is making a difference to the lives of disabled people around the UK. And it all started when Georgina made a startling observation while out shopping with her son: she saw discounts everywhere for students, carers and parents, but nothing for those living with a disability. Her solut...

Losing a job once is tough. Losing it twice? It’s an emotional rollercoaster that forces you to dig deep to survive. For Avneet Sachdeva, these challenges became an opportunity to channel her entrepreneurial spirit and tap into a powerful mission: helping women build wealth mindfully. Why you need more than one income stream Avneet believes women should never rely on just one source of income. When she faced redundancy, she tapped into her side hustle and turned it into her full-time passi...

What does ‘winning’ mean to you? As a World Champion rower, three-time Olympian and Olympic silver medallist, Cath Bishop spent a decade embedded in a high-performance winning culture. But when Cath transitioned from the world of elite sport into diplomacy, she expected to leave the will to win behind. Instead, she discovered that from classrooms to boardrooms, society is obsessed with winning, And it’s an obsession that is holding us back. We chase trophies, titles, and numbers, believing t...

*This podcast episode discusses trauma, which some listeners may find triggering. In 1989, tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square, and the world watched in horror as a brutal moment in history unfolded. But for Philippa Smethurst, who was teaching in China at the time, the impact was more than headline – it was witnessed firsthand in the tear-streaked faces of her students, mourning friends and loved ones lost to the violence. Without realising it, Philippa became a lightning rod for the...

Let’s be honest: most of us want more of it, and most of us want the money we do have to work harder for us. What if you could download a free app that looked at your current finances and then helped you make a plan to get them to where you want them to be? Enter Elisabeth Prager, the co-founder of Alia Money, the personal trainer you can pop in your pocket that helps you master your money. Because here’s the scary thing: according to the most recent report from the World Econ...

Hands up if you’ve been through any of these: ✅ Redundancy ✅ Bereavement ✅ Divorce ✅ Caring for elderly parents ✅ Chronic illness ✅ Menopause ✅ Abuse ✅ Raising tricky teenagers Chances are, you’ve just ticked a few boxes and maybe you’re still feeling the aftershocks. Here’s the thing: By the time women hit 50, more than half have faced at least five major life upheavals. And let’s be real – these “Horsemen of the Midlife Apocalypse” rarely arrive one at a time. Instead, they create a mael...

“People will have negative opinions about you and every single thing you do. Let them.” – Mel Robbins Everyone is talking about Mel Robbins’ latest book, The Let Them Theory. And trust us when we say you’ll be nodding along to what she has to say. In it, Mel shares her own struggle with promoting herself on social media when she first started as a motivational speaker. Despite having a vision for her business, she hesitated, worried about what her friends and family would think.&n...

Rub your hands together and slowly pull them apart. What do you feel? Warmth? Tingling? ⚡ For Jodi Law, this sensation is energy. And as a transformational energy medicine practitioner, she believes we can tap into the body’s natural energy to take control of our health and wellbeing. It’s an area Jodi leaned into after more than 30 years in acute health care as a senior cardiac nurse. It’s a job that pushed Jodi’s own health to the limits, with the stress manifesting as heart palp...