He is a big believer in community. He is the Creative & Events Director for Aston Performing Arts Academy. This a community interest organisation that exists to empower young people through performing and creative arts. Since the organisation’s inception in 2004, they have impacted the lives of over three thousand young people in the Midlands.

Tru is a Trustee for Creative Academies, a Board Member for West Midlands Regional Tourism Board, Birmingham Hippodrome and a NED for TAG Network Midlands and Creative Academies Network.

He has is a champion for social equality, justice, and freedom of speech. He believes in true representation of all communities irrespective of race, gender, religion, sexuality, age, or class. 

When Tru is not working on his businesses, speaking at events, or lecturing, you can catch him on the nation’s favourite breakfast TV programme, Good Morning Britain, where he is a regular commentator on the show.

Over the years Tru has received many accolades for enterprise and his contribution to the arts. As you will hear, he speaks freely, openly, and authentically.

Resources

Tru’s website and course details: www.trupowell.com

The Creative Entrepreneur UK Clubhouse club: https://clubhousedb.com/club/12421-creative-entrepreneurs-uk. 

Aston Performing Arts Academy website: https://www.astonpaa.com/.

The Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast:  https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/creative-entrepreneurs-podcast/id1569910186. 

Kandy Girl website: https://www.kandygirl.uk/. 

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 chance to earn their full salary, in return for delivering 100% productivity, but by only working for 4 days. Once his board had got their head around the idea, they began piloting a 4-day working week for all. The pilot went well and soon became the norm for the teams. 

Over time, other businesses got to hear about the success of this initiative and the 4 Day Week Global Foundation was born. Andrew has spoken all over the world about the initiative, published a white paper about the results, and in 2019 he published his book, not surprisingly called the 4-day week.

Earlier this year, a pilot programme started for companies in the UK who are interested in the 4-day week concept. As you will hear the benefits seem compelling, and during our discussion Andrew shares many insights that will certainly get you thinking. It is not what you think, so definitely worth a listen.

Resources

Andrew Barnes LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewhbarnes/

4 Day Week Global programme website:  https://www.4dayweek.com/. 

4 Day Week White Paper 2019: https://www.4dayweek.com/download-white-paper. 

Andrew’s Book 4 Day Week: https://www.4dayweek.com/book. 

Acorn’s Children’s Hospice Business Club: https://www.acorns.org.uk/acorns-business-club/. 

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 the way. 

In 2010, after the global financial crisis, the company had fallen on very difficult times. It became Denise’s job to travel around the world convincing her customers and suppliers to continue to support KeTech. As you will hear, there is a pivotal moment when Denise asks one of KeTech’s customers for their support. Their faith and trust in Denise meant that they placed another order. 

Humble, understated and very focussed, her faith has never wavered in the potential of both the team and the KeTech business. Today, the business is thriving, applying lessons from their past to help achieve their global ambition.

Denise was a pleasure to talk to. She has a great sense of humour, and she shares many valuable learns that are meaningful to everyone.

Resources

KeTech website: https://www.ketech.com/ Denise Lawrenson – LinkedIn: Denise Lawrenson 

Acorn Children’s Hospice Business club: https://www.acorns.org.uk/acorns-business-club/. 

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 2020 New Year Honours 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 has now turned her attention to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, taking place this summer. Kelly is the Team Leader for the English Athletics team, and the preparation is well underway to give everybody the best possible chance to be successful. 

Kelly’s sense of determination, coupled with the confidence that underpins every great athlete and leader, runs throughout our conversation, as does her fantastic sense of humour. Kelly is candid, with a strong and inclusive leadership style that serves her well inside and outside of athletics.  

Once the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games finishes, Kelly will be looking for her next challenge, and we’re sure that she won’t be short of offers.

Resources:

Kelly Sotherton: Instagram @kellysotherton, Twitter @KellySotheron, LinkedIn Kelly Sotherton MBE

Acorn Children’s Hospice Business club: https://www.acorns.org.uk/acorns-business-club/. 

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 that market. Once they did, they did it in style. Their big break came when Jane Fonda started to wear their shoes in her Aerobics classes. They refocussed their efforts on developing a female brand, and Reebok grew, very quickly.

They turned Reebok into a $ Billion business overtaking the like of Adidas and Nike along the way to become the number one sports brand in the USA. 

In 2020 Joe published his autobiography, Shoemaker. As you will hear, Joe is looking forward to seeing Reebok make something of a comeback under new ownership later this year. He will be out promoting his book and supporting Reebok in America in a few months’ time.

Joe shares many insights about his journey:

• Being persistent.
• Knowing your market and customers, 
• Seizing opportunity by taking action.

In today’s world of digital first, it was fascinating to hear Joe’s story in a world that was anything but digital first at the time. One relied on letters, phone calls and lots of travelling!

Resources:

Joe Foster website: https://www.reebokthefounder.com/. 

Joe Foster on LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-foster-a38a4b10b/. 

Joe Foster on Twitter: @Reebokfounder 

Joe Foster’s Book “Shoemaker”: https://www.jwfosterheritage.com/shop-online. 

Acorn Children’s Hospice Business club: https://www.acorns.org.uk/acorns-business-club/. 

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 prevented him from reaching his goals. The second of which left him stranded on the mountain for two days. 

Demonstrating immense resilience whilst tackling his own mental challenges, Alex continued his adventures closer to home. He wrote the first of his two book, Ice Fall, and then moved on to his record-breaking challenge of climbing the 100 UK county tops and won the Pride of Britain Fundraiser of the year. 

Alex co-founded the charity Mind over Mountains, a mental health charity to help other people to improve their own wellbeing through outdoor experiences. As you will hear, Alex is incredibly open about his own challenges, and is a huge inspiration to people of any age and background

Resources:

Mind Over Mountains: https://mindovermountains.org.uk/. 

Alex Staniforth website:  https://alexstaniforth.com/. 

Alex Staniforth books:  https://alexstaniforth.com/books/.

Alex Staniforth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexstaniforth/. 

Acorns Children’s Hospice Business Club: https://www.acorns.org.uk/acorns-business-club/. 

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:

https://www.acorns.org.uk/

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 award-winning talent and culture strategist, organizational transformation leader, and international speaker on a mission to connect people with purpose. 

As the Head of HR & Talent Development at Addition Financial in Florida, Jordan oversees the organization’s talent strategy, internal communications, corporate events, and employee experience. 

Though he wears many hats, one of his favorite roles to play is that of host for Addition Financial’s, by-employees podcast, WeConnect. Harnessing knowledge and techniques gained from his 15 years of experience as a professional improviser, speaker, trainer, and talent consultant. Jordan’s real passion is for building people and place that work better, he helps leaders and teams improve communication, amplify creativity, and cultivate positive employee experiences that empower people to do their best work.

www.askjordangeorge.com 

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 contactus@curiumsolutions.com