Ever feel like everyone else got a handbook you didn't? Like there are invisible rules at work that no one actually tells you?

In this episode, Cristina Loaiza the host and Founder of FUTURES talks to Nicola Davy – a marketing leader who's navigated agency life, client side, scale-ups, corporates, and iconic brands like Jo Malone and The Cambridge Satchel Company – about the unspoken norms that shape success (and how to spot them before they trip you up.).

Nicola shares stories from her career transitions and opens up about:

• The invisible practices that were hardest to adjust to when moving between different organisations and sectors
• How to figure out if a company's hidden rules will help or hinder your growth
• What she wishes someone had told her earlier about navigating workplace cultures
• How she helps her teams become aware of unwritten expectations
• The lessons she's taking into her next chapter (including a peek at what's coming next)

If you've ever wondered why some people just seem to "get it" while others struggle to fit in or get ahead, this conversation will give you the tools to decode what's really going on – and decide which rules are worth following.

This episode is sponsored by Spotify and mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

Useful resources:

• Alex McCann, Still Wondering
• Stefanie Sword-Williams, Fuck Being Humble
• Mel Robbins, Let Them Theory

What if becoming a mother didn't diminish your creativity – but actually unlocked it?

In this episode, Jess MacIntyre sits down with Emma Baines, Global Head of Creative at Tony's Chocolonely and founder of Creative Motherhood, to explore how parenthood reshapes who we are and how we work.

Emma opens up about her journey – from 13 years in London's top agencies to global roles at HelloFresh and Tony's Chocolonely – and how becoming a mother completely changed her approach to leadership and creativity. Spoiler: it made her better at both.

They chat about:

• The shift that happens when you become a parent (and why it's actually a superpower)
• How motherhood influences the way you lead and create
• What the industry gets wrong about supporting mothers and carers – and what good looks like
• Why Emma started Creative Motherhood alongside her demanding day job
• The practical boundaries that help mothers thrive, not just survive

Whether you're a parent, thinking about it, or just curious about how life experiences shape leadership, this one's for you.

This episode was mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions and sponsored by Spotify.

In this episode we hear from the incredible Maria McDowell speaking to FUTURES Co-Founder Gina Hood about the benefits of mentoring, and how Maria has utilised this to support and empower underrepresented voices - particularly Black women - in advertising and marketing.

In times of uncertainty or inertia, setting small, attainable goals can be a powerful way to remind ourselves what we can do, boost our confidence and spark creativity. What can we learn from the world of sports that can help us all progress in our careers. 

In this episode of Pass It On, we welcome Mollie Pearse, Meta's Head of Marketing for EMEA and endurance athlete to chat about what she has learned.

Mollie joins Laura Vipond, Chief Growth Officer at Ogilvy UK and co-founder of the FUTURES Network to discuss the topic.

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

Rania Robinson - CEO at Quiet Storm and President of WACL - talks to Gina Hood from FUTURES about leading with purpose. They discuss how to build values and behaviours into businesses, find your own personal purpose, and the importance of looking after yourself mentally to protect this.

In this slightly different episode format of Pass It On, FUTURES Network Co-Founders and marketers Cristina Loaiza and Nicola Davy chat about the realities that many women in middle and senior level management roles face in their careers. They share some of their own personal challenges, as well as practical solutions that you can apply straight away.

A special thanks to all of our previous podcast guests referenced in this episode.

If you want to dig further into the topics discussed, here are some useful resources:

• Pass It On: How to build career confidence with Alice Driscoll
• Pass It On: How to turn setbacks into comebacks with Sarah Tate
• You Coach You, by Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper
• Badass Unicorn, Founded by Alice ter Haar

This podcast was mixed by Oli Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

In this episode of Pass It On, we welcome Sara Tate - author of the hugely successful new book, the Rebuilders and advertising titan, most recently CEO of TBWA London.

Has there even been a more timely podcast, as we all career into more societal and economical uncertainty. Thankfully Sara provides us with plenty of tools and tips for how to manage uncertainty, process failure and turn adversity into advantage.

Sara joins Laura Vipond, Chief Growth Officer at Ogilvy UK and co-founder of the FUTURES Network to discuss the topic.

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

In this episode we welcome Alice Driscoll to chat about how to build career confidence.

Confidence is a topic that impacts many women at work and in many instances can hold them back from taking positive action. We explore what confidence is, where it stems from and why it can be easily knocked.

We discuss the importance of prioritising competence over confidence. We explore why focusing on effectiveness over people pleasing is a much stronger strategy, and why we should think about ourselves as continuously improving rather than the finished article.

Alice is a leader turned leadership and conflict coach. Senior leaders and their teams work with Alice to increase their leadership impact, enabling them to reach ambitious organisational goals.

Alice is interviewed by Cristina Loaiza, a marketer and Co-founder of the FUTURES Network.

Find out more about Alice here.

This podcast was mixed by Oli Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

Does anyone really plan out their careers, or is it a myth? Should we be worried about having a “patchwork” CV or can we use it to our advantage in 2022?

In this episode, we hear from WACL member and Wavemaker’s Chief Operating Officer, Katie Lee on her own career journey through advertising, start-ups and most recently media, and why being open and honest can lead to the best roles. Katie joins Laura Vipond, Chief Growth Officer at Ogilvy and founder of the FUTURES Network to discuss the topic. 

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman from Stone Street Productions.

We welcome Amelia Torode to Pass It On for this episode. Fascinated by brands, technology, culture and ideas, Amelia is one of the UK’s best known strategic planners.

As we head into 2022 many of us will be making plans for the year ahead... but do plans really work? We look at whether having a plan can limit your opportunity or whether structure can help us to reach our goals.

Amelia is interviewed by Nicola Davy, a marketer and co-founder of The Futures Network.

Find out more about Amelia here.

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

Have you ever felt stuck in your career or life? If so, self-coaching could be a powerful tool to help you get unstuck. 

Self-coaching is the ability to tap into your own inner wisdom to work out what the best path is for you personally. It’s the idea that the answers sit within us, we just need to work out how to unlock them to make better decisions and take positive action as a result. As our lives become more ambiguous and complex, it’s a skill that has never been more relevant and important. 

Cristina Loaiza, marketer and Founder of the FUTURES Network, speaks to Sarah Ellis about how to build self-awareness and use practical coaching techniques and tools to get unstuck, and shares some of her own experiences of coaching herself and others too. 

Sarah is the co-founder of Amazing If, an award-winning career development company with a mission to make work better for everyone. She’s co-author of The Sunday Times No1 bestseller The Squiggly Career book and host of the highly popular Squiggly Careers podcast. She is also in the process of writing her 2nd book, which is all about teaching people how to coach themselves effectively (out in Jan 2022, available for pre-order Sept 2021.)

Find out more about Sarah on Instagram @AmazingIf.

 Special thanks to Ollie Steadman for mixing this podcast.

Evolution not revolution: with so much change in the world right now, many of us are looking at new career paths and possibilities. But where do we start? We'll discuss how you can leverage your strengths, values and support networks to explore different career possibilities to find work happiness.

In this episode, we’ll explore the topic with Working Wonder co-founders and twin sisters, Calli Louis and Nichola Johnson-Marshall, who join Laura Vipond, an agency marketer and founder of the FUTURES Network.

Calli and Nichola share their Working Wonder learnings and discuss practical tips for how you can build resilience, communicate effectively and why being new in a role can be your superpower.

Find out more about Calli and Nichola and Working Wonder at workingwonder.co, on Instagram at @workingwonder and Twitter at @working_wonder.

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman from Stone Street Productions.

We hear a lot about mentorship, but what if we could take this one stage further into sponsorship?

In this episode, FUTURES host Gina Hood talks to the brilliant Dinah Williams - an award-winning consultant and founder of Avenir Network, and Program Director of the Black Representation in Marketing Sponsorship Programme - to talk about how Dinah’s work is transforming how organisations think about equity, opportunity, and leadership.

You'll hear about...

1. Insight into why sponsorship is critical for women and underrepresented talent.
2. Inspiration from Dinah’s journey and the success of BRiM
3. Practical takeaways for building meaningful, sustainable career support networks

With special thanks as always to our sponsor Spotify.

As the world slowly opens up, do we want to go back to the office at all? There’s an implication that returning to the office means we’ll be going back to old ways. But we know flexible working is a primary influencing factor in closing the gender pay gap - but how committed are businesses to this really. This year is crunch year - our one opportunity to reset how we go to work as women.

In this episode, we’ll explore the topic with WACL President and Founder & Global CEO of Brooklyn Brothers, Jackie Stevenson, who joins Laura Vipond, an agency marketer and founder of the FUTURES Network.

Jackie shares her experience campaigning for gender parity as WACL President 2021/22, and discusses practical tips for how we can all take a #FlexibleFirst approach to working to help redress the gender pay gap.

Find out more about Jackie Stevenson and her #FlexibleFirst WACL campaign at wacl.info/flexible-first-campaign, and on Instagram and Twitter at @jackiestevenson.

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman from Stone Street Productions.

We are delighted to have Amy Kean join us on the FUTURES podcast who shares her perspectives and personal journey to becoming her truest and honest self but also the challenges she faced along the way. You'll hear some real talk, learn what a silent brainstorm is and also gain need-to-know tips on how best to navigate the advertising world.

More about Amy Kean

Amy is founder of creativity and culture company Six Things Impossible: a creative force for good in a formulaic world, frequently sharing fresh ideas to people and has recharged company cultures. She's on a mission to fix some (six) things in the ad industry, ranging from how we talk about people, to how we stop obsessing over fabricated trends. She’s worked in strategy and innovation for 16 years, and was previously global head of strategic innovation and creativity at Starcom, responsible for driving positive change across every client’s business. Prior to that she led strategy for Mindshare across APAC , launched the UK’s first media lab for the Havas Media Group, and ran marketing, PR and social at the IAB. She is also an author of two books, The little girl that gave zero fucks and house of weeds. 

Amy is culture editor at Shots and co creator of The Dice Charter - which was set up to ensure better representation on stages and holds event organisers accountable to that. She was named a ‘digital maverick’ by Marketing Magazine as well as BIMA’s top ten ‘women in tech’.

What is the secret to having a positive relationship with our mental health? What can we do to make sure our minds helps us become the very best versions of ourselves?

In today’s episode, we’ll explore the topic of mental health with Cate Murden, founder of corporate wellness and mental health company, PUSH.

Cate joins Therese Baggas, one of the leaders of the FUTURES Network and a marketer, to talk about the power of learning to manage manage our minds and mental health when we face uncertainty and stress.

She takes us on her journey from high-flying media executive to founding PUSH, sharing how she learned to look after her mental health along the way. We’ll discuss Cate’s best tips for how you can become more aware of your thoughts and control how you respond to tough situations, so that you can live the life you want and achieve your goals.

Find out more about Cate and PUSH at www.pushmindandbody.com, where you’ll find PUSH’s recently published e-book, High-Potential Hacks.

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman from Stone Street Productions.

In the age of Instagram and LinkedIn, we’re all pressured to demonstrate “success” to peers, whilst the blurred line between our professional and private lives compounds the need to try to achieve this in all areas, all of the time. So what does success actually mean?

In this episode, FUTURES talks to Dan Bennett to learn how Behavioural Science can be harnessed to help you rethink what success means, and ultimately make you feel more fulfilled.

Gina Hood discusses with Dan how we can define what success means to us personally, avoid falling into unhealthy cycles of comparison, and set ourselves up for happiness in our jobs. Dan also shares some personal stories about his career journey, and what he's learnt about success along the way.

Dan co-leads the behavioural science practice within Ogilvy Consulting London looking after clients from the public and private sectors. He is a Practitioner, Speaker and Writer on the creative application of behavioural science to the world's stickiest challenges. Joining the practice at its commencement in 2012, he has worked on over 80 of the world’s major brands & organisations.

What are your biggest fears? Every single person on this planet has fears, also known as self-limiting beliefs, that could be holding them back from reaching their full potential.

In this episode, we dig into the topic with award-winning marketer, consultant and ICF certified life and business coach, Abigail Dixon.

Cristina Loaiza, a marketer and Founder of the Futures Network chats to Abby about what limiting beliefs are, why we have them and importantly how we can overcome them, so that we can reach our goals. Abby also shares how she conquered her own fear of writing which led her to write her first book.

Find out more about Abby on Instagram @thewholeyoucoach and @labyrinthmktg

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

Today, we welcome Sinéad Burke to Pass It On. 

Sinéad is an Irish educator, writer, broadcaster, fashion-admirer and advocate for disability and design. She’s the first female little person to be on the cover of British Vogue making history for the fashion publication. She is also Founder of Tilting the Lens, which is a consultancy working to accelerate systemic and cultural change through innovation and design. Sinead also has her own podcast series called ‘As Me’. 

Sinead joins Visha Naul, Co-founder of the FUTURES Network and Director of Business Marketing for Pinterest, EMEA, to talk about how to embrace our differences and turn them into our superpowers. We often try to fit in when in fact our differences and quirks can be our biggest source of strength and power. Sinead shares her own personal experiences in how to unleash her own quirks to be her best self authentically. 

She takes us through her journey from childhood to adulthood and shares how she learnt to use her multiple identities (a woman, irish, disabled to name a few) to become the success she is today and how it opened up opportunities, pride and joy.  

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman from Stone Street productions.

Change is life's only certainty. Never has that been truer following the most unpredictable year on record, 2020. The key is that we learn how to navigate the stormy times, so we can learn and grow as individuals, both personally and professionally.

In our first ever episode of Pass It On, we dig into the topic of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable with the brilliant and talented Daryl Fielding.

Cristina Loaiza, a marketer and Founder of Futures Network, chats to Daryl about how she overcame some difficult challenges in her personal life (following an unexpected divorce), as well as in her impressive and varied career to date.

Daryl is currently the CEO of The Marketing Academy Foundation, a brilliant charity enabling young adults from tough backgrounds to start a career in the marketing industries, fulfilling her lifelong passion for diversity. 

Find out more about Daryl here.

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

Amelia Wrighton, CEO and Co-Founder of Suicide&Co talks to Zoe Aresti, Head of Marketing & Communications at Digital Cinema Media & Co-Head of Events for the FUTURES Network about the art of saying ‘no’ and setting boundaries to reclaim your wellbeing.

*Trigger Warning: Suicide*

They discuss:

-       The importance of setting boundaries to empower us in our personal and professional lives.

-       How to carve out time for self-care.

-       How to determine the right opportunities without saying “yes” to everything that comes your way.

This episode was mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

Matthew Hook, Co-Founder of LookUP & Strategic Consultant of Hook Strategy talks to Emma Saddleton, Client Partner & Co-Head of Events for the FUTURES Network about how finding fun and joy in our work is a crucial part of career success, not just an outcome.

They discuss:

• How enjoyment is the fuel to career success & the importance of topping it up
• How learning is key to building momentum and developing that enjoyment
• The importance of community and people around you to fuel this fire

This episode was mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions

Miranda Hipwell, CEO of adam&eveDDB, talks to Kathryn Gooding from FUTURES about how to find & own your style at work. 

As part of this conversation, Miranda & Kathryn cover: 

• Moments to look for (& create) in developing your style.
• As a leader, how to guide others in their own journeys.
• How life experiences are as important as career experiences.
• How individuals come together to create culture, & what you can do to influence it.

This podcast was mixed by Oli Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

Shelina Janmohamed, Director of Consumer Equality at Ogilvy UK talks to L:aura Vipond, FUTURES co-founder about identity. From polymaths to portfolio careers, how to be more than one thing and what does it mean for your personal brand. We cover being a carer, South Asian Heritage Month and holding an Open Iftar.

Links to the WPP Consumer Equality Report and Shelina's Global podcast, 'The Shelina Show', as mentioned.

This podcast was mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions.

FUTURES Network Founder Cristina Loaiza talks to ITV's Chief Marketing Officer, Jane Stiller, about her career journey to get to her current position.

Jane shares why taking measured career risks along the way pay off, how she's approached them, as well as her top tips for anyone thinking of doing the same.

About Jane:

Jane Stiller is the Chief Marketing Officer at ITV. She is responsible for all aspects of ITV's marketing, including strategy, creative, media and publicity. Jane joined ITV in 2019 as Director of Media and was named to her current position in 2020.

Before joining ITV, Jane worked across retail and consumer goods in marketing and digital roles for Marks and Spencer, innocent and Mars Chocolate. She is a Non-Executive Director for the Great Schools Trust.

Cristina Loaiza talks to Fertility Coach Jennifer Elworthy on the challenges that women face when building a career while also navigating fertility issues.

Jennifer Elworthy has over 20 years’ experience in marketing, working on some of the UK’s most well-known media brands from the BBC, ITV & News UK. 

In 2015 she experienced recurrent miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, leaving her confidence at work at rock bottom. 

During this time, she went through intensive IVF treatment, so has first-hand experience of the juggle involved.

After qualifying as a coach in 2020, she now partners with ambitious, go-getting women to navigate the challenges of balancing career goals with fertility treatment.

Resources:

If you're going through any similar issues please reach out to Jen directly or contact the IVF network for support.

Thank you to Ollie Steadman at Stone Street Productions for mixing this episode.

We speak to Camilla Craven about her journey from employed to self-employed, exploring the challenge of going from the comfort of being on payroll to having to fend for yourself. Are the huge benefits such as working in alignment with your strengths & values, as well as achieving more autonomy and flexibility in your work, worth it?

How do you create Work That Feeds You while balancing the challenges of running a business and staying true to your purpose and values?

In this episode, Sangeetha Mahadevan, Managing Partner, Omnicom Media, interviews Collette Philip, Founder of Brand by Me, exploring what it truly means to build and sustain work that feeds you emotionally, ethically, and mentally. This episode also highlights that while work that feeds you is rooted in driving meaningful impact, it must equally empower you to financially build the life you want for yourself and your family. As Brand by Me celebrates 10 years, Collette reflects on her journey and the conversation uncovers how purpose, values, entrepreneurship and impact can come together to shape a deeply fulfilling career.

This episode touches upon:

·Collette’s inspiring journey from working at large advertising agencies to founding her own purpose-driven brand consultancy, Brand by Me, followed by her clear focus on wanting to only work with brands that are doing good in the world

· How not seeing a career or role for yourself is a signal to build your own and to see setbacks not as barriers, but as stepping stones to forge a path that is authentically yours

·Purpose-led work often begins with recognising gaps and having the courage to create something different

·Practical tips on how not only to build work that feeds you but also to stay consistent in doing so without draining yourself

·The need for purpose led work to also be financially thriving and allowing you to build the life you want

·Importance of regular reflection and creative outlets outside of work to keep it sustainable and personally nourishing

This episode is sponsored by Spotify  and mixed by Oliver Steadman at Stone Street Productions.