This Way Up – Détails, épisodes et analyse

For this episode, I interviewed fellow Ad woman Jane Evans. Jane is well known in our industry, she was one of her generation’s most successful advertising women, winning tons of awards for her creative campaigns. BUT and there is a big but here, in her fifties, she was made to feel completely invisible by the advertising industry. 

 This became a big problem.  She quickly realised that there is a huge issue of unemployment and invisibility for all midlife women. Emails and calls were ignored by every ad agency and personally, she didn’t know how she would make ends meet – she ended up having to go to food banks and even being evicted from her home. 

This led to her creating the Uninvisibility project. A platform dedicated to highlighting this issue, showcasing brilliant women, and creating opportunities for women to return to the workplace.

 And god, I thank her for it. We all should. As Jane points out during our conversation, this is a huge societal issue and one that we should all be concerned about. She makes the very good point that we've been basing our lives on the fact that we're going to live to around about 70. Yet we're probably going to live to 90 or 100. So being in your 50s is not the end, it's actually the middle of our lives. And women are bearing the full brunt of this neglect, with unemployment at an all-time high.  This is an issue that we discuss at length including the ways in which we can start to bring about change.

 We also talked about another important issue and that’s how we talk about menopause. Because let’s face it, that’s been and still is taboo. Though Jane attributes her lack of confidence to menopause she also says one thing that women don’t realise is that although you may have a difficult time with it, there is also a huge part no one talks about and that is the surge of energy and confidence you get afterward. Why? because suddenly you have testosterone in your system.

 There is, of course, a lot more that we discuss, and if like me you are a fan of all of what Jane says then you can continue to hear more about her story through her wonderful book that she co-authored with Carol Russell called ‘Invisible to Invaluable. Unleashing the power of midlife women’ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08JY58CYJ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 

For episode 46, I had the pleasure of interviewing fellow French woman and super talented artist Camille Walala. If you’re a Londoner, you will have probably seen her work around town- that’s because it cannot be missed. Camille uses buildings or any type of man-made landscape as her canvas, using a fusion of bold colours and playful geometric patterns. Whether it’s reviving an entire street in Leyton stone, creating a weird and wonderful house for Lego, taking over a disused petrol station in Arkansas, or most recently creating a pop-up supermarket selling artist-designed foods at the Design Museum. Her work is bold, colourful, and striking to say the least.

As you can probably tell, I’m a huge fan of her work so I was so excited to sit down with her to talk about her journey. From growing up in a small town in the south of France, she went to London as a student to work on her English and fell in love with the city and its free spirit. Her biggest struggle, however, was to find her career path. We go deep to understand what it was that made things so hard.  

She attributes her lack of confidence and being a harsh self-critic as two of her biggest hurdles she had to overcome. Multiple jobs and a textile degree later, out of pure frustration her creative voice was born. It was her hardship and tenacity that led her to be one of the most recognizable artists today
  and such an inspiration.

The thing I love most about Camille is her passion to elicit joy in everything she creates and this conversation is no exception. 

I hope you enjoy this interview just as much as I Ioved recording it. 

For this episode, I recorded Liv Little, the founder and CEO of gal-dem -an award-winning online and print publication committed to sharing perspectives from women and non-binary people of colour.

Here is a scary stat for you - the current journalistic landscape is 94% white and 55% male. What I love so much about gal-dem is that they are actively trying to redress this imbalance through both their editorial and commercial work.

And in this interview, I got a real understanding of the magazine and how Liv came to start it at the age of just 21! We chart the different influences in her life from how her mum’s social enterprise work influenced her growing up to going to Bristol Uni and how hard she found it not seeing people like herself with the same background and experiences. It is through this isolating experience that Gal Dem was born – a chance for Liv to carve out her space and create a community.

She credits her ambition and sheer determination for making it all possible. She talks about the many skill sets she had to develop quickly to become CEO and the importance of surrounding yourself with experienced mentors that can help you with all the different aspects of your business. It’s not about following in their footsteps but instead have access to a pool of knowledge that can help you make better decisions.

There is a huge amount we can all learn from Liv’s amazing story.

For this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing the incredible French artist Malika Favre. 

Malika is as one of the most sought-after graphic artists in the UK with renown clients including The New Yorker, Vogue, BAFTA and Penguin Books, amongst many others. She uses positive and negative space to create bold, minimal artwork– often described as Pop Art meets OpArt. 

Like me, Malika was born in Paris and during our conversation, we reminisce about what it was like growing up in France and how it influenced her in both her creative work and her life.

As per usual we go through her career – how she left Paris to continue her university studies in the UK and how her artwork was influenced by working at top agencies in London. 

Malika says the recipe for her success is down to her positive work values. From determining when she is at her most productive, in her case it’s all about waking up late, to prioritising work that fulfils her and most importantly ensuring she doesn’t burn out – an experience she knows all too well.  She also describes the fascinating process behind her artwork, how she is able to reduce complex briefs from her clients into something visually simple, yet striking with a clear message. 

You’ll hear from the excitement in our voices just how enjoyable this conversation was, and I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

For this episode, I interviewed Lisa Smosarski. Lisa is the Editor in Chief and Board Director of Stylist magazine. Stylist is a free weekly magazine for women, known for its fashion, beauty, people and careers news.  Over the years, it has featured Hollywood stars such as Angelina Jolie, Penélope Cruz, Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Aniston on the cover as well as Hillary Clinton, comedian Tina Fey, activist Emma González and classicist Mary Beard.

I’ve always been a big fan of this magazine, from the very moment they started in 2009 they have set out a very different vision to other women’s magazines. As Lisa explains during our conversation, their aim is to treat women differently; intelligently. With no paparazzi photos, no gossip, no diets, no mumbo jumbo. It’s all about creating well-researched, thought-provoking articles for multifaceted women. 

11 years on, the magazine continues to live up to that motto, and you can see why with Lisa at the helm. She says the answer for this success is that they listen and constantly try to adapt to their audience needs. She’s also not afraid of her gung-ho attitude and she is prepared to break the rules of publishing, however with a hint pragmatism and a great team to help support her vision. 

As usual with the podcast, we chart her entire career journey from when she fell in love with journalism as a teenager to landing in the magazine world and being made editor at the age of just 25. Finally, I get to hear the fascinating story behind Stylist and what it’s like to run – she even shares her story on how she got to work directly with Hilary Clinton on an exclusive Stylist edition. 

In this episode, I catch up with a previous guest of the show, the amazing Caroline Pay. I originally recorded Caroline’s story in 2018 just before she relocated to California to take up her role as Chief Creative Officer of Headspace. 

This time, we discussed how her role at headspace is going as they go from strength to strength, with over 1m global subscribers. And as we recorded this Headspace were preparing to launch their amazing new initiative to make Headspace free for anyone who has lost their job in America due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

You’ll hear in this interview I am a big fan of Headspace as I use their guided meditation on a daily basis and recommend it to anyone I know.  It was great to get an understanding from Caroline about the inner workings of such a successful and creative tech company. 

We covered many topics during our conversation including Caroline’s challenge to adapt to a new way of working, so different from the world of advertising in the UK she was used to. At Headspace, it’s all about learning to relinquish control and letting the user dictate what to put on the app. We also talked about the importance of boundaries between work and home and ensuring you look after yourself in order to be better at your own job.

It was really great catching up with a past guest and especially to see how well she was getting on. If you haven’t listened to her first episode then it is really worth taking a listen, so you can get an idea of her full and varied career in advertising. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, I hope you do too!

“Kids are usually described as the citizens of the future, but instead, in my opinion, they are citizens of the present, and they should be treated as such… this is why it is important to expose children to stories that are based on what is happening around them, rather than just fantasy stories…if you treat them as citizens, from the moment they are born, with rights, according to their age. It is much easier I think, to cultivate a society of individuals who feel the responsibility that comes from citizenship.” Francesca Cavallo.

In this episode, I recorded Francesca Cavallo. Francisco is a bestselling Italian author, entrepreneur and activist. She is the co-creator of the Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls series. These books tell the stories of 100 great women, from Freida Kahlo to Elizabeth I to Serena Williams, illustrated by female artists from around the world. The series has sold over 4 million copies worldwide, been translated into 48 languages and sparked a global movement with more than 500,000 fans on social media. 

However, the idea for the books didn’t happen overnight. We discuss all the experiences in Francesca’s life that led to creating these inspiring books – from having parents that were always supportive of her choosing her own career, to her experience working with children and understanding the importance of empowering them rather than imposing our view of the world. And most importantly, the importance of having real women as role models to young girls to break gender stereotypes. 

At the time of recording this, Francesca has recently released a free e-book for children entitled ‘Dr Li and the Crown-Wearing Virus’. The short story, about the Doctor who first issued warnings about the new virus, has been a huge success around the world. We talk at length about the importance of having discussions about difficult topics with children including this pandemic and this book is a great example of how this can be done. 

Spotify and iTunes link for this episode can found via the bio. I hope you enjoy this conversation, I really did!

And if you would like to download Francesca’s free e-book ‘Dr Li and the Crown-Wearing Virus’, I’ve also included the link in my bio.

"Imposter syndrome? Absolutely. How you deal with that is by being graceful and empathic and supportive, and not protecting. Owning up when you don't know something? So majorly important. You don't have to know everything." Fiona McDermott 2020

This is a very special episode recorded live on stage at the APA future of advertising conference earlier this year - and features the fantastic Fiona McDermott. 

For those who don’t know, Fiona she is Channel 4’s head of comedy. After joining Channel 4 in 2011 as Commissioning Editor she has worked across some amazing award-winning shows such a Derry Girls, Catastrophe, The Windors and Home, just to name a few. And before that she was a Producer at Zeppotron, working on shows such 8 out of 10 Cats, Would I Lie To You and Screenwipe.

During our conversation, we speak about Fiona’s introduction to the world of TV  and the different roles she has had along the way. We also talk about what it was like working with some of the best comedians in the UK including Jimmy Carr, Franky Boyle, Charlie Brooker and Sean Pye. And of course, how she became the Head of Comedy and the day to day work that entails. 

She talks openly about often feeling like she has a lot to prove and how the all too familiar imposter syndrome often rears its ugly head. We also talk about the amount of responsibility she has to face on a daily basis, such as having to work out and evolve Channel 4’s comedy taste and the difficult job of knowing when to turn down new scripts and formats – with the all-important question – has she ever turned down a show that goes on to be a smash hit!

P.S. She also gives an insight into the best way to pitch your idea to Channel 4 but keep it to yourself... ;)

For this episode, I interviewed Lillian Ahenkan aka Flex Mami – she is a DJ, Presenter, Influencer, Podcaster, Model, and Author. I got the chance to record this interview at her amazing colourful house in Sydney, Australia earlier this year. 

I had an absolute blast recording this - Flex is fun, vibrant and the biggest go-getter I’ve ever met! In fact, at the age of just 26 she has already achieved more than many of us could dream of in a lifetime. And the great thing about this interview is that she recounts exactly how she managed to achieve it all – leaving nothing out. 

What’s great with Lillian is that she is super eloquent and self- analytical, and we go through the real back story behind all her different achievements. 

She also gives some great advice at the end so stay tuned all the way through!

In this episode, I got to interview the brilliant Vicki Maguire. Vicki is the Chief Creative Officer of ad agency Havas and she is one of the most awarded creatives in the industry today. Her work includes the ‘Hands Only CPR’ ad for the British Heart Foundation starring Vinnie Jones – which has now saved over 50 lives – and The Angina Monologues, which earned her a British Comedy Award. A vocal advocate of diversity and inclusion, Vicki was the first female chair of Creative Circle and helped set up its foundation; a charity that helps fund students from diverse backgrounds enter the industry.

What can I say about this episode! I had such a laugh! Why? Because Vicki is a force of nature who tells it exactly how it is. That might be to do with her working-class background, her ability to blag her way into any job or just simply her infectious laughter.

As usual we chart our way through her career from being fired from every job imaginable in the fashion industry to landing in advertising and recently becoming Chief Creative Officer at Havas London. 

I don’t want to reveal too much about this interview instead I’ll tell you some of the things you’ll learn from her story – the art of blagging, when to tell it’s time to move on from your job, the value of having a 3 months fuck off fund and how to negotiate your salary – plus much much more.