Inside The Maverick Mind

What if you stopped chasing success — and started feeling alive instead? In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, Emyr Afan OBE sits down with the extraordinary Mykel Dixon — author, creative catalyst, and one of the most refreshingly honest voices on what it means to live and lead with aliveness. Mykel challenges one of the biggest myths of modern life: that joy, vitality, and fulfilment are waiting for you on the other side of achievement. Instead, he flips the script entirely — feel ...

What does it take to build a high-growth tech business from Wales and compete on a global stage? In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, I sit down with Mark Sweeny, Founder and CEO of de Novo Solutions — one of the UK’s fastest-growing cloud consultancies and winner of this years Welsh Government St Davids Awards for business. Mark walked away from corporate security to build something of his own. Since then, he’s scaled de Novo into a serious player in the cloud and digital transform...

In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, Emyr Afan sits down with Dr Julia “Rock” Jones - a neuroscience-led performance and habit specialist who’s spent years helping leaders rethink how they think. Dr Julia’s work sits at the intersection of brain science, behaviour and high performance. But this isn’t about hacks or hustle. It’s about understanding how the brain actually works - and how small, consistent changes can shape resilience, energy and long-term success. In this conversation...

In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, Emyr Afan sits down with Simon Powell, one of Wales’ most influential and quietly disruptive tech entrepreneurs. With more than four decades at the forefront of travel technology, Simon’s story starts in a traditional family travel agency and evolves into building systems that powered thousands of UK travel businesses. Long before “digital transformation” became a buzzword, Simon was solving real-world inefficiencies with practical, scalable tech -...

Picture it: 2006. A twenty‑something at a kitchen table with a battered laptop, a pile of receipts, and an idea most accountants would’ve called ridiculous… Instead of charging by the hour, she turned accountancy into a subscription — like Netflix, but for tax returns. That founder is Lucy Cohen, creator of Mazuma. She’s rock‑chic disruptor, not grey‑suit stereotype — and she built a model that became a multi‑million‑pound business helping thousands of small businesses across the country. Luc...

Inside the Maverick Mind: Aled Miles - From Bridgend to Boardrooms Join us for an extraordinary conversation with Aled Miles, Welsh-born tech leader who's led Symantec's Norton Division, TeleSign, Source Labs, and now heads IntelliStack. As Welsh Government Envoy to the US, Aled bridges Wales and Silicon Valley. In this episode: 🔥 Surviving the LA Palisades wildfire - a harrowing account of losing everything and finding humanity 🎯 Leadership lessons from crisis: calmness, consiste...