Leaders & Founders

Tomas Ohlson is the Founding Engineer at Einride, joining as one of the company’s first 5 employees. Originally from the countryside in Sweden, Tomas grew up on a farm where he was always surrounded by creative minds, passionate about helping those around them. A societal obligation was instilled in him at a young age. Following his passion for engineering, computers and building things, Tomas graduated from university with a Masters in Computer Science and Networks. At University, he met several close and important friends that he would go on to strike amazing relationships with and work alongside in his professional life. Tomas’ passion for building continued at a fast rate as he co-founded a number of very successful tech businesses in his early professional years and beyond. His quest for building took him from Gothenburg to Silicon Valley and back again, where Tomas now sits as one of Einride’s earliest employees and technical visionaries. When Tomas, Robert, Linnea, Filip and the Founding team at Einride first started their mission to build an autonomous vehicle capable of replacing traditional driven-trucks, people called them crazy. But, they dared to dream big and have gone on to achieve a huge amount in the company's highly impressive, but short life. Fast forward to 2021 and Einride are now one of the world’s most advanced and highly anticipated electric and autonomous trucking businesses, with the eyes of the world firmly on their incredible Einride Pod. The Pod is a glimpse into the future - something Tomas says was done deliberately by design - and offers insight into where the world of trucking may be heading with the correct technology and adoption. With incredible new funding behind them, a recent launch in the US and a hugely ambitious roadmap ahead of them, Einride are here to change an industry and improve the future of all of our lives. The freight industry contributes to both a sad and huge amount of CO2 emissions into our planets' atmosphere. Einride firmly believe that electric and autonomous trucking can have a positively dramatic impact on climate change over the coming years, and are here to lead the way for Europe. They are making their own footsteps in the stand where no one in Europe has gone before them and with this comes both great excitement, but also great expectation. They are leaders, trailblazers and great people building products that may will become a part of our every day life quicker than you might believe! To check out Einride, please head to their website: https://www.einride.tech and check out their blog and media channels for more awesome updates on their global expansion! 

Jo Drake is a highly accomplished technology leader and current CTO at THG, one of the UK’s most recognisable and successful e-commerce businesses. Once an aspiring professional tennis player, Jo was thrown into the world of technology when a career-ending injury changed her direction of travel. But what a change this was, with Jo’s career becoming a huge success that has seen her lead organisations at some of the world’s most successful technology companies, including THG, Betfair, Skyscanner, Wood Mackenzie and BBC. A huge sports fanatic - F1, football, tennis and horse racing are her go-to’s - Jo takes great inspiration from the intersection between sport and business. She is constantly looking to build the best team possible and make sure her players are in the right position, with the right coaches guiding them. She is very much a people-first leader that strives to develop her teams as best as possible, and loves challenging herself in every role that she does. In this episode, we get a glimpse behind the curtain at what has led Jo to becoming one of the UK’s most successful female technology leaders and previous CIO #100 winner. We also get the scoop on what THG - who run brands including LOOKFANTASTIC, MyProtein, ESPA and many more - are up to and how she leads this diverse and complex business. We also touch on how she tied the knot in a helicopter in Las Vegas, why Tottenham are both a blessing and a curse and of course, what tips she has for aspiring leaders. We love Jo, and we know you will too!

Jakub Zakrzewski is the Managing Director of APAC at Kraken Digital Exchange, one of the world's most successful and widely used Cryptocurrency exchanges. As MD of APAC, Jakub guides the team on their growth journey in the region and plays a huge part in allowing the business to scale to meet the incredible demand for their product worldwide. With Cryptocurrency and Blockchain once again being at the forefront of many people's minds in 2021, Kraken are seeing more customer acquisition than ever before and are continuing to add to their world-class team to meet the demands for their amazing product. But asides from their exchange, Kraken also received their US Banking license in 2020 and now plan to offer a range of cutting-edge, unique cryptocurrency banking services to their global population. Some amazing things lie in store for the Kraken! Jakub's career has been a textbook example of amazing growth, huge success and a whirlwind of a journey that has seen him at the helm of a number of high-growth businesses that have gone through to achieve unicorn status and IPO. After studying Rocket Internet Group as a thesis student, Jakub was offered a job by them in Singapore, which meant up and leaving Europe to find a new life in Asia. It is something that he would do time and time again and is thankful for the incredible opportunities that moving to Singapore has had on his career and his life. As the first employee of Rocket Internet - Lazada in Singapore, he helped steer them to a $1Bn acquisition by Alibaba Group, which led him on to his next journey as Head of Growth at EasyShip, an award-winning digital logistics business that gained amazing press for their seamless logistics experience. Then, after being approached by Revolut, he joined as an early employee to help them launch in Singapore. This meant spreading his time between Europe and Singapore and being part of the Revolut rocket which went on to take the world by storm with their well-crafted and hugely popular FX services. After a once in a lifetime experience with Revolut - Jakub joined Kraken as MD APAC in January 2020. It was certainly not that he wanted to ever leave Revolut, but because of his belief to try to see new trends in the market and take amazing opportunities when they arise. Jakub sees cryptocurrency and decentralised finance playing a huge part of our everyday lives in the coming years and believes in the power of the technology behind how finance could be shaped in the coming years. Jakub wanted to be a part of that revolution and sees Kraken as the perfect place to learn the craft, understand the market and to achieve some marvellous milestones with this high-growth business!

Nicholas Goubert is the Chief Product Officer at CLARK, an exciting German-based InsureTech scale-up and has had an incredible career within Product Leadership at some of the most innovative technology companies in Europe. After studying Computer Science and geography at university, he started working in geospatial technology which took him all over the world, working on some very unique challenges. After mixing software development with project management, he then found his way into what is now widely know - but wasn't so much then - as Product Management. This led him to head of Product at innovative businesses such as HERE, Nokia, SoundCloud, Native Instruments and now at CLARK, where he is overseeing their vision following a very successful $85M funding round. Alongside his main work as a CPO, Nicholas is also a technology advisor and mentor to a number of early-stage and high-growth startups, as well as up and coming Product and Engineering enthusiasts. He is a big advocate for mentorship and believes that paying it forward is a huge part of his role as a successful Tech professional that has great lessons for the future technologists of tomorrow. It is some of this thoughts and life lessons that really took our interest, though, as well as his approach to life, work and technology. He wants tomorrow's leaders to be curios, be bold and to take the leap of faith. If you do not do this, then how can you say that you tried? And if it doesn't work, then what's the worst that can happen? Great advice for those that are still figuring out their next step and need words of encouragement to step outside the box and strive for what you truly want! He also gives us some great insight into how he builds his teams, how he sets them up for success and where he sees the future of Product heading. When not working, Nicholas can be found perfecting his surfing technique, drinking a fine glass of wine and spending time with his friends and family. We really hope you enjoy this one, Nicholas is a great guy and has some amazing advice for anyone working in engineering, product and technology, and for leaders looking for innovative ideas on how to build successful teams!

Sustainability Leadership is the brand new book from Henrik Henriksson, CEO & President of Scania Group and Elaine Weidman-Grunewald, the Founder of the AI Sustainability Centre and former Chief Sustainability Officer at Ericsson. Honest about the dilemmas but bullish on the opportunities, Henrik and Elaine advise leaders on how to accelerate sustainability in their organisations told through a Swedish lens, where the country’s values and culture permeate the boardroom and the C-suite, bringing a unique clarity and conviction to leading with integrity. What is extremely interesting, is their view on how the corporate world will look in the next 10-20 years. Now, more so than ever, businesses need to not only think about sustainability from a “we should be doing more” perspective, but also as a genuine factor in your continued success and even existence. Throughout the book, more than 25 interviews with other leading CEOs of Swedish companies as well as successful start-ups, investors, economists, and other experts illuminate the path to sustainability leadership from different perspectives. These are complemented by case studies describing how companies got it right – or turned themselves around after getting it very, very wrong. Together, they are two of the most passionate people we have had the pleasure of speaking with and have highly decorated careers in the c-suite and executive world. Elaine has dedicated her life towards improving sustainability in the world of technology and also launched the “Technology for Good” showing how tech is a powerful accelerator for the Sustainable Development Goals, that spread from Sweden to Africa to Silicon Valley, and is now embraced by the broader tech sector. Henrik, as CEO & President of Scania Group, has been instrumental in changing not on Scania’s but also the entire logistics industries perspective on the part the have to play to improve the planet. Their energy and passion for improving the world we live in is plain for all to see and we were honoured to be able to get some time with them. Throughout the episode, we get a great look into how Swedish culture may play a part in why Sweden are leading much of the charge on sustainability, how sometimes we should all be a little more “Lady Gaga” and more importantly, how we can all play a huge part in improving the future. We hope you enjoy this episode, we are fully behind Henrik and Elaine and can’t wait to see the amazing things they go on to do!

For the first instalment in our VC and Investment focused series, we are extremely excited to be joined by the awesome man that is, Hampus Monthan Nordenskjöld. Hampus is a Founding Partner at TrueSight Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in pre-seed and seed stage startups in Europe and the US, with a focus on the Nordics and UK markets. They invest in ambitious founders and teams going after large markets and solving important problems with technology. Truesight support founding teams by advising on strategic decisions, providing relevant industry contacts and helping to raise next rounds as they continue to scale. Hampus' story is a very interesting one; he is very open about saying that when he was younger he had no idea that he would go on to co-found his own VC company. After originally following the professional sports route within Swedish football, Hampus went on to follow his burning passion for building companies before moving to Hawaii to study as an undergrad. This led him to move to New York, which led him into the crazy world of Wall Street, and then onto a number of years spent between Asia and Sweden whilst he studied for his MBA and ultimately, his move into Venture Capitalism. Today, Hampus and his co-founders are involved in a number of the most exciting and high-potential tech businesses in Europe. They look, first and foremost, for the person that they can invest in. Whilst the business idea or the problem their partners are looking to build is important, nothing is more important than finding the right people to work with. As a dedicated team of 4, TrueSight are still relatively small but bring a huge amount of power and support to their partners. They love to be involved as much as possible to really help their startups grow and are on hand for any questions, big or small, that may be required. TrueSight have seen great success very early in their life and have huge ambitions and plans for the future. They are looking to invest in more businesses all the time and have huge aspirations for where they want to be as a business. Hampus would encourage anyone seeking investment to reach out to see how he and his team may be able to help. Securing funding is difficult, challenging and super invasive. But, once the partnership is right, in TrueSight you have the right partner that is by your side. This is a super interesting episode for any leaders and founders going through this process right now. We hope you enjoy it!

Wow...do we have a special episode for you today! We were thrilled, delighted and excited to catch up with our most recent Leaders & Founders guest, Amanda Thomson. Not only is she an absolutely lovely and brilliant person, but a seriously successful entrepreneur with a passion for changing her industry for the better and delivering world-class products. Amanda is CEO and Founder of Thomson & Scott, voted one of Business Insider’s Coolest People in Food & Drink 2019. She is leading the global shift to delicious alcohol-free drinking with her game-changing Noughty - the first top quality organic, vegan, halal non-alcoholic low sugar sparkling wine. B Corp certified Thomson & Scott is also driving the debate for greater transparency in wine production and labelling. Amanda is passionate about this, and wants consumers to push to know what’s in their wine bottle. To this end, the company produces limited edition no added sugar vegan Champagne, top quality organic and vegan Prosecco alongside its alcohol-free bottle - Noughty. Following (and during) her very successful career as an Arts Broadcaster for the BBC, Thomson had the desire and vision to launch the business. But, that meant moving her young family to Paris, where she studied for her Diploma in Wine at the renowned Le Cordon Bleu School. Just another thing about Amanda is that she always succeeds; at Le Cordon Blue, she was Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 and became an EY Winning Woman. Thomson & Scott now sells in key territories around the world including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the US. From day one, the company has had many big name fans but it doesn’t use influencers or sponsorship deals to push the brand. Instead it has built smart partnerships with like-minded pioneering brands. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Worldfavor are an exciting sustainability business based in Stockholm, Sweden on a mission to help founders and business leaders all over the world make more conscious and educated decisions when looking to improve their value and supply chain. Through their digital sustainability hub, they harness the power of huge data sets to allow their partners a transparent, real-time view of their entire value chain and how the decisions they make may impact their chain and ultimately, the planet. From a tiny apartment in Stockholm to where they are today, Worldfavor help more than 20,000 users in more than 60 countries globally make hundreds of high-value and high-impact decisions on a daily basis that help transform the value chain all over the world. Frida Emilsson is a Co-Founder and COO at Worldfavor. As long as she can remember, she wanted to do something that made a positive difference to the world. Although she and her co-founders didn't exactly know what that was, they quickly understood the huge impact - both positive and negative - that corporate businesses have on people, suppliers and other businesses all over the world. When WF is coupled with corporate decision makers who genuinely want to make positive change in their value chain, the Worldfavor platform empowers leaders to make decisions that genuinely help make the world a better place for so many people across the planet. After years of incredibly hard work to gather data and study supply chains globally, what they have built is one of the most powerful digital hubs for supply and value chain the world has ever seen. And they are just getting started! Frida talks us through some of the highs and lows that Founders experience, the good and the bad and also, just what it means to be a successful Leader and Founder. She gives a very open and honest view on what startup life can be like, what to look for when choosing the right investors and as always, so amazing parting advice to founders and startups just getting started with their journey!

Fredrik Ulvenholm is the CEO of Vilja Solutions, an exciting and leading Swedish-based FinTech organisation that help their clients and customers build beautiful cloud-based core banking platforms that get them to market extremely quickly and reliably. Their future-proof platform ensures compliance, automates internal flows and offers a high level of customer service. It has the shortest time-to-market for launching new products and services, which enables banks and credit institutions to quickly and easily launch new revenue streams while focusing on creating the best banking experience for their customers. Vilja was formed in 2007 by a group of IT Banking experts who were tired of the legacy environments they had become so accustomed to. So they set to work and started building. They then successfully designed a brand-new cutting-edge banking platform, completely free from legacy debt and knew they had something unique to market. They quickly started to build products for their clients and firmly believe that their core values are: to be innovative, to be committed and to be trustworthy. Fred personally joined Vilja Solutions in 2016 after a successful career in IT and Senior Leadership across Stockholm, Jakarta and San Francisco. In the US, he was recently the CEO of Ice House, a software development incubator that designs and develops apps for a range of innovative startups and market-leading tech firms. He has always had a very strong understanding of how to grow IT businesses, how to scale teams and also, how to quickly improve sales figures and grow revenue streams. He has a wealth of experience within FinTech and is a true leader in the Swedish FinTech revolution. His approach is very much about true partnership with their clients and Fredrik speaks at length about the care he holds for their partners and that, when you partner with Vilja, they are very much a part of your family and do all that they can for you. They are also working with customers all over Europe as well, so if you are in any European (or global) city and want to speak to Vilja, I urge you to do so! What a great guy, I hope you enjoy it!

On this episode of Leaders & Founders, we're bringing you the story of an incredible Swedish-based FoodTech company tackling the huge issue of food waste at food retailers and supermarkets: Whywaste. Whywaste was founded with the singular vision to eliminate the food waste at food retailers. To do this, they develop software solutions to improve in-store processes for grocery retailers. They launched our first solution, Semafor, in December 2015 and have had amazing success in the proceeding years that followed. Semafor is an advanced date-management solution which helps shop workers accurately record and manage sell-by dates. Since this initial launch, their portfolio has grown too and now includes solutions for Deli, Bread, Fresh departments and an incredibly powerful back-office analytics tool. Today, their products are being used with stores of all sizes from more than 30 retail chains across 15 markets across the world. Whywaste have also formed a food waste coalition with two of our previous guests, Karma and OLIO. They aim to tackle the food waste issue at scale and to help provide new opportunities for their friends and partners at all levels of the value chain. True founder and startup grit and passion! For this episode, we were joined by Kristoffer Hagstedt, Whywaste's CEO & Co-Founder and Ben Holden, Head of International Sales and Marketing. We hope you enjoy!

OLIO are fast becoming one of the UK's most well-known brands and a huge driving force in driving down food waste across the planet. So, we were more than excited when we got the chance to sit down with Tessa Clarke to understand more about OLIO and the story of her business for our FoodTech & Sustainability series! After a very successful CxO career in a number of industries, Tessa knew that she wanted to make a bigger impact to people's lives. After struggling to give away perfectly good - great even - product when she moved house, she was amazed that there wasn't an app for such a thing. After pitching the idea to Saasha, her Co-Founder and friends and family, they knew they were onto something. So, they decided to take the plunge and make it happen. They started to conduct market research and spoke with focus groups and were quickly shocked by the real facts and figures behind food waste and sustainability and the damage it causes to the planet. Here are some of the facts that they found: - £15Bn of household food is wasted each year - 1/3 of food produced globally goes to waste - In most developed countries, 50% of food waste comes from the household - If food waste were a country, it would be 3rd largest in the world behind the US and China for emitted greenhouse gases - The list unfortunately goes on... After creating a very basic version of their app which was released to a study group, the overwhelming feedback of desire for this product to be built was huge. And so they began to start building OLIO into the amazing company that it is today. OLIO is a free to use app that allows neighbours and local residents to share food for free via the app on your mobile. The user interface and experience is on point and is extremely easy to use and the adoption for the product is becoming very exciting. After trying to hold back the app to other geographies until it was more mature, they couldn't stop the requests anymore, so are now helping millions of people in countries all over the world through their app. OLIO are also a huge force in helping those that are less fortunate and living in poverty through their food waste and community hero schemes. By signing up with OLIO as a volunteer, you can play an active role in helping get food which would literally just be destroyed, to those that really need it. What an amazing company! They are growing quickly and have since made some amazing partnerships with the likes of Tesco to really drive their expansion to drive down food waste and change the way that we all live and we cannot wait to see some of the amazing things they go on to achieve! We loved speaking with Tessa, what an incredible lady and an incredible company. Please enjoy! Oh yeah - and go and download OLIO!

As part of our FoodTech & Sustainability series, we recently had the opportunity to catch up with a global leader in the world of AgriTech and a true flag-bearer for food sustainability and improvement, Matija Zulj, CEO & Founder of Agrivi. Having enjoyed a very successful career in corporate IT, Matija decided that his next venture would be something that he truly cared about: solving the world's global food problem. After realising that 1 in 9 people globally are undernourished (>795 million) and that by 2050 there will be an extra 1.5 billion people in the world, resulting in the need to increase our food production by 60%, he knew there was more that he could do to help. So, Matija started farming himself to get a real sense of the issues and quickly realised how little information is available to farmers on how to efficiently grow crops. And so Agrivi was born. As they started to do more research, more very surprising information came to light. One key indicator of the chance for innovation and improvement in farming came from the fact that on average, only 1% of farmers are able to actually tell you which their most profitable field is. Additionally, most farmers make decisions purely on gut feel, so the opportunity to evolve a very traditional process became very clear. But, it is not without its' challenges. The average age of farmers is 50+ years old, with 1/3 of farmers globally being >65 years of age, so the audience with which they work are often cautious to change the way they have worked for decades. The adoption of their product however, has been inspiring, with so many great farmers and producers eager to improve the way they work for the better. Through their powerful software and analytics platform, Agrivi now help thousands of farmers in over 150 countries worldwide to manage their estates, help with their production and also, to help reduce insect pest and diseases through food which, you guessed it, helps to drastically reduce the impact on climate change. They also work with food and beverage organisations to improve efficiency and advise them on best practice methods and have made an incredible start to improving efficient and sustainability at the roots level. We hope you enjoy this episode, Agrivi are right at the front of making the world of food production a better place!

For the second episode of our FoodTech & Sustainability series, we were delighted to be joined by Mo Khodadadi. Mo is the CEO & Founder of SATIS.AI., a sophisticated AI-driven tech company that help restaurants and food chains to make better decisions in food supply chain. Through a series of computer-vision based models and machine learning technology, they help businesses to become more efficient, safer and a more enjoyable place to work. They are also on a mission to - in his own words - feed the world in the next 10 years. Amazing! Mo has had an extremely interesting journey so far and is an inspirational technologist, leader and founder. He's also an all round awesome guy and has some big plans for his next venture! From moving to Manchester to study for his Masters, to getting funding for his PhD (whilst concurrently finishing his Masters) AND taking on the CTO role at a startup, it's fair to say that Mo was always looking to expand his knowledge and take on as much as he possibly could. Mo quickly went on to become Executive Director of Data & Cognitive AI at hyper-growth Babylon Health, before looking to incorporate two of his biggest loves: technology and food. This led him to build Satis.AI at the start of 2020. Satis.AI were born at the start of 2020 and have some huge plans and ambitions for their journey over the next few months and years. They have already taken some huge strides in their quest to improve the food supply chain and we personally can't wait to hear about their future success and what is to come! We hope you enjoy this episode, thanks for listening in!

Yuri Misnik is a highly experienced senior technology and thought leader in the world of banking, cloud, data and is a passionate technologist. and innovator at heart. Yuri moved to Abu Dhabi at the backend of 2019, where he took a position as Group Technology Officer and Member of the Group Executive Committee at First Abu Dhabi Bank. In this position, he aims to help FAB continue to evolve and develop their service offering to their customers, whilst also innovating the technology landscape at the bank and improving their platform services and technical capability. Yuri is also an Executive Technology Advisor for KKR & Co. and sits on the CIO Advisory Committee at Amazon Web Services. Prior to joining FAB, Yuri was the CIO at National Australia Bank and was the Digital CIO at HSBC, where he led a team of around 5,000 technologists globally. It goes without saying that Yuri knows first hand how to lead global organisations and brings his passion for technology and innovation with him everywhere that he goes. In this episode, we get an introduction into Yuri's incredible story so far and also, start to hear some of his thoughts around banking, innovation in FS and learn some of the initiatives and projects he is working on with FAB. One hour unfortunately wasn’t anywhere near enough time to really get under the hood of the man himself, so we are excited to announce that we are hosting another episode with Yuri where we will go more into the realm of open data and real innovation within banking. We hope you enjoy the episode!

Season 2 is officially here - and what an episode we have for you to kick off the new season! Today, we have the pleasure of being joined by one of Europe's most ambitious and exciting entrepreneurs: Hjalmar Ståhlberg Nordegren. Hjalmar, who appears on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, is a Co-Founder of Karma, an exciting and innovative tech startup based out of Stockholm, Sweden that focus on providing consumers with amazing deals on food, helping retailers and suppliers to save on their food waste whilst also keeping revenue and also, making a huge impact on the planet by preventing excess food waste. Originally starting as a wider deals platform, Karma quickly pivoted to focus on the food industry. When the founding team started to research just how big the issue of food waste actually is, they really started to pay attention. Food waste accounts for $1.3 Trillion per year and several billion tonnes of food are wasted each year. That results in huge Co2 emissions and makes a big dent to the planet. Looking for the business opportunity, Hjalmar and the team realised huge potential to connect local restaurants and chains to the consumer, helping to not only reduce the amount of food waste, but also, by offering amazing value to consumers on unused food. Through the pandemic they have also developed a new product: the Karma Box, which allows people to receive amazing values on home deliveries of fresh fruit and vegetables. So, not only are they helping to save the planet, but everyone gets a great deal out of it at every step of the food chain! What an amazing guy and what an amazing business that we are so proud to help raise awareness of. Go and check them out if you haven't already! www.karma.life

Rachel Haines is an Organisational Development Director at Klarna, where she leads a team of 250 people across 35 teams and in every global region which they operate. In her role, it is Rachel's team that are responsible for making Klarna the very best place to work for their amazing teams. Klarna are one of Europe's most successful technology companies. Originally starting in Stockholm, Sweden in 2005 with the simple aim of making shopping online easier for everyone, they are now one of world's most recognisable FinTech and online brands and also one of Europe's biggest banks. They now boast offices all over the world and continue to grow at a pace which most of us can only dream of being able to. As a company, Klarna are well-known to have an amazing culture, way of working and for providing exceptional opportunities for their staff. Today, Rachel gives us amazing insight into just how Klarna have been able to achieve some of this success and how they continue to scale at such pace. Part of her mission, was to help re-create the operating model for the entire company. A huge task. Over the past few years, she has been an extremely influential figure at the company and has helped to implement an entire new model in which the company operates on a global scale. I had a lot of fun recording this episode and was amazed to finally hear how one of the world's most successful technology companies and banks operates. We hope you enjoy it!

Wow - what a treat we have for you today! Our first duo of the series; and what a duo it was! On today's episode of the Leaders & Founders podcast, we were delighted to be joined by Arif Harbott and Cuan Mulligan, senior transformation leaders at AlixPartners. Together, they have designed, led and delivered some of the world's most successful and effective transformation projects and are deeply passionate about their work. Having held posts such as CIO, CTO, CDO and Advisor to some of the world's most advanced technology and government projects, they have seen first hand what makes transformation successful, and not. After a chance meeting on a digital government project around 5 years ago, they have worked together closely ever since, commenting that one thing they love about working together is that they constant challenge and push each other on opinions, thoughts and processes. During this time,  they have created an effective playbook and framework for how to approach and implement change and transformation - The HERO Transformation Playbook. This has evolved over years of working in the industry and will help other leaders to work effectively and approach transformation in the right way. With first hand experience of seeing where transformation projects fail - and some that should never have even started in the first place - The HERO Transformation Playbook gives leaders, boards and practitioners a step-by-step guide to how to start a transformation, how to deliver it and also, if you should even start it in the first place! I loved having these guys on, their energy and enthusiasm is first class and we had a lot of fun getting this one out there. Enjoy!

What an amazing story we have today as we are joined by Benjamin Wootton, one of the ex Co-Founders and Global CTO of Contino. This is what it's all about for us: scaling businesses, the challenges, the hard work, VC funding, exits...this one has it all! Ben co-founded Contino in 2014 and quickly helped them become one of the world's most successful Enterprise DevOps and Cloud Transformation consultancies. In his 6 years with the business, they scaled the team to >400 people across the UK, US and Australia and became known as one of the most effective and knowledgeable partners in the global DevOps arena. They are a brand that so many people have heard of and respect and it was amazing to hear some of the methods they used to help build both the team and the brand. Ben gives us a very transparent and humble view on what life looks like in a hyper-growth business. From winning their first few client projects, to receiving huge VC funding, all the way to the end of his Contino journey where they exited and were acquired by Cognizant. Ben gives us valuable insight into what those 6 years looked like and also, some of the things that budding founders and CTOs should be aware of and focus on. After exiting the business in January 2020, Ben treated himself to a whole week off work before the desire to build his next business became too strong to ignore. We get a quick snapshot of his next venture, Timeflow, and what he has his eyes set on next! We loved this episode! We're sure you will too!

Tim Harkness is an experienced psychologist with a career spanning the private sector and elite sports. Since 2009, Tim has been Chelsea FC's Head of Sports Psychology and Sports Science and has worked on some incredible engagements with the IPL, FIFA World Cup and a variety of some of the highest performing and most successful athletes in the world. Over his career, Tim has worked with professional athletes in the world of football, rugby, cricket, tennis, golf, squash, rugby and many more, as well as working with private sector clients in the financial sector in London. He has seen first-hand what makes athletes, teams and companies successful and believes one of the most important things they do well, is communicate. Communication can be one of the easiest things to do, but doing it well and successfully, is another matter. Tim has put his experience and learnings into his newly published book: 10 Rules for Talking, which breaks down the laws of conversation and what we must be prepared to do to communicate effectively. By following these rules, you will likely have more effective and meaningful conversations and be able to communicate and collaborate on a much deeper level. There are so many interesting stories we just didn't have time to cover, but if you are a fan of sport or want to learn how to communicate better with your teams, please give this one a listen! *This is a slightly longer episode, so apologies, but I still had so much more to discuss with Tim!

Today we had our first PT 2 version of the podcast, where we were delighted to be joined once again by David Brear. As the Founder and Group CEO of 11:FS, David has had to make some very tough and challenging decisions over the past few months. For a business on a huge growth trajectory, they have certainly felt the market following lockdown like most businesses in the world. From having to make redundancies and have the hardest conversations o his career, David and 11:FS - like so many others - have certainly been tested. But, it is amazing to hear his ambition and continued drive to succeed in the coming months and years and he has some great insight for other founders and business leaders experiencing pain. David has continued to be a beacon of light and knowledge through the lockdown era, with his FinTech Insider and Breakfast show offering amazing insight into the world of business and FS. His guests have been first-class, as well as their insight, so I wanted to get back in touch with him to get the story from his side of things. David kicked off our very first episode, so will always hold a great place in the Gathered & Found and Leaders & Founders hearts and he doesn't disappoint once again. He is open, honest and above all genuine with his message and how we can all respond.