The Power Hour: Recent Episodes
Louise Power
This show is about bridging the gap between the community and the corporate world. Hearing real life experiences and getting expert advice for self development. Creating a platform so that people can make a difference.
· Community matters · Diversity & Inclusion · A platform for women · Leadership · Entrepreneurship · Inspirational stories.
Gavin McCormack is the Co-founder of Upschool.co
Having written a series of books for both children and adults on education, researching and representing Sir Kenny Dalglish’s Life story as a rhyming picture book, running his own publishing firm, charity and being a school Principal, Gavin was nominated for Australian Principal of the Year 2020, is a TEDx speaker, was nominated for Australian Author of the Year in 2017, is an Australian of the Year Nominee and was named as the 10th Most Influential Educator in the World by Linkedin.
On a quest for educational equality, Gavin has worked tirelessly to raise money to personally build many schools, libraries and teacher training centres in the Himalayan region of Nepal across the last 5 years, all this whilst successfully running one of Australia’s best Montessori primary schools.
Louise Power in conversation with Laurie-Anne Power-QC, Natalie Power-Children's Residential Consultant, and Sharnika Power-Communication's Director.
This episode is both in celebration of International Women's Day and an opportunity for Louise to celebrate the women in her family and share take-aways from their personal and professional experiences.
Laurie-Anne shares some of her story about motherhood at a young age and her recent astounding promotion as Queens Counsel, Natalie shares her excelling professional journey and how we can better overcome imposter syndrome and the importance of a strong network, and Sharnika inspires us about her privileged educational journey, grounded upbringing, and golden nuggets of inspiration.
A well-rounded opportunity to hear four women talk about their experiences individually and as a family and some of the takeaways that are thought-provoking and edible for other women all over the world.
First, there was Power and then there was Powers.
Dr Nike Folayan MBE is a Chartered Electronics Engineer with a doctorate in Electronics engineering. Nike is Technical Director and the Technical Discipline Leader for Communications and Control within WSP, an engineering consultancy where she leads a team of telecommunications engineers in the UK and India working on a variety of projects within the transport industry including railways and the highways projects in the UK, Australia, South America, Middle East and Africa. She is also a Technical Blogger on SMART technology systems. Before WSP Nike has worked on projects for Mott MacDonald, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Harada Industries Limited.
Nike is chair and Co-founder of AFBE-UK a not for profit organisation AFBE-UK promotes higher achievements in education and engineering, particularly among people from black and minority ethnicity (BME) backgrounds. Formed in 2007 AFBE-UK has over 12000 beneficiaries and with a UK wide membership of over 2500 members. She has participated and presented in seminars on diversity and inclusiveness including as part of the All Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Diversity in STEM. Nike is regularly invited to various speaking panels where she has featured as keynote speaker including events such as the Westminster Employment Forum, Higher Education Academy STEM annual conference and the Institution for Civil Engineering Inspiring Engineers event and Pearson’s Maths Anxiety Conference. Nike has the ability to bring together various stakeholders from industry, government, public and private sectors. She is also a Trustee at the Engineering.
Ollie Folayan is a chartered chemical engineer working in the energy industry and chairman of the award-winning AFBE -UK Scotland and co-founder of AFBE -UK. Ollie graduated with a BEng in Chemical Process Engineering with Fuel Technology from the University of Sheffield in 1999 and then earned a Doctorate (PhD) in Fuels and Combustion from the University of Leeds in 2002 authoring five international publications in the field of combustion and engineering. To date, Ollie has worked on Major CAPEX Front End Engineering Design, Detailed Design and commissioning Projects.
In 2018 Ollie Folayan was accepted into the Fellowship of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.
Ollie has championed successful outreach programmes such as Making Engineering Hot, NextGen (Scotland), Transition and Real Projects and has co-authored three publications on the influence of role models in the transition from academic study to the workplace and on the sustainability of the engineering profession in the UK.
In addition, Ollie has also been involved with a number of successful community initiatives through organizations such as Shell and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Ollie has chaired a number of AFBE -UK annual seminars featuring key industry leaders and politicians and is a regular speaker at events on varied engineering topics. Ollie has participated in All-party parliamentary group roundtables on STEM education and he is a member of the All Energy Diversity and Inclusion task group set up in 2019 by Oil and Gas UK.
Ollie is an avid sports fan and other interests include singing, mentoring and reading on various subjects.
After completing University, Yaw launched URBEATZ in 2005 as a music and media organisation. URBEATZ soon become known throughout the UK for its unique brand of music, film and media projects, resulting in several awards for creativity, innovation and enterprise.
In 2011, Yaw set up creative consultancy agency Nothin But The Music (NBTM). Over the past few years NBTM have programmed and curated a number of key music events and projects working with and for clients such as MTV, BET, Liverpool International Music Festival, BBC Radio 1 Academy, MOBO, Boiler Room, Sound City, The Brit School and the Competitor Group. In addition, NBTM have released a number of singles and music projects that have earned acclaim, major syncs and national and international radio support. NBTM recently partnered with THE PLAYMAKER GROUP forming a dynamic multi-strand music and entertainment company. THE PLAYMAKER GROUP ’s past and current clients include many sector leading brands, organisations and artists including Nike, AEG, Sony, Universal Records, The Fader, BBC Radio, MTV, Damian Marley, Dizzee Rascal and many more.
In addition, Yaw has worked alongside dynamic artists ranging from UK Music pioneer Wiley to emerging artists, XamVolo and Sub Blue, to release a number of singles and projects that have earned acclaim, major syncs and national and international radio support. Subsequently Yaw has established himself as a key talent developer; heading up the award-winning LIMF Academy, continuing to scout and consult for major labels as well as A&Ring for and developing new talent.
In 2017, Yaw, alongside partners Seani B and Ray Paul, founded BrukOut Entertainment and launched a joint venture Record Label with Universal, BrukOut Records. So far, BrukOut have released records that have received playlist positions on key radio and streaming platforms as well as impacting national club charts. BrukOut curate events, various playlists and provide content for international media platforms.
In August 2020, Yaw began working with PRS Foundation as a Programme Consultant to build Power Up, a new and pioneering initiative aiming to power up Black music creators and executives as part PRS Foundation’s actions following Black Lives Matter movement conversations. He was appointed to the Senior Management role in December 2020 to run the Power Up initiative and integrate the programme learnings and actions across the organisation.
Yaw is a part of Liverpool City Region Music Board and is also one the lead members of the LCR BLM Sub Group.
Lenna Cumberbatch MBA FRA MCMI
Lenna is a diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategist with experience of working across public and private sectors including higher education, healthcare and information technology in the UK, Europe, and USA. She is an advisor, trustee and non-executive director for organisations like the Wellcome Trust, the British Pharmacological Society and the Research Executive Agency at the European Commission. She has worked and volunteered in roles across the diversity spectrum for organisations such as the Royal Society, one of Her Majesty’s Prisons, several LGBTQIA+ charities and the University of Cambridge. Lenna produced the internationally recognised animation “Understanding Unconscious Bias” which has received over a million views. Lenna’s speaking engagements have included BBC Scotland and the Women of the World (WOW) festival. She keeps up her public speaking skills at her local Toastmasters Club. Lenna double majored in English and women’s gender studies as an undergraduate and her MBA dissertation was on the system of appraisal and revalidation for doctors in the UK. She is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of St Andrews on D&I strategic change.
James Sharpe
James has worked in digital for over 20 years working currently at AND Digital as Chief of Strategic alliances he is responsible for forging partnerships between businesses. He is passionate about diversity and inclusion and works to develop allyship in the workplace. In his role, James ensures values & ethics are shared and understood in partners; working with these alliances to further the D&I message. Formerly James was a director at Deloitte Digital and has had numerous roles in digital agencies & software businesses. He was a trustee of North Staffs Gay & Lesbian Community Forum, a hate crime charity based in the Midlands, created numerous online assets and action groups to repeal Section 28 and was President of the LGB society during his university years.
Philippa Wisniewski
Philippa Wisniewski is a Full Stack Developer in Turing with a passion for Accessibility, who has worked at AND for three and a half years. Brought up as a child in England, India and America, she loves to travel, sing and dance (AND title is Body Popper). She identifies as a demi-bisexual and is passionate about LGBT+ rights.
Ollie Folayan is a chartered chemical engineer working in the energy industry and chairman of the award -winning AFBE -UK Scotland and co - founder of AFBE -UK. Ollie graduated with a BEng in Chemical Process Engineering with Fuel Technology from the University of Sheffield in 1999 and then earned a Doctorate (PhD) in Fuels and Combustion from University of Leeds in 2002 authoring five international publications in the field of combustion and engineering. To date Ollie has worked on Major CAPEX Front End Engineering Design, Detailed Design and commissioning Projects.
In 2018 Ollie Folayan was accepted into the Fellowship of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.
Ollie has championed successful outreach programmes such as Making Engineering Hot, NextGen (Scotland), Transition and Real Projects and has co-authored three publications on the influence of role models in the transition from academic study to the workplace and on the sustainability of the engineering profession in the UK.
In addition, Ollie has also been involved with a number of successful community initiatives through organizations such as Shell and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Ollie has chaired a number of AFBE -UK annual seminars featuring key industry leaders and politicians and is a regular speaker at events on varied engineering topics. Ollie has participated in All party parliamentary group roundtables on STEM education and he is a member of the All Energy Diversity and Inclusion task group set up in 2019 by Oil and Gas UK.
Ollie is an avid sports fan and other interests include singing, mentoring and reading on various subjects.
Diane Chadwick-Jones, human performance and safety leadership expert.
Diane has 30 years of energy industry experience, focused on delivering cultural change and safety improvement including operational “systems thinking” by improving the way work is set up to reduce the possibility of mistakes and make work more effective.
She is an advocate and mentor, focusing on increasing the representation of ethnic minority STEM talent in industry. She was included in the 2019 Empower Top UK 15 Ethnic Minority Advocate list.
Diane is a graduate of Imperial College, London and had an extensive career spanning a number of industrial sectors including refining, exploration and chemicals, working in Belgium, Brazil and Egypt in operations and safety roles.
Laurie-Anne is an experienced leading junior and junior. She has acted on cases of varying size and complexity including murder, kidnap, firearms, sexual offences and complex fraud and associated offences including hidden asset recovery and confiscation.
Emma Akuwudike Leading & junior counsel with over two decades of experience in criminal defence work. Emma’s specialism is in both legal aid and private work. She is extremely hard working and is a fearless and tenacious advocate who quickly gains the trust of her clients.
Mr Laurence Lee is an experienced Senior TV correspondent with nearly 30 years in the broadcast media industry. Skilled in Crisis Communications, TV News Production, Social Media and Documentaries. Experienced media trainer in PR and with MA level students. Public speaker. Published author. Multiple international TV award winner. After a successful career with broadcaster Al Jazeera he is moving on to start a social mobility venture with media training for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
MOONHUB provides high-quality training for forward-thinking companies by immersing their staff in Virtual Reality, interactive training scenarios, helping them gain and retain knowledge. They do this using patent-pending spot-and-jot scoring system coupled with their sophisticated online platform to track data. Dami is the Founder and Director of MOONHUB. He enjoys playing video games, and keeping up with tech trends.
Dami has been Listed in the Progress 1,000 & Sifted’s top 80 Pioneers of the new world. Founding the company in 2016, him and his team are "Part of the vanguard of young VR companies thinking big about changing our perceptions of what is possible"- The London Evening Standard.
Colette is Founder and Principal Consultant of Camah Consulting, which provides Start-ups, SMEs, Not for Profit Organisations, Charities and Social Enterprises with access to affordable business and marketing services.
She has held a variety of regional, national and global marketing positions in well know companies including BT, Royal Mail, Clifford Chance and KPMG – the latter of which included stints in Birmingham, Amsterdam and New York as well as London. She has been accountable for portfolios of B2B and B2C products, managed the implementation of a global advertising campaign and launched new products to market among other achievements.
Throughout her career, Colette has been inspiring, mentoring and supporting individuals within each organisation she’s worked at as a mentor as well as benefactors of funding through organisations including the Social Business Trust, Business in the Community and the Taylor Bennett Foundation.
She is an East Londoner by birth but now resides in Norwich.
Oluwaseun Mogbojuri is a GP registrar with the NHS with approximately 5 years of clinical experience working in various specialties.
He is highly driven and committed to inspiring young people and empowering them to transform their lives and helping to unleash their maximal potential.
Oluwaseun also know as Juri, is an avid supporter of diversity and inclusion, aiming to promote awareness and solutions into tackling the challenges in the work place.
Patrice Mantey is a qualified Life Coach using a variety of tailored methods realising that 'one size does not fits all' , always ensuring the best outcome for her clients. Patrice is also a Chartered Accountant & Partnership Enthusiast. Possessing the unique skill set of both IQ & EQ. Patrice studied Business Management at University specialising in Accountancy and Psychology. She has always been fascinated by the way people and organisations operate.
Patrice completed her Chartered Accountancy training with PWC, working across a variety of sectors including Telecoms, Media and Consultancy. Later in her career Patrice moved into Aviation and Logistics where she gained the reputation of being a commercial finance specialist.
Patrice is currently working within the commercial aviation space where she is heading up joint venture relationships for Virgin Atlantic.
During her time at Virgin Atlantic Patrice has led the implementation of the Finance apprentice scheme. She has been the first Reverse Mentor trained to facilitate the Women’s Development Program called ‘Springboard’.
During this interview Patrice gives us a backstory into her own life, as well as crucial influential business tips to be used during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond.
Louise Power Speaks to Nikita Gicanda Vervelde and Josephine Ola about how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted their business's. And receives expert advice on the strategies they have been using leading to a conversation with useful information for SME's in the current climate.
Nikita Gicanda Vervelde known for her expertise in challenging leadership teams and helping businesses grow, Nikita Gicanda Vervelde is a Dutch and Rwandese independent consultant working and living in London for the last 12 years. An advocate for women and the next generation of leaders, Nikita sits on multiple advisory, leadership and investment committees with the hope to enable every person to deliver on their best selves. Nikita has worked with creatives, entrepreneurs and social enterprises to help them realise their vision, kick start projects and create sustainable business models particularly with a focus on uncovering and developing teams to become high performing.
Discover more on her website nikitavervelde.com or email directly to nikitavervelde@gmail.com.
Josephine Ola is a Mother of 4 and a serial entrepreneur in the beauty and wellness sector. With over a decade of experience within the industry Josephine has a passion for empowering women and diversity and inclusion across all sectors. Her future aim is to work with young women and help them to upscale their life through therapeutic beauty services, of which she currently delivers to clients from her established beauty salon premises located in the heart of Shoreditch London.
Josephine believes everyone has had a journey to become the best version of themselves which inspired the name of her salon which is called Flawless Touch London.
Telixia Inico born and raised in Brixton South London. She is a Published Author, Public Speaker, Workshop Facilitator, Spoken Word Artist, Poet & Creative Entrepreneur.
She started writing poetry at 11 to help her cope with being dyslexic and by the time she was 16 her words became a way she maneuvered her experience of gang culture. By the time Telixia was 23, she had finally decided to come out from the shadows and allow the world to hear her story.
In 2015 she hit the ground running with her first poetry collection 'TheNakedTruth' published by Xlibris Publishing, followed by numerous high profile performances around London which includes headlining Apple's 'TodayAtApple' event for International Women's Day 2019, Telixia is determined to make noise in the creative industry by using her unique style as a Spoken Word Artist.
Telixia Inco's most recent achievement is her EP released in April 2020 "P.O.E.T" available to download on all mainstream platforms including Apple and Spotify.
GP Dr Archana Spahn was born and raised in Mumbai until she was 6 years old. She then moved with her family to Nigeria and lived in the capital of Lagos for another 5 yrs. Dr Spahn says "Growing up in a third world country has always been a humbling experience, and a contrast to being raised in the UK"
Dr Spahn studied medicine and podiatry at The University College London from the age of 18 and lived in London ever since. Dr Spahn has been working in Tower Hamlets (East London) for the past 13 yrs. And currently working as a GP partner in a small clinic serving 3600 patients with a team of three doctors. She feels very connected to the GP community in Tower Hamlets and proud to work alongside hardworking, inspirational GP teams.
Kim Antoniou Co-founder and CEO of Auris Tech. Here they have a unique voice recognition engine that works specifically for children's voices, and it is called Fonetti. During this interview Kim gives us some insight into her entrepreneurial journey, her back story, and the different businesses she has had over the years. During the interview they discuss the Corona Virus Pandemic and how this is effecting the globe.
Kim hopes that opening up the app for three months free for children will support their development during the UK Lock-down period.
Find out how it feels to be naturally entrepreneurial from a young age. After growing up in council housing Kim had great determination to beat the odds. This really was a very inspiring interview. If you would like to know more about the reading app you can go to www.fonetti.com to find out more.
Louise Power interviews award Winning comedian Athena Kugblenu
🔴Athena is a nominee for the 99 Club Female Comedians’ Bursary and former BBC New Comedy Award Finalist.
🔴Member of the BBC Comedy platform.
🔴Awarded the BBC Felix Dexter Bursary for BAME up-and-coming comedy writers in 2020.
🔴The host of a new podcast Keeping Athena Company, interviewing interesting people whilst eating fried plantain.
John Grim is a Co-founder at the Revolution gym in East London, member of the PTA at St Elizabeth School, a member of the Friends of St Elizabeth Charity and a school Governor. Here Louise Power Interviews John about the charity and finds out what goes into school fundraising. And why schools need the extra financial support. John takes us on a journey of his own backstory and relays the passion behind his purpose. They also discuss the outbreak of the coronavirus and how the effects are looming over everyone's daily life.
Louise Power Interviews three amazing female leaders. Tanya Robinson OBE is the Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Her Majestys Prison and Probation service. Kiren Bhardwa works for Capgemini as a Business Management consultant, and Natalie Power is a educational specialist working in senior management within the social care setting. During this panel they each discuss their backstories and their passion for uplifting women. The discussion is super inspirational when they each given an account of their career journeys and childhood upbringing. Their experiences different but yet very similar in how they give insight about women from different intersections. Here we laugh, almost cry and listen to what it means to stand in their shoes.
These awesome strong women have very important jobs with lots of responsibility, and here we take a walk into their every day lives. As well as looking back at the adversities they had to overcome to be where they are today.
Eldridge Cooke is an Entrepreneur, motivational speaker and mentor. His business days started selling jeans out of the back of his car in the 1990's and escalated on to more serious types of business ownership such as property investment. But life was not always pretty and without struggle. Eldrige is from Leyton in East London where there are high levels of crime and plenty of opportunities to choose a path down the wrong the road. Find out how he overcome adversity by Listening to his great and very inspiring story. And the advice he has for other men from disadvantaged backgrounds when he speaks about his brand RAISE YOUR ROAR.
Arunabh Singh is a Vice President at Citi Bank working in the heart of the financial district in Canary Wharf. In this interview he gives a wonderful account of his own journey from India into Europe. They discuss his backstory, his education and his career path into financial services. During the interview you can also learn about the work he is doing at Citi Roots where they are working hard to promote better diversity and Inclusion.
This is the first ever Power Hour and the studio waits in anticipation to go live for the first time. Louise Power interviews Charlene Imbert and Simona Scholari about their grass roots entrepreneurial journey. Charlene has a breast awareness and bra fitting service called Sister Size. And Simona is the co-founder of a clothing Brand called Urban Fushion. Along with the host, who is also a female entrepreneur. They discuss their aspirations for business, what it is like juggling motherhood, and the advice they have for other women. If you are a female entrepreneur or hoping to go into business this first amazing show has some great tips and real life insights for you.