Podcast
James Reed: all about business
Hosted by Reed Global · EN
'James Reed: all about business' puts you at the heart of fun, dynamic, candid conversation with business leaders, philanthropists and charitable celebrities as they use their journeys to give clear, actionable advice.
Hosted by James Reed CBE, the Chairman and CEO of Reed Group, you’ll hear the highs and lows of what it means to be a true business leader to empower you to implement smarter, more meaningful strategy in your business or career.
91episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
87. How to start and scale a charity: Supporting 7000 kids a week through football | Charlie Hyman
5d ago00:52:23Summary readyMost charities are told to secure funding before they spend. Bloomsbury Football did the opposite — investing in fundraising before the money existed, and growing from four children to 7,000 a week as a result. In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Charlie Hyman, founder and CEO of Bloomsbury Football. His fast-growing social enterprise harnesses the universal power of grassroots football to tackle major societal challenges for young people, providing thousands of disadvantaged youth with vital role models, mental health support, and a true sense of belonging.Charlie shares the 7 steps in starting, building and scaling a charity. He explains the business mechanics behind this scale: how diversifying income with brands like Mastercard and Adobe, and treating a charity like a high-growth private company unlocks true scale.James and Charlie explore the strategy behind taking Bloomsbury national and how Charlie built a proprietary AI tool to scrape Charity Commission data for fundraising intelligence. They examine how to close high-value deals, attract top-tier corporate talent with pure purpose, and what commercial businesses can learn from high-ambition social enterprise models.This leaves us with a compelling question: when building a company designed for impact, do your growth strategies reflect the actual size of the problem you are trying to solve?Timestamps 03:05 Origin story volunteering11:47 Income streams and bids15:53 Charities vs businesses21:23 Scaling leadership and coaches32:12 Opportunistic Expansion Plans38:12 AI Boosting Charity Impact44:59 Fundraising Skills for YouthLinksFollow James Reed on LinkedInFollow Charlie Hyman on LinkedInFind out more Bloomsbury Football hereSubmit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HEREAll About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk
Summary86. Lab-grown diamonds were underestimated. Here's how they're disrupting luxury | Nathalie Morrison
2w ago00:43:22Summary readyMost people underestimated lab-grown diamonds. Conventional wisdom says that luxury is about heritage, exclusivity and the power of a brand. So why are consumers embracing them so quickly?And what does that tell us about the future of luxury businesses and the shift in consumer values?In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Nathalie Morrison, founder and CEO of Astrea London. Her high-end jewellery brand focuses on ethical luxury, using the top 1% tier of lab-grown diamonds and 100% recycled gold to offer flawless purity that gives consumers more carats and less weight on their conscience.Within just one year of launching, Astrea hit $1 million in sales, prompting Nathalie to leverage her banking network to raise £4 million at a £14 million valuation. The company has since attracted celebrity backing from Sarah Jessica Parker, who became both an investor and creative director after meeting Nathalie in New York.Together, James and Nathalie explore the rapid shifts in consumer behaviour and the strategy required to position a disruptive brand at the highest end of a competitive market. They discuss the unique marketing channel she created by opening luxury boutiques inside world-renowned hotels such as the Mandarin Oriental, and the realities of challenging a century-old industry monopoly.They also examine the changing values of the next generation of consumers, why diamonds are built for emotional enjoyment rather than financial investment, and the power of cold outreach—even when it leads to one of the world's most influential style icons becoming a business partner.Timestamps 02:07 Nathalie Finance Background06:45 How Lab Diamonds Are Made14:43 Diamond Pricing Myths22:27 Celebrity Investor Partner29:10 Supply Chain And Quality36:25 Scaling Challenges And HiringLinks:Follow James Reed on LinkedInFollow Nathalie Morrison on LinkedInFind out more Astrea London and their products hereSubmit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HEREAll About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk
Summary85. "We were £1.5M in debt": The turnaround strategy that could save your business | Zoe Paskin
3w ago00:51:54Summary readyFinancial crises can hit any business- especially in today's economy. Selling might feel like the only option. But is it?What should founders do when things look bleak? How do you rebuild momentum, and give your business the best possible chance of surviving and thriving? When one pair of siblings were running The End nightclub, they found themselves £1.5 million in debt and facing enormous pressure to sell.Instead, they chose a different path, and turned the business around.In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Zoë Paskin, co-founder and managing director of Studio Paskin. They are the independent powerhouse behind legendary London destinations like The Palomar, The Barbary, and the Michelin-starred Evelyn's Table, celebrated for maintaining flawless standards in a brutal industry.Zoë shares the remarkable story of turning around a legendary 90s nightclub facing massive debt, stepping into leadership when no one expected her to, and the reality of selling a business at its peak.James and Zoë explore how to scale when the broader market is struggling, how to strip down operational expenses to rescue a business, and why the best career advice may be to simply : go wherever the biggest problems are.Links:Follow James Reed on LinkedInFollow Zoë Paskin on LinkedInFind out more Studio Paskin and their work here Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HEREAll About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk
Summary84. How to grow your business without losing control | David Palmer
4w ago00:59:51Summary readyScaling a business seems like the obvious goal. But what if growth without the right strategy leads to losing control?In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with David Palmer, founder of Life of Fish, the modern London fishmonger that started as a lockdown pop-up outside a Peckham cafe, and has now grown into a multi-site retail and wholesale business built on sustainability, craft, and genuine customer service.Together James and David explore the harder lessons of growth: why expanding too fast almost broke the business, how to know when to consolidate rather than chase new opportunities, and what it means to build something that runs on profit rather than debt.David shares what he learned starting work at Billingsgate Market at the age of 14 with no qualifications and no plan. Climbing into bins at 2am and learning to fillet fish under pressure, allowed David to slowly piecing together a skillset he didn't realise he was building. The lesson he took from those years is simple: nothing you learn is wasted, and starting from the bottom teaches you things no shortcut ever could.They also discuss what it really takes to build a product business in a traditional industry that nobody had modernised.Timestamps 2:11 Leaving school at 1112:56 The entrepreneurial pivot question15:14 The breakthrough moment17:26 The gap in the market19:33 COVID lockdown launch21:15 70 people queue38:55 Lesson on over expansion39:57 Turning down free rent43:39 Hiring philosophyLinksFollow James Reed on LinkedInFollow David Palmer on LinkedInFind out more Life of Fish and their products hereSubmit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HEREAll About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk
Summary83. Are you selling too early? The succession model most founders have never heard of | Victoria Stapleton
Jun 1500:58:16Summary readyThirty years of building a business without a board, without investors, and without ever wanting to sell, and it just keeps growing, there’s something to learn from that.In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Victoria Stapleton, founder of Brora, the British luxury cashmere and clothing brand. Victoria has built Brora over 30 years from a single supplier and a home phone number into a business with shops across the UK, a store on Madison Avenue, and a fiercely loyal customer base.Victoria shares what she learned from building slowly and deliberately, and why organic growth gave her control, quality, and a life outside work. She also gives insight about why every founder considering outside investment should think carefully about what they are actually giving if they take it.Together they explore what it really takes to run a product business built on craft and quality: how to manage suppliers, why the shop experience matters more than ever, and what you actually learn about your business by walking the warehouse floor every morning.Victoria's tells is about who she transitioned Brora into an Employee Ownership Trust, one of the most underused business succession models in the UK, and how it works. Timestamps11:25 First Shop and Doing It All18:49 Hiring and Building a Loyal Team20:52 Organic Growth and Staying Independent30:21 In Store Styling Magic38:21 Bonuses Profit And Legacy47:05 Store Locations And New York54:19 Glasgow Store Failure Lessons56:14 Final Questions And FarewellLinksFollow James Reed on LinkedInFollow Brora on LinkedInFind out more Brora and their products hereSubmit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HEREAll About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk
Summary82. Start now. The sign your business idea is ready to build | Sahar Hashemi OBE
Jun 800:56:13Summary readyMost people think successful entrepreneurs spot brilliant ideas.Sahar Hashemi believes the opposite.In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Sahar Hashemi, entrepreneur, author, and founder of Buy Women Built. They talk about Sahar’s journey over three decades building businesses, backing herself, and why entrepreneurship is far simpler than most people make it.Sahar shares the hard lessons from scaling Coffee Republic to 110 stores and what happened when they handed the business to the professionals. What she learned about founders staying close to their customers, why bureaucracy is the silent killer of entrepreneurial culture, and why the moment you lose sight of who you are serving, is the moment a business starts to decline.Together they explore what a startup mindset actually looks like in practice, how to know when a growing business is quietly losing its edge, and why the single most important thing any leader can do is keep their people connected to the customer. Sahar also makes the case that something done badly is better than if it’s not done at all, and that the best thing any aspiring entrepreneur can do is start somewhere, however small.Timestamps3:13 Discovering New York-style coffee9:30 The decision to leave law12:19 First Coffee Republic16:54 Going public26:39 The tweet that sparked Buy Women Built35:05 The Rose Review of Entrepreneurship40:43 The startup mindset51:17 No plan, just purposeLinksFollow James Reed on LinkedInFollow Sahar Hashemi on LinkedInFind out more Buy Women BuiltSubmit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HEREAll About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk
Summary81. How Gousto is taking on the ultra-processed food industry | Timo Boldt
Jun 100:53:40Summary ready60% of the UK diet is ultra-processed. And the food industry is manufacturing your addiction. So why is this public health crisis continuing in plain sight, and what it would actually take to change it?Two things are clear. Britain's food system is more broken than most people realise. And Gousto is far more interesting a business than its recipe boxes suggest.In today’s episode, James speaks with Timo Boldt, founder and CEO of Gousto, about building one of the UK's most ambitious food businesses from scratch and why, 14 years and 80 million meals later, he's only just getting started.Timo shares how he left a career in investment banking to start again. With no money, no network, no customers, he shares what that journey has taught him about fundraising without connections, growing with your customers and building a business around a problem genuinely worth solving.They also discuss how Gousto has used AI intelligently from the beginning, not as a replacement for people, but as a tool that makes the whole operation sharper; from cutting food waste and optimising factory logistics to building fully personalised menus that 80% of customers now rely on.Timestamps:01:37 What Gousto Does06:23 From Banking to Entrepreneurship13:24 Scrappy Startup and First Orders25:35 Affordability Taxes and Transparency31:16 Healthy Without Preaching34:33 Factories And Delivery Network42:12 China Trip AI And RoboticsLinksFollow James Reed on LinkedInFollow Timo Boldt on LinkedInFind out more about Gousto and their productsSubmit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HEREAll About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk
Summary80. How a £5,000 workshop became a global luxury brand | Tom Faulkner
May 2501:08:43Summary readyWhat does it take to build a luxury brand by accident and keep it thriving for 30 years without ever taking outside investment?In this episode of All About Business, James speaks with Tom Faulkner, award-winning British furniture designer and founder of Tom Faulkner Limited. They talk about the unlikely journey from redundancy at a record label to running one of the UK's most distinctive handcrafted furniture brands, with showrooms in London and New York, and a workshop in Swindon that has been making things by hand since 1996.Tom shares the story of how a side hustle in hand-painted tabletops became a serious business the moment he discovered what you could do with metal. He talks about buying a Swindon fabrication workshop for £5,000, inheriting two employees, slowly building a loyal team and a global client base. All through organic growth, word of mouth, and relationships with interior designers.They explore what it really means to build a premium, handcrafted brand in the modern world: the growing appetite among wealthy clients to understand how things are made, why British manufacturing remains a genuine selling point in the American market, and how Tom navigated the early months of US tariffs with a decision that cost him margin but protected his customer relationships.Together they also discuss the challenge of succession and legacy for founder-led businesses, why Tom has never chased scale for its own sake, and what he hopes to do next.Timestamps4:56 From Chrysalis Records to Hand-Painted Furniture8:40 Buying the Swindon Workshop (The £5,000 Decision)12:56 The Pimlico Road Showroom & London's Design Cluster15:53 Expanding to New York20:24 Staying Artisan: Organic Growth & British Manufacturing25:20 Signature Pieces: Capricorn & the Collections36:13 Navigating Business Challenges & US Tariffs43:01 Future Plans: Collaborations, Sculpture & What's Next57:04 Advice for Young EntrepreneursFollow James Reed on LinkedInFollow Tom Faulkner on LinkedInFind out more about Tom Faulkner LTD and their products HERESubmit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HEREAll About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk
Summary79. What businesses should learn from museums about innovation | Elizabeth McKay
May 1800:58:51Summary readyHow can a major museum be run with the same entrepreneurial mindset as a high-growth business?In today's episode, James Reed speaks with Elizabeth McKay, Director and CEO of the London Transport Museum. While many perceive museums as static archives, Elizabeth explains how she applies commercial strategy to ensure one of London’s most iconic cultural landmarks remains financially sustainable and relevant in a modern economy.Elizabeth shares insights from her unconventional career journey and explains why the museum identifies as the best in the world for urban transport. They explore the evolution of work through the lens of London’s history, from the original "chairmen" who carried sedan chairs to the "navvies" who hand-dug the first underground network.Together they discuss the balance between preserving heritage and driving innovation, including the story of Harry Beck’s revolutionary Tube map and how it was initially rejected for being too radical. Elizabeth also outlines the realities of leading a cultural institution that functions as both a charity and a successful commercial entity.Timestamps01:48 Transport history highlights09:50 Young entrepreneurs message20:04 Design DNA of TFL24:26 Running the museum business33:27 Leading through uncertainty40:21 Funding model explained45:10 Youth skills pipelineFollow James Reed on LinkedInFollow Elizabeth McCay on LinkedIn:Find out more about TFL Museum and their exhibitions here: Submit your application to Reed’s Entrepreneurs Fund for a chance to a £20,000 grant HEREAll About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast visit Flamingo-media.co.uk
Summary78. The crisis facing UK retail and food businesses | Sarah Bradbury
May 1100:48:00Summary readyWhy are millions of jobs going unfilled in one of the UK’s biggest industries, while so many young people are struggling to find work?In this episode of all about business, James Reed speaks with Sarah Bradbury, CEO of the Institute of Grocery Distribution, about the future of the UK food industry, the growing challenge of attracting young talent, and why the sector may offer far more opportunities than people realise.Sarah shares insights from her 25-year career across major retailers, before stepping into one of the most influential leadership roles in the UK food sector. She explains how IGD works across the entire food system and how they help competitors collaborate on the biggest long-term challenges facing the industry.They explore the pressures reshaping food and retail, including changing consumer habits, climate change, AI, automation, workforce shortages, and the potential impact of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, on the future of food consumption.Together they also discuss leadership, collaboration between rival businesses, and why the UK food industry remains one of the country’s most important, and underestimated, economic forces.Timestamps 02:00 What IGD does08:43 Retail tech and AI trends12:27 UK food system challenges18:36 Land use and solar farms23:47 Hidden food careers31:29 Youth unemployment urgency43:27 Closing reflections and CEO ForumFollow James Reed on LinkedInFollow Sarah Bradbury on LinkedInFind out more about IGD and their impact HEREAll About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more HERE This podcast was co-produced by Reed Global and Flamingo Media. If you’d like to create a chart-topping podcast to elevate your brand, visit Flamingo-media.co.uk
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