Think like a billionaire part one

Summary

Today in Focus – “Think Like a Billionaire: Part One”

Date: June 19, 2026
Host: Helen Pidduck
Reporter: Olivia Lee

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Episode Overview

In this investigative episode, Guardian journalist Olivia Lee dives deep into the rise and unraveling of Julie Meyer, MBE—once acclaimed as the queen bee of Europe’s dot-com scene and a star on Dragon’s Den. The story weaves through Meyer's glamorous image, entrepreneurial influence, and a mounting series of scandals involving failed ventures, unpaid debts, and legal disputes. Olivia traces Meyer's journey from her Michigan roots to London’s tech elite, and finally, to a turbulent chapter in Malta, unearthing accusations of misconduct along the way.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Julie Meyer’s Downfall in Malta

• Opening Scene (00:00-02:31):
  The episode opens with Olivia Lee recounting a tense night at the luxury Westin Dragonara Hotel in Malta, where Julie Meyer’s assistants hurriedly pack her belongings, following her detailed escape instructions. This midnight “runner” sets the stage for the episode's central mystery: why is a celebrated businesswoman fleeing?

  “Take everything in the drawers under the tv, all shoes in both closets. The…closet close to the window…has the more important clothes, expensive ones that I need now.”
  —Email from Julie Meyer, as paraphrased by Olivia Lee (01:26)

2. Genesis of the Investigation

• How Olivia Got Involved (02:56-05:18):
  Olivia’s investigation into Meyer was sparked at a tech afterparty at London’s Fabric Nightclub, where she heard a tale of a botched, “luxurious” networking event. The promised opulence gave way to chaos—unpaid taxis, downgraded yachts, sandwiches instead of banquets, and angry attendees.

  “He claimed…only two small motorboats turned up and…nice lunch…and they were served sandwiches and samosas.”
  —Olivia Lee (04:19)

3. Meet Julie Meyer

• Bio and Rise (05:28-10:42):
  Meyer’s beginnings: raised in a devout Lutheran family in Michigan, she moved to Paris independently before consulting for Motorola and Hewlett-Packard. Meyer embraced entrepreneurship, joined the London tech boom, and became a force in internet start-ups.

  “I remember going to Paris with $1,000 because I refused to accept any money from my father…I'm going to live over there for the rest of my life. I don’t need your money.”
  —Julie Meyer (06:22)

  Her pivotal role with “First Tuesday” networking events bridged entrepreneurs and investors—earning her iconic status and later, a lucrative sale.

  “First Tuesday was my revenge on socialism…Tony Blair’s initial interest in coming to a First Tuesday event was quickly squashed.”
  —Julie Meyer (10:19)

4. The Dot-Com Rollercoaster and Cash-out

• Dot-com Boom & Bust (07:22-12:58):
  London became Europe’s internet hub—First Tuesday flourished, but wasn’t as profitable as it seemed. The dot-com crash forced a sale to an Israeli tech firm. Founders walked away rich; Meyer, however, felt pushed out by her male co-owners.

  “First Tuesday was sold in a deal valued at $50 million. And the founders…walked away as millionaires. But Julie wasn’t happy. She hadn’t wanted to give up and sell, but she’d been outvoted by her male co-owners.”
  —Helen Pidduck (12:58)

5. Building Ariadne and Media Stardom

• Founder of Ariadne Capital (13:45-15:05):
  Meyer launched Ariadne Capital—advising startups like Skype. Her media profile soared: interviews with broadsheets, awards, and eventually, an MBE and an honorary doctorate.

  “Her advice to one person was ‘think like a billionaire.’ The World Economic Forum named her as one of the hundred global leaders for tomorrow.”
  —Olivia Lee (14:45)

• Online Dragon's Den (15:11-16:03):
  Appeared as a Dragon on the online version of Dragon’s Den in 2009.

6. Cracks Behind the Glamour

• Culture at Ariadne (16:26-18:10):
  Staff like Rachel Lowe describe an office “like a temple to Julie”—gilded, with lavish perks, and dominated by portraits of Meyer. Meyer’s management style was both effusive and intimidating, with undertones of fear.

  “There were photographs literally all down the corridor of Julie. She always looked absolutely fantastic.”
  —Rachel Lowe (17:36)

• A Pattern of Disputes (18:22-21:10):
  Rachel Lowe recounts unpaid commitments, angry clients, and, eventually, her own unpaid wages. After a protracted legal battle, Rachel won, with the judge criticizing Meyer’s credibility.

  “She’d made a lot of commitments to provide services…that they’d paid for upfront and hadn’t delivered. They were angry. I mean, really, really angry.”
  —Rachel Lowe (18:47)
  “Julie Meyer was ordered to pay Rachel £26,000 plus interest and costs. The judge described Julie as not credible and said her evidence at times bordered on the hysterical.”
  —Helen Pidduck (20:41)

7. Collapse and Flight to Malta

• Ariadne’s Financial Ruin (21:10-22:44):
  Company hemorrhaged £45,000 per month in 2017 before entering administration, owing almost £800,000 to creditors and the taxman. Julie Meyer relocates to Malta, living in opulence while launching new ventures.

8. Malta Chapter and Repeat Accusations

• Enter Mark Lightfoot (22:44-27:37):
  Graphic designer Mark Lightfoot is initially wowed by Meyer's charisma and the chance to work on her next “Follow the Entrepreneur” event. The event seems a success, attracting Malta’s elite, even the Prime Minister.

  “She commands the room. She’s got a real presence, not intimidating, but very charismatic. She was very effusive—‘amazing, we’re gonna be able to do great work together.’”
  —Mark Lightfoot (23:05)

  Yet, following a chilly post-event exchange, payment issues arise. Meyer disputes the value of his work, offers half, then retaliates with threats of massive lawsuits. Ultimately, Lightfoot gives up on recovering the debt after seeing similar tales from other associates.

  “She takes someone into their confidence, she builds them up, she…chews them up, spits them out and goes on to the next one.”
  —Mark Lightfoot (27:11)

9. Closing: The Unfinished Web

• Hundreds Affected (27:37-27:55):
  Mark Lightfoot estimates “hundreds” of people have suffered similar fates, describing a “spider’s web of intrigue and stolen money.”
• To Be Continued (28:01-28:10):
  The investigation promises further revelations as Olivia Lee tracks Meyer to Zurich in Part Two.

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Notable Quotes

• “Focus on what you’re meant to deliver to the world and… the money will find you.”
  —Julie Meyer (05:28)

• “First Tuesday was my revenge on socialism.”
  —Julie Meyer (10:19)

• “It was like a temple to Julie… photographs literally all down the corridor of Julie.”
  —Rachel Lowe (17:36)

• “There was an atmosphere of fear.”
  —Rachel Lowe (18:28)

• “The judge described Julie as not credible and said her evidence at times bordered on the hysterical.”
  —Helen Pidduck (20:41)

• “We are literally touching the surface. Not even scratching the surface. It’s a spider’s web of intrigue and stolen money.”
  —Mark Lightfoot (27:55)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00 – Dramatic opening: Julie Meyer’s late-night “runner” from Malta hotel
• 04:19 – Fabric nightclub story: first allegations of chaotic networking events
• 06:22 – Julie Meyer recounts move to Paris, refusing help from her father
• 10:19 – Meyer’s “revenge on socialism” at First Tuesday
• 12:58 – First Tuesday’s $50M sale, Julie’s dissatisfaction
• 15:11-16:03 – Rise to media prominence, Dragon’s Den, MBE
• 17:36 – Inside Ariadne: “temple to Julie” and luxurious lifestyle
• 18:47 – Complaints from Ariadne clients; Rachel Lowe’s struggle for payment
• 20:41 – Court victory: judge finds against Meyer, calls her not credible
• 21:10 – Ariadne’s collapse, mounting unpaid debts
• 23:05 – Mark Lightfoot’s first impression of Meyer in Malta
• 25:45 – Dispute over payment and threats of litigation
• 27:37 – Lightfoot’s estimate of “hundreds” affected
• 28:01 – Teaser for Part Two: Guardian confronts Meyer in Zurich

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Memorable Moments

• Olivia Lee’s vivid descriptions transport listeners from luxury hotels to chaotic nightclubs and courtrooms.
• The “green dot/red dot” networking system at First Tuesday paints a picture of London’s tech boom heyday.
• Both Rachel Lowe and Mark Lightfoot recount eerily similar patterns of being courted by Meyer and then left unpaid, drawing a thread through Meyer's career.

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Flow and Tone

Throughout the episode, the tone balances intrigue with journalistic skepticism. The story is peppered with cutting first-person recollections and the occasional dry wit of the Guardian team, painting a portrait of both the intoxicating promise and the darker realities of the tech entrepreneur world. The narrative crescendos with hints that the true scale of Julie Meyer’s alleged misdeeds is yet to be revealed, setting up a highly anticipated Part Two.

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For more on this investigation, check out Olivia Lee’s reporting at theguardian.com. Part Two airs tomorrow.

Transcript

[Helen Pidduck]

This is the Guardian. Today. Think Like a Billionaire Part one. The year is 2017 at the Westin Dragonara hotel in Malta.

[Olivia Lee]

It's really grand, very luxurious. It's located on its own private peninsula, five swimming pools, a hair salon, private beach lined with palm trees, you know, idyllic.

[Helen Pidduck]

This luxury hotel is the home of Julie Meyer, MBE.com Darling and Dragon's Den star. For the past few months, Julie has been living in the hotel while she grows her business. It's late and a couple of her assistants arrive at the front desk looking panicked.

[Olivia Lee]

Julie has written this letter and they hand this letter to the receptionist and it says something like, oh, I've paid a little bit of extra money to let my employees in. The receptionist accepts the letter and hands them the keys to the room.

[Helen Pidduck]

They enter the room and urgently start packing.

[Olivia Lee]

Julie's also sent an email with detail of what to pack and what to leave behind. So. So in the email it says, take everything in the drawers under the tv, all shoes in both closets. The second closet, close to the window and further from the door, has the more important clothes, expensive ones that I need. Now.

[Helen Pidduck]

This is Olivia Lee, a reporter who spent the past 18 months digging into the life and times of Julie Meyer.

[Olivia Lee]

Further down in the email it says, be. Be super friendly to the staff in the hallway and don't allow them to think that there's anything up. I'll look odd and raise the alarm that we're doing a runner and I'm fleeing the country.

[Helen Pidduck]

The orders came from someone who'd been named one of the most influential business women in Europe.

[Julie Meyer]

Helps society understand that society works best when it's organized around the entrepreneur.

[Helen Pidduck]

A woman who had the brains, the looks, the connections to make it right to the very top. Now, she was doing a runner in the middle of the night. So what was Julie Meyer up to? To find out. Olivia has spent the last year following Julie's trail across Europe, hearing about failed businesses, missing money and claims of scams, and ultimately ending up at the door of Julie Meyer herself.

[Olivia Lee]

Apparently, it's got her name on it, so we're just checking. Oh, here we go.

[Helen Pidduck]

Julie.

[Olivia Lee]

Maria Meyer

[Helen Pidduck]

from the Guardian. I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus. Think Like a Billionaire, Part 1. Olivia, this story began for you at the back end of 2024 in a rather unusual location.

[Olivia Lee]

Yeah, it was very random, actually. I was in Fabric Nightclub, so quite an iconic nightclub in London. My friend was working for a company who'd hired out the club for an after party to a tech conference. And she was just like, do you want to come along? There'll be a free bar. I think I just handed in this dissertation for my masters, so it was kind of perfect timing to let off some steam and have a dance. It was like a typical night at Fabric. So it was quite loud. The DJ was playing techno music, strobe lights, fog machines. You couldn't really see people's faces. Everyone there was a tech founder. So I felt slightly out of place. But I started talking to this guy. He was American, he was in his late 20s. He was really charismatic, quite funny. We were talking a little bit about his business, then he starts telling me this really strange story. He'd been invited to this luxurious networking event so entrepreneurs would be able to pitch their ideas to wealthy investors. There were going to be yacht trips and gala dinners. You know exactly where you want to be. If you're an entrepreneur who needed backing. There'd be 60 high net investors. It was kind of like Dragon's Den abroad.

[Helen Pidduck]

Okay, so he was sold, basically, and he flies out to the Greek island where this thing is taking place. What does he find there?

[Olivia Lee]

So this guy in the club, he told me this story and he said he was expecting something like quite a luxurious, glamorous experience. And the reality was that it was a complete mess. So he said there was meant to be around like 60 high net investors attending and that barely any of them had shown up. He claimed that there were these really chaotic scenes of taxi drivers supposedly working for the organiser going on strike because they hadn't been paid. People chucked out of hotel rooms because the organiser appeared to have not paid the hotel bill. People told him that there were meant to be these yacht trips, but they claimed that only two small motorboats turned up and, you know, they were meant to have this nice lunch and they were served sandwiches and samosas. He said that the whole experience was very chaotic and disorganized.

[Helen Pidduck]

Olivia leaves the party, but she just can't get this story out of her head. A few weeks go by and then suddenly her LinkedIn inbox pings

[Olivia Lee]

and it's from this guy from Fabric. And the message just has a link to a LinkedIn profile. And I click on it and I find out her name. Julie Meyer.

[Julie Meyer]

Focus on your unique contribution. Focus on what you're good at. Focus on what you're meant to deliver to the world and. And the money will find you.

[Olivia Lee]

I was like, wow, okay, this woman is clearly very successful. She had listed all these awards. She looked quite glamorous. In her profile picture, you know, gorgeous blonde hair, gorgeous eyes. I was impressed.

[Helen Pidduck]

So, Olivia, you took the story to the Guardians Investigations team and began working alongside Juliet Garside, who at that point was one of the editors on the team. And you were both looking into Julie Meyer. What did you learn about her background?

[Olivia Lee]

So she was born in Michigan. She was raised in a really religious household. Her family were Lutherans. She said she told her dad that she wanted to be the first female president of the United States. After she graduated, she moved to Paris.

[Julie Meyer]

I remember going to Paris with $1,000 because I refused to accept any money from my father. And as I was walking to catch the flight to Paris at age 21, he turned to my stepmother and he said, don't worry, she'll be back soon. Soon. She doesn't have that much money. And I spun around and I said, you watch, I'm going to live over there the rest of my life. I don't need your money.

[Helen Pidduck]

Paris to France. And why did she move to France?

[Olivia Lee]

I think she wanted a fresh start, really. She started working as a consultant for Motorola and Hewlett Packard. But what Julie really wanted was to become an entrepreneur.

[Julie Meyer]

My friends are all entrepreneurs and if I'm really honest, I find it difficult to hang out with people who aren't entirely entrepreneurs, people who are not devoted to creating things, to solving problems and meeting the opportunities that they see around themselves.

[Olivia Lee]

In the late 90s, she completed an MBA at INSEAD, so it's a very prestigious French business school. And then she moves to London.

[Helen Pidduck]

It was the late 1990s. The Spice Girls were at the top of the charts. Tony Blair was in Downing Street. And although broadband was still a year or two off for most people, more and more people were online, booking holidays, finding love, surfing the World Wide Web, as we used to call it. Money started pouring into any company with a website. The dot com boom had started.

[Olivia Lee]

If you were a young, hungry entrepreneur in Europe at that time, the place you wanted to be was London. The Internet revolution had arrived in Europe and London was at the centre of it. There were suddenly like huge investments being made into Internet startups and people thought they were in for making a lot of money.

[Julie Meyer]

When I came to the United Kingdom, every one of those Internet entrepreneurs fancied themselves as the Slayer of the Dragon. Everybody seems to want to be disrupted.

[Olivia Lee]

She started working at an investment firm called New Media Investors. So it was a venture capital firm that invested in Internet startups. And through this firm she met Brent Hoberman, who was the founder of lastminute.com

[Helen Pidduck]

for those of you too young to have lived through the dot com boom, Brent Hoberman was a big deal. He was the guy, a charismatic exitonian who totally disrupted the travel market with his online booking site, which he co founded age 30 and later sold for a billion dollars.

[Olivia Lee]

At the time, Brent had been approached by a group of individuals about getting involved in a start up and he was really busy at the time. So he recommended Julie to get involved instead of.

[Helen Pidduck]

The company was called First Tuesday, a networking business for founders and investors to meet.

[Julie Meyer]

And everybody who came to First Tuesday events, these were digital revolutionaries, Internet entrepreneurs. They were David with a slingshot. They wanted to kill and assassinate the goliaths of the day.

[Olivia Lee]

These events were super exciting. If you were a young entrepreneur with an idea for a business you wanted to be. At First Tuesday, entrepreneurs would be given green dots on their name badges and investors were given red dots. And you'd get these swarm of green dots, you know, furiously pitching their ideas to investors with red dots. The parties were becoming so popular that they eventually hired out the Lord's cricket club.

[Simon Davis]

I'm 20 something and you're like, well, it'd be nice to start my own company. So I went to several of her First Tuesday events which were excellent.

[Helen Pidduck]

In 1998, Simon Davis was a young wannabe entrepreneur.

[Simon Davis]

It felt like a little club. Yeah, I was like, oh yeah, I went to First Tuesday. And if, if you went to First Tuesday, then like you went in with this clique, you know,

[Helen Pidduck]

the UK had never seen anything like it before. And in front of it all was this glamorous, charming American woman.

[Simon Davis]

Julie was definitely like kind of the darling of the UK entrepreneurship scene, you know, trying to make the UK more like the American scene, which I think is a noble goal, to be honest. And she's very dynamic. If she had something to say, everybody listened.

[Julie Meyer]

First Tuesday was my revenge on socialism. In fact, I talked about how First Tuesday was my revenge on socialism so much that Tony Blair's initial interest in coming to a First Tuesday event was quickly squashed because he found that it might be problematic if he was found to go to the networking event of the woman who had a revenge on socialism going on.

[Helen Pidduck]

Years later, Simon was offered a chance to work with Julie again. He remembered the glamorous, successful events and he grabbed the opportunity. So Olivia, it is now 1999 and we're really at the height of dot com fever and there were companies out there with a huge amount of hype. Firms like lastminute.com, brent Hoberman's company, that were really going from strength to strength and people were making a lot of money. And I remember, even though I was a teenager back then, was First Tuesday raking it in as well.

[Olivia Lee]

So, interestingly, even though a lot of businesses that went to First Tuesday were making money, First Tuesday wasn't. So people I spoke to told me it was essentially a glorified cocktail party. So they ended up bringing in a guy called Reid Faz.

[Reid Faz]

It was a really exciting time. There was a feeling that we all understood where the future was going and we were a part of it because we were at First Tuesday. My name is Reid Foz. I have a little frog in my throat today. And From October of 1999 through early 2001, I was the CEO of First Tuesday.

[Helen Pidduck]

Reid had arrived in London to work as a CEO for the glasses brand Vision Express.

[Reid Faz]

There was a feeling of techno optimism, a feeling that the world was going to be better because of the Internet, that it was going to democratize all sorts of things. And what people were saying was, you at First Tuesday control the most valuable eyeballs on the planet.

[Helen Pidduck]

It was looking like the sky was the limit for First Tuesday.

[Olivia Lee]

But then it's described as nothing short of breathtaking. A points drop never before seen on the US market. This closing bell might as well have been an alarm.

[Mark Lightfoot]

So savage was the selling.

[Helen Pidduck]

The dot com bubble burst.

[Reid Faz]

So we are out trying to raise money. A lot of the funds who were interested in us had American arms that were saying, guys, don't you get it? This is over.

[Helen Pidduck]

There was an Israeli tech company offering to buy First Tuesday in a deal that included around $6 million in cash.

[Reid Faz]

The board sat there and said, wow, I put in $40,000 a year and a half ago and now I'm being offered a million plus dollars in return. What's not to like?

[Helen Pidduck]

First Tuesday was sold in a deal valued at $50 million. And the founders, including Julie, walked away as millionaires. But Julie wasn't happy. She hadn't wanted to give up and sell, but she'd been outvoted by her male co owners. In the following years, she'd talk about being dismissed and underestimated by men.

[Reid Faz]

We were on the front page of the Financial Times and she would not smile. Deep down, Julie thought of this as her baby.

[Helen Pidduck]

Okay, Olivia, so we are now in the year 2000. Everyone has survived the Y2K bug. The British government has spent an enormous amount of money on the Millennium Dome, and Julie Meyer is a millionaire. She's still in her 30s. What does she do next?

[Olivia Lee]

She sets up a new firm called Ariadne Capital. Ariadne Capital provides advice to startups and helps them to raise money. She advised Skype, Espotting, Monetize, so these really big names at the time, it also hosted networking events for entrepreneurs and investors.

[Helen Pidduck]

And what about Julie herself? What's her reputation?

[Olivia Lee]

So her reputation couldn't be higher at this point. She was really becoming a media star.

[Julie Meyer]

Thank you very much and good to be here with you this evening.

[Olivia Lee]

She's doing interviews with all the big press outlets at the time, you know, the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Times, the Telegraph.

[Helen Pidduck]

I've just been back through the Guardian archive and found an interview with her from 2002 marking the launch of Ariadne, which the Guardian calls a company dating agency. And the piece, which is by Faisal Islam. Now, the BBC's business editor describes Julie Meyer as the queen bee of the dot com scene who has a swarm of workers out pollinating the brightest flowers of the European technology industry.

[Olivia Lee]

She would tell people how important, you know, attitude was and believing that you'd already made it. Her advice to one person was think like a billionaire. The World Economic Forum named her as one of the hundred global leaders for tomorrow. The Wall Street Journal also declared her as the 13th most influential businesswoman in Europe.

[Julie Meyer]

I start with a deeply held view that the entrepreneur is the hero. Yes. Really the hero.

[Olivia Lee]

Her profile kept rising throughout the noughties until she appeared as a Dragon on the online version of Dragon's Den in 2009. Based Julie Meyer made her millions as an Internet entrepreneur and investor in web startups. So while she's on Dragon's Den, she's interested in a real range of companies. So there's a company called Language Garden, which is an English teaching website.

[Julie Meyer]

I can see giving you an investment of £10,000 for 20% of the business.

[Olivia Lee]

There's a company called Family Fridge, which is a social networking website.

[Mark Lightfoot]

I'd love to accept your offer.

[Julie Meyer]

Wonderful, wonderful.

[Olivia Lee]

There's also a 2010 World cup final

[Reid Faz]

song between the sticks, Three Lions proudly.

[Olivia Lee]

In 2012, she's given an honorary doctorate by Warwick University.

[Helen Pidduck]

And so she's just like a true business leader, right at this point.

[Olivia Lee]

Yeah, she's really credible to the point where she's actually awarded an MBE after being appointed an advisor of entrepreneurship to the then Business secretary, Vince Cable. She's one of the select few Americans to be awarded an MBE. It's a very prestigious award and it gives her a lot of credibility.

[Helen Pidduck]

What did you find out about the kind of people who were involved with Ariadne Capital, this company dating site that she was running at the time?

[Olivia Lee]

So at Ariadne, there were some very, very bright people working there, very interesting people. So I spoke to a woman called Rachel Lowe, who was very well regarded. She was a former star salesperson, a former government growth coach, startup advisor. She was hired by Ariadne to work on business plans for some of their clients.

[Rachel Lowe]

She was high profile. She'd worked with the BBC on the Dragon's Den, she'd worked with the British government. She had an MBE. And I thought, yeah, great.

[Helen Pidduck]

It was 2012 and Rachel had recently joined Julie's company, Ariadne Capital. A few times a week, Rachel would make her way to an office in Trafalgar Square. It was flashy, as you would expect from superstar Julie Meyer MBE, and it cost Ariadne £10,000amonth. On the pavement outside, Julie Chauffeur was always waiting to whisk her away at a moment's notice. She had a personal trainer, two personal assistants, one at the office and a second to keep house. She was living a very lavish and very expensive life.

[Rachel Lowe]

I have described the Ariadne offices as like a temple to Julie, because when you walked in through the door, there were photographs literally all down the corridor of Julie. And I think she was probably quite proud of the way she looked and justifiably so. She was a very attractive woman and she always looked absolutely fantastic.

[Helen Pidduck]

During the week, I wear Ralph Lauren, Mulberry, Michael Kors and Roland Murray. Julie told Harper's Bazaar she saw her facialist, an expert in Ayurveda, every Saturday without fail. And what was Julie like as a boss?

[Rachel Lowe]

You know, she would use lots of superlatives and everything was amazing. She was full of flattery and did her best to make me feel extremely important.

[Helen Pidduck]

But while Julie showered Rachel with praise in the office, she says it was a totally different story.

[Rachel Lowe]

When I did go into the office, you could just feel in the air on a visceral level whether Julie was in or not, really. When Julie was in the office, there was an atmosphere of fear.

[Helen Pidduck]

And when Rachel spoke to the startup she was supposed to be helping, she said she realised something was seriously wrong.

[Rachel Lowe]

Most of them refused to speak to me and they basically said that Julia had made a lot of commitments to provide services, commitments that they'd paid for upfront and hadn't delivered. They were angry. I mean, really, really angry.

[Helen Pidduck]

And when did things really fall apart?

[Rachel Lowe]

When she stopped paying me she loved to say how trustworthy she is. You can trust me, Rachel. I'm a very decent, ethical person. You will get paid.

[Helen Pidduck]

But then Rachel got an email saying,

[Rachel Lowe]

we're only going to pay you half of the amount because we are not happy with the work that you've been doing for us, which was, you know, completely out of the blue.

[Helen Pidduck]

And so Rachel felt she had no choice.

[Rachel Lowe]

I basically said to her, I'm going to have to take you to court. She became extremely belligerent and then she hung up on me.

[Helen Pidduck]

The litigation dragged on for years and it wasn't until 2015 when what began in a small county court ended up in a three day hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice.

[Rachel Lowe]

I never dreamt in a million years that I would be one through those stairs and would be standing there in the witness stand. Doesn't matter whether you're in the right or the wrong, it's bloody terrifying.

[Helen Pidduck]

And what was Julie like when she gave evidence?

[Rachel Lowe]

She showed complete disrespect to the judge. She didn't address her properly. Her whole demeanor was, I shouldn't be here.

[Helen Pidduck]

Once the evidence was heard, Rachel had to wait months for the judgment. If she lost, she'd have to pay both her and Julie's lawyers fees.

[Rachel Lowe]

We were talking well in excess of 100 grand. If I had lost, it would have been pretty catastrophic for me.

[Helen Pidduck]

But you won.

[Rachel Lowe]

I won.

[Helen Pidduck]

Julie was ordered to pay Rachel £26,000 plus interest and costs. While the judge described Julie as not credible and said her evidence at times being bordered on the hysterical, I got

[Rachel Lowe]

the best result I could possibly have hoped for. It felt absolutely fantastic. But I'd really hoped that that would have made her think twice about treating other people the way that she'd treated me in future. Sadly, that wasn't the case.

[Helen Pidduck]

By 2017, Ariadne Capital was in serious trouble. Emails seen by the Guardian show the company was losing as much as 45,000 pounds a month in January 2017. In one, Julie writes, Anybody rational or anyone without a reputation to care about would have shut down the firm. I'm not doing that only because I have a reputation to protect. Meanwhile, the company's debts were stacking up. When Ariadne Capital entered administration later that year, it owed the taxman £471,000. A law firm called Clifford Chance was waiting for £184,000. The cab company Addison Lee £7,500. There was 2,000 to a catering company and another 130,000 to yet another legal company, GQ Employment Law. All in. That was almost 800 grand in unpaid bills. But that didn't matter. Julie wasn't in the UK anymore. She'd moved to sunny Malta into the Western Dragonara Hotel. She was launching a brand new investment investment fund. But things were about to get even more murky. Coming up, Julie's new life in the sun. It's 2017 and Julie Meyer has moved to Malta. There she meets Mark Lightfoot, a graphic designer with a modest but well regarded business on the island.

[Mark Lightfoot]

I looked her up on Wikipedia. Here was a successful American, striking looking entrepreneur and it was really exciting. So I thought, yeah, I'm going to see what opportunities there are for work.

[Helen Pidduck]

Mark knew nothing of Julie's legal woes. And when he met Julie at the five star Western Dragonara Hotel, he was impressed.

[Mark Lightfoot]

She commands the room. She's got a real presence, not intimidating, but very charismatic. She was very effusive, amazing. We're gonna be able to do great work together. Painting a picture of the future for me to get drawn into.

[Helen Pidduck]

I mean, were you flattered at the time?

[Mark Lightfoot]

Yes, I was. Cause I like to be told, you know, my design is good. So yeah, I came away thinking, this is a really good opportunity, don't blow it.

[Helen Pidduck]

Julie asked Mark to help with an upcoming networking event. It was called Follow the Entrepreneur. Julie's plan was to bring together founders and investors, kind of like First Tuesday 2.0, she asked Mark if he could help her design some posters and programs.

[Mark Lightfoot]

It became the only, near enough, the only thing I was working on. So it was quite critical. It seemed like we were getting on the bus with her.

[Helen Pidduck]

Yeah. And did it feel like an exciting ride?

[Mark Lightfoot]

Yes, it was exciting and we were getting paid and we were doing stuff that I wasn't normally doing. It was dynamic.

[Helen Pidduck]

In July 2017, Julie held her Follow the Entrepreneur event.

[Mark Lightfoot]

She pulled in quite high profile entrepreneurs, captains of industry and you're talking multimillionaires,

[Helen Pidduck]

billionaires, even everyone who was anyone in Malta was there. One of the attendees was the Prime Minister of Malta at the time, Joseph Muscat. Mark was delighted. His business was front and center of the glitz and the glamour. And he was looking forward to celebrating with a drink at the after party.

[Mark Lightfoot]

It would have been about 5 o'.

[Julie Meyer]

Clock.

[Mark Lightfoot]

This is July, Beautiful Mediterranean, sparkly water, no breeze, lots of people milling around, open neck shirts, tans, good looking people, a nice business buzz.

[Helen Pidduck]

Mark worked the room chatting to the other founders and investors, but really he was looking for Julie Meyer. And then he spotted her.

[Mark Lightfoot]

She's smiling Interacting with people. We happened to pass next to each other and I grabbed the opportunity to talk to her and I said something along the lines of, well done. That was really a really great event with a lot of enthusiasm, but you

[Helen Pidduck]

never know what Julie Meyer is going to do next.

[Mark Lightfoot]

What came back felt like a bit of a damp squib. It just didn't have the resonance or ring that I felt it deserved.

[Helen Pidduck]

Yeah, you'd imagine she'd be like, yeah, we did well, didn't we?

[Mark Lightfoot]

Yeah. And high five. Although she wouldn't high five, but it was a rejection and I thought, that's a bit odd. Brushed it off, went, had a glass of wine with a friend. But looking back, that was the start of my troubles with her, real troubles with her.

[Helen Pidduck]

The issues with payments begin.

[Mark Lightfoot]

She said that we didn't deliver, despite being pretty much at her beck and call for months, that our work product wasn't satisfactory. It wasn't about the fact that she wasn't happy with the work. It was her way of getting out of paying.

[Helen Pidduck]

And how did it feel?

[Mark Lightfoot]

I felt like I had let my business partner down. I felt that I'd just let the company down. My initial reaction was, it's my fault. What have I done?

[Helen Pidduck]

Mark says Julie owed him €60,000.

[Mark Lightfoot]

She said something like, the work is only worth half, so I'm going to offer you 25. We rejected that and that's when it all blew up.

[Helen Pidduck]

Mark says after this, he started legal proceedings, getting a judge to freeze her bank accounts. An email suggests Julie hit back hard

[Mark Lightfoot]

and she threatened if I didn't publish a retraction. In the Times of Malta and various other things. Multi generational destruction of wealth, a lawsuit for 100 million pounds.

[Helen Pidduck]

The lawsuit never materialised. Julie has previously rejected Mark Lightfoot's allegations, telling the newspaper City AM in 2022, I don't remember Mark Lightfoot. I've been in business for 30 years and I don't always remember names. We always pay people their salaries, she said. Eventually, Mark dropped his legal claim. He figured even if he won in court, there was no guarantee he'd get the money he was owed.

[Mark Lightfoot]

I mean, it was initially really hard to take because I had failed in some respects. And the more I spent time talking to people who'd also felt the wrath of Julie investors, people who worked with her. It's the same thing every single time. She takes someone into their confidence, she builds them up, she bigs them up and then chews them up, spits them out and goes on to the next one.

[Helen Pidduck]

How many people like you are out there, do you think?

[Mark Lightfoot]

Hundreds. Hundreds. We are literally touching the surface. Not even scratching the surface. It's a spider's web of intrigue and stolen money

[Helen Pidduck]

because Julie wasn't done yet and she had Zurich in her sights. Next. The Guardian was about to catch us.

[Olivia Lee]

This is our one moment. I really hope it's her.

[Helen Pidduck]

That's in part two of Think Like a Billionaire. Julie Meyer did not respond to requests for comment for this story. She's previously rejected any suggestion her activities are not above board. To read more of Olivia's brilliant reporting on this story, you can find it [e-mail] Think Like a Billionaire was produced by George McDonagh and presented by me, Helen Pidduck. Sound design was by Tom Glasser and the executive producer was Hummer Khalili. Part two will be out tomorrow. This is the Guardian.