Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter & Chris Donnelly

Jennifer Moss is a workplace happiness writer, speaker and strategist. Having moved back to Canada from Silicon Valley in 2012, she co-founded a company called Plasitcity Labs with her husband. They developed happiness strategies for companies and got some big clients like LuluLemon. On the cusp of signing a transformative deal in 2019, they got blind-sided days before signing which fatally crippled morale.And in the midst of all this, it didn’t escape Jennifer that she was running a happiness startup but was desperately unhappy.What happened?---------------------------If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better?hello@secretleaders.com Sponsor links:personio.com/secretleaders

Sean Harrington, Co-Founder and CEO of Elemis, shares how he built the UK's #1 skincare brand, from bankruptcy to being acquired for $990 million. He discusses the importance of focus, global expansion, and the impact of a cancer diagnosis. They also delve into the unique founding story, mentorship, effective communication, and lessons for entrepreneurs on building something great.

Anita Abildgaard is the Founder and CEO of Iris AI, a company helping humans make sense of the world’s scientific knowledge. She’d always wanted to be a Founder and lead companies. In fact that was her specific goal after finishing her MBA. She achieved that, but her first venture ended in failure, as did the next.She went through two bruising startup experiences in a row.So what did she learn from it?And what did she learn about walking away? That’s something we don’t talk about enough in startup circles.---------------------------If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better?hello@secretleaders.com Sponsor links:personio.com/secretleaders

Niklas Adalberth is the co-founder and former Deputy CEO of Klarna. The massive Swedish fintech provides payment services for online shops like ASOS being able to offer their customers buy now pay later.Although Klarna has been hugely successful, Niklas found himself hitting an emotional rock bottom after he came to the infamous realisation that money doesn’t buy happiness. After some soul searching, Niklas left Klarna and founded his next venture: Norrsken Foundation. It's a non-profit dedicated to helping entrepreneurs solve the world’s greatest challenges like poverty, famine, mental health, pollution, climate change, or something else entirely. Niklas is now less interested in unicorns than he is in impact unicorns – companies that positively impact one billion lives. We want to know if 'typical' entrepreneurial success is even worth it.--SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Sançar Sahin is the Co-Founder of Oliva, a mental health startup which has just raised £4.3 million at the time of putting this together.It’s a B2B which helps companies give mental health support to their employees, like on-demand therapy and coaching.Like our host Dan, with his company Heights, there’s a very clear line of sight from Sançar’s personal health crisis to starting his company. At his low points, he found himself stripped of confidence, unable to make the simplest decisions.What happened?---------------------------If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better?hello@secretleaders.com Sponsor links:personio.com/secretleaders

Did you know that IMDb was one of the first 100 websites EVER? Yeah it's mad, and it's still going - and it's always in the top 50 most visited sites in the world.Welcome to the mad world of IMDb Founder Col Needham, the movie buff you want to take to the pub to ask him all the trivia and best-of questions you can imagine.But this is also a great business story. IMDb was one of the first ever acquisitions from Amazon, making Col one of Amazon's earliest employees.He got to work alongside Jeff Bezos and in this episode we draw on his extraordinary insights.--SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Taavi Kotka is the Founder and CEO of Koos.io but he shot to fame as the CEO of one of the largest software development companies in the Baltics.After he sold the company in a big money deal in 2012, he had a non compete which left him with time when he couldn’t work in the private sector.He was appointed the first Chief Innovation Officer of Estonia whose role is basically to drive technological progress in the country. It gave him the opportunity to make a massive impact - a national one. He and his team delivered in many areas but it came at great personal cost.What happened?---------------------If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better?hello@secretleaders.com Sponsor links:personio.com/secretleaders

Gope Walker is the Founder and CEO of Data Kraken, a data consultancy that helps companies make valuable, data-driven decisions.But whilst Data Kraken is making more money than ever today, the venture downstairs is another story.Gope wanted to create a cafe that brought people together. But instead, it left him with depression, loss of appetite, and a £150,000 hole. He thought he was creating something valuable but customers didn’t see it that way. And when the council had the chance to save the business, they gave the cafe the cold shoulder.What happened?If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better?hello@secretleaders.com Sponsor links:personio.com/secretleaders

Entrepreneurs need to reframe failure as the norm, says Aidan Corbett.He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wayflyer, a unicorn which provides funding for ecommerce companies.Not too shabby, and along the way, he has tried and failed with various initiatives. His failures didn’t all come in one go, but what he learnt added up to some pretty good startup lessons. What happened?If you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. What would make the show better? hello@secretleaders.com Sponsor links:personio.com/secretleaders

Henry Engelhardt is the Co-Founder and former CEO of Admiral Group. They’re one of Britain’s most valuable companies – currently valued at over £7 billion – and also the only FTSE 100 company in Wales. Chances are, you’ve used one of their many brands at some point: Admiral Insurance, Bell Insurance, Elephant Insurance, Diamond Insurance, Veygo Insurance… if you’ve ever purchased insurance, basically. Or even if you’ve just run a search on Confused.com or Compare.com. In fact, they launched the UK’s first ever search comparison site.Henry is full of stories and lessons. Not only was he headhunted to found Admiral, but he ultimately had to fight to keep everything that was owed to him once he made the company what it is. His first book, Think Lead Succeed: The Admiral Way, was released in January 2021 and now, he’s back with a follow up: Be a Better Boss: Learn to build great teams and lead any organization to success. We speak about what it really means to be a better boss and how to avoid falling into a leadership style of hypocrisy to how all of life’s experiences offer opportunities to learn. Henry has always been very open about Admiral’s innovations - the one thing he can’t understand is why none of their competitors ever try to copy them. --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes