Podcasts about Starling Bank

13 May 2025. Markets rally as the US and China agree to slash tariffs, is this the moment tech stocks and investors have been waiting for? We ask top analyst Dan Ives. Plus, ADNOC L&S reports earnings - CFO Nick Gleeson joins us. And we talk digital banking and disruption with Starling Bank CEO Raman Bhatia.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It is International Women's Day this week - when is it not at SBB? - and so we are discussing why women are starting businesses less (what??), our IWD research with Starling Bank, and what we really think about the DEI conversation... I don't think our position here will be much of a surprise! Championing all people to start and grow a business is our business. Not just on IWD but all year round. Why not get involved https://smallbusinessbritain.uk/

*The National Trust Podcast is changing.* From March 2025 the National Trust Podcast will look different so we can bring you more immersive stories in Nature, History and Adventure. Stay on this stream for our new nature podcast, Wild Tales… and look out for our new history podcast, Back When. Remember to follow your favourite shows from National Trust Podcasts to be the first to hear new episodes as they arrive.  We'd love to hear from you: please get in touch with feedback, thoughts or your ideas for stories at podcasts@nationaltrust.org.uk Click here to read these episode notes in Welsh One of the simple pleasures in life is getting outdoors for a walk, taking in the world around you with some fresh air and then nipping into a cosy pub for a well earned treat. Claire Hickinbotham takes you on some of our favourite walks from our book ‘100 Great Pub Walks' and finds out why caring for our planet, is necessary for the good of the humble pint.  From floodplains to fens, from peatlands to pubs, discover the work that goes on to look after our planet. [Ad] This podcast is sponsored by Starling Bank. Peatlands are essential for people and the planet in lots of incredible ways - they act like natural sponges, storing more carbon than all of the world's rainforests put together.  And they're a habitat for a whole host of wildlife. And they act as flood defences in the face of climate change.   Starling Bank have been funding the National Trust's work towards saving our peatlands since 2023, supporting projects that'll restore and protect over 400 hectares of the UK's precious peatland  – that's 372 football pitches.  Find out more about Starling and the National Trust's conservation work: https://www.starlingbank.com/about/partnerships/starling-and-the-national-trust/ Production Host: Claire Hickinbotham Producer: Jack Glover Higgins Sound editor: Jesus Gomez   Discover more 2025 marks our 130th birthday. In each chapter of our history, we've adapted to the needs of the day. Now, it's time for a vision that takes us into the future. Our new strategy sets out our aims and ambitions for the next decade and beyond. Find out how we are restoring nature, ending unequal access to nature and taking action here. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/who-we-are/our-strategy  Learn about our peatland habitats and the work we're doing to protect them here: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/our-cause/nature-climate/climate-change-sustainability/preserving-our-peatland  Pick up a copy of 100 Great Pub Walks by visiting https://shop.nationaltrust.org.uk/national-trust-100-great-pub-walks.html or by popping into your local bookshop.  For more on wetlands, including Peat bogs, floodplains and fens, check out our friends at the Wetland Wildlife Trust https://www.wwt.org.uk/discover-wetlands/wetlands  Find out how the climate is affecting the taste and cost of our beer. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67078674 Find your local People, Planet, Pint here; https://small99.co.uk/people-planet-pint-meetup/  Follow the National Trust Podcast on your favourite podcast app. If you'd like to get in touch with feedback, or have a story connected with the National Trust, you can contact us at podcasts@nationaltrust.org.uk 

Fraudology is presented by Sardine.In this episode of Fraudology, host Karisse Hendrick dives deep into recent developments in the world of online fraud. She discusses a groundbreaking webinar by Supes Ranjan of Sardine that introduced innovative e-commerce fraud detection tools, and the bold legislative moves in Singapore to freeze scam victims' bank accounts to safeguard them from further exploits. Karisse also highlights the alarming rise of AI-powered phone scams, featuring Starling Bank's new app feature to combat these sophisticated fraud tactics.Additionally, the episode explores a troubling report from Ryan Krebs on cybercriminals exploiting hacked police emails to send fraudulent Emergency Data Requests (EDRs), and sheds light on a UN report revealing Southeast Asia as a hotbed for industrialized fraud. Tune in for an in-depth look at these critical issues, with expert insights to help you stay ahead of the ever-evolving fraud landscape.Fraudology is hosted by Karisse Hendrick, a fraud fighter with decades of experience advising hundreds of the biggest ecommerce companies in the world on fraud, chargebacks, and other forms of abuse impacting a company's bottom line. Connect with her on LinkedIn She brings her experience, expertise, and extensive network of experts to this podcast semi weekly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Welcome to Monday Night Live! Welcome to another insightful episode of Monday Night Live with Derek Arden! This week, Derek is joined by Graham Jones, Head of Business Studies at the University of Buckingham, for an engaging and forward-looking conversation on the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in shaping both the educational and business landscapes. With AI evolving at a rapid pace, its influence on universities, businesses, and industries worldwide is undeniable. Graham offers his expert take on how institutions must adapt to AI advancements or face potentially dire consequences. The Future of Higher Education – AI Takes Center Stage In a candid discussion, Graham highlights the financial challenges currently facing UK universities, with several on the brink of bankruptcy due to outdated practices and declining student enrollment. He points out how traditional lecture theaters and teaching methods are becoming obsolete as AI takes on more advanced roles in education. Graham predicts that universities will need to pivot toward AI-accredited qualifications to remain relevant, fundamentally changing the higher education system. Through the historical lens of academia, he discusses how the role of professors and the concept of lecture theaters have remained largely unchanged for centuries. Graham argues that AI's capability to enhance and even replace many traditional educational functions—like creating new content and conducting assessments—will modernize the system and force universities to rethink their approach. AI's Role in Business Efficiency – A Radical Shift Ahead The conversation then moves to the transformative power of AI in business operations. According to Graham, AI's ability to handle both administrative and creative tasks will dramatically reduce the number of employees businesses need. The prediction? Companies that previously required a workforce of 100 people may soon only need 5, thanks to AI's efficiency in automating tasks, managing websites, and making real-time adjustments based on data. Practical examples of AI's growing presence in business were shared, such as its ability to generate content, design websites, and create infographics in seconds—streamlining processes and saving both time and money. AI: Ethical Concerns and Security Issues While AI brings about promising developments, Graham also emphasizes the ethical and security concerns surrounding its use. He shares examples of cyber fraud, misuse of AI in criminal activities like human trafficking, and the recent criticism aimed at Starling Bank for not keeping up with AI-driven security measures. He stresses the need for robust legislation to regulate AI and protect against potential abuses, pointing out that it's not AI we should fear but how it may be misused by bad actors. Practical Applications of AI in Content Creation Graham gives a hands-on demonstration of how AI can be used to create content, showing how it can transform raw text into visually appealing infographics. As he walks the audience through the process of turning Derek's body language notes into professional-looking infographics, he highlights the speed, accuracy, and efficiency with which AI can produce valuable materials for businesses and educators alike. This episode underscores the importance of businesses staying competitive by adopting AI, while also being mindful of its ethical implications. The discussion wraps up with a look at the exciting future of AI and its inevitable impact on job markets, urging industries to adapt or risk falling behind. Conclusion: AI – Revolutionizing Education and Business As the episode concludes, Graham and Derek both agree that AI is no longer just a technological tool but a force that will shape the future of industries worldwide. Universities must modernize to survive, and businesses must embrace AI to remain efficient and competitive. However,

This week, John and Elliot discuss a new report from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime on Transnational Organized Crime and the Convergence of Cyber-Enabled Fraud, Underground Banking, and Technological Innovation: A Shifting Threat Landscape, an article on the use of cryptocurrencies in election disinformation, FCA's recent fining of Starling Bank over its failure to have an adequate financial crime prevention program, the latest US sanctions of Hamas and several other items impacting the financial crime prevention community.

We've got the juiciest app news with the iconic Xero snapping up Syft Analytics, Starling Bank's shocking customer checks, and Apron serving up security enhancements like it's going out of style.   We talk with Heather Smith dishing about travel, ACCA elections and the rise of accounting influencers.   From modern ERP insights with Matt at iPlicit to John spilling the beans (or honey) on his anti-inflammatory concoction, we've got it all. Don't miss this whirlwind episode; it's got more flavour than Manuka honey and more buzz than a bee in a bonnet. Tune in, geek out, and learn how not to get shafted in the world of accounting tech!   00:00 Coming up... 02:32 Welcome!   App News 07:05 Xero Snaps up Syft 13:01 Classic Xero Invoice Clash 14:57 FCA Flying after Starling 19:10 Apron Security, feature updates and more cash! 22:45 Access Shopping Spree Continues 25:53 FreeAgent still full steam ahead on integrations   28:09 iplicit - Connectivity in modern ERP systems 34:39 John's Alternative Remedy 41:59 Shape the Future of the Profession - Heather Smith 01:03:44 Rate the pod!

Marna Ricker, Global Vice Chair for Tax at EY, and Fiona Czerniawska, CEO of Source, caught up with Emma Carroll, Head of Content at Source, on the latest episode of our The Future of the Firm podcast.  Marna and Fiona shared their insight on the following matters and more:   Clients say that choosing where to start implementing AI in their tax operations is tricky. Something simple and repeatable is a good first target. We look at concrete examples across three, increasing levels of maturity.  Some of the big challenges that clients are facing include getting robust data in place, legality & ethics, and how to put together a business case for implementing AI.  Quantum computing is set to have a profound impact on tax, particularly around predictions and policy development. We consider what opportunities lie ahead.  We explore three areas where EY is reimaging tax services: compliance and reporting, advice, and new services.  Marna suggests that some tax services will never be carried out by AI, particularly ones where judgement is required. We consider what's in and what's out.   There continue to be talent and capacity challenges in tax services; we consider some solutions.    If you enjoyed this conversation, don't miss our sister podcast, Business Leader's Voice. In a recent episode, we talked to Jason Maude of Starling Bank about what a tech-first business wants from consulting firms.  

Greg Sarafin, Global Vice Chair, EY Partner Ecosystem, caught up with Fiona Czerniawska, CEO of Source, on the latest episode of our The Future of the Firm podcast.    Greg and Fiona shared their insight on the following matters and more:   Clients want firms to help them drive their business outcomes, and increasingly take joint responsibility for those outcomes. That includes bringing along the collective partners that are needed.  Partnering is the route to an outcome-based commercial model vs. the traditional product and services-based one.   The role of consulting firms is shifting from being the advisor to the orchestrator. We discuss how EY is approaching this globally.   Stakeholder value is created when clients move to a major platform as a service (PaaS) which is then strengthened by adding an orbiting ecosystem of smaller software businesses.  A journey lies ahead that will take AI from being a copilot to having agency. We discuss the opportunities and timeline.   Clients want to pay firms based on the value their ecosystems create. We explore what this means for fee models.  We finish by discussing how firmss may take their partner ecosystems to the next level.    If you enjoyed this conversation, don't miss our sister podcast, Business Leader's Voice. In a recent episode, we talked to Jason Maude of Starling Bank about what a tech-first business wants from consulting firms.  

In this week's holiday special, Damien provides some important travel insurance tips, highlighting key elements to look for in a travel insurance policy. Damien also reveals the best ways to take money abroad, discussing various spending options, including Curve, Revolut, and Starling Bank. Finally, Andy offers tips for families to save money during the summer, including free meals and ways to save money on days out.   Check out this week's podcast article on the MTTM website to see the full list of resources from this week's show.   Follow Money to the Masses on social media:   YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/moneytothemasses Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/moneytothemasses Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/moneytothemasses Twitter - https://twitter.com/money2themasses Tik Tok - https://www.tiktok.com/@moneytothemasses   Support the podcast You can now support the MTTM podcast by visiting our dedicated podcast page when making any financial decision.   You may already compare products and services online and make purchases but by doing so via our dedicated page you might not only save money but could also earn cashback or take advantage of exclusive offers for MTTM listeners.   Every time you use a link on the page we may earn a small amount of money for our podcast. We only use affiliate links that give you an identical (or better) deal than going direct. Thank you for being an incredible part of our community. Your support means the world to us.   Support the show by visiting and bookmarking our dedicated podcast page: Money to the Masses Dedicated Podcast Page - Click to support the show Resources: Links referred to in the podcast: MTTM Deals Page Sign up to the Money to the Masses Newsletter What does travel insurance cover? 12 top tips for taking out travel insurance Car hire excess insurance The best ways to take money abroad in 2024 Where kids can eat free this summer Ways to save money entertaining your kids this summer Take out a free trial of 80 20 Investor

Fresh from the publication of Source's latest Quality Ratings of Thought Leadership report, Natasha Cambell, Principal Thought Leadership Consultant; Nicola Kostrzewska, Thought Leadership Consultant; and Emma Carroll, Head of Content, get together to debate today's big thought leadership trends. They also discuss exactly how firms can improve the differentiation, appeal, resilience, and action-driving capability of their material.    Natasha and Nicola discuss the following matters and more:     Thought leadership has long been considered essential to driving awareness of a firm's brand. However, Source's research shows that it is also integral to the whole lifecycle of the firm-client relationship.   Thought leadership has come a long way since the one-time-only launch of the doorstop report, where 80% of investment and effort was put into producing the thought leadership and only 20% on activating it. A more even split is now needed.    Changing customer behaviours are shaping thought leadership. More content is being consumed on the move and clients want short, sharp resources. This is changing how thought leadership is produced and governed. Collaboration across a firm is key.  Though leadership quality scores are at their highest ever this year. “Challenger brands” have worked harder on all dimensions of quality, and against this background, appeal and resilience have started to become non-negotiable hygiene factors.    Thought leadership is distinguished from its “poorer relation” content marketing by a strong dataset. We look at what else sets it apart.  Prompting action is, once again, where thought leadership often falls short. Firms have some good ideas in this space but fail to apply them consistently.     If you enjoyed this conversation, don't miss our sister podcast, Business Leader's Voice. In a recent episode, we talked to Jason Maude of Starling Bank about what a tech-first business wants from consulting firms.  

Hello, and welcome to episode 113 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast, I'm Chris Kirkbride. Another exceptionally busy week for financial crime this week. In the EU, the 14th package of sanctions against Russia has been agreed, while there are further designations by the UK, US, and Canada. In the UK, there are more releases of submissions to the Treasury's review of the Money Laundering Regulations, and Hungary and Gibraltar get their money laundering follow-up reports from MONEYVAL. The market abuse comes from the UK, with an update on the charges against the finfluencers, and fines from the Swedish and US authorities against a market and a trading company. There is also a round-up of the cyber-attack news this week. As usual, I have linked the main stories flagged in the podcast in the description. These are: AUSTRAC, Welcome to our refreshed website.Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, May 2024 — Monthly analysis of Russian fossil fuel exports and sanctions.Check Point Research, Threat Intelligence Report.Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, CFTC Orders Trafigura to Pay $55 Million for Fraud, Manipulation and Impeding Communications with the CFTC.Financial Conduct Authority, 'Finfluencers' charged for promoting unauthorised trading scheme.Financial Conduct Authority, Update on the FCA's review of treatment of Politically Exposed Persons.Finansinspektionen, Nasdaq Stockholm receives a remark and an administrative fine.FINMA, FINMA proceedings: HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA violated money laundering regulations.Francine Pickup, Corruption is criminal, immoral, and the ultimate betrayal of public trust.Government of Canada, Canada announces additional sanctions against Russian government for its responsibility in death of Alexei Navalny.Ministry of Finance, Singapore Publishes Updated Money Laundering National Risk Assessment.Ministry of Finance, Money Laundering Risk Assessment Report 2024.MONEYVAL, Gibraltar improves compliance with international agreements on money laundering and terrorist financing.MONEYVAL, Hungary improves its measures in relation to virtual assets and virtual assets service providers.OECD, The OECD Working Group on Bribery announces new Chair.Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, General Licence - Payments to the FCA INT/2024/4836676.Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury Targets Houthi Weapons Procurement and Funding Networks.Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury Targets Milorad Dodik's Network of Wealth Generating Companies, Including Prointer.Official Journal of the European Union, Regulation on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing ((EU) 2024/1624) (AML Regulation).Official Journal of the European Union, Regulation establishing the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) ((EU) 2024/1620) (AMLA Regulation).Official Journal of the European Union, Sixth Money Laundering Directive ((EU) 2024/1640) (MLD6).S&P Global, Russia's shadow fleet − Formation, operation and continued risks for sanctions compliance teams.Spotlight on Corruption, Spotlight on Corruption's submission to HM Treasury's consultation: ‘Improving the effectiveness of the Money Laundering Regulations'.Starling Bank, Annual Report and Accounts 2024.The White House, Statement from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on the Global Effort to Strengthen the Cybersecurity of Energy Supply Chains.US Department of Energy, Supply Chain Cybersecurity Principles.Wolfsberg Group, Wolfsberg Response to the MLRs Consultation (press release).Wolfsberg Group, Consultation on Improving the effectiveness of the Money Laundering Regulations (Submission).

In this episode of Deciphered, Adam Davis, expert associate partner at Bain & Company, is joined by Wendy Redshaw, Chief Digital Information Officer at NatWest, and Jason Maude, chief technology advocate of Starling Bank, to discuss if there is still a technology gap between incumbents vs challengers.Timestamps:04:15 Incumbents vs Challengers – is there still a technology gap?05:24 How would you explain the technology gap previously between large tier 1s and neobanks?09:57 What are the key differences between a challenger stack and an incumbent stack?12:31 How have Starling maintained a simple / flexible architecture through the launch of new products and the scaling of your customer base?15:24 Occasional vs repeatable releases16:02 Centralisation efforts that have happened with NatWest's tech estate over recent times19:36 Is the money banks spend on IT transformation programmes worth it?21:33 Do you believe the combination of ML / AI and Generative AI, alongside exclusive Cloud deployment, will level the playing field?25:15 What underpins the culture you want to see at your organizations, and how do you encourage it?29:57 How do you keep up with Futurology and trends, and does any of that thinking feature in your tech roadmaps?34:30 What is your one prediction for tech trends into 2024?Please subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode, and leave us a review if you enjoy the show!You can find Adam Davis hereYou can find Wendy Redshaw hereYou can find Jason Maude hereFor more insights from the Deciphered podcast, visit the page on Bain's website

In this latest episode of the Demystify Podcast, Sam Everington, CEO of Engine by Starling and Carlton Hopper, UK Managing Director of GFT, discuss their partnership. Sam outlines their strategy to scale by having partnerships like GFT implement their platform so that his team at Engine can focus on being the best banking platform company. He highlights that this not only accelerates their geographic reach but also allows them to address different markets. Carlton explains that the partnership works on trust and a shared vision and that GFT's extensive experience in Financial Services means that they were adding value to implementations from day one. Please note that there were a few problems with the sound quality of the recording, most of which our excellent production team have ironed out, but please excuse the odd glitch or two. 00:00 Introduction and Guest Backgrounds 02:50 Understanding the GFT and Starling Bank Partnership 09:29 The Importance of Trust and Shared Vision in Partnerships 19:17 The Role of Competition and Consumer Demand in Replatforming 23:50 The Global Market Opportunity for Digital Banking 27:53 The Genesis of Starling Bank's Engine

This week, Liz Lumley sits down with Sarah Kocianski, CEO of FinTech Wales, to talk about how lack of progress sits alongside the celebrations around International Women's Day, the new CEO at Starling Bank, and her plans for the fintech hub in Wales.The research statistics mentioned in the podcast are from the paper Systemic Discrimination: Theory and Measurement, published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research and authored by J. Aislinn Bohren, associate professor in the economics department at Penn; Peter Hull, professor of economics at Brown University and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research; and Alex Imas, professor of behavioural science and economics at Chicago Booth Business School. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Liz Lumley and Kimberley Long discuss how fintech has changed in the past 10 years, where fintech hubs work best, how events can promote diversity better, and Starling Bank founder Anne Boden's new book which offers a playbook for female entrepreneurs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the founder of a UK retail bank and two FCA regulated financial technology businesses, find out from Mark Hipperson how to successfully scale a startup within a turbulent market and the importance of succession planning in times of volatility.Discussions in the episode:Advice to entrepreneursPredictions for crypto over the next yearLearns from raising capitalHow to build trust in a volatile marketThe transition from founder to executive teamClick here to reach out to Peter Rabey direct Like this show? Please leave us a review. Every review helps. 

“It's never too late and it's never too early” to launch a startup, according to the co-founder and co-CEO of Enfuce, the payment startup and one of Finland's biggest fintech.Monika Liikamaa, co-CEO & co-founder of Enfuce, was speaking along with Michaela Berglund, CEO and founder of Feminvest, an events and education platform for women which has also launched an €8.8 million fund to invest in Nordic startups which are majority owned by women.The pair discussed the dearth of female founders, female CEOs and females working in VCs- and its impact on the industry.Asked her thoughts on seeing headlines in the media denoting gender such as “female founder raises .... ” and “……  appoints first female CEO”,  Liikamaa says she found the headlines “empowering”-as it shows women were achieving feats.That said, Liikamaa added:“Is it something that I would like it to be? No, it kind of alludes to a founder is a male. But that is the world we are living in and we need to change it. I hope, a couple of generations later, that would be seen as ridiculous."Liikamaa pointed to data showing companies with female directors outperforming those with male directors.She said women were partially to blame for the lack of female founders, as they hadn't explained well enough that women can be founders and have families as well.In the UK, Anne Boden, founder, Starling Bank; PensionBee founder and  CEO Romi Savova; and Lisa Jacobs, CEO of Funding Circle, are examples of high-profile female leaders.Liikamaa added:“What we need to teach the younger generation is that it's ok to want to achieve, it's ok to work your ass off. And it's never too late and it's never too early to found something and be passionate about it.”Talking about Feminvest's VC fund, Berglund said:“The response has been incredible. The interest has been super high.“I have been approached by women and men across Europe saying ‘wow finally, thank you for taking the bet'."

While most of us would agree that we have seen significant innovation in fintech and banking over the last decade, we still don't really have a new framework for how we look at banking.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One is someone who has thought deeply about innovation in banking and he has lived it as a co-founder of some of the biggest names in fintech. Jason Bates is currently the co-founder and Deputy CEO at consulting firm 11:FS but he is also a co-founder of both Starling Bank and Monzo, two of the big three in UK fintech. His framework of four layers for retail financial services provides an interesting perspective and a possible foundation for future innovation.In this podcast you will learn:How Jason first got involved in fintech.What it was like in the early days of Starling Bank and Monzo.The founding story of 11:FS.How he described 11:FS today.The difference between digital banking and digitized banking.The four different layers of retail banking.What we still need to work on in digital banking.An explanation of the "Jobs to be Done" innovation philosophy.The best ways to apply AI to banking.The state of fintech in the UK today.Comparing the US and UK fintech landscapes today.What Jason is looking at as far as 2024 fintech trends.What he is most excited about for the next three to five years.Connect with Jason on LinkedInConnect with 11:FS on LinkedInConnect with Fintech One-on-One:Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

While most of us would agree that we have seen significant innovation in fintech and banking over the last decade, we still don't really have a new framework for how we look at banking. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One is someone who has thought deeply about innovation in banking and he has lived it as a co-founder of some of the biggest names in fintech. Jason Bates is currently the co-founder and Deputy CEO at consulting firm 11:FS but he is also a co-founder of both Starling Bank and Monzo, two of the big three in UK fintech. His framework of four layers for retail financial services provides an interesting perspective and a possible foundation for future innovation.In this podcast you will learn:How Jason first got involved in fintech.What it was like in the early days of Starling Bank and Monzo.The founding story of 11:FS.How he described 11:FS today.The difference between digital banking and digitized banking.The four different layers of retail banking.What we still need to work on in digital banking.An explanation of the "Jobs to be Done" innovation philosophy.The best ways to apply AI to banking.The state of fintech in the UK today.Comparing the US and UK fintech landscapes today.What Jason is looking at as far as 2024 fintech trends.What he is most excited about for the next three to five years.Connect with Jason on LinkedInConnect with 11:FS on LinkedInConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.Download the Rubber Cheese 2022 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the first digital benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends on 20th December 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: https://www.beamish.org.uk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhiannon-hiles-4469784/ Rhiannon Hiles is Chief Executive of Beamish, The Living Museum of the North.Rhiannon leads the talented team of staff and volunteers, and is responsible for strategic development and operations at the award-winning County Durham open air museum, which brings the region's history to life.With over 30 years' experience in the culture sector, Rhiannon has extensive curatorial, commercial, operational and development expertise, combined with a great passion for museums, heritage and the North East.Working with national and international museum colleagues, Rhiannon is at the forefront of leading open air and independent museum practice, focused on sharing ideas, knowledge and supporting talent and progression across the sector.Rhiannon has a background in architectural and design history and an MA in Museum Studies specialising in social, rural and folk life studies and was an antique dealer and museum volunteer early on in her career. Her professional experience includes the prestigious Oxford Cultural Leaders Programme, SPARK Association Independent Museums (AIM) senior leaders programme, appointment to the board of the Association of European Open Air Museums, North East Chamber of Commerce Council member, National Museum Directors' Council, Museums Association, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, and the Association of Independent Museums. She has been a school governor and is currently a Museums Association mentor and Director of the Melrose Learning Trust.  Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. On today's episode, I speak with Rhiannon Hiles, CEO of Beamish Museum. We talk about wiggly careers and finding opportunities that use all of your skills. We also discuss philanthropic thinking and how to use this approach to support the funding of new projects. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Rhiannon, it's lovely to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm very excited that we've got Beamish back on, if I'm honest. So I know that we've had lovely Matthew Henderson, one of your past colleagues, came on not too long ago and talked about creative ideas for driving commercial income. Kelly Molson: But I've recently experienced Beamish, which I'm sure we'll talk about later on in the podcast. So I'm really tough to it's lovely. Rhiannon Hiles: It's a pleasure to be here. I've been dying to talk to you as well. So this is great. We had that initial conversation, didn't we? And so to be talking to you again today, it's brilliant. Kelly Molson: Well, hopefully you still feel like that after I've asked you these icebreaker questions. Let's start. Okay, I want to know what's the worst gift that you've ever received but you had to try really hard to kind of be grateful for. Rhiannon Hiles: Well, I used to have a black and white collie when I was growing up. We had a small holding and we always had collies. And I had my favourite collie was called Woody. I loved Woody. Woody came everywhere with me, black and white. And I was out somewhere once and I said, "Oh, she looks a bit like a badger." When they asked me what she looked like. And then people kept giving me badger stuff all the time. And my house was getting full and full. I was a student at the time and had a student house that's full of badger things. And I was always very polite because I was brought up to always say, "Thank you. Thank you very much for the present." Inside I was going, "Not more badger things."Rhiannon Hiles: And when I eventually thought I was moving and I thought, I'm going to put all those badger things in a box and take it to a charity shop, and I did that. Kelly Molson: And somebody would have loved that big box of badger rubbish, wouldn't they? Rhiannon Hiles: Somebody. Kelly Molson: You get this if you've got a sausage dog as well. So we used to have a sausage dog. The minute you have one of them, everyone thinks that you are a dachshund mad and you're not. You've just got a dachshund. But they buy you everything that I've got so much stuff with dachshund. I don't know if the person that bought me is listening to this. I've got like makeup bags with dachshunds on I've been bought, like, shopping bags and things like that. And I'm like, "Yeah, she's cool and all that, but I don't need to dress myself in dachshunds and paraphernalia". For now, anytime that anyone buys me anything rubbish, I'm going to put it in the badger box. Right. I love that. Kelly Molson: Okay, well, this is definitely not going to be badgers, but if you had to pick one item to win a lifetime supply of, what would you pick? Rhiannon Hiles: It's not really very sustainable and everyone who knows me will be like, "You are." It sounds so vain, mascara. Kelly Molson: Oh, yeah. No, I'm with you. Rhiannon Hiles: Sorry.Kelly Molson: No, don't apologise. Mascara would absolutely be on, like, my desert island diffs. If I was put if I was sent away somewhere, I would need not Desert Island Discs. What am I talking about? If I was on a desert island and I could take one thing, I want my mascara.Rhiannon Hiles: When I was pregnant and packing, you packed the bag, ready to go to hospital, and I was like, "Have I got everything in?” And I was like, “Have I got mascara in?" And everyone's like, "You will not want that or need it." And I was like, "I will." And to be fair, I'm not actually certain that I did care, but I was safe because it was in there. Should I need it? Kelly Molson: Yeah, at the time. Things like that are really important. Are they? Have you ever had the fake eyelashes put on so you don't have to bother with it? Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, not to that degree. When I was a teenager, I was a goth and I thought I was Susie Sue. So this is 1983. And I really thought I was Susie Sue. And I'd spent ages studying the way she had her ticks and her eyeliner and her eyebrows. So I spent ages perfecting that and I couldn't get the eyelashes to work in the corners to what I wanted. So probably from Superdrug or the Equivalent in 1983, because I can't remember where it was in Durham. I'd snuck in with my pocket money and I bought these stick ones to go along the top. They didn't stay on for very long. Rhiannon Hiles: I've never had the ones that people actually have physically put in, but then when I see people and maybe one of them's come out, I'm like, it looks a bit odd. Stick with your own eyelashes. Kelly Molson: I can't do the put them on yourself. I'm not very good with stuff like this at all. I'm not very good with makeup, but mascara is my go to because.. Rhiannon Hiles: That's easy, isn't it? Opens up your eyes, away you go.Kelly Molson: All you have to play like a new woman. But I have had the ones that someone puts in professionally before, which were amazing, but the only downside is when you decide that you don't want them any, have them taken off. Your own eyelashes look so rubbish. That you look a bit like an alien because you've got not enough lashes, because you had loads before with the extra on. So, yeah, little tip for you, everyone. You'll look like an alien.Rhiannon Hiles: I'll remember that. Kelly Molson: Right. What is your unpopular opinion for us? Rhiannon Hiles: I listen to your podcasts and I love hearing what people's unpopular opinions are. And I listened to the one with Bernard Donoghue and the other two brilliant chaps, and one of them had nicked my unpopular opinion and now I don't want to share it because they didn't nick it, because they didn't know that I was going to do it. But I used to live in the museum, I used to live in Beamish, and it was brilliant. At the end of the day, when visitors weren't there, it was amazing. Kelly Molson: Oh, this is what Paul said. Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Kelly said that the best thing about the attractions is when people aren't there. Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. Now, like, during the day, I would never think that or say that, because I love being amongst all the people, but when I lived in the museum, when everyone went, when the trams went, when it was deadly quiet, it was like yet another place, and it was like, "Wow, this is amazing now." And it was so different when the people weren't there. But I have to say that, for me, is an unpopular opinion, because, obviously, visitor attractions work when they're full of people. And although I used to think, I think, “Oh, it's so lovely at nighttime, or when everyone's gone”, but then when it went into lockdown into COVID, it made me sad when the people weren't there. So then my unpopular opinion kind of shifted. A very simple unpopular opinion is that I really don't like mushy peas. Kelly Molson: I'm with you. I don't like peas of any form at all. No, I'm absolutely this might not be so unpopular because I've got, like, a group of friends that are pea haters like me, and I have passed it on to my little girl as well, which I'm trying to yeah, I know she's not great. She's really good with fruit, not good with veg, and I'm trying to kind of retract that a little bit, but she's heard me say peas and make the face and now she's like, “Peas, yucky mummy.” Yeah. I'm trying to get her to go back, but I draw the line. There's no way I'm having mushy peas in my mouth. Rhiannon Hiles: And I think it's like the husky bit. Sometimes they're not really mushed and there's still a bit of husky pea shell in and I'm like, I don't like it. Kelly Molson: It's actually turning my stomach, thinking, well, let's see, whose side of the coin are you on? Are you on the pea lovers side or the pea haters? Come and join us on the haters side. Rhiannon Hiles: Vote now. Kelly Molson: Right, I want to know a little bit about your background, because I know that you've been at Beamish for quite a while. But what did you do prior to that? Rhiannon Hiles: When I was at school, I was really into horse riding, I had ponies and I set my sights from about the age of ten, probably to be a riding instructor. And so I was determined that's what I was going to do. But I was always a very good artist and I used to love drawing buildings and animals, not always in the same picture, but I loved the shape of buildings and I was just very interested in them. And I used to travel quite a lot with my grandparents and we used to always visit museums on the continent in particular. We used to go to open air museums loads and I just loved them. We always went in the summer, really loved them. But I still thought, I want to be a riding instructor, just want to visit those museums and have fun. Rhiannon Hiles: And then as I went through school, you flick around, don't you, a bit, when you're in school? Because I love drawing, I love sketching clothes. And I was a bit of a gothy punk when I was a teenager, and I used to make my own clothes. But I also was really into how the interiors of buildings looked. But I continued to ride horses and I did train to be a riding instructor, but I soon discovered there's no money in that unless you've got really wealthy parents with your own riding school and everything. So I continued to ride, still love horses, but knew I just went on a bit of a quest and I did quite a lot of commissions of drawings whilst I was studying, while I was doing art at college, and then I went on to do architecture and design at university. Rhiannon Hiles: And while I was at university, I met some people who said, "Have you ever thought about studying this and have you ever thought about doing some work in museums? And what about open air museums?". And I thought, "Well, I've always visited them, and I love them." So I started doing some voluntary work in museums and at the same time supplementing my living by buying and selling antiques. So I was antiques dealer for a while, which is good fun, actually. I quite enjoyed doing that, but I wasn't the greatest antiques dealer because I was more interested in the history of the things than the money that I was making from them. Sometimes I'd be like, "Do you know where this is from? And I just want to buy it". I was like, "But it's really interesting."Rhiannon Hiles: So I love doing that and I think it did give me a really good grounding. So I would really like scrabble around and things. I would go into skips and get stuff out and I'd sometimes knock on people's doors and I'd say, "You've got this really interesting table in the skip, can I have it?". Sometimes I would just pass a skip and go ask paper, put it in my car, and then I'd do them up. And one of my mum's friends used to buy and sell student housing in Durham, and she used to get me to help her to get the houses ready. And she'd say to me, "I'm going to leave you.". This is in, like 1987, 88. She'd leave me with a hammer and she'd say, can you knock out that set pot in the corner? Rhiannon Hiles: And when I come back, I'll just take you home, no PPE or anything. I'll stand there with the hammer thinking I was like, I was 18, I was like, I'll just hit it everywhere. But funnily enough, I think that gave me quite a good understanding of the ins and outs of older buildings. And I just really knew that I wanted to be involved with telling the stories of people who might have lived in those older buildings. So when I started doing that voluntary work, I did it in a museum in Durham first, which is brilliant, great grounding. It was the Oriental Museum in Durham. There's loads of work in their stores. And then my uncle's friend was a curator at Beamish, and my uncle said, "Give Jim a ring, see if you can get some voluntary work at that Beamish."Rhiannon Hiles: So I rang that Beamish up and I said, "Could I get some voluntary work?" And it kind of started from there, and I thought when I went, I was like, I've always visited here. Didn't really cross my mind you could work here. And I just kind of loved it right from the start. I became immersed. I found a picture of me recently when I'm a bit older. I'm 21 by then, and it's just before I started working at the museum, because it's when I was doing my undergraduate degree, and I'm like, I'm in one of the cottages and I've got all my glass stuff on and I think I'm dead cool. I've got my camera, but I can tell in my face that I was like I'm like, "Wow, I'm in the opening.”Kelly Molson: This is amazing.Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. So I think I had a bit of a, like, I don't know, was I going to be a horse rider, was I antique stay there, was I an artist? But then when I went into open air museums, I just knew I just had this fire in my belly, whatever you want to call it. I was like, this is where I need to be and this is what my quest is. This is where I want to lead one of these I want to be responsible for one of these fantastic places. Kelly Molson: Oh, my God, what an incredibly wiggle. I love that. So I really like hearing about where people I think the skills that people have and how they then apply them into the roles that they've ended up in. I was so shocked when you said about antiques, because I love that. I love nothing better than a Sunday morning mooch around a vintage shop or just like, scouring charity shops for any kind of bargain that I can find. And I was like, "She's literally living my life. That's amazing. I'd love to do that job.”Rhiannon Hiles: I think, briefly, because I used to go so a friend of mine who was at university with, he said, "Well, if you're dealing in antiques, why don't we set up together? Why don't we get a van together? Have you got any money?". And I loaned 500 pounds off my mum and I said, "I'll give you it back." I don't think I ever did. And we bought this really tatty van, bearing in mind this is, like, in the late 1980s, and we used to do, like, Newark. We used to go up to Isntonton in Edinburgh near the airport. We used to go around the country doing all the really big antique spares and camp and sell our goods really early in the morning to the dealers and then all the public would come in. Rhiannon Hiles: And then I started to be like, semi all right at it. And a friend of mine had a pub with a little what had been a shop attached to the pub in York, and she asked me if I wanted to sell some of my antiques in that little shop attached to the pub. So I did that for a little bit and then I thought, I think it's not quite working for me, there's something not quite right. And it was because I wanted to tell the stories of the things. So I enjoyed doing it and I learned lots doing it, but I wanted to be a curator, basically, and I hadn't clicked at that point. And then when it did click, I was, "It's clicked. That's what I'm going to do."Kelly Molson: And then you stayed at Beamish and you've just progressively worked your way through all of these different roles, up to CEO now. Rhiannon Hiles: I know. That's amazing. Kelly Molson: It is amazing. But you hear that quite a lot, don't you, where people, they find the place and then they stay there because it's got them basically, it's just got them hooked. And I totally understand this about Beamish. Were talking about this just before we hit record, but I visited Beamish a couple of months ago and had such an emotive reaction to the place. It's an incredible experience. It's the first living museum that I've ever been to. I knew what to expect, but I didn't know what to expect, if that makes sense. I knew what was there and I knew what was going to happen and how were going to experience the day, but I was not prepared for how completely immersive it is and how emotional I got, actually, at some of the areas. Kelly Molson: So can you just give us an overview of Beamish for our listeners that haven't been there. What is Beamish? Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, I think you've described it really well there about it being immersive and emotional. So those elements will perhaps occur for the visitor. They might not. It depends what people want to get out of their visit. But you and I were talking about how increasingly, as we have more living memory that we represent in the museum, that people will have emotive responses. And I think that goes back to one of the founding principles of why Beamish was originated. So our first director, Frank Atkinson, in the 1950s and 60s had traveled around Europe looking at different types of social history museums. He was a social history curator and he'd come across open air museums in Scanson, in Stockholm, in Malhagen, in Lilyhammer. Rhiannon Hiles: And he was just mesmerised by how they told the stories of the people of the locality in a meaningful way that represented the normality, the ordinary, the typical, rather than being the high end stories of lords and ladies in aristocracy. And he wanted to recreate something similar back in the north of England because he had seen disappearing stories and communities and lives. And he foresaw that there would be more of that disappearing as he foresaw that coal mines would begin to change or close. And people laughed at him sometimes when he said things like, "I want to recreate a slag heap of coal.". They went, "Why would you do that? There's lots." And he said, "Because there won't be any soon." And he was right. Rhiannon Hiles: So the reasoning behind the creation of Beamish was to tell the stories of the rural, the industrial, the social history of the people of the north of England in a similar way to those that are told about the fork life, which is the lives of the people that you see in museums on the continent. So that's what inspired Frank. And Frank's founding principles have stayed strong throughout the museum's ups and downs. And I've seen ups and downs across the years. The 27, 28 years that I've been at Beamish, I've seen lots of ups and downs. But if ever I'm thinking, what should I do next? I always think, what does the visitor want and what would Frank think? And I don't always agree with what Frank would think. Sometimes I think," Would I agree with Frank?". But I always have those two things. Rhiannon Hiles: I think, what would Frank think and what does the visitor need to see now? And I was watching there's a YouTube film called The Man Who Was Given the Gasworks, which is about Frank and his ideas. It was filmed in the late 1960s and it's really funny to watch, very BBC when you watch it, but it tells you a lot about where the ideas came from. But some of the things that he's talking about and the people that he's meeting in Scanson in the continent and he's interviewed by Magnus Matheson as a very young man, which is quite interesting. They still ring true and they still have this philosophy that all school children would visit from the locality to their open air museum. Rhiannon Hiles: And that's still a strength that's still very important to myself, but also to our museum, but also to other open air museums that I know. So Beamish kind of evolved as a concept, and then Frank found a site to build this big open air site which would tell the story of the people of the north of England. He was shown lots of different sites around County Durham. And the story goes, and I've talked to his son about this, and his son says, "I think that's what dad did." His son's about the same age as me. So he wasn't born when Frank had this idea, but apparently he got to where you come in at the car park underneath the Tiny Tim theme hammer. Rhiannon Hiles: The story is that when Frank arrived there and the trees hadn't grown up at that point, that he looked down across the valley and turned to the county officer who was saying, "Do you want this site?". And said, "This is it. This is where I'm going to have a museum of the people of the north." He said it was the bowl and the perimeter with the trees, so it could be an oasis where he could create these undulations in the landscape and tell the stories through farming, through towns, through different landscapes, through industry, through transport. He did at one time have a bizarre idea. Maybe it wasn't bizarre to flood the valley and tell the history of shipbuilding. I'm kind of pleased that didn't happen. Kelly Molson: Yeah, me too. It's really spectacular when you do that drive in as well, isn't it? I got this really vivid memory of kind of parking my car, walking across to the visitor centre and you kind of look down across the valley and the vastness of the site, the expanse of it is kind of out in front of you and it is just like, "Oh." You didn't quite grasp how big that site is until you see it for the first time. It is really impressive. Rhiannon Hiles: It is. And actually, I'm taking trustees, our new board of trustees. I'm taking them on a walkabout. And that's one of the key things. You just explained it perfectly. I'm going to use your quote tomorrow morning. I'm going to say, this is the Kelly Molson view, because I'm taking them to that point and I'm going to say, "Look across the vastness of the museum and the woodland. We look after all the woodland, all the footpaths through the woodland.". So it's the immediacy of where the visitor comes into the museum is more than that. And so I think we are a visitor attraction and we are self sustaining, but we're sustaining environmentally as well, in terms of what we do, looking after all that woodland and farmland as well. And I think that there's a lot more still that the museum has left to do. Rhiannon Hiles: I think it's almost like it will continue to evolve and change. There'll be ever changing. Someone who I know, who runs a museum on the continent, I was saying to them, "What are you going to develop next?". And they've done a lot of development very quickly and they get some very good funding, which is brilliant for them, but they have to stop developing because their site is so small, they can't develop any further. They're in the middle of a city and they represent an old town and their site is constrained by its size. And they said, "We're very jealous of Europe Beamish, because you've got so much space.". Kelly Molson: Just carry on. Well, the self sustaining thing is actually it's part of what we're going to talk a little bit about today. So think it was last season we had Matthew Henderson, come on, who was the former head of commercial operations there, and he talked quite a lot about creative ideas for driving commercial income. So all of the amazing things that Beamish have done to really kind of expand on the Beamish brand. I mean, I'm sitting here today and in front of me I've got Beamish sweets, I've got a tin of lovely Beamish jubilee sweets sitting in front of me. And Matthew talked a lot about the things that you did during lockdown and how to kind of connect with the audience when you couldn't be open, but just expand on that whole kind of product base that you have. Kelly Molson: And that was something that I was super interested in when I came to visit Beamish as well. Because your gift shop is phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. But all the way around the sites as well, the things that you can buy we talked about that immersive experience, but you can buy products where the packaging of those products, it hasn't just been created. It's been created from things that were in use and used as kind of branding back in the 50s and back in the18 hundreds. And that is just amazing. I guess I want to kind of just talk about Christmas. So we're on the run up to Christmas now, aren't we? Rhiannon Hiles: We are. Kelly Molson: I want to talk a little bit about how you drive revenue at what is often considered quite a quieter time of year for attractions because you've got quite a good process of doing that. Is that part and parcel of the hard work that you did during the pandemic to get these products developed? Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. So just prior to the pandemic, Matthew and I, and Matthew talked to you about this. We had started to think about how we would turn the museum into a really good profit centre without us looking like were selling the collections, because obviously you've got to be really careful, we're a designated museum and all the rest of it. There are really easy ways to do that without it being a barrier. And we came up with all these sort of ideas and then went into pandemic, into the pandemic, and it sped it all up for us. The things which we've been thinking about, would we do it or would we not? We just said, "Look, we're going to do it because what else have we got to lose?". And Matthew did talk to you about that. Rhiannon Hiles: So we entered into this, what are we going to be doing? What are we going to replicate? Who are we going to work with? What are the things we've already got? And Matthew had been working on, for example, the monopoly, he'd been working on that just prior to the pandemic. We just sold out of that during the pandemic because everyone was at home and wanted to buy board games. So we had thought, everything will sit on the shelves, but it didn't, it flew out. We didn't have an online shop, but then we suddenly did, like, overnight and so we talked about having an online shop and were sort of getting there and then went into pandemic and like a lot of folks, it just sped everything up. It really did. Rhiannon Hiles: So some of the work which we've been doing, which was taking us quite a lot of time, I think the pandemic silver lining and people talk about the negatives and the positives of the pandemic. The silver lining for our retail and our product ranges was that it really allowed us to move swiftly through ways of helping the museum to be self sustaining through our immersive sales. When you were in the museum, you'd have been on the town street and we have stalls in there. It's a market town, you would expect to see stalls outside. And all of the products on there are all Beamish products and they've been made either in the museum or they've been made by local suppliers who then are only selling through us. Rhiannon Hiles: Our ice cream is produced by a local ice cream maker, but the method and the flavours are only sold at Beamish. You can't get them anywhere else. So it's bespoke to us, but I'm thinking about how we move us into the next phase, which is all those things which we only sell. For me, there's a lot more that we can do in terms of we've talked about brand licensing, things like that, but in terms of the Beamish reach. So during lockdown, the Harrods of the North, Fenix contacted us and said, "Can we sell Beamish products?". And were like, "Yeah, Fenix have rung us up.". We were like, "Fenix are on the phone, we're so excited.". And we thought, "We're going to sell through Fenix.". Rhiannon Hiles: But for me, that's the start of what we can do with our brand name becoming a high street name, but a high street name that has got some gravitas behind it. So I would want to make sure that we didn't sell ourselves out, we'd want to place ourselves in appropriate places, if that makes sense. So what I wouldn't want to see is that our brand became lessened because we'd maybe chosen the wrong partner or whatever that happened to be. But I think that the Beamish Museum brand is strong and I think it could stand on its own, two feet as a brand, not just at Fenix, and it does at Fenix, so that's brilliant. But elsewhere as well. Rhiannon Hiles: And I've got some conversations lined up with folks to do with High Streets and how we can link up and partner with High Streets locally and perhaps that grows and develops as well, but also in terms of what we can do through our online sales, because we've lessened our impact there, I think. But that's probably because the items which people were buying at home during the lockdown, they can now go out and get, they can come into the museum and buy and they want that in the museum experience. But I think there's other things that we could do, like we have a lot of enamel signs and posters. We wouldn't need to hold all that stock in the museum. Rhiannon Hiles: We can work with companies who can then just download that and then sell that, rather than us having to say we have this massive space where we just hold loads of stock. And for any museum, that's a challenge. Where do you store things, let alone where do you store shop stock as well? So I think at this stage we're on the cusp of something quite exciting, but we don't know what it is yet. But we've got showed Jamiejohn Anderson round, he's a good friend of ours, he's the director of commercial at National Museums Liverpool and he's brilliant. I use him as a bit of a mentor. He's great and I was walking around with him and he's done work at Warner in the past with the Butterbeer and all the can. What can we do? Rhiannon Hiles: There's just so much lists and lists of things that you could brand license and you could sell and that would bring that in. Kelly Molson: Does that make it harder, though, to make those decisions about what you do? Because there's so much it's so much that you could do. There's not an obvious kind of standout one, there's just vast reams of things that you could do.  Rhiannon Hiles: It is. And we've got a commercial manager who took over after Matthew left and she's brilliant and she's still in touch with Matthew. They talk a lot about how we would move this forward and which product comes first. And our collections team are really excited. I mentioned just now about the post, the railway posters and the enamel signs that we have. People would love those. And the collections team are like, "We need to do those first because they're brilliant and they're easy and we could do them.". So it does make it hard. And everybody has their own version across the museum about what they think we should do first. So, yeah, it is tricky. And we've just dipped our toe in. And there's other sides of things. Rhiannon Hiles: When we enter into our accommodation, which will be the first time we've done this at the museum, we've done overnight camping at the museum for a while, and that's really successful. But to have our own self catering accommodation is coming on next year. And I would like to feel that if you're staying in one of those cottages that the soap, the welcome pack, the cushion, whatever that is, that you would be able to get that, but that it's bespoke to us. But you will be able and it's not at a ridiculous price either, that it's accessible to people, but that people will be able to get those items should they wish to. Kelly Molson: This was something that was really exciting to me when I came to visit. Well, there's two facets to this. One that was were taken round a I want to say it was a 1940s. It might have been the 19 hundreds, actually. So forgive me if I've got this completely wrong, but there's an artist's house, 1950s house. Sorry, I've got it completely wrong. I said 40. So were taking around the artist house, and what struck me is how the design and the interior design of that house, how similar it is to things that I see now. So interior design is a bit of a passion of mine. It's something that I spend hours scrolling at, looking at, on Instagram. But there were things that were in that house that are now back in fashion. Kelly Molson: So things, they just come full circle, don't they, with design? And so that was really interesting to me. And I remember at the time having a conversation and saying, "I'd buy that wallpaper that was on the wall. I would buy that wallpaper. I would buy that rug that they've got, that throw that was across the bed.". And it was just like, "Yeah, I absolutely would do that.". I know so many other people that would do that as well, who really want that authentic look in their house. I mean, this is a 1930s house that I live in, but I would love to have more kind of authentically 1930s elements to it. Art deco, mirrors, et cetera. Kelly Molson: And you can kind of imagine that not only being popular with the people that come and visit, but actually extending that into, well, interior designers that are styling other people's homes. They haven't necessarily been to Beamish, but they know that they can get this incredible thing from Beamish because they know how authentic that's going to be. And then that translated into Julian telling me about the overnight stays. And I was like, "But I want to stay here now, I could stay potentially in this room.". How amazing would that be? That would really fulfill my interior design passions completely. So that's the next step for you? Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, it is. It was the number one thing that came out of the market research that we did with people when were looking, just before we launched Remaking Beamish over ten years ago now. When went out and asked people what they would like to do, what's the most important thing to you? They all went, we want to stay in the museum. We want an Immersive, we want to be in it. So we thought, well, okay, we can do that. We thought about where that might be and it went through lots of different sort of ideas as to what it would be. It was going to be a hotel. And then we thought, "Is that going to work? Is it a hotel?". And then we had some buildings which had been unused and weren't part of any future development plan. Rhiannon Hiles: A beautiful row of workers cottages and some stabling and courtyard up Apocalypse, which were outside of the main visitor area with already a courtyard, stabling and cart shed. So I thought, "Well, let's do it there.". Talked to the lottery. They were over the moon with that idea, because it's more environmentally sustainable, because they're existing buildings, brings more of the existing museum into the public realm and it gives us an opportunity to use areas which, to be honest, how would we do something with them going forward, but also enables people to stay in the museum. So a night at the museum, literally be it's going to be phenomenal. There's so many people saying, "I want to be the first tester of the first one that's open.". There's like a massive queue of people who want to come and be the first to stay. Kelly Molson: I want to add my name to the list. I don't need to be the first. Put me on the list. What an amazing experience. I mean, you've lived in the museum, so you've actually done this yourself. But yeah, I just think to be able to extend your visit to do that would be phenomenal, because I know that you're building a cinema at the moment as well. So come in. Come for some dinner to the cinema. Rhiannon Hiles: Exactly. Kelly Molson: Stay overnight. Rhiannon Hiles: Exactly. And we had some European museum friends across. We run a leadership program across the continent and ourselves, myself, Andrew and some others in Europe, and some of them were over last week and we did a lovely dinner for them up at Popley. And I didn't know if you got time to go up to Popley when you visited. It's beautiful up there. It is magical up there. And we have this young lad, he's been a trainee chef and he's brilliant. He loves historical recipes, he loves preparing in the old style. But to make it edible, to make it something which can then be eaten in a venue. And he spent ages thinking about what we would eat and how we would describe it. And it was beautiful. Rhiannon Hiles: And as the light was going down, I thought, "This is what's going to be like for those folks who were going to be staying just across there, just right near Popley.". So I started thinking about all the ways we could make additional revenue. People will want to pay for this. They'll want to pay to have Connor come in and do them a period dinner while they're staying. There's so many other additional add ons that we can attribute to the overnight stay, should people wish to. I think that the list is endless. You've mentioned the cinemas, cinema nights, there's music, there's dance, different experience of different cuisine as well. I think there's so much that people will get from the overnight stay. Not least that you're going to be inside an exhibit staying overnight, which is really exciting in itself, isn't it? Kelly Molson: It is magic when you think about it. And I think what's nice is the way that you talk about that. There's so much opportunity, but it's the opportunities that people want. You do a lot of work about, we're not just selling things for the sake of it. What does our audience really want? And you ask them and you get their feedback from them, which is absolutely vital. Something that you mentioned as well was the lottery. So you spoke to the National Lottery about funding for what you were doing, which is brilliant, because one of the things that we said we'd talk about today was, I always struggle to pronounce this philanthropic thinking. Rhiannon Hiles: Philanthropic thinking? Kelly Molson: Philanthropic thinking. I had to say that slowly, so I got it out right. So we know what philanthropy is, we talk about it. It's charitable works that help others as a society or as a whole. What does philanthropic thinking mean to you? And how do you use this approach to support the funding of new projects? Because that's vital for you, isn't it? Rhiannon Hiles: It is, absolutely is. It's vital and we can and need and should do much more of it. And it's something which I'm exploring further. We have got a new Chief Operating Officer, we've got a new board, and I've talked to them about this and how this will help the museum to prosper for the future for our people. It'll allow us to invest in some of the what I would see as perhaps enough of us might say as core activity. So our learning program, our health and wellbeing program, our environmental sustainability. But to me, those are the things which make Beamish. They're the things which are about our communities and about our people. Rhiannon Hiles: So if we can have partners who will invest in us to work on those strong elements of what makes Beamish then that will help us substantially because that will enable those programs to grow, to develop, to add value to people's lives. While we can then use our surplus that we make through our secondary spend, through our admissions to put into those things which people don't find as interesting. And I don't like the word when people say, "Oh, it's not sexy.". But people don't find toilets that interesting. But if you don't have good toilets in a visitor attraction, if your entrance is clunky, if the admissions and if you're walking around and everything looks a little bit like it looks a bit tired. Rhiannon Hiles: So I think that all those things which are so fundamental to enhance the visitor operation but need to have that money spent on them, will be able to be spent on because we will have developed those other relationships. And I've seen really good examples just recently that have made me feel that there's a lot of opportunity out there. The Starling Bank has been sponsoring the whole summer of fun activity for National Trust. There's the wonderful philanthropic giving from a foundation to English Heritage to fund their trainees and apprentices. That's amazing. Kelly Molson: That is amazing, isn't it? I've read about this numerous times now and I just think, one, it's a fantastic opportunity for people that are going to be involved, but what an incredibly generous thing to do. So those traditions don't die out? Rhiannon Hiles: No, not at all. And I just feel that when there's more and more competition for less and less grants and foundations, which I get, and I understand that there's no point just sitting around feeling sorry for yourself on your laurels because all that will end up in is blah. And I've been in the museum where the museum sat on its laurels and expected things to happen and expected people to come and it didn't. And it had a downturn and you've got to be proactive. You've got to be the one who goes out there and talks to people and expresses what you can do, that you're a leading light. Rhiannon Hiles: We're seen as a leading light in the north of England and that's because of the work that we do with our communities and the fact that we are a little bit we'll take risks, we're entrepreneurial and we're always thinking about how we can improve the museum, improve the offer and also be there for our people. Because fundamentally that's what we're about. Right at the beginning of this conversation, were talking about unpopular opinions and how when nobody was there, I was like, "Oh, it's quite nice." But then during COVID when nobody was there, it was awful because that's not what the museum is about. The museum is fundamentally there for people. People are what brings it to life. The hug, the buzz. It's about all of that dialogue that happens on a day to day basis and that's so important. Rhiannon Hiles: And I think we already have folks who get really excited by what we offer. The Reese Foundation who are from an engineering firm, which is in Team Valley, already fund our STEM working program, because they get that. They get the work that we do. So that is an element of already successful pocket giving that we've had in the museum and I want to do more of that. We've got opportunity over the next period to really turn that around. And I think when you talk to Funders now, they expect a proportion of that to be happening. The Arts Council are talking to us about how you can be more philanthropic or work with philanthropic partners. And so even before were thinking or aware that they thought like that, we'd already had that in our mind, that's how we would work going forward. Rhiannon Hiles: And I think that it isn't just about taking money, it's about having that relationship with the partner and showing how what they've invested in. And generally it'll be something that means something to them and that's why they've made that decision to do that. So if you can show back to them we've been working with a brilliant social enterprise locally called the Woodshed at Sacrosant, which is about getting young lads and lasses who aren't in mainstream education as they come out of skill, or maybe for them, it's not working. And they have done great work together and we have been doing work with them back in the museum. Rhiannon Hiles: So those 1950s houses that you went into, they've done some of the woodwork inside there and they did the pitch and put golf and then they came along to the opening of the 1950s and two of the lads came up, they were like, "I like, you yelling. ". And I said, "I am. How are you doing?". They said, "I feel like this might be what you would call it, a graduation.". And I was like, "It's my last weekend.". And I thought, "Oh, it's exciting.". For him, it's also sad. But he said he was moving on to get another placement with a joiner. And I was like, "That's brilliant.". Another lad's gone on to do Stonemason up at Raby Castle. So it opens up pathways, it opens up journeys, it has so much benefit. Kelly Molson: Oh, goodness, do you know what? That's so weird because that kind of goes full circle to what were talking about at the beginning, doesn't it? And you had all these different skills and then you brought them together and actually they all fitted really well into the museum sector. You've just done the same with these kids who have now got these skills and they're going to take them back into the heritage space. That's amazing. Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, it's dead exciting. And sometimes people say to me, you're opening up opportunities, people are coming along and learning, and then they move on. And I'm like, "That's okay, that's absolutely fine.". If they come and learn here, and if there is something for them here, that's brilliant. If there's not, or for whatever reason they choose to go elsewhere, they're taking that skill set and they're still contributing to the economy, to their community, and that is brilliant. So I never look at it as kind of like, "Oh, why is that?". I look at it as like, "That is a real opportunity for them", for the museum and for the economy, for the region as well, for the visitor attraction. Kelly Molson: Ultimately, with that in mind, that you want to get more people on board is a big part of your role actually going out and talking to organisations about what Beamish is? And if they don't know about you already, I'm sure that you are incredibly well known around Durham, but you have to go out and engage with those organisations to kind of see where those connections can be made. Have you got like, a targets list of..Rhiannon Hiles: I want to go and talk to. Kelly Molson: In front of these people and have these conversations, but I guess that's a creative element of what you do, isn't it, is making those connections and kind of looking and seeing how you fit with them? Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, it absolutely is. And I think there's other elements which are really critical for museums, for charities, for the sector, with regards to how those conversations can better enabled and how businesses can feel more comfortable in then donating or becoming part of. So some friends of mine who are in Denmark, it's very usual for big money making businesses, when they get to a certain threshold, they've got no choice. It's a government responsibility that you then have to choose a charity or a museum or a culture sector organisation that you give money to. So my friend Thomas, who runs a brilliant museum, has had a lot of his developments funded directly through a very big shipping company, who I probably won't be able to say now, but a huge shipping company fund their development, basically. Rhiannon Hiles: And I was like he's like, "Oh, does this happen for you?". And I was, "No."Kelly Molson: We have to go and hunt these people down. Rhiannon Hiles: I was, like, brilliant. Could you imagine? Look, but for me, Bernard's brilliant because he can get in there into cabinet and he's a lobbyer and I think there's some additional work that we as individuals in the sector can do. So I've talked to Andrew at Blackcountry about this and what our responsibility is to help to change policy. And if nothing else, if you're part of that change and if you are able to voice how that will then impact on people's lives, then that is so important and so critical. It just depends on different parties approaches to what that impact on lives means, I suppose. Rhiannon Hiles: But at the moment, with all the parties conferences going on at the moment, we've got the ideal opportunity to go along and listen, but also to have a little pointer in there and say, “Don't forget, and this is how important we are.”Kelly Molson: That's a skill, isn't it, in itself? I can remember a conversation with Gordon Morrison from ASVA. Sorry, formerly from ASVA. He's now ACE, when we talked during the pandemic and he talked a lot about how he'd kind of taken some learnings from Bernard in the sense that Bernard, he's quite strong politically and he's a really good campaigner. And Gordon said that they were skills that he'd had to learn. He wasn't a lobbyer, it wasn't his natural kind of skill set. And I think it's really interesting that you said that, because that might not necessarily be your natural skill set either, but it's something that you've now got to kind of develop to be able to shape policy, because if there's an opportunity, take it. Rhiannon Hiles: That's right. And it's not my skill set. But when you have a strong desire to see something work through change, and you can spot how that change can come about through having the right conversations, it's who you go to for the right conversations that can also be the skill set. So that can be quite tricky. And when were looking for our new board of trustees and when were looking for a new chair, one of the key things were looking for was somebody who would have that kind of skill set. And we have got that in our new chair. He really does know how to do that. So I constantly feel like, "Where's he going to now and who's he going to talk to next and who's he going to get me linked up with?". Rhiannon Hiles: And that's brilliant and he knows how important that is. But we also know that we have to take it at the right gentle time. Yeah. So he can open doors. And I think that's so important. And our trustees, we've got a really strong set of trustees who can open doors for us. And again, that was deliberate in our approach that we took, to have a very diverse and representative board, to also have board members who can open other doors that we wouldn't normally be opening, because we have a strong set of doors. We open regularly and close regularly. But also the pace of it is so important that all of this is really needed. Because we're an independent museum, we got to make sure that we are self sustaining. Rhiannon Hiles: Our main money comes from what we make on the door, but if we want to develop, we've got to make sure that we continue to get brilliant secondary, spend brilliant revenue. But on the other hand, we've got to make sure that we bring our people with us, whether they're the staff, the volunteers, our visitors. We don't want to be garping so fast that they're not behind us when we worry about Crown. So it's very exciting times. Kelly Molson: Isn't it? Lots of exciting changes happening. Well, look, we can't have this podcast without talking about MasterChef either. Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, yeah, that was brilliant. Kelly Molson: So that's an incredible opportunity. So you're recently on MasterChef, where they came to Beamish. What an opportunity. Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, it was amazing. But the thing was, they said, "You cannot talk about it, you cannot say anything.". So, literally, for months, were like, were dying to say that we've been a MasterChef. And they were like, you can't tell anybody. But I don't know how this managed to keep under wraps, because there was literally over 200 staff and volunteers were eating all the stuff that had been prepared. How they managed to keep that under wraps is beyond me, but at the minute seemed to work. Kelly Molson: How long was it from recording to that going out as well? Rhiannon Hiles: It was from February up until just the recent airing. So that's quite a long time to keep it to yourself. Kelly Molson: Well done that team. Rhiannon Hiles: It was really hard. Like I said, "Julie, when are they showing it because I can't keep it in any longer ", because it's Julie, who you met, who was nope. They've said, "It's tight lit, but it was brilliant.". And it's great for us, for the museum. It was great fun taking part, don't get me wrong. And I was in the local court recently and the lady behind the counter kept looking over and she went, "Are you a MasterChef?". Kelly Molson: I wasn't cooking, but yes. Rhiannon Hiles: Yes. So I think my new quest now, I'd like to be a presenter on Master Chef. I don't want to cook, but I'd quite like to be a presenter. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I could do that. I could do the tasting, not the cooking. The cooking under pressure. It's another level of stress, isn't it? I like to take my time, read the instructions. Rhiannon Hiles: Don't need the pressure. It looked lovely, though. They'd used the school, they'd taken out all the benches that are in the school, in the pit village, and it turned into it looked beautiful. They'd use really lovely. I suppose they wouldn't call them props because they brought them in, but they were in keeping with the school. It looks so lovely. I mean, you probably watched it and that scene of all the staff of volunteers coming in to sit down to their meal, the lovely tables, the bunting they put up. It looked right. It was brilliant. Yeah. They had some interesting takes on some local cuisine as well. Peas Pudding ice cream was one strange one, but got peas in it, Kelly. You don't want it. Kelly Molson: Giving that one a swerve in that one. Right. What book have you got that you'd like to share with our listeners? Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, well, one of our trustees called Rachel Lennon, has written a really brilliant book called Wedded Wife, which is a great book, and I've just started reading it's about the history of marriage, and it's really interesting, so I would certainly advocate that one. I have a favourite book, which I go back to quite regularly, which is a childhood book and perhaps nobody ever would read it, but I love it and it kind of sums up for me what I was like as a child and what I continue to be like as I've gone through my career. It's called Wish For A Pony, and I really wanted a pony when I was between the ages of six and seven, and then I wished my wish came true. And from then on in, I believed that anything I wished for would happen. Rhiannon Hiles: And I still have that kind of strange, I often think I'm just going to wish that to happen, but I think it's not just that, it's holistic. I think if you really want something and you set everything towards it, yes, of course some people might say, but then you potentially set yourself up for great disappointment and failure. But I kind of think that you can't do something without taking that risk. So I just tend to think if you want it and you wish for it that much and that's what you're really aiming for, just go for it and do it. And perhaps the environment in which I've been brought up has enabled me to do that. And I completely understand that for some people that is probably difficult and challenging. I do get that. Rhiannon Hiles: So I feel that if I can help others who maybe haven't got that kind of environment to help them like those lads and lasses from the Woodshed at Sacrosanct and folks like that if we can provide spaces where they really want to try something but they're not sure how to do it then I think then we've achieved something. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's lovely. Do you know what? So I'm reading the book at the minute I've read the book Manifest, and it is about visualisation and the power of our thoughts and how we talk to ourselves and the things that we kind of want to bring into our lives. And there was a little bit of it that I was kind of going, "Is it the power of the universe?". It felt a little bit way woo to me, but then I kind of reflected on it a bit and went, but this is about taking action, really. It's about going, "I want this to happen in my life.". And it's not about sitting back and hoping that it might happen just because you've put a picture of it on your wall. It's actually about going out and doing the bloody hard work to make it happen. Kelly Molson: So have those conversations with the right people who are the people that can open the doors for you. Go and meet them, ask out to them. And I think that's a really important element of the whole. Yes, you can wish for something to happen, absolutely. But you've got to put the legwork in to make it happen. What a great book. All right, Wish for a Pony. Rhiannon Hiles: Wish for a Pony. Kelly Molson: Listeners, as ever. If you want to win a copy of Rhiannon's book, if you go over to this podcast announcement on Twitter and you retweet it with the words, I want Rhiannon's book, then you'll be in with a chance of winning it. I'm maybe not going to show it to my daughter because I'm actually terrified of horses. Rhiannon Hiles: You don't want a horse to appear in your garden. Kelly Molson: Her cousins have got a pony. She can do it with them and not at home here. Rhiannon, it's been so lovely to have you on. Thank you. I feel like this is one of those chats that could go on and on for hours. So I want you to come back when the accommodation is open. Yeah, because I want to know all about that. I'm going to visit that cinema. But, yeah, I'd love you to come back on and tell us how it's gone once you've had your kind of first guest and stuff. I think that'd be a really great chat. Rhiannon Hiles: I'd love that. All right. Kelly Molson: All right. Wonderful. Thank you. Rhiannon Hiles: Super. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Damien Fahy of moneytothemasses.com talks to Andy Leeks about money. On this week's episode Lauren and I discuss the best Money Dashboard alternatives and I reveal my personal top pick. I then delve into the latest innovation in the mortgage sector, highlighting a new fixed-rate mortgage product with an interest rate that is 2% lower than the current best-buys. I also go on to discuss the importance of taking account of a lender's mortgage product fee. Lastly, inspired by a question from our Instagram community, I discuss how children's savings accounts are taxed and why a lot of people will now fall foul of a little-known tax trap.   Check out this week's podcast article on the MTTM website to see the full list of resources from this week's show.   Money Dashboard to close all accounts on 31st October 2023 Moneyhub review Snoop review Emma app review The Money to the Masses Budget planner Starling Bank increases its current account interest rate Skipton announces market-leading 3.35% 2-year fixed-rate mortgage deal Skipton Track Record mortgage review (100% mortgage) Money to the Masses Mortgage best buy tables Speak to a mortgage adviser 35 year mortgages on the rise Amortization mortgage calculator MTTM Mortgage payment calculator MTTM - Ep 392 - Offset mortgages

Inflation is easing, food prices are coming down from their peak and the energy price cap dropped last weekend. But you are still paying around 10 per cent more for your groceries now than last year, petrol prices are rising, mortgage rates are still high, and you may end up paying more for your gas and electricity this winter too. But how is that possible? This week, Angharad Carrick, Georgie Frost, Lee Boyce and Helen Crane tackle energy bills and look at who might be paying more in the next three months. And when it comes to water bills, some firms are looking at charging 44 per cent more over the next seven years. Why? Crane on the Case this week tackles a parking charge issued after someone waited too long in a McDonald's drive-thru queue. Despite that, Helen managed to get a positive result – but why are so many parking charges being dished out every day, and where is the promised government help to stop it happening. Lee gives you a run through of another busy week in the world of savings and banking. NS&I has pulled its best buy one year fix paying 6.2 per cent; NatWest has a secret top 5.2 per cent easy-access deal; Moneybox is offering the top cash Isa of 5 per cent; and Starling Bank is now offering to pay you for having a current account. It's also been a hairy week for Metro Bank – but we explain why FSCS has you covered. And finally…the list of the UK's 'perfect' retirement locations has been revealed - and there are some surprising names on it, including the Outer Hebrides. Consumer group Which? has taken retirees' wish-lists for their later-life locations to work out its own grouping of the 12 top places to spend your golden years. But does it tally up to what you think is a perfect retirement location?

In This Episode This week we feature the first of a three part series focusing on fintech visionaries reimagining the future of finance. In the first segment host Brett King connects with Mariam Ogunbambi, Chief Client Officer at Engine by Starling, the technology arm of Starling Bank and Bronwyn Francis, SVP, Advisors Business Development, Mastercard. Starling Bank, as many of you know, is Britain's first digital bank, a true fintech success story. Engine is the platform that powers Starling and is now being provided to banks globally as a Software-as-a-Service solution to help them innovate, digitally transform or launch new digital offerings in their own markets, offering the opportunity to keep up with the pace of change and chance to replicate some of the Starling Bank magic. It's an interesting first segment in this special series! Then, it's time for some more Hot Takes! This time, Fintech on Fire live from MX's Money Experience Summit in Las Vegas. We have three bold panelists eager to tackle hot questions and even hotter wings. For every question and hot take, our panelists Mary Wisniewski, Neff Hudson and Wes Hummel will join Jason Henrichs in eating progressively spicier chicken wings. These hot sauces are guaranteed to bring out some honest and entertaining reactions. It's another Hot Takes hot session!

The third episode in a series with the B2B Institute at LinkedIn on a concept called Promise to the Customer. In this episode we go beyond the research to look at some real-life examples - two marketing initiatives that have a Promise to the Customer at their heart. WARC's David Tiltman speaks to Jason Carmel, global lead for creative data at Wunderman Thompson, Rachel Kerrone, director of brand and marketing at Starling Bank, and Jess Lovell, founder and CSO at Wonderhood.Stay up-to-date with the latest marketing and advertising news with our free daily newsletter.

Follow Jimmy: Twitter Substack Instagram Youtube Jimmy's Jobs Website Recorded in 2021, Anne Boden - CEO of Starling Bank joined our show for a cracking episode. This is one of our most highly listened to episodes and shows the unconventional route Anne took to start a bank, a sentence not many people can say. Starling Bank is a leading UK digital bank established in 2014 which redefines modern banking through both a mobile app and online platform. As of 2023, the bank serves over 3 million customers, with deposits exceeding £7 billion. With a focus on innovation, accessibility, and transparency. Starling Bank continues to shape the digital banking landscape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if you could become the next Founder of a Unicorn Start Up – just by doing one little change? The truth is that when you get your core strategy right, know your audience and understand the jobs to be done – you can make the critical tweak in your marketing that can unlock more customers and big profits. My GENIUS guest is Lucy Woolfenden, Founder of The Scale Up Collective, with 20 years' launching brands, growing their audiences and making them profitable. Lucy's portfolio of tech start-ups includes launching Skype for Mobile, Starling Bank, and Yolt and her expertise and team can do the same for you, because…. When you master marketing you will: Eliminate decision fatigue Gain instant trust with your communication Have throngs of investors in bidding wars to work with you Standout in even the most saturated market place Finally get the attention and profits you deserve Tune in now and learn: The groundwork you need to do to scale fast Why marketing is not something you can bolt on What great marketing is How great brands are really built Why nobody wants to be friends with a brand and the single thing to focus on instead Ready to supercharge your marketing and take your brand and business in to the stratosphere? What are you waiting for? Listen now. Resources from this show The must have tech to scale fast: Slack www.slack.com LinkedIn www.linkedin.com Notion: https://www.notion.so Superhuman : https://superhuman.com The books that you must read next: Never Split The Difference, Chris Voss The Direct to Consumer Playbook: The Stories and Strategies of the Brands that Wrote the DTC Rules – Mike Stevens The Personal Board Of You Inc -Emma Maslen DIVE DEEPER: Sign up for the Start Up Collectives awesome newsletter here > Check out my feature on “how to build high performing teams” here> Listen to Music that will lift you up The XX Angels Connect with Lucy https://thescaleupcollective.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucywoolfe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our expert host, David M. Brear, is asking: "What is Anne Boden's legacy in fintech?" This week's guests include: Anne Boden, CEO, Starling Bank The fintech world has been rocked by the news that Starling Bank's Founder and CEO, Anne Boden, is stepping back nine years after founding the company. A self-described “5ft tall Welsh woman”, who started a challenger bank in her mid-50s, Boden has been one of the sector's most passionate and vital voices for the last decade. To give you a glimpse of that drive and determination, we are opening up the archives and we're bringing you an interview from April 2020 on the 11:FS Breakfast Show. Fintech Insider by 11:FS is a podcast dedicated to all things fintech, banking, technology and financial services. It's hosted by a rotation of 11:FS experts including David M. Brear, Ross Gallagher, Benjamin Ensor, and Kate Moody - as well as a range of brilliant guests. We cover the latest global news, bring you interviews from industry experts or take a deep dive into subject matters such as APIs, AI or digital banking. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and please leave a review Send us your questions for the Fintech Insider Mailbag here (https://11fscompany.typeform.com/to/kBMan5qL?typeform-source=t.co) Follow us on Twitter: @fintechinsiders where you can ask the hosts questions, or email podcasts@11fs.com! Special Guest: Anne Boden.

Liz Lumley and Anita Hawser sit down to discuss all the fintech conferences, HSBC launching Innovation Banking, a16z crypto opening an office in London, the growing maturity of crypto in general, as well as the resignation of Anne Boden as CEO of Starling Bank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our expert hosts, Kate Moody and Ross Gallagher, are joined by some great guests to talk about the most notable fintech, financial services and banking news from the past week. We cover the following stories from the fintech and financial services space: Bank of England plans to reject Revolut's bid for banking licence - 5:00 Brite Payments launches instant payments network - 17:20 Daylight, the LGBTQ+ neobank, calls it quits - 30:40 Fifth Third acquires Rize Money - 39:50 Jia, a blockchain-based lender of small businesses in emerging markets, raises $4.3 million seed - 50:30 Starling Bank chief Anne Boden to step down amid record profit - 53:40 Amazon's palm-scanning tech now lets you buy beer at a baseball game - 56:00 This week's guests include: Lena Hackelöer, CEO, Brite Payments Tom Bianco, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Embedded Payments, Fifth Third Bank With soundclips from: Anne Boden, CEO, Starling Bank Zach Marks, Co-Founder, Jia This episode is sponsored by Thredd Global Processing Services (GPS), the payments platform trusted by the leading issuers to process billions of transactions a year, has changed their name to Thredd. Why Thredd? Thredd, because their tailored payment processing solutions are the thread that connects payments innovators of the future. Thredd, because they are true partners, becoming part of the fabric of your business as it grows. And Thredd because it just feels right. Find out more at Thredd.com. (https://www.thredd.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bitesize+thredd&utm_id=11fs) Fintech Insider by 11:FS is a podcast dedicated to all things fintech, banking, technology and financial services. It's hosted by a rotation of 11:FS experts including David M. Brear, Ross Gallagher, Benjamin Ensor, and Kate Moody - as well as a range of brilliant guests. We cover the latest global news, bring you interviews from industry experts or take a deep dive into subject matters such as APIs, AI or digital banking. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and please leave a review Follow us on Twitter: @fintechinsiders where you can ask the hosts questions, or email podcasts@11fs.com! Special Guests: Anne Boden, Lena Hackelöer, Tom Bianco, and Zach Marks.

Making news in fintech this week was Anne Boden of Starling Bank, JPMorgan, QED Investors, Fifth Third Bank, Rise Money, the CFPB, Venmo, Airbnb and Klarna, Daylight, Plastiq, Binance and more.

The challenger bank's director of brand and marketing tells Marketing Week how important customer experience was when building the brand from scratch, and why doing right by customers is a competitive advantage when times are tough.

And that's a wrap on February this week folks! While it might be cold and grey out of doors, as expected, it's hunting season and the M&A activities have been off the charts, this week in particular.Up this week:01:38 - German semiconductor manufacturer Infineon is to buy GaN Systems of Canada for $830 million in cash.02:12 - Helsinki's cash flow management SaaS Nomentia was acquired by Inflexion for a rumoured €300 million.02:20 - Milan's Nexi to purchase 80 percent of Sabadell's PayComent for €280 million.02:32 - Britishvolt finds a new owner in the Australian firm Recharge Industries. 03:45 - Summa Equity has acquired a majority stake in cybersecurity firm Logpoint.03:53 - Shell struck a deal to acquire the evpass EV charging network in Switzerland.04:49 - QDNL Participations announced the launch of a €15 million early-stage Dutch quantum fund. (With commentary from Managing Director Ton van 't Noordende).06:40 - High-Tech Gründerfonds closed a new fund at €493.8 million.08:21 - Payfit to part ways with 200 people, or 20% of its workforce. Or is it more like 290 people?09:36 - Swedish payments group Klarna aims to return to profit by the summer after posting record losses.10:05 - Revolut has posted its first annual profit of £26.3 million in 2021. And is there something fishy going on over at The Columbus Building?10:47 - Bunq released numbers and claims to now be the first EU-based neobank to report a quarterly profit. 11:04 - Starling Bank achieved its first full year of profitability, just five years after launching in app stores, and Monzo clocked up a loss of £119 million.11:36 - Wise announced that it has “reached 16 million customers served worldwide”, and revealed plans for further global expansion.12:58 - Robin's one more thing: London and Berlin account for more than 51 percent of European VC job listings14:25 - Robin checks his agenda, rustles some papers, and yes, the Tech.eu Summit IS happening on the 24th of May in Brussels! If you act now (operators are standing by) you can save €150 on our early bird tickets.16:02 - Dan runs out of breath.All this and a whole lot more on this week's episode of the Drive at Five!

The UK Investor Magazine Podcast was thrilled to welcome Fiinu (LON:BANK) for a deep-dive into their innovative FinTech products with a significant underserved market in the UK.We were joined by CEO Chris Sweeney and Founder Marko Sjoblom to explore their journey from gaining a banking license from FCA and PRA to listing Fiinu on London's AIM.Fiinu joins a limited number of companies such as Monzo and Starling Bank in completing the major feat of obtaining a banking license.Fiinu are set to launch the ‘Plugin Overdraft' which has the potential to provide millions of people in the UK with an overdraft. Traditional banks have locked a large number of consumers out of overdrafts and forced them to use services such ‘buy now, pay later' which can be detrimental to credit files. Find out more about Fiinu here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Craig Jeffery, Managing Partner of Strategic Treasurer, meets with Jack Large, Editor of CTMfile, to review the latest treasury news and developments. Topics of discussion include the following: Starling Bank blocking incoming and outgoing transactions to crypto exchanges as crypto bans expand across UK banks GlobeTopper and Knox Wire announcing a US $50 million global payment partnership Ongoing data from the UK ICO revealing that the finance sector is one of the top offenders for data breaches UK firms holding double the stock amid inventory crisis and rising inflation Morgan Stanley's investment group launching a US $1 billion environment-focused private equity plan

Huckletree, the flexible workspace providers operating from the Academy building on Pearse Street, Dublin 2, has seen a 35% growth in occupancy rates this year, bringing total levels to 98%. This month Huckletree celebrates its 5th anniversary in its flagship Irish location. Companies including Starling Bank, Tines, NewsWhip and Axonista are part of the Dublin community. The company, which also has five hubs across the UK, first opened its doors in Dublin in late 2017, with founding members Silicon Valley Bank, Kontainers and Datadog. Supported by a network of ambassadors, including Dee Coakley, Pete Townsend, and Edel Coen, it has since been a home to tech start-ups and scale-ups at the forefront of the developments and trends hitting the Irish and international tech scene in recent years. With the global tech industry in a period of transition, Huckletree's mission is proving that it is more important than ever to build a community for innovation. The team has been witness to the transition from pandemic-enforced remote working to flexible and hybrid models, and believes that it is clear that the desire to gather together has driven this. “The tech industry is no stranger to change and external pressures and there's no denying that we are moving into a period of uncertainty. Sustainable, steady growth must be the key focus for tech companies going forward. Now more than ever, shared workspaces and communities like ours should be spaces where people can gather to seek advice, guidance, pivot, innovate and navigate this period together. We really believe in strength in numbers, and the power of network,” says Andrew Lynch, co-founder and board member of Huckletree. As part of celebrations to commemorate five years in business, Huckletree are bringing the Dublin tech community together as part of ‘The Great Gathering', a campaign that celebrates the importance of gathering with purpose, with a series of events throughout the month of November. In addition, Huckletree has released The Great Gathering Zine, a playbook for business leaders, creatives and entrepreneurs. As demand for traditional office space continues to shift, with a move towards flexibility and options that prioritise employee experience, shared workspaces and communities like Huckletree have been at the forefront of this evolution. “People are looking for interesting opportunities that support their learning and development, and spontaneous moments that harness their creativity at work. We spend a lot of time designing our events and experiences at Huckletree across our hubs, researching topics that will resonate with our members and spark lively debate and meaningful conversation,” commented Aislinn Mahon, Head of Ecosystems at Huckletree. As growth in the Pearse Street space continues, Huckletree are now looking to find new locations for more spaces across Dublin in the next few years. Areas of interest include Dublin 2 and Dublin 8, where Huckletree has already identified potential opportunities. See more stories here. More about Irish Tech News Irish Tech News are Ireland's No. 1 Online Tech Publication and often Ireland's No.1 Tech Podcast too. You can find hundreds of fantastic previous episodes and subscribe using whatever platform you like via our Anchor.fm page here: If you'd like to be featured in an upcoming Podcast email us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie now to discuss. Irish Tech News have a range of services available to help promote your business. Why not drop us a line at Info@IrishTechNews.ie now to find out more about how we can help you reach our audience. You can also find and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.

This week we discuss:(04:24) Starling Bank blocks crypto payments in wake of FTX collapse(06:01) Are we about to see another dot com crash?(12:27) Tech event Slush revokes award for Russian founder after backlash(20:47) How has Theranos affected biotech startups?This podcast is brought to you by Zendesk for Startups. Zendesk helps startups build lasting customer experiences from day one. With the Zendesk for Startups Program, startups get Zendesk customer support software and CRM for six months FREE of charge. You'll get access to expert advice and a community of likeminded founders and CX leaders to help you build the foundation for long-term growth. Learn more and claim your 6 months free at zendesk.com/sifted.

Back for a brand new season! Anne Boden shares her stories of busting stereotypes and facing up to prejudice as she set out to fix a financial system that was stuck in the past. Jazz Shapers in association with Mishcon de Reya broadcasts every Saturday at 9am, with a repeat on Monday at 5am, just before the Business Breakfast. Presented by broadcaster and Mishcon de Reya's Partner and Chief Brand Officer Elliot Moss, Jazz Shapers shares music from the risk takers, leaders and influencers of jazz, soul and blues, alongside interviews with their equivalent in the business world: entrepreneurs who have defined and shaped business categories and ways of operating, defying convention and have gone on to achieve great success. With more than 1000 people, Mishcon de Reya is an independent London-based law firm that serves an international community of clients. In their words: "We appreciate the privilege of sitting alongside our clients as a trusted advisor. Building strong personal connections to our clients and their businesses is important to us. It is for these reasons we say ‘It's business. But it's personal.'

This week, Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend riff on Pete's trip to the US last month with the sheer ridiculousness of the 8 different combinations of point-of-sale authorizations he experienced with a single Revolut card, Starling Bank's re-prioritization of a presence in the Irish banking market, the hunt for crypto talent by EU regulators, Vitalik's view on giving people what they want in the Metaverse, fintech micro-lender Umba's deal for Daraja and Tomo Credit's big round to make credit scores obsolete. SUMMER SCHEDULE UPDATE – This is our mid-summer episode for August and we'll be back with our regular weekly cadence come September. This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by Philip Lee, one of Ireland's fastest-growing corporate law firms and expert advisors at the heart of the Dublin and London start-up, fintech and crypto communities. STORIES WE COVERED: Starling Bank pulls plans to offer services in Ireland (RTE News, 18-Jul-22) EBA warns talent shortage will hamstring crypto regulation (Finextra, 2-Aug-22) Vitalik: Metaverse ‘Is Going to Happen' but Meta's ‘Will Misfire' (Decrypt. 31-Jul-22) Apple Accused Of Potential Consumer Data Misuse With Its ‘Buy Now, Pay Later' Service (Forbes, 27-Jul-22) US-based fintech Umba buys majority stake in Kenya's Daraja microfinance bank (TechCrunch, 3-Aug-22) TomoCredit raises $22M at a $222M valuation toward its goal of making credit scores ‘obsolete' (TechCrunch, 21-Jul-22) Founder's Field Guide: David Velez (Nubank) – Building the Branchless Bank (Podcast, 8-Jul-21) Tim Ferriss Show: Balaji on the Difference between Nations, States and Nation States (YouTube, 9-Jul-22) LINKS: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts | Podchaser Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Overcast Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website Subscribe to our newsletter on Substack Follow MoneyNeverSleeps on Twitter Follow Eoin Fitzgerald on Twitter Follow Pete Townsend on Twitter Get in touch at info@moneyneversleeps.ie

The Sunday Times' tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Anne Boden, founder of fintech unicorn Starling Bank, to talk about the post-pandemic workplace (3:30), the market collapse (8:40), starting a bank after the recession (11:50), growing up in South Wales (14:25), why banks aren't good at tech (17:45), how people reacted to her as a first-time, 50-something entrepreneur (22:00), the first “yes” after 400 “no's” (25:00), the banks' lack of confidence (30:00), getting to 3 million customers in three years (33:40), sexism (39:40), breaking out of being a “trial bank” (42:20), crypto (43:40), and money laundering in London (46:25). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On today's show we discussed the Rohit Chopra's (CFPB Director) testimony to both the House and Senate, Fidelity Investments, Robinhood, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, stablecoins, Starling Bank, LendingClub, Lendistry and more.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Anne Boden is the Founder and CEO of Starling Bank, a modern British bank that brings new technology to the forefront, delivering a more engaging experience for customers than traditional high-street banks. Since 2014, Anne's vision has served more than 2.5 million customers as Starling continues to grow into one of the UK's leading banks. In January of 2014, Anne decided to quit her job to pursue her vision of creating a better bank, defying all stereotypes of women in their 50s with a corporate background. Starting a bank is one of the most challenging businesses to launch, and people thought she was crazy, but Anne was determined to make it work. “I felt silly, I felt people would laugh at me for having this audacious goal. I didn't just want to create a new bank, I wanted to create one that had the very best technology right from scratch, treated customers very fairly, with a new way of doing things and engaging with customers. Nobody believed me. Nobody thought it was possible.” Topics: Starling's first steps Raising money + building a team Being a sole founder Building the technology ‘Banking on it' - Book Securing the $48m investment Crypto What success looks like for Anne Work/life balance Are entrepreneurs born or bred? Luck Advice to her younger self Anne: https://www.instagram.com/anneboden/ https://twitter.com/anneboden Anne's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/BANKING-How-I-Disrupted-Industry-ebook/dp/B084H6N2GS Starling Bank: https://www.starlingbank.com/

There are a lot of very rare things about my guest today, Anne Boden.  She is one of a very small group of people who have founded what the U.K. calls challenger banks – banks that were chartered after the financial crisis as part of regulators' newly minted mandate to foster competition in the financial sector. She is one of the very small group of bank CEOs, worldwide, who are women – which makes her a great guest for an episode that we recorded at the end of March – which was Women's History Month. She is the CEO of a startup that turns a profit. Many don't. She is one of a very small group of bank CEOs whose roots are in technology, not banking. Her university degree was in chemistry and computer science. And she is the very rare bank CEO who has written a New York Times bestseller. Titled, Banking on it: How I Disrupted the Way We Manage Our Money Forever, her book recounts the amazing story of how Anne – then a senior executive at a global bank, in her mid-50's – decided to found, yes, a bank.

#AD This special episode of Dope Black Dads is sponsored by Starling Bank. Today, we are joined by my children, Blake, 6, and Ocean, 4, who embark on a daring mission to learn about money with the help of the Starling Kite card. Starling Kite is a debit card made for 6-16 year olds and linked to your own Starling account, all with the aim of helping kids learn to spend like an adult and understand the value of money. In the #StarlingKidsTakeover Challenge, Blake and Ocean took over the family budget! We learned so much without it feeling like a lesson, everything went swimmingly, that is until my own kid denied me a haircut! They learned enough to be reticent to splashing cash on their dad! Tune in to hear how our journey went, check out this handy worksheet to help you complete the challenge https://www.starlingbank.com/docs/KidsTakeover.pdf or learn more about the Kite Card here https://www.starlingbank.com/current-account/kite-debit-card-for-kids/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=IGstory&utm_campaign=sm. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How do we teach kids the value of money? What would happen if we put them in charge of the family budget for a whole day? And what is better, knickers or cheese? To find out the answer to these pressing questions, we teamed up with Starling Bank for this special bonus episode. We gave our lads a budget for a family day out, and a Starling Kite card so we could keep track of their spending. Tune in to find out whether they wasted it all on V-bucks and sweets, and whose son spent the most on their Mother's Day present. True story: we've been with Starling for years, and we're big fans of their work. It's super easy to apply for an account with them and their app is so simple to use. The Kite card is a great way to get kids thinking about money, and it's only £2 a month. We had a right laugh testing it out with our boys, so why not give the #StarlingKidsTakeover challenge a go yourself? You can sign up for a Kite Card here https://www.starlingbank.com/current-account/kite-debit-card-for-kids/?utm_source=acast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=sm And check out their worksheet here https://www.starlingbank.com/docs/KidsTakeover.pdf Many thanks to Starling for sponsoring this episode. And thanks for listening! As always, you can find links to our other podcast episodes, show dates and tickets, and merch at scummymummies.com. #AD See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Founders Focus is the show where we get up close and personal with the leaders of the businesses changing the way we work today   Next up is Mark Chaffey, CEO of hackajob   - Where are we with talent marketplaces? - When you first set up hackajob, what did you think it would be, and what are we now? - Can you tell us what the hardest decision has been during your time as CEO of hackajob? - What has been your best decision? Why? - What needs to happen in order for hackajob to go to next level (whatever that is to you!) - Leadership lessons: as first time founder, straight out of Uni, how did you develop your leadership skills? - What parts of CEO do you do well? - For customers of hackajob, what can they expect in 2022? - What single word of advice would you give to a young entrepreneur going down this path?   All this and more as we take a deep dive into the business leaders building the technology changing the way we work today.   Ep21 Founders Focus is supported by hackajob hackajob believes in maximising people's potential.    It's why they've made it our mission to make the hiring process fairer, faster and based on skills rather than backgrounds, so that people can get the job they deserve and earn what they're worth. hackajob is a private tech career marketplace and uses AI to look at a candidate's previous projects, as well as how they perform in their custom-built tech challenges, so they can understand their overall competency.    From there, they match companies with candidates based on their skillset and nothing more. The average time to hire using hackajob is just 17 days, meaning you can get either the career or the candidate of your dreams in no time. hackajob works with 1,500+ companies including Sainsbury's, Vodafone and Starling Bank, helping them to reduce their time to hire, engage with candidates and hire unbiasedly.    Hiring for tech talent? Book a demo today and grab a 30 day trial here

Steve O'Hear has been providing commentary during one of the most exciting periods of tech innovation in the UK. A highly respected, prominent journalist for ZDNet and Tech Crunch, Steve covered the rise of Monzo, Wise and Starling Bank as well as other FinTech and general tech advances throughout the period dubbed Web 2.0 But Journalism wasn't all Steve planned to achieve in his career. He tried his hand at entrepreneurship with Beepl, and talks candidly about this experience and what lessons he learned that made him a better writer and leader.  Steve is currently the VP of Strategy at Zapp - an e-commerce convenience grocery company, who are attempting to disrupt the already competitive, convenience retail space.  Talking Points02:05 - Intro to Steve03:43 - How did Steve get into Tech Journalism?05:02 - Web 2.008:52 - What Tech Companies has Steve Seen Rise?10:52 - Fin Tech11:30 - What Prompted the rise of FinTech?15:25 - Beepl17:20 - Lessons learned from Beepl failures19:00 - Entrepreneurial advice to those starting a venture20:25 - Changing careers from journalism to Zapp24:00 - Why will Zapp change the convenience retail space in the UK?28:05 - What tech innovations is Steve excited about?30:50 - Steve's advice to young journalists.32:50 - Stories that inspired Steve. 

This is one in a short series of episodes, taking a look back at some of the amazing female entrepreneurs we've had on the podcast in celebration of International Women's Day.Things haven't gotten easier for women in the last 30 years. Anne Boden CEO and Founder of Starling Bank exemplifies what female entrepreneurs can achieve in the tech and finance spheres. She talks about the higher standards diverse groups are held to and how building her bank was fuelled by proving these people wrong.If you'd like to see more information about the job roles being offered please look at my Twitter @jimmym

In the first news show of year we discuss 2022 fintech trends to watch, Dave becoming a public company, Petal announces the first big funding round of the year, China's CBDC is working with WeChat, BNPL is coming to credit reporting agencies and Starling Bank's founder, Anne Boden, in hot water with her fellow fintech entrepreneurs.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Jimmy's Jobs of the Future is hiring, read more on our next chapter here and you can sign up to our newsletter here. Jimmy's Jobs of the Future is presented by me, Jimmy McLoughlin, a former Downing Street adviser on business.Our last episode was with Dom McGregor, we talked about his story and how it was perhaps the stereotype of how we characterise the entrepreneurship journey … Uni drop out who sent a tweet that became worth hundred of millions ..  Well Anne Boden from Starling Bank is different, very different.As she describes herself in this interview she was in her 50s She's from WalesShe's a woman in finance and technologyShe's only five foot tallSince we recorded this interview ten days ago it was announced that Starling have taken £50 million in funding from Goldman Sachs, taking the total valuation of Starling to £1.1 billion and therefore the proverbial unicorn status. Her story of founding a bank in 2014 to growing it the size it is today demonstrates that entrepreneurs can come in all shapes and sizes. Starling now employs over 1,000 people across the UK, including setting up large hubs in Southampton and Cardiff. Anne talks us through why those places stood out as talent hubs. She talks about how you don't need an Financial Services background to work at Starling, they are hiring software engineers, Data analysts and graphic designers. A big part of what drives this show is wanting to tell the brilliant entrepreneurial stories that are happening all across the UK, each episode is full of entrepreneurs creating jobs, they don't make headlines about creating hundreds or thousands, because so often it is about the incremental steps along the way. And of course that is a reminder, that this podcast is making its own first foray as we are taking on our first employees to help power our next stage of growth, so if you are curious about the way our economy is growing, want to work on researching guests and helping us get it into more ears, please check out the show notes for more details We have surpassed 100 reviews on iTunes, a big thank you to Eben Owen, a student at Cardiff University who left a six word review - that is all it takes for me to think this show is worthwhile. If you could leave a rating that would make a big difference and don't forget to tell a friend or six about the show as that is the best way we can grow it. Thanks to Octopus Group for their support in this second series. A reminder that they are looking for new charity partners and are welcoming applications over the next month - the support offered includes £45,000 of unrestricted funding. A reminder you can follow us onInstagram: @JimmysjobsTwitter: @JimmysjobsAnd most importantly on LinkedIn.If you'd like to see more information about the job roles being offered please look at my Twitter @jimmym