The Ambition Podcast

Like many of you during the summer months, the AMBITION Podcast will be taking a well earned holiday. The show will return in the autumn, but if you miss us during this break, you can listen to all our episodes at your leisure. From all of the podcast team, have a great summer and see you soon.

On this episode of The AMBITION Podcast, we spoke to Yetunde Hofmann. Yetunde has worked in the HR departments of some of the world’s largest companies but now has a portfolio career – working with black women in organisations to help break through the concrete ceiling. Yetunde discusses some of the main barriers facing black women reaching the top management positions and some of the key changes managers can make to become more inclusive leaders.

With the popularity of cryptocurrency on the rise, The AMBITION Podcast was keen to speak to Gabriele Musella, CEO and Co-Founder of Coinrule, a company which aims to make cryptocurrency an option for everyone through increasing automation. Gabriele tells us how his company is revolutionising the cryptocurrency sector, as well as how he has created an unusual culture in his company, with regular happiness checks on employees.

The past two years have completely disrupted how we are used to doing work. While we have settled into a ‘new normal’ and adjusted to a hybrid way of working – old habits die hard, and hybrid solutions can come with their own difficulties. George Karseras is an expert on creating and nurturing hybrid teams, and has recently released a book entitled, Build Better Teams: Creating Winning teams in a Digital Age. He came on The AMBITION Podcast to share his expertise on how to induct new members onto hybrid teams, how to manage tension at work to be constructive and how to foster a culture of trust within hybrid teams.

From recessions to leadership defections, cyber security threats, terrorism events, kidnappings, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, and political disputes – Brian Hartzer has managed companies through them all. Brian joined us on The AMBITION Podcast to give advice on how to stay calm when faced with a crisis. He also speaks about how to keep your team calm during a calamity, but more than that – keeping them happy and engaged through a crisis to achieve a positive result.

Risk, change, learning to fail, agility, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, are topics we regularly talk about on The AMBITION Podcast. But when it comes to the crunch and change impacts on us, it’s all too easy to let our human flaws allow us to put our heads in the sand. So, how can we break the cycle and be proactive in the face of unprecedented change? Steven Goldbach, Principal and Chief Strategy Officer at Deloitte and co-author of Provoke: How Leaders Shape the Future by Overcoming Fatal Human Flaws, explains how leaders can become more proactive in their approach to business.

‘Invest in yourself’ is the advice that Ximena Aleman, winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year at the AMBA & BGA Excellence awards 2022, gives on this episode of The AMBITION Podcast. Ximena won this sought-after accolade because of her business Prometeo OpenBanking – a company revolutionising banking in Latin America. Ximena came on the podcast to talk about how she is pushing for more diversity in the fintech industry, her MBA at the Facultad de Administración y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad ORT Uruguay and her plans for expanding her business.

In this special episode of The AMBITION Podcast, we spoke to Shameen Prashantham about the benefits of large corporates working with entrepreneurs and start-ups. Shameen is particularly focused on how these partnerships could help further the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. He gives advice from his new book Gorillas Can Dance on how these partnerships can navigate their different sizes and potentially different cultures to create benefits for both organisations.

AMBA & BGA’s MBA Leadership Award winner, Theresa Grant, joined us on this week’s episode of The AMBITION podcast. We spoke to Theresa about her 43 years of work in local government and being awarded with a prestigious Order of the British Empire or OBE. During our conversation, Theresa explains what it takes to be a considered a great leader and her experiences whilst completing her MBA at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Meet the winner of the AMBA MBA Startup of the Year 2022 award, Sotiris Ptochos. Sotiris is passionate about leaving the world in the best condition possible and co-founded his organisation PEOPLE Technology Solutions (PEOPLE) to tackle one of the industry’s where change is essential to fight against climate change – the transportation industry. Sotiris joined The AMBITION Podcast to talk about his experience doing his MBA at Athens University of Economics and Business, and how he is changing the world for the better.

AMBA’s MBA Student of the Year 2022, Monique Farquharson joins us on today’s episode of The AMBITION Podcast, to discuss her varied career and how she epitomises her life motto, ‘fail fast, learn fast’. Monique has gone from teacher to business developer, to entrepreneur and then consultant. Earlier this year, she won the coveted title of MBA Student of the Year. We spoke to Monique to hear more about her global career and how she thrived on her MBA programme at Aston Business School.

As much as mental health is being pushed to the forefront of business literature and conversation, it is still often stigmatised and seen as awkward to bring up. Michelle Morgan came on The AMBITION Podcast to help us have these awkward but essential conversations about our mental health. She speaks from personal experience of how damaging not having these conversations can be, and offers advice to managers who want to create an environment where employees can feel safe to have discussions around their mental health.

On this special episode of The AMBITION Podcast, we’re celebrating AMBA reaching the huge milestone of 60,000 student and graduate members. AMBA welcomes students and graduates from AMBA accredited Schools to join its membership proposition, which encourages members from all over the world to connect and gives them access to career development opportunities, thought leadership and events with top business leaders. To mark the occasion, we spoke to Enoch Opare Mintah - our 60,000th member. Enoch embodies the values and principles of AMBA membership with his passion for lifelong learning, responsible management, and equality. Enoch joined the podcast to talk about his experience of doing his MBA at The University of Liverpool Management School and his passion for making learning inclusive and fair.

How can employers break the link between pressure and stress and turn pressure into growth, engagement, and performance? Workplace stress not only causes lost sleep, but research shows that in the UK alone, stress is also triggering almost half of the workforce to look for an alternative job. Despite becoming a more mainstream topic, changing employer attitudes to mental wellbeing is still overdue. On this episode of The AMBITION Podcast, Lesley Cooper, CEO of Working Well joins us to talk about her passion for helping companies, both large and small, to manage workplace pressure in a way that facilitates growth and development for individuals’ teams and leaders, instead of energy and performance debleating stress.

If evidence and activism alone aren’t accelerating the change we urgently need, what will? This is the question Neil Gaught asks, as he campaigns for business to do better for our planet. Neil is the creator of the business thought of the ‘Single Organizing Idea’ and the author of CORE The Playbook: The Single Organizing Idea and CORE: How a Single Organizing Idea Can Change Business for Good. In today’s episode of The AMBITION Podcast, Neil shares his optimism for the future of the planet and how he thinks MBAs need to be at the forefront of the environmental challenge.

Steven D’Souza is a world-renowned author, educator, and speaker. He has written five bestselling books and joined us on The AMBITION Podcast, to speak about his most recent publication, Not Being. The book is not your usual business book as its interspersed with poetry and personal stories on transformation and identity. Steven talks about how we need to act as a collective, rather than individuals to be able to survive in the ‘new normal’ business world.

People make up organisations, so why is it that employees are still not treated as the most important asset in business? Simone Fenton-Jarvis joins The AMBITION Podcast to teach us how to create workplaces which are centred around the ‘human’. Simone is the Workplace Consultant Director at Relogic and is an expert on making organisations thrive. She explains the key ingredients for making a human-centric workplace and some of the first steps needed for creating a culture where employees can bring their authentic selves to work.

To live in today's world, you need money; yet the majority of people do not have access to it. The formal financial system is taken for granted, but it represents the barrier to financial inclusion. To discuss this worrying phenomenon, we are joined by Erlijn Sie, author of Reimagining Financial Inclusion. During today’s episode of The AMBITION Podcast, Erlijn shares insights from her book, which includes stories from 13 game changers who are thinking outside of the financial box. She explains how these organisations are acting on behalf of the excluded people that are unable to live their lives to the fullest and are seeking to revolutionise the financial sector. Erlijn offers her thoughts on how we can all be part of a better financial future for everyone.

Today’s guest on The AMBITION Podcast; Lynn Yap, has certainly had a varied career – from lawyer to investment banker and now mentor. Lynn shares her experiences and offers advice on how to change jobs and industries successfully. During our discussion, she gives us insights from her new book, The Altruistic Capitalist, and presents the mindsets that leaders should develop to have a positive impact on the planet, as well as people. Lynn speaks about how leaders need to develop mindfulness, curiosity, and grit in order to solve social problems, at the same time as being successful in business.

In this episode of The AMBITION Podcast, Tim Hassett, CEO of the Unlimited Group speaks about his organisation’s unique Human Understanding Lab and the power of data in advertising. Tim explains how surrounding himself with neuroscientists, research practitioners, trend analysts, creatives, data scientists and behavioural scientists has made the Unlimited Group stand out in the market. He also offers his predictions for the future of advertising in the next five years.