WABChats

Leo Campbell is Co-Founder of Modern Baker. Modern Baker is seen by many as the UK’s first truly healthy bakery. The business launched the latest iteration of the high-tech Superloaf, it's gut healthy bread brand, exclusively into Marks & Spencer in March 2023. The product –full of bioactive plant-based compounds – is co-manufactured and co-packaged by Hovis.

Modern Baker has re-engineered ultra-processed bread to make it actively healthy and it has plans to use the same approach for making other foods healthier such as breakfast cereals, pasta, ready meals and pastries. Innovation UK, a national agency, has just awarded the company £450,000 and six successive government grants has led to investment of up to £4 million.

Modern Baker was born as a result of Leo's business partner Melissa’s breast cancer diagnosis. Whilst she was seriously ill, Melissa supplemented her medication with a very natural diet. It became very clear, very quickly that there were all sorts of benefits to this type of diet. So much so that Leo and Melissa started looking seriously into how significant diet is in terms of the impact it has on our health and general wellbeing.

We talk to Leo about why him and his partner Melissa first started Modern Baker, their drive and purpose. We cover the technology behind the product and it's versatility, how outsourcing has proved vital for Modern Baker and what the future holds for the company following its 6th Government grant from Innovate UK.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 8 of WABChats we talk to Erin Kennedy, MBE. Erin Kennedy, MBE is a Coxswain with the GB Rowing Team and currently steers the mix4plus as a member of the Paralympic rowing squad. Erin is a Paralympic Champion, winning Gold in Tokyo, a two-time World Champion, a European Champion and a World Cup Champion.

Erin also has a rowing World Cup Gold medal, which she won in June 2022. Remarkably, this was just 4 days after Erin was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Erin went on to win one of her European Golds in August 2022, in the middle of her treatment, by which time she'd had two rounds of chemotherapy. Since then, Erin has become an amazing advocate for those battling cancer. Using her platform to really ‘let people in’ and see what its really like to fight such a horrific thing.

Erin chats with us about achieving everything there is to achieve in her sport and we discuss how delayed gratification and the ability to compartmentalise, learnt through elite sport, helped Erin fight and overcome breast cancer.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Episode 7 of WABChats we talk to William Proger, Founder and CEO of William and Partners. We discuss, spotting opportunities and starting a business in the middle of a global pandemic, how the pandemic led William and Partners to do things differently and why and how one should consider engaging wealth managers pre-deal completion.

For over two decades Will Proger has advised and managed money for a wide range of private and institutional clients. After graduating from Exeter University with a degree in Business Economics in 1999, Will held a series of investment management roles at C Hoare & Co and Kleinwort Benson. He set up and led a team at Barclays Wealth tasked with advising and managing the most sensitive and strategically important clients of the bank. These included the main board Directors, senior financial services executives as well as family offices and Heads of State. Latterly William co-headed the London branch of Mirabaud’s private bank and, most recently, helped to launch Saranac Partners, a multi-family office based in London.

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In a special episode of WABChats we talk to three members of the Witney Women 1st XI hockey team. Katie, team Captain of 14 years, and twin sisters Harriet and Lili, two young stars in this year’s 1st XI squad.

Their team have been promoted 4 times in the last 6 years, rapidly climbing the ranks of the English hockey system! We cover their rapid rise to the second-highest division of English hockey, just how transferable skills learnt in a sporting context are to the business world and how they balance playing sport at the top level, with A-Levels.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tess Taylor is Co-Founder at The Tap Social Movement, an Oxford-based craft brewery and hospitality social enterprise that provides training and employment opportunities to ex-offenders and also a number of low-category prisoners who are preparing for release. 28% of their current workforce have lived experience of the criminal justice system.

Tess is a bachelor of commerce graduate from Toronto, prior to founding the Tap Social Movement, her career spanned hospitality and craft beer management roles both in the UK and Canada. Tess was also recently involved in National Brewing Library 20th anniversary exhibition at Oxford Brookes, focussing on the women of the brewing industry.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.