The Smarter Podcast with Emily Austen

Will Pearson is the co-founder of the hugely successful Ocean Bottle. Will's mission is simple; he wants to save the ocean. Will and I chatted about big time partnerships, slow growth, how to find a co-founder, being purpose led, shutting out the virtue signalling noise and what the reality of the future looks like.

 Zoë Zimmer, was born and raised in London. At fifteen, she started modelling, and seven years later transitioned into working as a photographer. Self-taught, she initially started working in fashion and portrait photography while living between London and Los Angeles. More recently she turned her talents to design, launching her label, The 87. We chatted about the 'right' amount of work, navigating having famous parents, where she gets her creativity from, and how she has embraced her passions to evolve through the industries which are more interesting to her.

Eliza is a start-up owned by Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT). The website uses an affiliates-based publishing model and has, since October 2023, increased its Instagram followers by 173% and more than trebled its followers on TikTok. One of its content formats, developed on TikTok, has had more than 100 million views. When she took on the role as MD, Hannah's brief from one of the biggest publishing conglomerates was, “reposition what a magazine looks like for fashion and beauty in today’s social world”. Prior to that, she tried her hand at the law, was a self confessed terrible PA, worked with the best entrepreneurs in the business, joined Founders Factory, and successfully exited a Podcasting company. Her story is super inspiring and she's proof that you can try your hand at many different industries and develop your ow working style.

Michelle has an amazing CV. Michelle was promoted to be Vice President, Global Communications of MAC Cosmetics following their acquisition by Estée Lauder Companies. She led the growth of MAC Cosmetics, turning it into the world's biggest make-up brand. Under Michelle's direction, legendary MAC AIDS Fund was launched. Michelle then set up her own company, Floral Street, a modern British fragrance brand with sustainability and eco-responsibility at its very core. We chatted about her long and successful career, what it felt like to finally go out of her own, and her predictions for the next decade.

Maria Hatzistefanis is a huge success story. A best selling author (with 3 books!), cast on Dragon's Den Greece, Founder of Nip & Fab and Rodial, Maria is flying the flag for successful entrepreneurialism. We had an honest and open chat about her success, how she did it, what she still wants to do, and what's she's learned on the way.

Jess and Sidney chatted to me about disrupting a dusty category, working together as best friends, the best piece of advice they've ever been given about building a business, challenges in the industry and how they work out their roles and responsibilities within the business.More about the brand from the founders;There’s always been murkiness surrounding how fine jewelry is made. Growing up in Antwerp with families in the diamond trade, we were frustrated by the lack of transparency in the industry. A diamond often exchanges hands over 20 times after being mined, making it almost impossible to know where it definitely came from and under what conditions it was pulled from the earth.Kimaï is our way of channeling our heritage into a modern jewelry brand that delivers true traceability. By using recycled gold and lab grown diamonds, which are physically and chemically identical to mined, we can cut out all the murky middlemen and control the whole jewelry process, from design to delivery.

Pip Durell is a former Vogue stylist and Tatler editor, starting her own label, With Nothing Underneath, to create the perfect shirt after finding herself adjusting men's tailoring for her own use. We chatted extensively about not being cool kids, early experience, how Pip learnt her talents, hard graft and working in an actual cupboard.