I have been self employed or running my own business almost my entire working life. Stem & Glory isn’t my first business, I previously owned a multi site leisure business that I exited in 2019. Before that I ran a digital arts company and had a long career in the music industry. I’ve also worked in radio and TV. I love tech and and am a bit of a geek! I am also a marketing geek which has stood me in good stead through all my various careers.
Never! One thing just led to another and it’s been like that all my life. Stem & Glory is a passion project, as were all my previous businesses. There are a few roads I didn’t go down, but making decisions has always been a natural process for me. I just do what feels right. In business it’s good to have a knack for reading the signs, that way you get a feeling for what’s working and what’s not. I’ve never been afraid to switch direction.
I get asked this a lot! Honestly, I do not see the world in terms of challenges. I mean if you think something is going to be hard and challenging, then it probably will be! I approach everything with curiosity – a problem after all is just something looking for a solution. Business is very creative and really is mostly about problem solving.
Bringing up two children! I was 39 when I had my first, and 41 when I had my second, so they came to me late in life and were an even greater blessing because of this. Once I became a parent everything in my life got better – I became better at business, more successful and more driven. Do not believe anyone that tells you there has to be a trade off between career or family.
We coped well with everything that was thrown at us really. During the first lockdown we underwent a rebrand and many many good things came as a result of that. We also took the time to overhaul just about every system in the business from cost control to recipe management and installed a load of new tech systems. So when we emerged we were stronger, leaner and more profitable!
I’ve been very fortunate to have had many mentors. I’ve had help and advice from many extremely knowledgeable and helpful people all my working life. In turn I try to play it forward and am in a position where people do approach me for help and advice which I am very happy to give. Helping others is extremely rewarding actually, we should all do more of it. My parents generation were very much of this mindset and I do think we lost that a bit in the generations that followed. My mum is 86 and spends all her time helping others.
Gender is a social construct and should be removed completely as a label. Binary gender is so completely loaded and this one thing is responsible for all the inequality that exists. I feel quite strongly that titles (mr, ms etc) should basically be abolished. My children are teenagers now and they and their friends just don’t have this binary mindset, it’s time we all moved on. People are people and all equal.
The simplest single one thing that any business can do is move to 100% renewable energy. That will reduce your emissions significantly. Then it’s a gradual step by step process of questioning everything – every purchase, everything your business consumes.
Ask yourself:
– Do we really need this?
– Where was this made?
– What happens to this when we no longer need it/want it and what happens to the packaging?
Base your purchasing decisions on your answers to these questions. It’s not about being 100% perfect, but in this way, you can train yourself into better buying habits, and it’s amazing how fast this process can change the mindset of your business.
We are about to open a third site at London’s Broadgate Circle. It will be our biggest site to date so we are really looking forward to getting started on this. We are about to embark on our latest Crowdfunding round on Crowdcube – we are aiming for this to be our biggest and last to power us through the next few years. After Broadgate we will be looking at our fourth and fifth sites. We’ve also got a supermarket ready meal project in the pipeline and are about to publish our first book! Once the first book is out we will be starting on the next one which will have a big focus on Low Carbon British grown food.
