We Are Power Podcast
The We Are PoWEr podcast spotlights voices and perspectives that need to be heard. Our weekly podcast, with listeners in over 60 countries, delivers PoWErful conversations that inspire, challenge, and empower... from personal life stories to business insights and leadership lessons.
We share diverse experiences, bold discussions, and real solutions. Whether you're looking for career advice, topical themes, or stories of resilience and success - this is where voices spark change.
We Are Power Podcast
“Growing Up Adopted Is Like Being the Cocoon in the Nest” - Juliet Sanders
The brilliant Juliet Sanders, CEO and Founder of Feeding Families, joins the We Are PoWEr Podcast to explore how purpose, persistence, and community can become a truly PoWErful force for change.
From growing up as an adopted only child to discovering a family of siblings later in life, Juliet shares the deeply personal story behind her drive to build a charity that now supports thousands. She opens up about surviving domestic violence, founding Feeding Families, and the emotional journey of preparing to step down as CEO this December. “I might not be the CEO,” she says, “but I’ll always be the Founder.”
Juliet talks about what it felt like to win the 2025 Person with Purpose award at the Northern PoWEr Women Awards - glamorous, connected, and inspired. With honesty and humour, she reflects on discovering her birth family, her love of mime, and why her greatest super PoWEr is persistence.
Discover how one woman’s determination created a movement and how even the scariest transitions can lead to something beautiful.
In this episode:
Growing up adopted: “Like being the cocoon in the nest”
Surviving domestic violence and finding her voice
Starting Feeding Families from scratch
Winning a Northern PoWEr Women Award and feeling seen
The emotional journey of preparing for retirement
Finding her siblings
Life lessons from mime and moving on
Why persistence is her super PoWEr
TRIGGER WARNING: Mention of domestic violence in this episode
Find out more about We Are PoWEr here. 💫
Hello, hello and welcome to the we Are Power podcast. If this is your first time here, the we Are Power podcast is the podcast for you, your career and your life. We release an episode every single Monday with listeners in over 60 countries worldwide, where you'll hear personal life stories, top-notch industry advice and key leadership insight from amazing role models. As we Are Power is the umbrella brand to Northern Power Women Awards, which celebrates hundreds of female role models and advocates every year. This is where you can hear stories from all of our awards alumni and stay up to date with everything. Mpw Awards and we Are Power Never imitated, never replicated singularly wonderful, everybody's wonder girl. Well, hello, hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1:This week, I am delighted to be joined by the inspirational Juliet Saunders, who is the CEO of Feeding Families and one of our Person With Purpose winners this year at the MPW 2025 Awards. Juliet, welcome, welcome to the part. Thank you very much. Lovely to see you again. And I wanted to start because when we had our conversation the week after the awards this year, we had like on our winners podcast. One of the things we did was ask what were the three words that described how you were feeling, and at that moment. It was glamorous, inspirational and connected. Yeah, and how do you feel now, these few months later? Where are we two or three months later?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, it was such a wonderful experience on the night and I think you know, for anybody who's thinking of engaging in this process, it was such a lovely journey to get to that point, obviously a great bonus to win at the end of the day. But I think I just met some such lovely people along the way and you know, the whole thing just felt empowering and inspiring and I felt I came out of it a better person at the end. And you know it's very difficult to put that into words. But, um, you know, what it's given to me personally has just been absolutely massive and I'm very grateful to you for making that possible.
Speaker 1:Simone, oh, that's lovely, because you were shortlisted as well last year, weren't you?
Speaker 2:I was, you know always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
Speaker 1:But not this year, not 25, not 25.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it was definitely my year and you know just fantastic people. Everybody who is nominated is a winner, those who get shortlisted. It's extra special and I just can't describe what it was like to actually win at the end of the day. It was just amazing.
Speaker 1:And it feels like you're getting so much recognition for you well-deserved recognition. I have to say right now and this is a big year for you, isn't it? Because I take it Sula, it goes what you're planning on stepping down as we get through the year, aren't we?
Speaker 2:Yes, so I'm going to be retiring from the charity in December, so this has been in the pipeline for quite a while. So I am an old age pensioner now officially, but I have lasted a little bit longer than that. But I think, you know, as part of building our careers is part of bringing a chapter to a close, and it doesn't mean that we're finished and that that's the end of our journey. And you know, I certainly can't see me putting my slippers on and sitting with my feet up. Um, I will go on to do something else, I'm sure, but it's kind of the end of this particular journey for me.
Speaker 2:And, um, that's why the recognition is really important as well, because what we want to do is to show to the world the recognition that the charity has had, as well as me personally, because that speaks volumes about what the whole team has achieved. So I'm very aware that I stand on the shoulders of everybody who's there behind me, my board, my staff, the volunteers you know I'm just sort of the person out at the front, I'm credit, but it's not all down to me, and so, as we're recruiting, there's somebody to come and step into my shoes what we want to be able to show them is look at all this fantastic work we've done, but look, actually other people are recognising it as well and looking in on us, and we hope that makes us even more extra attractive to applicants and feeding families.
Speaker 1:I remember rightly from our conversation it started as just the ambition to feed one family and now we are something like supporting around 300 charities. Absolutely reached over 100,000 households. It's probably gone up since we last spoke.
Speaker 2:Well, it has. Yeah, I mean, last year alone it was 44 and a half thousand households in just one year. So obviously we started small and the numbers have got bigger and bigger. Um, but it did just literally start from our dining room table seeing a need in feeding one family and then just thinking, you know, if I could get other people just to feed that one family and we could multiply that, how many families could we feed? Well, 44,500 at the moment.
Speaker 1:Wow, and when you had that idea, when you sat there and thought, right, we can intentionally make a difference here to one family, one set of lives, one set of every sort of the ecosystem that sits around that family, did you get any challenge from sort of within your own family or friends, or were they just like actually Juliet's unstoppable?
Speaker 2:I'm not getting in her way yeah, I mean, people tend to know me whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Um, my daughter jumped in at a very early stage. So, um, she had a background in the charity sector and I didn't, so she knew a lot more than I did really. So she came on as a volunteer, then a trustee, now she's a member of staff in the charity, which is really exciting.
Speaker 2:But also my poor, long suffering husband, who has just had to kind of stand aside, and he's been amazing because he said I would never hold you back, I'll never stand in your way. So you know he could have made it a lot harder for me. And I just remember back some of those early days when I was working every hour of the day I possibly could, and insomnia was my friend because I was working at three o'clock in the morning. He would sometimes just sidle up to me with a plate of food and just put it down beside me and I would just eat and carry on and that sort of support from within the family has been amazing and obviously there's a lot more support from a lot more people now.
Speaker 1:It's a big decision to step away from something that you've created, something that you've built, but it's so humbling that you want to create a legacy for someone else to build and make.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I won't lie, it's a bit like thinking I'm going to have to give my baby away because it's something that I've grown right from the start. But I think also we have to know ourselves as well. There was no way when I started off that I could ever possibly imagined that I'd be where I am today. But I also know my limitations and I think I've done well to get to the stage that I have. But I think there's really exciting things ahead for the charity and I'm not the leader for that. So I think there's no shame in that not the leader for that. So I think there's no shame in that. There's no um um shame in coming to the end of your journey. But I think it's important to end really well.
Speaker 2:So there's a song that goes it's not how you start, it's how you finish, and so I'm determined in the handover to do the best job I possibly can. So what I don't want to be is that a person who stays around too long, who hangs around like a bad smell, who is hovering over the shoulder of the next CEO. I don't want to be that person. I want to be the person who hands it on the plate in the best possible presentation that I can, and then be confident that that person will carry it to a new direction and beyond anything that I could have done myself, and that's kind of a good feeling as well. So I'm not sad about that, I'm quite excited about that because it's going to be my legacy in a way. Even when I step away from it, I'm still always going to be part of it. So I might not be the CEO, but I'll always be the founder.
Speaker 1:You can always, it's always always going to be that advocate, always, always going to be that cheerleader, and we talk about the seats at the table and having that voice. What are the seats that you're still to fill or still to find for you, for Juliet?
Speaker 2:feel or still to find for you, for Juliet? Oh, I don't know. I'm having some coaching at the moment around my exit. That was something I asked my board for because I thought this is a path I haven't walked before. It's new for me and it was a little bit scary that, you know, suddenly one day I'm not going to go into work and all this really hard, intensive stuff I've done is going to come to quite a screeching halt and what's that going to look like. So I'm exploring in that. What are the possibilities?
Speaker 2:You know, I hope that from where I'm standing, there might be opportunities that open up, that I've met people, that I've talked to people and maybe, when I've got a bit more time, some opportunities will come along. And you know, I'd like to be a trustee of a charity not my own, because I don't think that would be right for me. But you know, I hope there'll be things like that. Who knows, I might set up something new beyond this and start all over again or help people who are maybe in that earlier stage of growth that I've been through, and maybe getting alongside people and helping them develop with that.
Speaker 2:I'm always very, very keen on collaboration with people. I always think we're better together than we are on our own, never being precious about what we do, that we share what we can and we get involved with other people, and that we go on journeys together with people. So I am hoping and I'm hoping this award plays into this as well and maybe people listen to the podcast who thinks, oh, I'd like to have a cup of coffee with Juliet. I'm always open for that, virtual or in person, and you never know where life's going to take you, and I think if we had it all too planned out, that wouldn't be a good thing either. So I'm going to have an extended break when I finish. I'm going away for a couple of months to have a sort of fire break and then I'm going to regroup myself and see where we go from there. But I don't have a firm plan at the moment.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm pretty much certain that this time next year we'll be having a conversation and you'll be too busy to do things, because all of these opportunities will be coming your way. You've also got an exciting adventure as well, because it was recently you've tracked down lost family yeah, so I'm adopted.
Speaker 2:That's sort of been part of my story and I think it's influenced my life in quite a lot of ways. So back sort of back end of the 1950s when you were adopted, it was very different to how it is now. So for the first 30 odd years of my life I had no information whatsoever about my birth parents and I started to explore that in. Well, I was in my 30s then and eventually I found my birth mother's family and then I found I was brought up as an only child, found on that side that I had two brothers and two sisters, half brothers and sisters, who I have got to know, know all of them, and that was obviously mind blowing and that was quite a journey. But I was never able to find my father's side of the family. So my father was Polish, came over just after the war and all I had was a name. As it turned out, the name that I had was not his actual name. So I did lots of searching, couldn't find him. And then just literally last month well we know we're in May now In March I was sitting at work and an email pinged up and it said on Ancestry DNA, you've got a DNA match.
Speaker 2:So literally I'm sitting in the office and thought, oh, what's this? And the only DNA matches I'd had on there was like fourth cousin's, six times removed or something you know, very distant and nobody who could give me any information. And when I clicked onto it it said half sister. And suddenly I'm like oh, wow. And when I looked at the DNA composition, it was the Polish element of it, so it wasn't another one on my mother's side, it was on my father's.
Speaker 2:So this lady had messaged me by this time, so she had just put her DNA on mine. It had been there since 2009. So the minute she'd put it on, of course she'd connected with me. So now I find I have five sisters and a brother who I didn't know about. So I am actually coming down to Manchester later in May to meet my sisters. So we've had a video call and had a chat and so you know, you just never know what surprises life's gonna throw at you and, um, I really didn't expect I was ever going to get any answers. So now, from knowing nothing, I've seen a picture of my dad, I've seen pictures of the rest of the family, the extended family, and I've got his life story which is just mind-blowing some of the things that he's been through as a result of the war and coming to this country.
Speaker 1:Wow, so five new people in your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, six, five and a brother, yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, do you know what you talked about, sort of the stepping down from feeding families and being the end of a journey? It's not a journey, is it? It's a chapter. That's a chapter. This is a whole other new chapter that you're, you're, you've opened up by putting your dna out there, but now to be getting reconciled with this new family, what adventure is that going to bring? Juliet?
Speaker 2:well, absolutely, you know, instead of meeting on because I'm already doing it on the other side of the family and um, you know, just to have a relationship with people who are your blood. It's very difficult to explain, but growing up in an adoptive family it's a bit like being in the cuckoo's nest, that you don't look like anybody, and I suppose there's nurture in nature and what's in your nature isn't necessarily in the, in the people around you. So I always felt like I don't quite fit here. And then, of course, I had my own children and they are your blood and uh, so forth. But just having that connection, you know, I'm really interested to find out what we've got in common. Um, that sort of comes through the genes rather than being brought up together wow, that's so exciting.
Speaker 1:And something else that I've I've've come across in where we're doing our research is that you are a mime artist and you trained with a graduate of the Marcel Marceau School of Mime. When did this happen? Why, where, when? And that's a transferable skill.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll use all the time. Yeah, I kind of make up for it speaking now. You know, I had a few years where I didn't say very much. So, yeah, I'm getting, I'm getting my words in now.
Speaker 2:No, um, I was at um, a sort of a festival type event and uh, this mime artist was on and somebody said, oh, should we go and look at that? And I went, nah, I'm not really interested. Anyway, I got dragged along and this guy just blew my mind, just the skill and everything, and I just thought I want to learn to do that. So literally my kids, so my kids were quite small, but I got absolutely sort of fascinated and obsessed by it. So I ended up going on training courses, which are in Manchester actually. So I used to come down there quite regularly. I learned a lot online.
Speaker 2:I did a degree which was half mine and half theology. You know who has that skill set. So yeah, but then that opened doors for me because I wouldn't have had a degree otherwise and it was what I could manage when my kids were small at home because I hadn't had the opportunity to finish a degree earlier in life. So yeah, I did that. I performed quite a lot round that time and, yeah, I absolutely loved it. But I think what's happened in my life? I do have these chapters very much so that I'll do something for a period and then it sort of comes to a conclusion and then I sort of park that and then something else opens up and then I get on with that, and I suppose feeding families has been the most recent chapter. But, as we're saying, you know that's going to come to a some sort of closure. But, um, who knows that? You know I might be skydiving or goodness knows what next. You know, you can never tell.
Speaker 1:Juliette, nothing would surprise me about you. What do you think your superpower is?
Speaker 2:I think, just persistence. I think one thing some of the bad things in life have taught me is you've just got to keep going, you've just got to keep pressing in, and sometimes you really don't feel like it, and sometimes you've been knocked down so many times you think I can't get up again. But I think if we tap into that inner resource and think I don't feel like it, I'm not in the space, but I'm going to do it anyway, and I think if we push through enough on that, then at least we keep the opportunities open that things might get better, things might turn around, and I suppose that's just what I've kept doing. It was funny this morning I was at a place where I worked. I've never been back since, but when I last walked out of that door it was with two black eyes because I was experiencing domestic violence, and I've never been back.
Speaker 2:But I just happened to have a meeting this morning and, as I sat in the car park, I can remember sitting in that space in the car park, um, when they asked me not to come back into work because, um, you know, I wasn't a good advert really for the business because of the way that I was looking and what I was experiencing at the time, and actually to be sent home at that time, back into a space that wasn't safe for me, was like the worst thing that could happen, because it was a bit of an oasis to come to work. I was going in early, I was staying late because I didn't want to go home and you know, I was reflecting on that driving back this morning and thinking how life changes and how, even when we're in a really difficult space, it's not forever. So I suppose if anyone's watching this and they're thinking their life isn't going really well at the moment, please just keep hanging on in there, keep going, because things just don't stay the same. And had I given up or had I put my head down too far at that point, I wouldn't have got to where I did. But you know, just keep turning up, showing up doing your best and you never know what's ahead and you've used that every day, haven't you from?
Speaker 1:yeah, that must have been really triggering this morning then to be back in that environment.
Speaker 2:I think I hadn't quite um tweaked that and yet, and funnily enough yesterday and I've never met anybody all the time I met somebody I worked with from that same place yesterday. So I think there's a bit of something going on in me out there that's making me think about going back to that time and what I can learn and take from it, because I think when life's sailing along, you don't learn a lot of stuff. It's during the difficulties that we really grow and that we really expand ourselves. And again, I wouldn't have had the brass to do what I've had to do with the charity without those experiences. It toughened me up, it made me think differently and it made me appreciate that sometimes people are going through things through no fault of their own and that we're not all dealt the same set of cards with the same advantages. And as women particularly, I think we've got to look out for those other women who are disadvantaged in some way and to do something positive towards them.
Speaker 1:Whatever sphere of work you're in, there are positive things that you can do to lift somebody up, and we should all do that 100 and you have this time ahead of you now, where you have this reflection time, you have this reset time, you have this new assembled family time and I know when we spoke right after the awards, there was an excitement within you, not just for winning this the amazing awards, I understand but this whole what could be next, and I think anyone listening or watching today will be literally reaching for that keyboard to connect with you, to see where you can help, support and support, particularly through the situation you've just talked about. So if Juliet can help, if you would love Juliet to be part of your board, at your table, sharing her experience and making that difference. She's clearly a changemaker. Please do get in touch, juliet. You are a total, utter legend.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much, simone. It's great to talk to you, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to come on and talk to you today always a pleasure oh, and thank you for being you.
Speaker 1:Look forward to seeing you in the tune very soon. Great bye, thanks, juliet. Subscribe on youtube, apple, amazon, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a review or follow us on socials. We are Power underscore net on Insta, tiktok and Twitter. We are Power on LinkedIn, facebook and we are underscore Power on YouTube.
