Episode 15 - From Shadows to Spotlight: How women can shine in a noisy world with Nishma Patel Robb

What if the most powerful intelligence today isn’t artificial — but authentic?

In this episode of the She Leads Collective Podcast, I’m joined by the incredible Nishma Patel Robb — Ex Google Brand Chief, past President of WACL (Women in Advertising and Communications Leadership), and now Founder of Glittersphere, a movement that’s part TED Talk, part Studio 54, all about making women visible.

Nishma shares her story of growing up as the youngest of three daughters in a creative South Asian/British household, navigating barriers in the media and tech industries, and learning how to find her voice in the most male-dominated rooms. From her turning point moment working with Geena Davis on representation in media, to her reinvention at 50, Nishma speaks with candour, humour, and sparkle about visibility, fairness, and building unapologetic presence.

We explore:

• How her eyes were opened by the actress Geena Davis and Miriam Gonzalez to the bias women face 
• The impact of having a powerful female role model in her CEO at Google
• Why authentic intelligence is the “other AI” every leader needs to master
• How to stop self-editing and start speaking up in rooms that matter
• The role of fear, reinvention, and alignment in building a career you love
• Why women’s stories matter — and how Glittersphere is helping them shine

If you’ve ever held back your brilliance, this conversation will inspire you to step forward, speak up, and be seen.

If you’re a woman leader who’s ever doubted your confidence, explore my programme “Exploding the Confidence Myth” → https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/exploding-the-confidence-myth-tickets-1617750698889?aff=oddtdtcreator

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✨ Produced by Mary Gregory Leadership Coaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hello and welcome to She Leads Collective podcast. I'm Mary Gregory and I'm so glad you're here. This podcast is a space for honest conversations about what it really means to lead as a woman today and how we can all show up with more courage, care and clarity. You'll hear from inspiring women, powerful allies and bold truth tellers who are changing the game, not by playing tougher, but by leading smarter, softer and stronger. Hello and welcome Welcome to today's episode. What if the most powerful form of intelligence today isn't artificial, but authentic? In a world where AI is automating the ordinary, how do we ensure the extraordinary doesn't go unseen? Too often, brilliant women lead from the shadows, driving change, creating impact, but staying invisible. My guest today is on a mission to change all that. Nishma Patel Robb is a definitive positive force. With over a decade at Google shaping brand and reputation strategy, president of Women in Advertising and Communications Leadership, now in its 101st year, and now the founder of Glittersphere, a movement where TED Talk meets Studio 54, she is rewriting the rules of visibility, voice, and leadership for women. Nishma has built influence from boardrooms to global stages, championing the other AI, authentic intelligence, and helping women transform quiet expertise into undeniable presence. I'm also proud to say I'm a founding member of Glitter Sphere and I've experienced firsthand how powerful Nishma's mission is. So get ready to explore personal brand, reinvention and how to build an unapologetic, unmissable presence in a noisy world. Nishma, thank you so much for being here and a warm welcome to you. Oh, thank you so much

SPEAKER_02: 1:57

for having me. And also, thank you for being one of the founding members, you are one of the original Glitterati, so very excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 2:05

Well, I do love a bit of glitter, so although I'm not wearing any today, you are, I might let our listeners know, you always turn up in glitter. I have got quite a bit of glitter in my wardrobe, which at some point I will show up to one of your events in.

SPEAKER_02: 2:19

Yes, good, I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01: 2:22

Okay, so I'm going to start off and I'm going to get quite personal straight away because I'm always curious about what motivates my guests. So for me, you come across as a wonderful mix of warmth and strength, bit of cheeky quirkiness and lots of glitter and sparkle. Tell me a bit about what has influenced and shaped you to be who you are

SPEAKER_02: 2:43

today? Wow, what a lovely question. And Falzo, thank you so much for what your observations of me are. It's always that kind of curious thing, isn't it? How odd to see you. So I think for me, it's interesting. My influences are, I come from a mix of cultures. So British born, born in Watford. I'm the youngest of three girls. My parents were from India and so I have this rich kind of South Asian and and British cultural mix of probably often feel more British than anything else but also my parents were quite creative in terms of their original kind of pursuits or careers and so I grew up as a little girl as the youngest of three but an environment where we love to disco music you know my earliest memories were actually dancing next to a speaker that was as tall as me to Donna Summer that my dad used to play

SPEAKER_01: 3:28

oh fabulous

SPEAKER_02: 3:29

my dad at the time had a um he had a business at the time which was uh like a fashion boutique 1970s fashion boutique in wardour street right so you couldn't get more kind of i suppose culturally relevant at the time and so i suppose those early things were real formers of perhaps that sense of creativity and expression and that which really embedded into me and i think also that sense of possibility so my parents actually had come from quite creative trades from very very very humble beginnings we had a very humble life and quite challenging childhood at times in terms of I suppose opportunity but the other thing was is humor was a big part of life in terms of what characters or kind of big sense of humor and through adversity and challenge you know he was always the one to kind of still smile and joke and great charm the sense of creativity you know they were making whether it's entrepreneurial or literally creativity from a graphical and ads and and kind of arts and culture in that sense music being a bit part of it and that sense of possibility And I think that's what's kind of shaped me because life is never linear. There are always many challenges that we're faced. And I think personally, whether it was through not necessarily felt like I belonged anywhere and being comfortable with being a happy outsider and seeing the opportunity that that serendipity of meeting people and being actually endlessly more curious because you're not formed into one little space probably has always made me a the natural rebel, but has definitely fueled creativity and curiosity. and a sense of fairness I think you know grew up with a sense of fairness it's probably my greatest value it comes and goes in all sorts of different ways but I am you know a dreamer I'm ambitious and fairness is a big part of it but I think that sense of I don't mean not taking myself seriously in the way it should be but actually not taking yourself too seriously like doing it with humor and I reflect back on leadership over my 30-year corporate career you know people would often talk about one of the distinctive parts of my leadership was that I led off and with humour, you know, tackling different things, you know, showing that softer side, as you say, that like we can have fun doing this, still achieve great things. So those are the things I think really formatively either kind of inspired me creatively, inspired me from a leadership sense of view, but also that striving for opportunity. When I was a little girl, I really wanted to be a television presenter. I was always a storyteller. My mum would literally try and send me off to people to kind of like go and talk to Zanzo, like to stop distracting because I'd want to sit and tell everyone a story I'm still like that now but particularly the little girl you know and family friends would say gosh you know you could sit and talk to Nishma for over she'd always got a story you know five years old and pop up with a story and so even now when I'm you know my friends will joke and go Nishma's got great stories and I think those are the things that I had in my head was like well anything's possible I want to be a TV presenter because at that time that was the thing that meant you could tell stories and I was often told no and it's interesting how I only now can reflect on this how I dealt with all those no's you know whether it was a teacher going no no one like you on TV or even distant family friends. It wasn't so much me, but other families who would go, oh, no, that's not somewhere for you. And even my mum and dad, a sense of protecting me, were always kind of shuffling me to go, well, don't do that. Do this. This is a safer, more secure future. But it's interesting because those things of that lack of representation undoubtedly shaped Mighty Azawar magazine junkies, a little girl, you know, read endlessly glossy magazines and would dream of this much in the future. And I actually had even my first kind of jobs I wrote hand wrote pre-digital hand wrote letters to all of the magazines just to get an internship to get experience to suicide and I remember at seven after having written 200 letters for a hundred letters the first time didn't get an answer wrote another hundred letters and eventually got an internship married Claire magazine 89 90 whatever it worked in so it was at its height of the thing and I got invited into

SPEAKER_03: 7:26

oh

SPEAKER_02: 7:26

fabulous internship for the summer on the features department and I didn't never been in a corporate environment you know as this little girl lived in this kind of almost other world who hasn't been surrounded by lots of professional women or anyone who worked in the kind of media sense and all of a sudden I find myself in the offices of Marie Claire magazine in Knightsbridge never having been in there complete fish out of water terrified but also excited and it was you know everything that you could imagine from Devil Wears Prada to anything else sounds amazing but it actually ended up getting shuffled off to IPC library IPC magazine's library to research a story about female those were male gold diggers which is fascinating the age of 17 sitting there and I thought it was my dream job you know poring over these magazines learning about male gold diggers and I loved it for a bit but actually what I realized is I found it quite quiet and isolating so I used to love coming back into the office and I was always peering around to go they look like they're having fun but I think those things meant that what I kept seeing was these kind of juxtapositions of either not being represented or seen or not being able to quite access these spaces and I think interestingly as that's carried through my career never as a chip on my shoulder but as a determination that sense of fairness that's where it came from so perhaps I'm not in the first 20 years of working when you're a bit head down and really struggling to just I suppose get on and I was very successful very gratefully to be very successful in my career but I think attitude was a big part of that as well as ability and focus and a bit of that kind of bold and brave and I think if you've had a slightly tougher upbringing and had you know society or otherwise real challenge to embrace, it makes you incredibly resilient in the workplace. But I think I hit a point probably when I first went to Google, maybe a bit before that, where I realised I had an opportunity to maybe change what was happening from a representation point of view. And I started to work on a project, which was the real first eye-opener for me, working with the Gina Davis Institute. And, you know, so I think of this kind of mixed bag of like sparkle and disco and ambition and dreamer and storytelling, and it served me incredibly well in my career today. I remember finding myself in my, I was a newish mom to my twins. Twins were maybe about four years old and I was back at work and I got landed this amazing dream job at Google. And I was sat in this room with Gina Davis, which was like Thelma and Louise, you know, so I was one of those kind of nineties girls that had grown up on Gina Davis and set, and she created this institute was to challenge representation of women in film. And we'll create the Bechtel test, which was like, what point does a woman speak? What does she say? And so I'm in this room with her and she's presenting some research and one of the things that absolutely floored me and i think was a real turning point for me in terms of focus for how i wanted my career to or energy to to go but she shared this piece of research about the influence of media on our younger self and on children affecting how that then carries through and extrapolates out and as a mum to you know little kids and lots of children's tv in our house disney princess movies and all the rest of it couldn't believe when she showed me this research about the the strong bias that was already bedded into children's TV that was forming these thoughts and behaviours that was then evolving over. And it was a combination of her and the realisation of things like over-sexualised images of the way that even cartoon characters and little girls were, or why did the princess always have to be saved by a prince? And all those things that made you just stop and go, why have I never noticed this before? And it was a real moment to me, I've never noticed this before.

SPEAKER_01: 10:51

That's the power of bias though, isn't it? Because it's unconscious, it's so embedded in our society, isn't it? That's

SPEAKER_02: 10:58

the thing. I think that was the thing that was a bit of a shock to the system to go wow and then it was the realization on I started to work with someone about books and again it was like wow in literature where are they and it made me stop and start to question lots of things you know my own identity what was being kind of served to the world what was the impact of that I then met Miriam Gonzalez uh who is you know obviously phenomenal in her own right um and one of the greatest kind of I think European not just human rights but kind of legal rights and I never like to say she was Nick Clegg's wife because I always just say nick clegg was her husband that uh she had this program called basically in support of girls and she was really passionate about education of careers for girls i demonstrated anything was possible because she could see the impact despite being a mum to to three boys etc she had this in great passion i happened to get invited to something to speak at a school in east london by her and just standing there and listening again to the research and the impact was happening i think the combination of those things happening in a very short space of time i think genuinely did kind of shift me to a point of going maybe it's being a mother as well and maybe it's age early 40s point and I thought I want to do something about this and I found ways to weave that into my day job because I just wanted to find a way to go how can I make the world a bit fairer I just want to be seen I want my kids to be seen and I don't want this to kill any more dreams and I was fortunate to work with lots of YouTubers and younger people and I could see shifts happening so I think for me it was this if I kind of go disco to now it was this weird kind of journey of discovery that I love, but I haven't probably reflected on as much as I could have done until the last few years.

SPEAKER_01: 12:37

Incredible journey. And I get such a strength and determination in that journey mixed with the glitter and the humour. I can now totally get where the glitter comes from in terms of your upbringing, what happened at home as well. Just wonderful. And your meeting with Gina sounds like it was a turning point moment for you that actually opened your eyes.

SPEAKER_02: 12:57

It's bias, right? For me, I had been, I had experienced experienced firsthand racism prejudice bias you know when I was younger quite horrifically so I'd probably kind of like brushed a lot of it off as I'd moved through my adult years and early career definitely integrated well generally into society and that's probably more my personality and relationship building skills but had certainly was aware of it wasn't like I didn't know firsthand so when I sat in that room and listened to that research and thought about all the subliminal impact of media and content and someone who really loved working in media and technology and was big part of everything I did was, you know, marketing campaigns and telling stories. And then all of a sudden you go, oh my goodness, hold on, but the stories we're telling are having such a huge and significant impact. I think it was that realisation, it was that point that made me go, ah, actually there's more I can do about this. And I think it's that sense of agency. And I always talk about this for people, partly because inspired by the leaders, but my own actions as well, is that everyone plays a role in what we do. It doesn't matter how little you think it is. Actually, if we all just took a little action things would be different and I think that was for me gave me agency I never really thought I had any agency to go I can do something and and that definitely set me off on a path both in my shaping my career at Google and the success I had there and the impact I had and being really creative about the way that I delivered it you know at times really blunt and trying to drive it and then having to be really smart and strategic about okay there's another way I've got to go around the houses in this way to make things happen.

SPEAKER_01: 14:26

I am curious about being a woman leader at some like Google, because, you know, the tech world is renowned for being short on women leaders. So you are a real role model of someone who has been successful in that space. Could you share a bit more about what it was like actually working and making your way in such a modern leading edge organisation? It's

SPEAKER_02: 14:47

one of those things, you know, I'd worked for 20 years before I'd got to Google. So, and I'd experienced a lot of that time at the top on my own, you know, my first really senior board appointment was when I worked for Teletext and we were owned by the Daily Mail group. And so I had a period of time where I actually worked on the operating board. I was invited on there by Lord Rothermere to be there. And I was the only woman, the youngest by some measure, and the only person of colour. And so that sense of isolation, of being on my own, had been something that had been a big part of my 20 years of career. It was always getting better, thankfully, as things started to change. But there was a lot of time you'd look left and right and there was nobody else, really, that was like me. So when I came to Google, there were a lot of other female leaders in the non-engineering piece, which is obviously where I was in marketing, but not necessarily always at the top. So when I joined, again, joining it at that operating board level, there were other senior women in other parts of the organization, but in that kind of UK leadership of the kind of sales, revenue, commercial, non-engineering part of the business, I joined at the time when a new UK leader was coming in as well from America, who was a woman, the first female leader for the business in the UK. And I happened to arrive at the same time when we arrived both in, you know, she's very, very experienced, very senior. I was coming in. It really struck by imposter syndrome a bit of fear and it was interesting because I remember the first few weeks thinking oh my god what am I doing here because for me it had too many echoes of what I'd seen in the past and I felt really frustrated by that to go I don't want to be in that room anymore I'd intentionally left rooms where I always remember you know being in spaces where they didn't have the wisdom to listen to anyone else and therefore I didn't want to be there and it wasn't necessarily that they didn't want to listen to anyone else it was just an interesting conditioning and what I observed her do in that first period of time, again, is why I stayed and wanted to be the leader I've become to be. She commanded that room almost like a conductor, the way she would stop someone from speaking, the way she introduced people in and she did it. And she focused on that initial stage of going, how does she make us a team to see each other and connect? And it was just brilliant to have a front row seat and watching a leader like her, Eileen Norton, absolutely phenomenal leader. She'd previously been like president of Time magazine and come to Google, worked for Google for many years. After she left the UK, she went and actually run all the people operations she's since left. But she was an incredible leader to watch and observe. But she was one who gave me real strength about going, actually, you can be a woman leader in this. And actually, by being a woman leader. So she was very feminine in some ways, but my God, she had the most incredible strength. But she both bonded over our love of fashion and our love of culture and the theatre and whatever. So she was a woman's woman, right? You know, she wasn't someone who I'd worked for with many other women in the past, so I couldn't relate to. She was someone I directly related to. And yet she commanded the room and the business with such authority and grace.

SPEAKER_01: 17:35

And she gave the team psychological safety and getting the team together. She

SPEAKER_02: 17:40

prioritized that by the sounds of it. That is the first thing she did coming in, which would be rare in a business like that. So that was really interesting to watch how somebody like her would command those kind of very strong alpha males. You know, they were all silverbacks in that room, you know, and it was difficult to be in. But she changed it. Within six months, she changed the environment. But I always remember there was a moment, probably four months or so in, and we've got this away day together, we're a building team. And I was really struggling initially. And I joined to find my voice, to be confident. I felt really out of place. And as you can imagine, someone like Google has some of the best talent in the world. So it was quite intimidating to me. And I'd gone into the ladies' loo and I was washing my hands. And I'd been quite quiet in the meetings. And she just said to me, you need to speak up. And I was like, why? And she was quite firm. We were always very soft on her. But she turned around to me and she went, you have got to start believing yourself. And I said, I need your voice in there. And you've got to start saying, because what you say has so much value. So you've got to stop doing these things. And she just called it out exactly what I was saying, where she said, I know what you're doing. You're saying the question in your head, or you're saying the thought in your head, and you're not saying it out loud. I'm going to make you do it. And she actually made me feel quite scared, but in a lovely way. And I was like, shit, I've got to go out and do it. And there was a sense of like, she believes in me, so I've got to do it. But also a sense of I didn't want to let her down. And then after that, I remember going in and starting to find my voice. And like being a bit shocked when everyone wanted to sit and listen to me or go, all right, do you really agree with what Nisha was doing? And it built from there. And that's why I suppose, why I say passionately care now about this sense of finding your voice, finding your strength, being visible. Because that's what she did for me. I was in that room, but I wasn't visible. So what was the point in being in the room if I wasn't visible? The attendance and the appearance was nothing. Her dragging me out the shadows to go, use your voice, say what you think, be present, be visible. That changed everything. I then became a super visible leader and was really passionate about actually being comfortable with my style and my way of doing things while listening and learning. So I learned a lot from

SPEAKER_01: 19:36

her. Thank you so much for sharing that because I think that, well, it resonates with me for a start. Not so much now, but when I was younger, I certainly can remember sitting in board meetings thinking, why are they doing this? And what's the purpose of this conversation right now? And not voicing it and having that encouragement. And I know that many of the women on my courses, I run leadership development courses for women, particularly those that may be a struggling with that very thing of editing what they're about to say so whoever's listening i really encourage you to take on what you've just shared there nishma because it makes such a difference to just just say it get your voice out there in whatever way you can because it does transform how you'll be seen and also making the difference you want to

SPEAKER_02: 20:15

make that's what i learned actually i say to people if you one of the easiest ways you want to start building your visibility in an organization or even in a you go to a networking event sometimes can be quite hard put your hand up stick your hand up and it's terrifying first time you do it but i tell you what the 10th or 11th time you've done it gets easier but you've got to get that training ground in

SPEAKER_01: 20:34

yeah one of the best pieces of advice i was received once was from a senior leader at tesco who she was the first woman to be on the board she said um the thing you want to do is make sure you get your voice out in every meeting and even if you just ask a question asking a question gets your voice in the room and that's what's important so always make sure you ask a question if nothing else uh before you leave that space excellent it's so resonant what you've just shared there really really great Great. Can you then bring us to present day and tell us about the origin of the glycystine? So, as I said, you know, I'd been

SPEAKER_02: 21:06

at a long and very successful corporate career. I'd tried my hand at different things. I felt like I'd reinvented myself multiple times over. And I was coming up to the 10-year mark at Google and also was turning 50 around that time as well. And I don't know, I think it's a number of things. And I read and thought a lot about it. You know, I think definitely a sense of mortality, you know, how many more years, what I do. And I think, you know, 50 is one of those milestones, you know, career sense makes you go

SPEAKER_00: 21:30

hmm

SPEAKER_02: 21:31

you know am I going to work for another 10 15 years and what am I going to do with that time and I remember sitting in a meeting actually and someone was being introduced or we were referring to someone and they'd been at the business for sort of 16 years and I remember sitting there thinking I don't know if I want to be that person and if I don't move now I am going to be that person I'm going to stay here for another five six years and there was just genuinely a sense of a sense of misalignment that I felt and that's why I always say to people reinvention is not about necessarily changing who you are I think it's about for me certainly and for a lot of people I work with it's about being more of you and I was enjoying becoming more of me and there was definitely bits of me that I felt I still wasn't being and there was a sense like well how do I do that and the reality in any job is there are things that you love doing and I love the storytelling I love the creativity I loved being on stage and doing the talking I loved a brilliant relationship building and creating experiences and all of that stuff I loved doing in my job and like with any job there are bits of you less love and as you become more senior unfortunately you're up doing some more of the less stuff that you love and less I mean more of that and less of the other but also there's an alignment as will often happen you know the business needs to focus on these things and I wanted to focus on here and I felt that I hadn't made enough progress on the mission that that Gina Davis spark had given to me and it was you know post 2020 you know we've been through the pandemic you have more time at home you're stuck and I was having a bit of a big re-evaluation of my life and part of that re-evaluation was definitely a sense of legacy you know it's a bit of a going well what have I done I was always I think maybe slightly stressed in the pandemic when you know Google was an intense place to be at that time wonderfully supportive from an employment view you know shifting to working from home wasn't as difficult because we were slightly you know already comfortable with a video conferencing environment because of being a global business but there were other things that were really really challenging I definitely get my energy from being around people so I found these moments hard but also a sense of going what's my contribution you know when I'm older if I'm lucky enough to have some great grandchildren and they turn around to me and go mummy what did you do in the time of the pandemic I was thinking I don't want them to say well I wrote some slide decks and I did some spreadsheets and I knew what I was doing was more than that but I had a sense of going is this it and without wanting to seem ungrateful because I had a wonderful job there was definitely a bit of an internal feel and my observation became more and more clearer that I was seeing not just myself diminishing my own voice and not not that was a visible way to anyone else but was I being true to who I wanted to be so I was perhaps editing myself rather than sending It was more self-edit or feeling like I had to be edited or feeling like I couldn't say quite what I wanted to say. And then also thinking there were lots of very committed, brilliant people trying to make change and equality in the world. Why are we not seeing more of it? And I think, you know, this is pre the rollback of the DEI, but you could have predicted that. I think if people had worked deeply in DEI, I would have predicted that there was going to be a shift back. You could just see it. And so I think there was two things that happened. Once was a sense of going, I just want to do more of the things I love doing. I know I've got superpowers. It's taken me 30 odd years of working to openly go I can do this and I was president of Wackle at the time as well and could see the power of being able to help other women I'd always done it worked with startups worked with women led women at Google but it wasn't my full-time job and I had this sense of going I just what if I did things differently what if I go and create the place that I never existed for me and started to dream these things I always say to people it was never a sliding doors moment it's a bit of a gradual slide to that moment you change and a friend of mine said write a career bucket list because you feel really stuck this you've got to go off and do some dreaming and I was like I wrote this career bucket list and on there I looked at this list and was like I can't do any of these things where I am because I want to go off and do it and am I going to be comfortable with 80 year old Nishma looking back at this list and going well you could have done it but you didn't because you stayed in a safe job so I decided to hell with it I decided to leave my very safe job at the height of AI and complete madness really when I sometimes think about it to go off and pursue this because the call for what I wanted to do was more exciting and the call in the really simple ambitious term was I wanted to believe, as someone who believes in stories, that stories could change the world. And I wanted to hear more stories of women. I wanted to hear the stories that I wasn't finding, you know, my story plus many others. You know, when I was in the process of getting, separating from my husband, who'd been together for 20 years, and it was an amicable separation and even leaving a job, when I went out to look for those stories to help guide me through that period of time, they simply weren't enough. That was not because I didn't believe they didn't exist. It's because they weren't being taught. Hence the birth of the Glitter Sphere, which for me was going, if I can create an environment and a community that will help women to find and discover their story inside of them and help them to tell it, get on a stage and tell it, that's what I want to do. And the Glitter Sphere was, I love music and I love sparkle. And I had this belief in this kind of a summer holiday with my kids. And I was thinking, I'm not going to name the business. And I kind of went back to my roots. And there's something beautiful about a glitter ball because of the way it throws out light. And I'm a big believer of like, together we are a light source, but individually we are a light light source together we're a really bright light source and also the fact that light gets thrown in unpredictable ways and so there was the combination of this sense of this metaphor of this disco ball and light being thrown and shining brightly and being kind of enormous and that and then also this sense of having gone to Ibiza for my 50th lots of friends and just like I love dancing and whatever and just recognize this bit where on a dance floor I think it's the most democratic space in the world that we can rub shoulders up with each other it doesn't matter who you are you can be a banker or you could be this or whatever your situation is you're just the same you're enjoying yourself and expressing yourself and so that was the combination behind the name but also a lot of the concept to go can I create a space that's truly democratic that all sorts of different types of women would want to be part of with a single mission that we are supporting each other to be visible and brilliant and that's kind of there I also think I came out of Google and started to build the Glitter Sphere without a complete plan and I've always been really honest about this so I started 2025 with a right I'm going to launch this and without a full you know and had an amazing huge wait list and interest which was amazing great okay this is a thing what is the thing and people would ask me and I'm like well I'm figuring it out because there wasn't a playbook to follow like I said if I'm going to do this differently I've got to figure out what it is so I took lots of research and input constantly asked people what do they want and started to dabble and try things and we're still in the building phase there's so much more to come but I've been really open about sharing my journey of of the trials and tribulations and the joy of starting a business because it's not easy.

SPEAKER_01: 28:02

Well, that's what I love about your posts, actually, is they are so, sometimes they're really raw and it's like, oh, but God, I know what she's talking about because we've all been there and on social media can over glamorize and polish things too much. And, you know, you're being in integrity by living the realness of it all. There are times it just feels like SHIT. I do,

SPEAKER_02: 28:23

that kind of the perfected image. And like, well, look, we've grown up in an era where it was, you know, Melanie Griffiths in working girl you know nine to five put your trainers on and that's what you did it all and you were grateful for it your relatives it's way harder the bumps and you know turns and the joy of building something or having a career it's different

SPEAKER_01: 28:40

well i need to ask you because you have chosen the road less traveled because you've left a very safe environment i mean what is security what is safety but that you got a paycheck at the end of the month you were in the structure of the job at google and all that sort of stuff you've also left your husband as well and i know you said that as amical which is fine But it's still two big endings all together. What I get a sense of is your purpose, your mission is really driving you. But how have you managed the anxiety, the fear? Because a lot of women who want to step out, avoid stepping out because it just is, the fear is just too overwhelming. I think

SPEAKER_02: 29:16

fear is the greatest enemy that we face really at the moment, particularly as women, but for anyone kind of seeking change. And yet we live in the most unpredictable world, more so than ever before, with great uncertainty. uncertainty and challenge around us and so for me I mean I think there's things that I can reflect on that I didn't do well that I've now can teach others about it or share my experience with others was there is without a doubt you are you grieve an identity for me I felt that I was shedding skin and off building a new identity and that's a really great positive space to be in actually emotionally you are also you are putting to bed two identity or multiple identities and I don't think I'd given myself enough time to grieve that at times which kind of came back and and hit me back so there was I the points of kind of reconfirming my belief you know when not long after I announced that I was leaving Google I got offered a job that would have been my dream job there's no doubt about it and there's a slight frustration again oh god if that arrived at some other point I'd have jumped at it and it was a real test of like do I really want to follow what I'm doing and it really agonized over this decision and I decided to not do it and there have been many times that I've kind of gone god was that the right decision but I felt something in my heart that goes no and I felt good about that and that helps on sometimes in the moments of fear to keep coming back to that. No, I'm trusting something that's going to take time and do it. And I'm not a patient person. So it's been a big lesson, but then also grieving in a positive way, the life that I had and the identity have and marrying that with the new. So it wasn't ignoring it. It's acknowledging it. And I think those kinds of bits are important. I think the other aspects of fear and fear comes in stages and I still have anxiety. I still worry about, there's no regular paycheck. There is, you want to take time off and have holiday. I found the summer holidays. I'm finding it really hard, you know, I've had a little bit of time off with my family, with my parents, who are, you know, very grateful to still have, you know, octogenarians. And it's not quite a rest, right? But it's time together. And that's difficult when you run your own business. So I still have anxiety. So I fear this is not a complete, there's no complete sentence or ending here. But the way I process it is I think it's coming back to that mission and vision regularly. This is why I'm doing it. Remind myself why I'm doing it. I also have learned so much to just live in the now. Like not go, those were the old, good old days, or those were the best times of my life or that's coming there or that's there actually do you know what right here and now this is the best time of my life and really appreciating that like not just saying but actually like saying it every day to myself and living it and believing it and treating each day each moment like a moment like this this moment will never happen for me again you know we'll we'll meet again but this conversation and evolving way up again and just seeing the beauty in that that everything is a first and first make us excited so I do that and then I think the other part of fear is like what are the things that you can what are the few things that you can create as things that you can hold on to because you've got to have some bits of safety so there are some things I do and I started to do which are bits of jobs consultancy that became my kind of anchors of like that say having a number of mentors that would keep me accountable you know so you have ones that just you know paint on the back and it's great and it's praise but there's ones who give you a hard time to go get it done get I want to see it by next week and that helps and then I think the other thing is going how lucky I am to be designed designing a life because i think when you say you're designing a life you take agency and control that helps suppress fear because fear comes more from a sense of lack of control and uncertainty so de-risk it by giving telling yourself you've got control and recognize that i am designing a life i want to live um and therefore things are kind of going to go wrong or right with it but it keeps me really open and curious and open to serendipity and so one of the things as i've been building glittersphere is um which is kind of madness sometimes i think about how overwhelming I filmed at times is I've launched another business with two co-founders, which is lovely because Glitter Fair is just me, but the Hero, the other business is them. And that's the UK's first female-led and focused podcasting network. And that would never have happened if I hadn't stayed open. And that came about as I was looking for a producer for my show and met with some friends and Rosie and I used to work together at YouTube and Kirsty's a great producer. And hence we went on this journey. We've raised money for it. It's a whole new experience. But I did it because for me, it was aligned to the mission. my mission is I can help women connect to their story inside of them but actually that's only half the job done how do I make sure those stories are heard and seen and monetized as well I want women to help make money so the podcast business is it's a network effectively we are making our own shows helping women like you and many others I think we want to create a long tail and of opportunity for women's stories to be heard because that's my Gina Davis moment where it was nearly 80 20 YouTube nearly 80 20 in the early days radio whatever I went to there was this incredible bias to mail stories content media whatever money as well and it was shocking when we started to kind of talk about podcasting and my show and things like that and we looked started to get I started to look into the data and here it was again the 80-20 80% of the current top shows are mail-led or mail imported and produced then you start to look into the money right where's all the money going hmm well the money's going there it's the investment sponsorship opportunity it's great Alistair Campbell and Rory are earning shit tons of millions, et cetera. And there are the odd anomalies of a Fern Cotton or a Devine McCall or a couple of others, Mel Robbins, et cetera. Where are all the other women? And I had exactly the same issue when I was at YouTube to go, those stories are brilliant, why are they not being found and discovered? And so as I started to look more and more into this, I know what it is. Where's the investment? Where's the opportunity? Where's the network? Where's the know-how? Where's the support to do it? And that's what drove us to create it because it became a completely perfect add-on to what I wanted to do at Glitter Sphere was I can help And so I think that vision and giving myself permission to change my mind and do things differently and navigate fear, because as I say, fear is all about uncertainty, is I get comfortable with uncertainty. So I flip it and go, it's a okay I don't know what the answer is and that's fine because I'll figure it out or that's a good thing because that's going to leave me open to something else and that helps on the days where I feel really

SPEAKER_01: 35:35

anxious amazing and I want to say what serendipity that you're on my podcast today you know as a woman just starting her own podcast off to then hear your story about what you're doing to support women with that I'm very much looking forward to hearing and seeing more about that and also because Mary one of

SPEAKER_02: 35:51

the reasons why you know a you're part of the glitterati and I love your story love what you're doing but also one of the reasons why we're building thing here we've got big shows and stuff but i've also as i said this long tail is because i really want to help you know you should be getting always encourage women to go on podcasts anyway it's a great way to tell a story it's great to engage it's great to support each other right supporting someone else's work which is really important and so i want to build that network where you're able to support each other as well as well as look at the commercialization and monetization of it's you know how do we share and create more but i think it's really important so what you're doing is brilliant and i do encourage more women to do it i say not everyone has to be be a podcaster it's not going to suit everyone and it is hard work and it doesn't pay initially but everyone can be a guest and that sometimes is our responsibility as women to turn up for each other and that's a really great way to do it

SPEAKER_01: 36:38

thank you so much for being here and this is just all really real nuggets that you're coming out with I am just going to move us on to talk about authentic intelligence the other AI which is so pertinent at the moment with all the talk about AI and artificial intelligence absolutely it feels like the one thing that AI can't replicate is our authenticity. So, you know, you talk about helping women master the other AI. What does this actually mean in practice? So

SPEAKER_02: 37:08

I did my last few years at Google, I spent a lot of time working on AI and artificial intelligence in terms of how it would be applied in our daily lives or how it might need to be regulated as well. And there is no doubt we can see it even more so and accelerating in so many ways that the world is becoming more automated and more artificial. You know, we've got to be really careful about that. I've talked about it for a long time about advertising becoming really bland and everything becomes very patterned and predictable in its way. And the challenge is there's twofold. One is jobs in the future, which we do not know. Do not believe anyone who says that they know what's going to happen next because they simply don't. The only thing you do know is it's going to change and jobs will become replaced or will be augmented or will be enhanced by artificial intelligence. There is no doubt about it. But one of the things you can see is that if it depends or the way that we think about future careers and opportunities and jobs or purpose and what do we do, what's our contribution or worth, so much of it will be automated around what we do. CVs to date have been about I do this, I did that, whatever. I believe that actually you will start to go, how do I be different? How do I stand out against all the machines? Actually, what somebody really wants is my personality, character and my attitude more so than actually what I did. And good interviewers will always look for both anyway, but I actually think that becomes of greater value. And actually, as we chart our own lives now going forward in a more artificial and automated world, how do you stand out to be different? Because actually, who you are and the values and the person you are and the role that we all play on this planet becomes really important and needs more examination, analysis and spotlighting. And that's why I believe in that sense of authenticity, sometimes a word that's kind of overused and hard to kind of really comprehend what it means. But I do believe that authenticity is actually kind of reflection of your true value. and your attitudes and belief of life, how you tap into that authentic intelligence, which is about the determination of how much of it do you share and show? Basically, how do we be more human? If the machines are here and we are in a machine-led world, artificial intelligence is how do we be more human, which sounds like a really weird thing to say, but actually human-centered leadership, human-centered behaviors, right? So workplaces that now have leaders who are more human, who show vulnerability, who show empathy, but also you know it's back to the my lovely Eileen Norton you know grit and grace you know how do you do that and so actually the way that we connect now will be through our humanity always has been that becomes more important in a world where I go well I can't connect to a machine and an AI bot in that same way but I can connect to you I'm a leader will be very soon but I have to manage machines and humans how am I going to do that I tell you what I'm going to do I'm going to be more human than I am machine so I think it's a it gives you an outsized advantage in the workplace and in your career. I think it's the greatest soul for humanity and our society and our soul. And I think it's back on this thing of this reinvention mission that we have in our entire life, which is about being more of me. So authentic intelligence is learning, self-reflection, self-analysis and awareness, but it's more about the telling. Which bits of it do you need to share and show? Because you don't need to share and share all of it. It has to be comfortable. It's got to be relevant. And it is actually strategic. And I think that's a is is understanding and mastering what we have within us and recognizing how that power gives us more it's why i believe every single woman can stand on stage and be in a spotlight or tell her story you know amount of money you go i've got anything to say or i'm like yes you have you know i could spend 15 minutes with someone and i can find their story you know so that's authentic intelligence and it's tapping into that so the other ai in my opinion is is as important to be mastered as ai you should do both that's really

SPEAKER_01: 40:55

important so it's The two interlocking together. Definitely a yin and yang situation. And I love what you say about we keep reinventing ourselves, but actually what we're doing is really becoming more of ourselves each time we do that. We're deepening our understanding of who we are and being more who we are as we progress through our lives. Wonderful. And why do you think then so many brilliant women, because there are so many brilliant women around who are so exceptional, really struggle with being visible? I think

SPEAKER_02: 41:26

it's like It's a conditioning, you know, like there's actually, I think it's a shame in some respects. I wish my business didn't exist because that would mean that we don't face the problems we face, but you know, I meet too many women who are hitting burnout, who are, have lost their confidence, who have done playing small. And that's a societal pressure or the systemic environment that we live in that doesn't celebrate women in the way they should do, you know, whether it's the way that we put, you know, the way we portray women, the way the roles we give them in the home or or at work, the natural things of our kind of caring personality that diminishes our strength and ability to do business is there's been too much external noise, which is why I'm so passionate about representation in media, that has conditioned a lot of who we are. And then the actual structures within work or at home that don't allow for those voices to be, you know, it comes back to the simplicity of most little girls being told to go, don't show off, you know, or is a woman a new bit noisy in the workplace?

SPEAKER_01: 42:24

I

SPEAKER_02: 42:24

was

SPEAKER_01: 42:25

brought up to look nice. you know be polite and look nice

SPEAKER_02: 42:29

yeah yeah you know be quiet be polite exactly be polite be quiet be nice and the fact is you can be kind you can be polite can be nice but it can be done with sequins with a bloody loud aler in the sense of going if we are being taught to be so humble and and lacking the confidence right you know if you don't say out loud does it happen is it real etc and not seeing a fair game has conditioned us so that's That's why I often see it. And I think it's a, it's a thing that starts from a little, we shed this confidence when we're five years old, where we have the boldest of ambition and dream and puberty life, the world around us, every bit of media that we consume and tells us endless noise plus conditioning of the voice in our head keeps us where we are. It's like, you know, cause I'm a bit of a tech geek. It is like rewiring your algorithm. So our current algorithm goes on all past experiences. So when I face with something that quite terrifies me and I think, well, I can't say that I can't do it. It's because I'm, simply referencing things I've seen and heard. So if we're going to change that, we've got to completely rewire it to do it, which is why it's so intentional as an exercise to go stand out and be visible. And that's why I think women feel that. And I think the fear of judgment is a big thing. And that's judgment from other women as well. You know, I think more often than not, women say, I would just like more female allies. Forget the male allies. I love them. I just want more women allies. And so for me, there's a big part of the movement I want to create is demonstrating that you don't have to win everybody over right you know it's kind of like the 20 it's the 20 20 60 right you know you can have 20 of your outliers who i'm never going to change right and i don't want to change them and i don't want to spend any of my effort trying to change them somebody else can worry about that bit the 20 who are happy supported advocates keen brilliant love them they'll always change fast i can spend some time the 60 of the swing voters and persuade them that there is a better way you create momentum and the natural momentum becomes it becomes popular and natural and intrinsic to support each other and celebrate each other And that's why I say, I'll say to someone in the street, I think you look wonderful. I'll write a comment on someone's post and say it's good. Because when you share it, it's actually contagious. And I think that contagion is what we have to do.

SPEAKER_01: 44:37

Absolutely. So the Glitter Sphere has been born. It's more than just a network. It's actually, you know, about putting sparkle out there and really making women visible. You talk about it being TED Talks meets Studio 54, which I love. That brings up all sorts of connotation. Can you tell us what it feels like to be inside the glitter sphere.

SPEAKER_02: 44:58

Well, maybe you should share that one. But I think for me, what I hope is, I use the example of TED Talk meets Studio 54 because they are immediately things that we have wired in our brain. You know, we think about TED Talk as being great stories on stage, 20 minutes, succinct, influential and powerful, shift behaviours, shift attitudes, really wonderful bit of storytelling. Studio 54, despite the glamour, you know, despite the glamour, the obvious bit, was also a home, if you take it as greatly though it was hedonistic but it was a home of the belief that anything is possible and that's what that's why i wanted it so inside the atmosphere i want it to be an environment where women do feel supported and do support each other that we start to work together as a training ground to be able to deliver those ted talks but the studio 54 brings a bit of glamour and sparkle and fun and a sense of possibility you know it doesn't matter who you are and what you do anything is possible and i think we have to believe that that you can turn up with an idea you can turn up with a talk you can turn up as you are or the problem and it's okay and the positive environment because i didn't want the glitter sphere to be somewhere where we came to moan or complain wanted it to be a nurturing and uplifting and positive environment that's what i want the feeling inside the glitter sphere to be and we're only getting started and we're shaping it and i've got a whole load of in-person events in september which i'm really excited about because i think the glitter comes to life where that feeling that i describe i hope people will actually feel in

SPEAKER_01: 46:22

person booked in for a I also have had some one-to-ones with some of the people that I've met. And what I do get a sense of is they're all women who are really on a mission themselves. You're providing this space for us all to support each other and to help us keep stepping up and making a difference. You think about the tipping point of that, how phenomenal that could be.

SPEAKER_02: 46:44

That's what I'm excited about. That is what drives me. The tipping point of the, it's never a me-led mission. I don't believe in that. It's I'm creating the container and the platform and the stage because that's what happens when you bring everybody together and they do their bit.

SPEAKER_01: 46:58

And it certainly feels consistently supportive as well, which is lovely. So some great women on there. And if anyone hasn't explored the glyphosate, I encourage you to do so, particularly if you're someone who wants to make a big difference in the world. So, you know, you talk about women have got to get themselves out there. They've got to get on the stage, find their voices. You've stood on over 100 global stages, which is also phenomenal. How did you find your voice and how are you going to help other women? How can you support them to do it?

SPEAKER_02: 47:28

First of all, I got on those stages because I enjoyed it and I didn't at first. I hated it at first, but I wanted to enjoy it. I wanted to do it. You know, I'm one of these people that once I set my mind to something, I really want to try and master it. And I always say to people, the best way to do this is you just have to keep, you've got to start and you've got to keep doing it. You've got to keep doing it. Always ask for feedback. Always ask for kind of like, how do people respond to that? Now I'm much better. I have much more strategic ways of either filming and listening and really kind of being quite forensic about improving my performance But I think the most important thing is, is if when you go with an attitude of going, I'm going to get out and say something with the intention of helping somebody else, it's a mindset of shifting to service rather than just a loud hailer, right? You know, it's not getting out to go, look at me, look at me, look at me. It's about getting out to go, I'm going to tell you something that I think will hopefully help somebody. And that mindset shift encourages you to get up and perform and be a better storyteller. And I think the things I want to do within the community and to help women and what I do already when I do that, is I start with a story you know I start with time of just going well what do you want to talk about like where's the love for it what is it and then it's like shaping it because actually the most important thing is is when you step onto stage is that you are more you right so who do you want to be so when I step on and I step on stage with sequins and I play music when I do my workshops and people are always a bit like what and I go I want everyone to get up and dance and I had a room full of women in insurance at 9am in the city up dancing to Shaka Khan it was a bit of a shock to all of them but they love it and that's that's I've chosen to do that it's taken me a long time to get to that's what my flavor is but I think that's where it unlocks something really special but it has to start with the motivation and the reason and then the right tools and guidance to guide you through your evolution there are so many things to learn and be perfected I still I'm part of a community to be a better speaker right my job is not I want to be even better than I can be and I want to be the best I can be and actually what I can learn I can share with others so I think I'm a natural continuous learner and I encourage other people to do that. I think it's practice. And so within the goodness sphere, we're going to have this thing called Niche Talks. It starts in late September, which will be effectively like our TED Talk stage within there. And that's your training ground. And we will help each other

SPEAKER_01: 49:43

to be brilliant. I really get a sense of embrace the fear, act despite the fear, do what you need to do to learn and to grow. And you too can develop that love of presenting. Because I know lots of people who the whole idea of presenting... Oh, it makes me

SPEAKER_02: 49:56

feel

SPEAKER_01: 49:57

terribly, yeah, I know. I'm excited to help people step over that. Fantastic. So, so much that you've shared with us today. So many golden nuggets in it, or golden sparkles, shall we say. What's one thing you wish every woman knew about building influence? That's a really

SPEAKER_02: 50:13

good question. I would say that actually it's not about applause, it's about alignment. So I think having influence isn't about chasing applause, it's about chasing alignment. The more you influence The more you find the alignment that then creates acceleration. And I think when you're thinking about your influence is think about what it attracts and therefore facilitates rather than the metrics of applause and likes.

SPEAKER_01: 50:41

Yes. And I get a sense of which is maybe why I've become so obsessed with my podcast because it feels very aligned with me. But there's something about the alignment is aligning with your values and what's important to you and what's the difference you want to make. Yeah. more aligned with that rather than being worried about will people like this or are people going to give me applause I mean

SPEAKER_02: 51:01

as soon as you release yourself with that everything changes and I think that's why I focus on alignment not audience

SPEAKER_01: 51:07

and for listeners who are quietly brilliant but unsure how to step forward what's the first step that they could take in beginning to own their own

SPEAKER_02: 51:15

story well obviously I was going to say join the blessing to me without a doubt I actually think when you start to think about your own story is you do have to start with a why like what is why do do you not why do you want to tell your story but it's like what is it that you want to do and then come to your story you know so for me it was i knew i wanted to create this sense of visibility and equality or fairness for for others and therefore when i think about my story it's like what the relevant parts of my story that i need to share and tell that is being vulnerable it is except you know going it's not perfect and i'm okay with that and that will give you other give other people confidence and relatability whatever for somebody else it might be going i want to I want to help women overcome you know having been a victim this is very deep I haven't been a victim you know someone had been a victim of domestic abuse someone I'm working with and she said like she just wanted other women to know that there are means and ways of out of it and there's there is recovery at the other end of it so I said what aspect of your story do you want to share because you could do the obvious you just tell that she said no no I want to talk about recovery just want to talk about recovery so then we work on her story about recovery because that's what she's focused on because of the experience I think sometimes you've got to figure out what it is why you want sometimes because you want to sell you the thing that you created you know in a creative business I'm working with a woman who's got a handbag business which beautiful handbags she has and she's like oh how do I do my founder story in this and I was like why did you make the bags when you think about making the bags what makes you think about why you make the bags oh well I used to love these Lulu Guinness bags I used to see when I was younger and I was like great there's your story what inspired and that so it you know that's where it comes from

SPEAKER_01: 52:49

so it's the why it's it's what gives you energy to the things that you've loved in your past and maybe present and also all the things that drive you and motivate you forward that that's where you'll find your story thank you so much for joining me today and I do need to check the name of your dog who joined us it was Millie Millie well it was lovely that Millie joined us as well thank you Nishma thank you lovely to see you Mary lovely to see you too bye bye before we wrap up I want to share something with you do you ever feel like your confidence isn't really the issue but wish you could strengthen your ability to deal with things that keep chipping away at it. The bias, the double standards, the pressure to prove yourself, to name just a few. That's exactly why I created Exploding the Confidence Myth, a three-month programme for women leaders who are ready to change that story. It combines one-to-one coaching, group coaching and a powerful in-person workshop. The next programme starts at the beginning of November with the workshop taking place on the 7th of November at the Connacht Rooms in Holborn, London. Past participants have described it as validating Thank you so much for listening to the She Leads Collective podcast. If this episode And keep leading with heart.