Ep 10 | Blanche Sainsbury - From Boardroom to Purpose

**Inside the Maverick Mind | Blanche Sainsbury - From Boardroom to Purpose: Power, Sacrifice & the National Children's Awards

What does it really take to reach the top of British media - and then walk away from it all?

In this episode of Inside the Maverick Mind, host Emyr sits down with Blanche Sainsbury, former board-level executive at Trinity Mirror and Daily Mail General Trust, to explore one of the most compelling leadership stories you'll hear this year.

Blanche started her career as a teenage classified girl in a newsroom ruled by typewriters and big egos. Four decades later, she'd helped run some of the UK's most powerful regional media businesses, overseen multimillion-pound budgets, navigated cost-cutting in a changing industry - and made headline news herself when she became one of the first people in the UK to remove an editor from their post.

Then she did something unexpected. She walked away.

Not into retirement - but into purpose. Blanche and her husband Mark founded the Child of Wales and Child of Britain awards, shining a spotlight on extraordinary children doing remarkable things in the face of adversity. What started as a simple idea to celebrate inspiring young people has grown into one of the most anticipated events in Wales, with sold-out rooms, standing-room-only demand, and a reputation for leaving audiences speechless.

In this conversation, Blanche and Emyr get into:

• What it was really like to be a woman at board level in British media in the 1990s and 2000s
• The personal sacrifices of climbing the career ladder - commuting between cities, missing sports days, and living away from home for years
• The moment the content stopped feeling right - and why Celebrity culture and Love Island were the final straw
• How she made the decision to leave a six-figure career and start something from scratch
• What it takes to build a national awards brand with integrity and storytelling at its heart
• Why vulnerability is a leadership superpower - and why she's never afraid to say "I don't know"
• Growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, being raised largely by her grandmother, and how that shaped her relentless drive
• Her "Maverick Moment" - walking into the Daily Mail offices in London and choosing honesty over ego
• Why a maverick carries on regardless - and the importance of boundaries, radiators over drains, and protecting your energy

This is a conversation about leadership, legacy, and what happens when you finally put purpose before profit.

🎙️ **Hosted by Emyr | Inside the Maverick Mind

🏆 Find out more about the Child of Wales and Child of Britain Awards

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Power is intoxicating, so is walking away from it. Blood Sainsbury didn't just work in the media, she helped run it. From a teenage start in newspapers, she rose to the top of British regional media, holding senior roles at Trinity Mirror and Daily Mail General Trust, making decisions that shaped headlines, businesses, and careers. Then she did something unorthodox. She walked away from power, profit, and profile to found the National Children's Awards, including Child of Wales and Child of Britain, championing extraordinary children. This isn't charity as a soft option, it's leadership, criticism, courage, and choosing purpose when comfort would be easier. Blanche Sainsbury is our guest. Let's get inside her maverick mind. Good to have you on the show, Blanche.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

You started in newspapers as a teenager and worked your way up to board level leadership. What did the media world look like from the inside when you first entered it? And what did you have to learn fast to survive?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Oh gosh. So I um entered late 80s. So imagine no technology. It was typewriters, it was razor blades to cut pages. It was an environment that was very um industrious, I suppose. You know, editor was God, like the the senior team, the editors would go out to lunch, come back about three, four o'clock. And uh there was a big drinking culture as well back in the 80s. So um I learned very quickly that I had to manage egos rather than titles. There was no kind of HR department, so when you did something wrong, you were publicly humiliated in the office. Um, I started very much as a classified girl. I was a fast typist, I could, I could do um shorthand. My job was to take the births, marriages, and deaths over the telephone. That's how I started, and I remember, you know, it was kind of drummed into us that you never make a mistake, uh a typing error on somebody's name. And if you did, it was uh it was just the worst thing that you could do. You never got a funeral details wrong, and if you did get them wrong, it was um it was public humiliation. So it was kind of crying in the stairwell, and yeah, it was it was very, very different. I learnt to be very resilient. Um, I learned that actually it wasn't the easiest environment to be in, but I also learned that I made many, many friends. You know, those girls in that office, I'm still friends with four or five of them 40 years later. And you know, it's it was just that friendship and and having those comrades around, a little bit of inappropriate humour now and again got us through the day. But yeah, life was very, very different back when I when I started in media.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

You didn't just work in media, you held serious responsibility at Trinity Mirror and later Daily Mail, General Trust.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

You know, you got used to political scrutiny and public accountability. What did power feel like at that level? And what did it demand of you personally?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Um, I never really saw it as power. Um there were the the jobs that I had, I I I kind of felt the responsibility, and that responsibility was millions of pounds of budgets, of ad revenue, of cost-cutting plans, of departments that were reporting into you thousands of people. So the responsibility was heavy because you were only ever as good as the year that you were in. So if you hit the budgets that year, well, of course, what was going to happen the following year was your budgets were going to get higher and higher. So it was a constant battle to um prove your success. And I think that for me the responsibility of people was hard, but also I felt like one of the team. Power to me is a word that I don't like. I think responsibility is the word that kind of sits best with me. I had two children. I went back to work when they were six weeks old because I was a female in a man's world, really, so there wasn't a huge amount of women at my level, but I felt that I could have my children, but I had to get back to work quite quickly because somebody else could come in and take the position. So my husband and I had been in media all our lives. We met in media. The issue that we had was we did the same job, and there was only ever one job in one city, so we had to work in different cities and commute to wherever it was that we lived. In fact, at one stage, I was working in Bristol, Mark was working in Taunton, we lived in Plymouth, and we had two kids and a dog, and he had to get the kids to school and then drive an hour and 20 minutes to get to work. And I was in a flat in Bristol from Monday to Friday. I would come home at weekends, I would spend the weekends cooking and freezing, and we lived a really tough life actually. So, in terms of how it hit us personally, it was really hard. Only one of us could ever get to a sports day or a nativity play if we were lucky. But we had to agree early on for us to be able to kind of climb the ladder and have a great career. There was some sacrifices that had to be made. I look back at that now in my 60s, and I feel that there were some decisions that I regret making. I didn't know that at the time. Um, but yeah, I I look back with some kind of hindsight and think, gosh, that was that was a tough time that we had.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

We're conditioned to think that that was normal. Yeah. At the time, you know, I just worked as what I needed to do. Luckily, I worked with my wife Maya, similar to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

She's my rock, and as I'm sure your husband is the same. I think that the sacrifice was too much. But it's interesting, my children grew up with that. Yeah. And now they're taking over the company.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

And their balance, work-life balance. I think this next generation gets it better than we are.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think there's much more an emphasis on enjoying your job. Um, I know my kids, uh, they're not in the industry at all. One works for the Foreign Office, the other one's a geologist. And um, they're not really interested in money. I think when we were growing up, we were interested in city bonuses, big salaries. Um, I'm I'm I'm ashamed to say that now as well, with the work that I do. But we made a very good life. We made a good life for our kids, we made um a good life for ourselves, but it did come with sacrifice, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

No, definitely. Who shaped how you operated in those environments? Not just mentors, but people who tested you?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

In the early days, you're always tested by um editors because their word is final. So um that's quite a test to be able to get that balance of commercial and editorial. And I think actually we probably did get the right balance, but you had to have good relationships with uh your editor that you that you work with. When you're tested, and I think I got um I think I was probably one of the first people in the UK to ever remove an editor out of a position, and that was unheard of. And um I remember feeling the the weight of that, but I knew that I wasn't gonna be able to do the job in the current situation that uh the team I had around me, and and and that particular person at the time was a great editor, by the way, but he wasn't particularly suited to the job that I needed, and so I remember uh feeling the weight of that. That was really hard. I knew I was gonna get bad press, I knew it would probably hit hold the front page, and it and it did. So that was testing for me, and it was an experience I'll never forget. I think the other people that shaped that time for me was actually the people that I worked with. My team were very supportive. I always felt that I could be in the team, working with the team in the tranches, and then when I needed to step out and be the leader with some firm decisions, and this is the direction we're going in, I could do that as well. So I had that balance and that really helped. And I think my peers, I worked with a another couple of ladies who I'm still in contact with now, and they were amazing. I I know I could pick up the phone to them and say, I'm having a really rough day. What would you do in this position? Can you help me? And we had our own little group actually, the four of us, where um that was that I need I needed to be able to have that kind of confidential chat. And uh yeah, we still look back at at those times now when we go for a glass of wine and say, Do you remember? And uh, it's always good fun looking back.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

And there's no such thing as a WhatsApp group then, was there?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

There wasn't, no. And um, and of course, there was also from an HR point of view, it wasn't as as clear-cut as it is now. Um, there wasn't any kind of well, we'll just give them a settlement agreement, and you had to really work to ensure that the decision that you were making on that position, it was absolutely right to remove the the individual or individuals. So um, yeah, that was that was a time that really tested me. I think actually moving and being away from Mark and the kids was testing because I lived away from them. I was in this brand new world of programmatic advertising and um, you know, young kids that were more like mathematicians and rather than salespeople, they were into algorithms, and that was quite testing. But being able to sit down with them and say, this is a whole brand new world for me, can you teach me? was also quite humbling. I think from their point of view, I was able to say, you teach me, I'll help you, I'll lead you, I can motivate, I can ensure that you get the incentives, you'll learn the leadership skills from me. It was great because I was a little bit older learning new skills, and I absolutely loved that.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Often we think that this we see the glamour of the CEO, but it's lonely at the top.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

I think it's lonely because in the media world it's also very competitive, and because as we entered the later years into the um, you know, 2010, 2020, those last 20 years, media changed completely and it became more about cost-cutting scenarios, cost-cutting plans. And that is no joy, that's kind of no joy for the soul. We never stopped thinking about when I think about my my team at local world. I was very fortunate to work for a uh a gentleman who's very well known in the industry called David Montgomery, and uh he he was somebody else that helped shape me and my thinking. And David taught us that actually campaigning and supporting local communities is really important. Content is is everything. When we so when we started Local World off, we um we started that business. We we bought the um the regional papers from the Daily Mail and another company called Isle of Media. And I think if I remember rightly, the figures we started it off and we made a very small profit. We ended up selling that company to Trinity Mirror for 220 million within four years. I don't actually think Trinity Mirror Reach PLC might be worth that money now, but we were a small team with very small resources, but we had um a lot of drive and enthusiasm behind us, and I think that was down to the personalities who was who was was leading us, David being one. So yeah, I I think lots of people shape me for the better. I also worked for with people that shape me for the worst, and um it was lonely, it was lonely, but it was fun. I was so fortunate to have the people that reported through to me were um bright young things and were really supportive. And of course, the other thing in media is you're not just responsible for the running of the teams and the targets and everything else. There's also the whole entertainment that you have to do. You know, you're out all the time, you're in in different places entertaining advertising agencies and clients, and and that takes its toll on your health, it takes its toll on your time. I was very tired coming to the end of my career. I just started to not enjoy, not enjoy the content. Um, I'd been used to being in regional content, which was all about campaigning for local communities, fast trains to London, um, keeping hospices and local hospitals open. And all of a sudden I went into this world of it was celebrities, it was the size of Kim Kardashian's backside, it was who was the latest into the Love Island villa, and that for me wasn't something I got joy, joy from. So already in my head, I was thinking this is gonna kind of cost you and your morals and your health if you don't start thinking about doing something about it.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, and it was a brutal time that you learned so many things in terms of the culture, but also that skill set you carried through when you went from profit to to f to more philanthropic things. Yes, but uh you also had a flavour for that, didn't you? Yeah, the taste of it. So you wanted to do more. I imagine shifting from Media Exec to running something as heartfelt as the National Children's Awards must come with its own challenges. How have you found it to be a bit of a thankless task sometimes? You know, and have you faced criticism for raising your head above the parapet?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

No, I don't think I have in the the the children's awards, definitely not. I think we're very careful in storytelling. You know, we've been in storytelling all our lives. We make sure that those children's stories are told well. And I think the other thing that I've learned is to tell those stories. We we used a company a few years ago that it was a fantastic video company, but they weren't journalists. They were a commercial video company, so they could sell product. When it comes to telling a story, I think you need a journalist to tell that story. So we are very particular about who we use in the storytelling, and um and they do a great job. And we don't concentrate on the tragedy of what has happened to the child or the family, then we might touch on that adversity. Our awards are all about what happens, what the child does with that, um, how the families go on to do greater things for people, how that particular child is a role model to other children. Um, so it's a celebration really. And uh, yeah, so I don't think criticism, I think the only criticism is probably that we don't have enough tables or it sells out, which is a nice place to be.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Well, I just think it's fantastic that you've gone from uh, you know, a top boardroom position to doing this. And I think people might doubt the the intention. Not that I do, you know, but what made you do it? What was the thing inside you that said I have to do this?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

I had to do it because um it was wonderful to be in media and earn the kind of salaries and have the benefits that we had, and when we sold um local world, we benefited from that. But money isn't everything, like my health took a massive um turn, and I knew that the the content I was working with, I didn't really enjoy it. I mean I missed that sort of content where you're reading inspirational, aspirational stories, and actually there isn't that much about children, and we can learn a lot from young people, the resilience. So I was unhappy in the last couple of years in media. There's only many, so many designer handbags you can buy or pieces of jewellery to make you feel better, but it's it's it lasts for a couple of minutes, and that thrill of buying something because you feel that you deserve it. But actually, what's much more important is the lives that you can touch. And also, I want to do this. I had some experience in fundraising. I was um chairman of Maggie's Cancer Centre in Swansea. Um, I was chair of Bluestone National Park Resort, so I worked with the board there, and I could see the work that they were doing when they had spare occupancy, kind of giving up their lodges for charities. For it might be a young carer that needed some respite. It could be a child that was coming to end of life, and I got very connected, and maybe it's back to the storytelling again, but I got submerged in that content, but yet those stories weren't being told anywhere because actually the media for me seemed to have changed to either bad news, politics, everything that's going on in the world, and that kind of content was very I I struggled to find. So I remember saying to William and Pamela McNamara at the time, you know, I want to do something, I feel like I've got the time to uh shine a light on the on these children, and they helped me kind of shape what that might look like in terms of I didn't have a website, so Bluestone helped me launch it. And um, we just had so many nominations come through. And the difference that we make to people's lives, you know, I might get a letter or um a message from one of the winners or the winners' families to say, gosh, that was an incredible evening for us, and we feel really appreciated that somebody recognises what we are doing as a result of the adversity that's happened to us. So um, yeah, you I could have stayed there and um carried on earning the money and the bonuses, and it was a big decision to put my notice in. I remember saying to my boss at the time, I'm leaving, and she was like, Blanche, you've been here since you were 18 years old. And I said, I know, but it's time for me to go, and I knew it, and I and I kind of thought about the cost of staying there, what it would cost me, and that was my health, my uh my morals. I started to lose respect for some of the people around me. I didn't like the content. Um the the the actual pressure of targets was becoming more and more because the revenue targets were going down, but the cost-cutting plans were were moving in a different direction. And all that has to be done to keep a business going. Like that that I recognized that, but it just wasn't for me. Financially, I was in a fortunate position. I then came back to Wales because I've been living away. Mark was living in Wales, and um I came home and I thought, right, it's now time to get into my health and to um really start to think about about me and getting healthy again, and that's what I did. So that is my my big kind of focus now.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Do you think at any point that you were offsetting that sacrifice that it had been too much, and that you know, because it it takes a lot to start what you did, so you had to go to the end point to do what because it's not normal, and I'm so glad you did.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Yeah, I know, and I and I wish people would could see the benefit of that. I know I have friends. I have one great friend, Joanne, and um she was alongside me a managing director, same same time I was. So we kind of kept in contact with each with each other. There was very few female managing directors, and you know, she's an incredible woman. She's in her 60s, she's now a beekeeper, um, she produces her own honey, her own gin. She's an interior designer, she writes books, she drives uh a boat, you know, she's kind of up and down the Thames in a boat.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

I love her already.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

She's amazing, and I and she really inspires me. And I think, gosh, if we just stayed in that business and we had a retired out when it was time, we would have missed so much of our life that I think was meant for us to do. And I think it's really important to still learn and still dream big and do the things that you want to do, even when you get into your 60s. I've got two other friends that I was in media with over 40 years. They both sadly have lost their husbands, and they've come together and they travel all over the world. They went to Peru last year. They are like Thelma and Louise, and they've seen parts of the world that they never saw because they never had time, they were just working all the time. So, yeah, I'm watching my friends that grew up in media with me now having a new life and a different life, and I see I see kind of founders, particularly in the digital world and marketing agencies, and um I I I can see the stress that they're under again for targets, and it's a very competitive world. Um, and I only hope that as they move on they kind of can step out of it for a while and and take some time for themselves. I mean, I did some crazy things when I left um Trinity Mirror, which is now Reach PRC. I came home, I was tired, you know, I had been entertaining a lot, um, probably drinking too much, and I just kind of decided no, it's it's time to get fit. And I did things like um a crazy white-collar boxing match, and of course you did. Yeah, all those sorts of things that I really didn't. Yeah, I didn't know that I um well exactly, you don't because you're so busy, and and I think because you're used to targets and you're used to um wanting something to achieve, I needed those things to be able to say, right, I'm gonna do that. By the way, I wasn't very good and uh I couldn't get out of my corner.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I bet you were knocking.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

No, I was I wasn't, I was terrible. But it was a chance to train with a um it was an Irish boxer I trained with. It was amazing. It was an amazing experience.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

What did he make of you?

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Um he struggled to to match me with the person that. I was gonna fight because I was much older. I think he said the issue that we're gonna have is that you don't have the aggression of a boxer. So, and that was exactly what happened. Um, but it was good fun and the training was amazing, and and yeah, that's that's the thing I think I'll live a longer life now because I have um I've made it important for me that health is really important. People talk about, you know, there's this 50-50 life-work balance. I don't think that's possible when you've got big jobs. I think your work is part of your life, your life is your work, and so when you're in those massive big jobs, you you can't think like that. You've just got to get on with it and get it done. Yeah, it was it was it was tough. And I look back and I think sometimes, how did you do it with two kids?

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Who backed you early on or pushed you when it would have been easier to stay small?

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Um, I think there was a gentleman who sadly is no longer with us, um, a South African guy called Rob Cowan, and um he noticed very early on that I loved storytelling, I loved listening to stories, I was quite resilient in that I didn't take things too personally. I mean, when I go back to my early career, it was it was a misogynist kind of environment, but I didn't know what that was at the time. You know, I worked in an environment where, yeah, you just kind of got on with it. And um, and I think he could see that I also had drive and I didn't really let anything get to me. Like I I cared for the people who cared for me, but people who didn't care for me, that that never bothered me. And um, and I remember him taking me to one side and saying, you know, Blanche, I think you should go into management. Why don't we give it give it a try? And and I did, and I loved it, and I was I was pretty good at it. And then I just worked my way right up to um my first position was advertisement director in Devon. And then I moved around the country with the the Daily Mails regional titles and came to Wales as managing director of that's how I I came here, of the South Wales Evening Post, Clone Ethere, Command Journal. And of course, Mark and I can't work in the same city because we both do the same job. So he was down in um Pembrokeshire at the Western Telegraph. I managed the the media in Devon, he managed the media in Cornwall, we lived somewhere in between. And so I came to Wales and I wasn't really keen on coming here. And I remember people saying, You won't fit in, you're not well, she don't speak well, you're female. None of that was important. I came here, I came to a media company that wasn't doing particularly well at the time for all sorts of reasons. I got the team on board and showed them a way of being able to pick the business up. And of course, everybody benefits when you're able to celebrate success. And I loved it. And I wasn't into sport, I didn't know much about football, I knew nothing about rugby, but it was another learning curve. It was I have to know about these this sport, it's so important to the Welsh. So I'd go along to the football games, I would go to the rugby games, I took an interest in that. We didn't have a particularly good relationship with the swans at the time, and I remember meeting up with the um the manager and saying what's and the chairman what's going on here, and they told me that they felt that the content was was bad news. And so I got stuck in in the community very quickly. I got welcomed very quickly. I think people could tell I wanted to make a difference. I loved it here, and um and so we we stayed. I mean, we we kept our house here and we had to move with jobs to different parts. Um, but we ended up coming back, and and that's how we ended up in Wales.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

I remember you in that period, you were most impressive. And never, but I think then that we'd be having this conversation, but such is life, isn't it? You know, I have deep respect for your career path and also your choices. Yeah, you know, because I come back to it. We didn't know, you know, what you know, we just followed blindly into what everybody said we had to do, you know, but it wasn't who you were, and luckily you found that early enough to do something about it.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Yeah, I think the diff there was a there was a difficult um period where I was actually placed into a business as deputy managing director. The managing director uh at the time wasn't particularly well and he was going to be retiring out, and he didn't place me, the board placed me. So I'm put into a business and um nobody really wanted me in the business. That was really tough because you have to prove yourself all over again. You have to get a new team to follow you when you've got the person that you're porting into that doesn't really want you there. That was that was really tough. Um, but again, you I think I'm so used to trying to prove myself to win people over, and I think that has been a bit of a skill, actually. I think people trust me, they recognise that I'm authentic, I'm very quick to say when I do something wrong or I need help. And I think people like that too.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Yeah, I mean humility is a big part of uh leadership, you know, and integrity. When was the moment when you realized because if you it is a brand, do you mean, and it's something that the it caught the imagination of the public? When was that moment at home with Mark or in the kitchen where you thought, hang on a minute, this is bigger than us?

SPEAKER_00 27:33

In terms of the awards?

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Um I think that moment was when the nominations came in, they just came flooding in, and then you'd read the stories, and we thought, oh gosh, there's there are some really inspiring kids in Wales. When we met with some of the sponsors, and they trusted us, Mark and I, because of course we're quite well networked in that we're quite close to some good bands and music, so we were able to get some great acts in, and some of those acts had not kind of played in that kind kind of environment in um in Swansea.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

We work in events, as you know, and we're very familiar with scary moments running up to an event. What's yours?

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Yeah, well, two years ago um we were very concerned because uh Gethin Jones is obviously the presenter, he's based in Manchester, he's on This Morning Live, and it was always really difficult to get him to Cardiff for the event. And of course, we'd moved the event to Swansea, which was made would make it even more difficult. And so when I spoke to him, he um he just said, Blanche, I don't think I'm gonna be able to get to Swansea on time. He's working in the morning and the timings weren't weren't gonna work out. And so after a quick chat with with Mark, problem solving, we cheekily asked Darren Briggs, Ascona Group, he has his own helicopter, would he be so kind to to go to Manchester and pick Gethin up and bring him to the event, which would be, I think it was an he was an hour in the air to Swansea Airport. And uh, and yeah, he did. So um Gethin arrived in style, and this is probably his new mode of transport now. Darren is very generous, uh, not only as the headline sponsor, but with anything he can do to help Mark and I. So that was that was a scary moment, but it actually worked out really well for us and for Gethin.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

For me, that's a maverick moment. You see a problem, you find a solution.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yes. Yeah, I think I I think it's also being able to ask, like it's a big ask, a very big ask, but he loved the event and he handled it so well. I mean, Gethin is is the event, I would say. So I think we just had everything that came into place. We always said if we were going to do it, it would have to be special. Mark and I had introduced events all over the country in Wales, and we said we have to make it a red carpet event, we have to have the right people there. We've been to those events where people are talking when the presenters there and the videos on show, and it's really irritating. And what makes us very proud, it was from the very first event when those videos are playing and you're hearing the stories, you cannot hear a pin drop in the room. And that's when we knew actually, this is very special to the to the guests in the room, it's very special to us, and um, yeah, I think that's when we knew.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

As it should be, yeah. The um I think I've told you this, my journey with Geth um started at the pop factory and he came. He was one of the first presenters we had. It was Alex Jones, Geth in Jones, Steve Jones, anybody with the bloody Jones, really. But Gethin had that empathy about him. He did all children's programmes, yeah. And although he's a you know morning live presenter now, yeah, his background is children's programmes, yeah. Uh so he relates well to the subject matter.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

So my son and daughter, Nomi and Oshan, went to your awards about a year ago now, and they said, You've got to meet this amazing lady. It's taken us about a year to connect. And then I started seeing you in the Ultra group, you know, which is something I contribute to, yeah, which is um a peer, how to describe it.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Um it's like a support group, I think, for CEOs and founders and MDs. As we said, it's lonely at the top. It's a kind of it's a confidential group where you can share experiences and help others shape those experiences and any challenges that you might be facing, or even celebrate success.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Because the second cue for me was I was speaking at the um Ultra Group with Simon Powell in Cardiff, and they were speaking about you. And I thought, right, I have to get this connection. Yeah, yeah. And of course, this concept of Maverick Minds, and I do believe you're a Maverick to do what you've done. Yeah, you know, you could easily have said, That's enough, I'm out, or you know, you haven't. And I think that's a that's a strength of thinking differently. You were determined to apply the things that you're trade in a good and positive way.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

I think that drives me though. I think that's me. You know, I didn't get the best start in life. I didn't come from a particularly um great background. Anything I did, I did on my own. And even education, I did that much later in life on my own. And I think that when somebody doubts me, it's I don't know whether it's a it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's a it's a thing that drives me. It's a sort of, no, I'll show you. And not in an arrogant way, in a, I really believe, I believe in what I feel, I know this is gonna work. And I think that working with people like David Montgomery is a great example. David stayed on a path, and I remember him talking to me and saying, you know, you have to stay with your dream and your vision. You can't let anybody knock it out of your way. Don't cure the noise, just carry on. And I, you know, as I said earlier, I am so fortunate. Like we have so many people that help us. The nominations in particular categories come in fast. With other categories like the environmental award that isn't so busy. You might have three, four, five. But we have so many people now across the country that send us nominations, you know, that oh, this is this is this, read the story, this is great. So I feel like it's a community of people. The awards, as much as we started them, I do believe they belong to Wales. I think people go to the evening and they come away thinking, actually, I am so proud of this generation. Because when you read some content online and your fed news about kids, that's not great. You know, it's it's bad news. It's wonderful to be able for one night to go and celebrate these kids and families and charities that are doing what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

So you did it in Wales and then you rolled it up. Did we do it personally?

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Yeah, we did it in Britain. Um, the the issue we've got is that Mark and I, it's only us. We did it in the Grosvenor for Child of Britain in 2022, and it was incredible. We had Callum Scott perform, Eamon Holmes was our host. I think this year's Wales Awards is going to be very special. We've got an incredible international artist who I'm not allowed to say, but it's and it's killing me not to tell anybody. Um, but they'll be performing, and that will be wonderful for Swansea and for our guests. And I think Britain, yes, we will look at Britain again, without a doubt. Um, but I think we're going to have to get some help in because, of course, we do everything. We get the raffle prizes, we get the auction prizes, we do all the due diligence on the on the nominations that come in. And um it started off as a little, you know, we'll raise some money for children's charities, we'll recognise some inspirational kids. That's more important for us. And it has just grown and grown and grown legs, and it's got bigger, and we get great feedback. Lots of people say to us, it feels like the biggest networking event in Wales without it being a networking event. Lots of businesses, it's mainly businesses, but it's a very relaxed evening. Uh, it's just, as we said, listening to those stories, celebrating that success, listening to the extraordinary things that kids and young people can do, and then ending with a with a fantastic evening, which goes on and on and on, I hear. I'm too old for it all now, but um, a few people decide to go up Wine Street and party for a few hours. So, yeah, it's a it's a great, it's a great event.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

What I know about you is that there's integrity that runs through your heart. That's a sign of a good leader. I can see that that applies to the awards also.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Yeah, I think it has to. I think um what what do we get out of doing the awards? You know, we we have a wonderful life. We our kids are healthy, they're in great jobs, we live in a beautiful part of the world. Um we don't want for much, if anything. And I think the joy we get of being able to see the children and their families for that one night and afterwards celebrate their lives, and we get great joy from that. I think, you know, Mark always says to me after every event, after the last one, he said, that's 52 lives we've touched now. That's 52 stories that will go into communities. There might be a story about a child that's been bullied. We will have children look at that story and hopefully be inspired by what that child's gone on to do. Some of those young sporting heroes that turn up for their training every day, they're not distracted by iPads or or phones, or you know, they are there crafting their sport for their lives from a very young age, and I think that takes discipline. And we've had some of the charities in the work that they do. We work with smaller charities and charities that need a leg up. So, yeah, that's this time in on November, we'll have touched another 13 lives, and and that's the joy that we get out of it.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

You touched over your upbringing and it wasn't easy. Was there anything there that led to what you're doing today?

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Oh, yeah, definitely. That's that's for another day. Um, yeah, I was I was brought up in Northern Ireland um at the time of the troubles. It wasn't a great upbringing. I was loved, but it was uh it was not not the best of times. And um, yeah, my my my my dad was in the RAF, so I lived with my grandmother um for most of my life. And um yeah, I even back then I kind of feel that it gave me this drive to do better, to want to do better. Yeah, I mean, education-wise was okay, you know, it was it was normal, but nobody really pushed me. And I pushed myself, you know, I pushed myself. I was working from when I was 11 years old. Um, that's how I earned some money. I was into gymnastics and dancing, and I'd kind of get to those places on my own as a young child. Nobody took me. I I didn't really have my mum or my dad around to take me. I'd get there myself somehow. And I look back at that and think, gosh, how dangerous that must have been. But it it was that drive, it was that I need I really want to do that, and somehow I'm gonna get over there and I am gonna do it. If it means I've got to walk there myself as an 11-year-old, I'm gonna walk it no matter how many miles it was. So I've always been a great believer in if I want something, I need to find a way to get it. And I think for the awards, that became for me. The awards was we're gonna do this and we're gonna do it really well, and we're gonna do it so well that actually people will want to come back, people will want it as the day in the diary that year, that's the night they have to be at. And so many businesses email us about that. So many people say, We're so looking forward to the night. Um, and we're very proud of that. We're really, really proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

I really relate to that early childhood. I got into the Pontepride rugby squad. I lived in Bridget. There was no chance I could get to training, but I found a way on the bus and walked.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Because, you know, that sort of self-propelled nature is what takes you through life. Oh, because I know what we're gonna do for you.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Completely. And I think I tried to, I wanted that, but then I had the peer pressure here. I was um, you know, I lived on a council estate in my early, early years, and you know, I was smoking at 10 and 11.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Um like everybody else.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Like everybody else. And I look back and I think, gosh, you know, one legacy that I'm so pleased that Mark and I will have is that we kind of broke that generation. Our kids went to university, and I didn't get to do that kind of education. I did it through work, which was you know amazing. Yeah, my my start in life wasn't great, but I'm proud of it as well because I think it's the thing that drives me. It's the thing that makes me think, actually, you're the girl that did good. And anybody can do that. When people complain about their lives, or I hear about, well, uh it's not going to happen to me because I haven't got, I think, gosh, it's that's not my experience. Um, and I don't mean to sound arrogant about that, but it just isn't my experience. I think if you truly want something, you'll find a way of getting it. As best as you can.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yeah, but I think there's something else I I sort of relate to is the fact that, and that's why I asked about criticism earlier, because you're the type of person that puts your head above the parapet.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

And you're gonna get shot at the same time. Oh, I do, I do yeah. I've had you know lobbies of bullets and everything else, and I I don't care really. But it does sadden you because the the purpose that you have is good.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Well, I think my worst experience of that was uh when I went into a particular media company where I wasn't where I wasn't wanted, and I had to put some processes into place, processes that weren't necessarily in that particular company. I know what works, I know how to motivate and and to drive teams, and people fight against that, they don't want to be measured. And I'm I'm a great believer in you know, you have to measure performance and output, and and not in a way that's structured, it can be in a very fun way. I haven't come across a lot of it, but I did in my earlier career people who kind of kick against change, and I love change, I've always loved change. Change is exciting.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

That's my big talk.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Is it?

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I I love I know you're shy uh to adopt the term, but it it is. It's been self-driven when people say you can't, you say, watch me. You can't be self-propelled, yeah. Um, think differently. You know what you said there about if you can't measure, you can't manage. Yeah, so that's the the maxim, really. And I think that all those traits are things I see in entrepreneurs, mavericks, people that make things happen. That's that's for me um.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Yeah, because it's easy to walk away from that, that confrontation. I I don't mind confrontation. Um, I'm quite for my for my height, um, I'm quite a prickly little character. So if I if I I I I've always fought for the underdog. You know, I'm very good at in a room, if I'm chairing a meeting or in a room, I can see who's quiet. I always made it my business, in media in particular, it probably relates over to the Charles of Wales Awards and um the stories. I made it my business to get to know my team. I knew about them, I knew the names of their kids, I knew the names of the wives. I would invite the wives with them and vice versa, husbands, when we went to dinner to celebrate successes. I I knew what was going on in their lives. I could tell, I could see them and think, you're not having a good day today. I bet it's because. And I think that is so important. Like that for me, as a leader, is the best thing that people can do. When people sit up in their ivory towers and they don't know their people, it's not going to get anywhere. So, yeah, yeah, I take an interest in people, I think.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

I made the mistake in this new complex that we have in the bay where there's a tower and there's um the tower of power, they call it, or the control room, and you can look down. When I put my desk there, it's probably the biggest mistake I've ever done because I've always led from the front, I've always sat amongst the open planner with everybody else. But I wanted peace and quiet, wanted to get on with things, and then I got disconnected from the people I love and the people I want to be, and hearing conversations, and yeah, yeah. You know, there are moments when you need to have a management meeting or a difficult conversation. That's fine. That room is fine for that. Just literally isolated, yeah. And you know, I mean that it was a tower, it wasn't ivory, but you have to be immersed, you know, around the team.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

You absolutely do. And there's another great leader I work for, uh, chap called Steve Auckland, who was the managing director of the um The Standard, and um, he talked about the momentum wheel. And I'll always remember him saying, you know, when you start, you work with your team and you start to get one bit of success, it's like you all join a wheel and you want more, and you want more, and you want more. And that's what he called it. And I always remember that. I remember thinking when something is going well, we had a phone call a couple of days ago, which was the best news we could have for the awards. And I thought, I said to him, we're on the wheel now. We've got to keep momentum going. I love that. I absolutely love that. And he's right. He was he was so right. It's recognizing you're on the wheel, and now you've got to keep turning it. More successes.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

And keep it consistent as well. You can't come off the wheel.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Definitely not. 55 minutes.

unknown 44:26

No.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Time for our Maverick Maxims. Uh it's a quick fire around whatever comes to your mind. So here we go. What's a book or a podcast that's really shaped your thinking?

SPEAKER_00 44:40

I think the book is such a simple book called Who Move My Cheese, which is about three mice. They live in this house, and there's pieces of cheeses around the map around the house. And it's all about the mouse that comes out to get the cheese and the other one that stays in. So simple to read. I mean it sounds like a children's story, but it's not. It is a business book. It's a very short read. It's like five, ten minutes. But Who Move My Cheese is so interesting because I recognize when I've been a particular mouse where I don't want to move and go and get the cheese, and then when I'm going to go and get the cheese, and I don't really care who's around me. It's a really interesting book. I'm probably not giving it a particularly good description. My the podcast, uh, my youngest boy is amazing. He feeds me all these great podcasts. The latest one I've been listening to is The Pitcairn Trials, which is all about the Pitcairn Islands and Mutiny on the Bounty and the descendants of the Bounty that live there now. Um that's a really interesting podcast, and it's and it's true. Um, yeah, that's that's uh that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

Oh, it's good that Mum is respect.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Um, he sends me lots of uh of great, interesting historical podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

And you can send him inside the Mavic Mind. Yeah. Um what's one piece of tech you can't live without in your day-to-day work?

SPEAKER_00 46:06

Oh gosh, you're gonna hate me for this, but I think it's got to be a parking app because I'm always turning up to parking with no money and trying to kind of go up and pay for my parking.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

And they are remarkable.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

They are amazing. They are they are so amazing. So I think a park the parking app is something that now I have and um and I use, and I'm ashamed to say that if I'm running really late, I'll take a picture of the the numbers and the the telephone call and I'll send it to Mark and he does it for me.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

Gotcha, I've done that.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Um yeah, and and also because we work from home, there is always music in my house. Like from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed, my sonus is on with a playlist. So I couldn't live without music. I have to have music in the house. You know, sometimes people come and visit, and even the kids will come home and it'll be Mum, can you can you turn that down? Or we'll talk about new artists, or um, so yeah, I think the Sonus in the house, I couldn't live without that.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

What's your power track, your go-to track?

SPEAKER_00 47:11

I love Jill Scott. Um and uh yeah, I I'm a big fan of Jill. I love her song Golden, Living My Life Like It's Golden, and um yeah, I love I love that song.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

I listened to tonight. One leadership habit you picked up in media that still serves you now?

SPEAKER_00 47:30

I think getting to know people, like talking to people. You know, I've been in situations where I might have gone to a dinner and I've watched people not been able to have the ability to um interact or talk to people or ask questions, having a genuine interest in people's stories. Sometimes I'll be walking on the street and I'll walk past somebody and think, I wonder what your story is. So I think it's back to storytelling and and finding out um finding out about people's lives. I think also showing vulnerability, I think being vulnerable is a strength. Being able to say, I don't know how to do that, can you help me? People do, they love it. You know, I used to my team would be what is it that you need to know? Like we can help you do this, and they felt proud being able to teach me something. So I think I think, yeah, having a genuine interest in people and being able to show your vulnerability. You don't need to know everything, you just need to know people that can help you find a way of doing it.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

One thing the public misunderstands about people who lead charities.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

I don't think the public understand that sometimes the leaders in charities have never run a business. That is really difficult. Um, so sometimes the communication from a leader in a particular charity won't be written in a way that's it will be written sometimes. I found it'll be written in an entitled way, I need, or will you give, rather than the storytelling behind the charity what you need. You know, the simple things like thanking your volunteers. People are volunteering their time to work with you to help others. I have seen some charities that aren't able to, not aren't able, they are able, but they just forget to say thank you to their volunteers or to bring them in as part of the team. Those volunteers are very much part of the team and they need to feel part of the team. Um, but because they may not necessarily be working in that charity full-time or be on the payroll, they're not seen as being part of the charity. So yeah, I think that's a little frustrating as well.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

What's an unexpected hobby or interest that fuels your creativity?

SPEAKER_00 49:38

I'm very into my fitness, so I train every day, um sometimes twice a day. And uh that's that's really important to me. I want to stay healthy. I've lived that life of it was fantastic at the time. Um, but I think a lady knows when to leave a party, and uh I had to kind of remove myself from that. I think fashion, I'm very interested in in fashion, particularly as I've got older, understanding what works, 50s and 60s. I never wanted to get to a stage where I was moving in a direction that I remember my um aunties or when I think about my grandmother's, you know, at in their 50s and 60s, they were old people. Um so I don't I don't I think it's important for me to know what works for me. And I think it's expressive. It's you know, it's it's a way of it's creating, it's expressing your mood. Uh so yeah, yeah, definitely fashion.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

It's it's really weird being the same age as old people. That's how I feel. I I I realize, well, I what am I now at 62 and I'm owning it, but I can't believe that I'm an old person. I'm not I'm not buying that.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

No, no, I think when I got my um my train uh senior rail cards.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

That was a moment.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

That was definitely a moment. Um but it's a third off all train journeys, which is a bonus. But when you have to get it out and show people, um so yeah, yeah, I'm I'm 62 on my next birthday as well. And the years have thrown yeah, they have flown in. Uh and I don't necessarily I'm it's not the age for me, it's just remaining healthy and wanting to live that longer life. Hopefully, one day we'll have grandkids and we'll be able to keep up with the grandkids. So yeah, yeah, I I can I I feel that. And as I said, you know, I'm so lucky in the friends that surround me because they're all powerful women doing some great things now, and I'm so pro I'm so proud of them too. Yeah, they didn't kind of go and you know, we're gonna retire and beekeeping. Yeah, a beekeeping, and yeah, she's uh she is incredible, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

Let's talk honestly about lessons. What's a moment where you genuinely questioned whether you'd made the right call and what did you learn from it?

SPEAKER_00 51:56

I think that was going to the media company where I was placed by the by the board um and not being chosen by the person that was managing that media. And I and I lived away from home. I had a flat, uh, so I was living in a flat. My kids, one was at primary school, one was at senior school. Mark was working in Taunton, and it was Monday to Friday. It was hard going. That was probably my worst, my worst moment. But I had two years of that, and I did win them over in the end. And it helped me move up the ladder. You know, it was my first deputy managing director's position. I moved into managing director and then onto the board. Um, so I had to do it. I had to do it to get the experience. I knew it was going to be for a period of time. Uh, but I think that was probably my worst decision.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

What did you learn from it?

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Uh resilience. Uh resilience and um to be able to cope with sadness and loneliness and being away from the kids and knowing that it was a job I had to do to be able to get my next step. And also, you know, we were it was quite we were quite a young family, and Mark's a great support. Like Mark always says to me, 'You've got to do this, Blanche.' You know, when people say in relationships it should be 50-50. I don't agree with that either. Sometimes one person has to give 80% when the other person's only got 20. And I think I only had 20% sometimes when I was there, and he was the one that had to have the 80 to look after the kids, to get them to school. That was really tough. But I learned resilience. I learned I had a rough time with some of the team. I learned to ignore the noise and to be a little bit hard about it, and I made some great friends. That's what I learned. I made some great, great friends there, and got some great success in the business, amazing success. And then I went on to my next role. In fact, Mark and I got headhunted then for jobs in Australia and New Zealand. We were off on this big adventure adventure. We were going to live in Auckland. I was going to work for the New Zealand Herald. Mark was going to be working in Australia for Australia Provincial Newspapers. Again, not living together in the same, this was in different countries then. And uh, and then our eldest boy, he got accepted into Auckland University. And I remember him saying, I can't go, I just don't want to go. And we said, Why? And he said, Well, why do you want to go? And we hadn't actually worked that out in our heads. And I remember saying, It's gonna be great, you know, we're gonna have barbecues, we're gonna have this great outdoor life. And he said, What does the outdoor life look like, mum? I said, We'll we'll we'll go, we'll go bungee jumping. Remember him just looking at me saying, When have you ever been into bungee jumping? You know, the idea of this life was so different. Um, and then he just said, You know, I'm not going. I he he loved British music at the time, he didn't want to live in New Zealand, and uh so we decided not to go. And then we had to go back to our bosses at the time and say, We're not going. I remember my boss saying at the time, I've got this great job for you in Wales, and I said, I don't want to go to Wales. And he said, Blanche, well, you've put your notice in, it's the basically the only job that's available, so take it or leave it. Where is it? Swansea. I was like, Oh no, not Swansea. I mean, how naive it's where we've ended up staying and loved, and everything, as I said earlier, that people said to me, you won't be accepted because you can't speak Welsh, you're not a you're a woman, blah blah blah. None of it mattered. We came, we fell in love, we've had the best time. We feel like adopted Welsh, she's ourselves. So that sliding doors moment of we could have been in New Zealand with a very unhappy eldest boy. Um, we ended up in in Swansea. We moved around after that as well with with the um with the business. But uh yeah, we love it, absolutely loved it. But I think another worst decision, which is quite interesting, I talk about it quite a lot, is not recognising the power of media. Um, and I remember working with the police on a particular campaign in in a city that there was a massive operation to clear out some um drug dealers. And they were arrested. And um at the time I remember the the police and the editor and I working together to say we're gonna name and shame these these people once they go to court and we get their sentence in, we'll have all their their faces and their names on the front page, and and we did that, and that was the worst decision that we ever ever did. Because it was basically an advertisement to the rest of the country to say there's nobody down here running drugs. So we then had drug dealers from other cities come in and um yeah, they reduced the price of heroin.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

And then they took it up, so it was a lot of um prostitution went up and um you know, shoplifting went up, and so it was a it was a bad decision to do that.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

That's good that you okay. But you don't know. You don't know it's yeah, because you know, hindsight's a terrible thing, but not a good thing ever, I find. But you you weren't to know until you did it.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

So No, and I think you we just didn't know until the the the police had said, I wish we had done that in a different way. Um so yeah, it was it's that's all learning as well.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

We won't do it again.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

We definitely won't be doing that again, though.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Is that a piece of advice you gladly ignored and then did something your own way?

SPEAKER_00 57:23

Yeah, I think coming to Wales, you know, there was there were so many people that said don't do it, you won't like it. And I remember writing to somebody at the Evening Post and saying, Would you mind sending me copies of your your newspaper front pages for the week just to get a feel for what the news content was, what the city was like. I always did that. I always was interested in seeing the the front pages because you could tell. And I remember the newspapers coming through, and I'll never forget it. It was a picture of a a taxi driver who'd had part of his ear bitten off, and it was a a brawl in Wine Street, and I remember thinking, gosh, that's not good. And then Tuesdays was a syringe on Swansea Beach, um, and that wasn't good. And it I felt like it was really not given the lovely side of South West Wales. And to be fair, to those editors and those journalists, they were only doing their jobs, like they were the biggest stories, they were the stories that were gonna sell, and that sometimes is gonna sell more than it's a bright sunny day in Swansea, and you know, here's a picture of the sun. But it did make me feel that actually we needed more inspirational stories and content, and um we worked really hard on that with with the the editorial team, and uh yeah, they were they were brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 58:41

I love Swansea.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

And we ended up being the biggest sunny newspaper in Wales, beating the Western Mail. So we were very excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 58:48

Yeah, you should be. I love Swansea. I love the fat he's close to the Gower, Mal Pope is a close friend, um, obviously Bon Tyler and the rest of the group down there. And now, you know, who'd have thought the Snoop Dogg is been a part of Swansea FD? I mean, we're living in crazy times, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:04

Yeah, it is kind of you do see the celebrity world kind of joining industry and business and sport and yeah, the whole Wrexham scenario as well.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

Yeah, it's nice to see it getting away.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

It's lovely, it's really lovely.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

In the show, we have a Maverick moment. Uh at some time when you did something nobody thought you could do, or a moment where you pinched yourself and thought nobody else would quite would have done it the way Blanche has just done it. Quietly to yourself, what was that moment?

SPEAKER_00 59:34

There wasn't a specific moment, but I remember when I went to be based at the mail offices in London, and that is quite an intimidating building in Derry Street, and I had the most beautiful offices, and I remember kind of pinching myself then, thinking, I'm not sure if I deserve this. Like, this is a big job with big responsibility. And I looked around the office, it was my office was like glass, and there was all these youngsters outside, and they're my team now, and um they're responsible for new forms of digital advertising and programmatic advertising. And and I thought I could either bullshit my way through this and go out and introduce myself as their new boss. But I if they start asking me questions about what I know about what they do, and and you know, some of them were were mathematicians, they were into the insight of a particular ad campaign, and or I can tell them that actually I don't know what they do, but I really like to know what they do. And I remember doing that. I remember having this uh I organised this four o'clock. Um, it would have been drinks at the time, um, you know, drinks and a kind of get to know me. Um, it were pretty much like this: just ask me questions, ask me what you want. I mean, they knew me anyway. From we I was very fortunate in the businesses that I run, media-wise, were always at the top three performers. I remember that moment saying, I have no idea what you do as a team. I know you make, you know, however much it was then 50 million in advertising, but I don't know it was quite as much as that. But I don't know how you do it. And um, can you help me understand how you do it? That for me was, you know, a lot of people had said to me, I would definitely not have done that because that you're showing that, you know, you don't know what you're talking about. I didn't feel that. I actually felt that they bought into me straight away because I was kind of I was one of them. Um yeah, I did that and I and I was very happy that I did that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:34

Oh, it's the first, it's the first rule, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:36

Yeah, but lot not there isn't many people I come across. No, you know, sometimes when I'm in events or um I I see people and they're quite egotistical or they are very particular about who they want to talk to, or I'll always go for the person in the room that's in a corner or they're on their own or they look uncomfortable. I don't know why. I just feel I'm drawn to that person. I want to make them feel comfortable, I want to make them feel part of something. And I think I've worked with so many people that don't do that. They kind of feel that it's their job or it's their whole persona that they have to appear to be the smartest person in the room, I suppose. And I've always thought you never learn if you're the smartest person in the room. So uh yeah, I think that moment when I look back was a bit risky, but it it worked for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

With all your experience, what's one piece of advice you'd offer to someone who wants to make a difference in their field?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

If you get offered opportunities, you should say yes, you should just take it and worry about how you're gonna do it later. For me, getting the jobs I was offered, you know, I lived away from home. Mark and I have lived away for most of our working lives. We came together at weekends, but he knew I had to do it to move on, and I knew sometimes he had to do things for him to move on so that we could kind of climb the career ladder together. So um when I was offered particular roles, I'd say to Mark, I've been offered this role, and he'd say, Take it, like we'll work out how we're gonna do it later. But it's another stepping stone, and then when I got to board level um to become the commercial director of one of the biggest media companies in the UK, that was a moment that I just looked back at my life when I was growing up, and um, I'm really proud of that, like seriously proud of that, because I never thought I was capable of doing that. And I was very lucky along the way to have the friends that I've got, to have some of the bosses that I've had, people believed in me. I don't think I let people down. When I say I'm gonna do something, so it's it's another thing I always say: don't say yes if you mean no, and don't say no if you mean yes. So when I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it. I think integrity is is probably my biggest strength.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:47

Mark sounds like a remarkable man. Yeah, he is. When you find the I was fortunate to find my you know life partner, the supporter, the enabler. I mean, it's one in a million.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:58

Oh my goodness, yeah. Like we we we were talking about that um yesterday. We kind of come as a pair.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:04

Um He's not here today.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

Well well he was. He's with me tonight. Um, but yeah, we come as a pair, and uh, you know, he's a he's a he's a great husband, he's a great dad, he's everybody's best friend, he's a great son. Yeah, we're we're very lucky that we've had experiences that we've had together. We've always lived on the edge a little bit, you know. We we bought this this wreck of a house in Langland Bay that nobody wanted to buy on a cliff. And I remember saying to Mark, there's no absolutely no way we're buying this house. And he said, We have to have it, you have to see the view. And I remember saying, Mark, I really don't want to do it, and he there was a tree growing through one of the rooms at the time, and uh he said, Blanche, please support me on this. Like I'm asking you to support me, and so I did, and it's our home, and we've never regretted it since. So I think there are times where you do have to support your partner, and you might not necessarily see what he or she sees, but it's important to support them in the vision and the dream that they have.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:08

I weld up a bit there because it's happened to me a few times, and when I really, yeah. Um, and I've got to listen, you know, it's in uh actively listening when Maya says this is important to me. I know. Yeah, it there's no negotiation, and I have called it as well because I but also because I have a lot of ideas and I'm driven. I also listen when it's not a good idea, and I think that's what I've learned best.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

Yeah, yeah. As I get over that that wisdom.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:37

I'm not I'm still working on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:39

Um so here's our signature question finish the line, a maverick is someone who I think a maverick is someone who carries on regardless, like doesn't listen to the people that aren't important to them, to the noise.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:53

You know, I see a lot of bullying on social media and I I look at the whole Brooklyn Beckham Beckham situation. And um, you know, you see all this terrible stuff and people piling in. And I've had experience of it myself in my media days, and I don't think a maverick ever lets something like that get them down because they know deep inside who they are, they know their values, they know their morals. So I feel a maverick is, yeah, I think not listening to that noise and that crap and um and carrying on regardless. And I also think showing vulnerability. That's a tough one for people to understand. But for me, it's really important because I think people buy into you more if you're able to admit the things you can do and the things you can't. So many people I have helped me because I've said I just don't know how to do that, or where do I go? Or um, and as a result, you know, I we're we're just very, very lucky to be surrounded with the people. We don't have very many negative people in our lives, we kind of cut them off, and and that's another thing I think a maverick is good at. It's time, move on. That person isn't adding any value to your life. I think having boundaries as well. I have I have boundaries. Like I'm I think I'm a nice person, but I have boundaries that that will not be crossed. And um, yeah, that's once that's crossed, I'm I'm done. I'm out.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

Funny enough, I'm setting some boundaries at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:22

Really, yeah. Yeah, it's I it's important it's a long time coming.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:26

But um and also, you know, spend more time with with radiators, not drains.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:31

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

You know, and I love that phrase because you know that people enable you, you know, because although you might listen for a minute to some criticism and just be hurt for a second, you just recover from loss quickly. Yeah, you know, I don't let it get to me. No, um, but it does for a second, maybe I just question something because you wouldn't be human not to hurt, feel the hurt. Yeah, but you don't dwell on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:54

No, and I and I think you know, when I think about the awards and I hear some of those stories, um I think my life is good. Like when I I am so inspired by some of those children and their families, and I think actually I have a really good life, like we said, healthy kids, wonderful husband. Just I've I if anything happened to me, you know, I have lived a completely wonderful life.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

And you haven't got a tree growing out of your house anyway?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:22

Not anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:24

And finally, when you look back someday, what do you hope your legacy will be?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:28

I think in terms of my children, I think we've left a legacy in that we've left behind maybe some of the upbringing that I had. Um nobody's fault. It was just circumstances at the time. I think my kids, you know, I didn't go to university, they have. They're um they're in they're in wonderful careers and they're good human beings. Like they are really nice men. I love being around them, and um, they're good men. So I think that legacy from a family point of view, I know life will go on and they will create good human beings as well. I think, as I said earlier, we've touched the lives of 52 people, children, families already, and we're still gonna go and touch the lives of many more. And I think that's a legacy. People will remember that night, like they'll remember being recognized for the things that they did that were extraordinary things from ordinary people. So, yeah, I think that that legacy is quite important to us as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:31

Thank you for doing it because you know, if people like yourself didn't put your hand up, it wouldn't be happening. Um it's been truly inspiring hearing your story. And your Maverick wisdom is just shines through. I know you also give huge credit to Mark, and you know, the the teamwork between the both of you. Yeah, I think that's what really strikes me is that you um you know it's the yin and the yang, it's supporting each other, yeah. The 8020, that rule is applied to business in a different way. Yes. So it's nice to hear it in another environment. Do you mean so no? Thank you very much, Branch.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:04

Oh, you're welcome. It's been good to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

Good. And to those watching or listening to this, the world doesn't change because people stay comfortable. It changes when people with options choose responsibility. That's the Maverick mindset. See you next time on Inside the Maverick Mind.