Five Star Insights with Arti Halai

Five-star insights enables us to learn more about successful people from a range of backgrounds and sectors. All of whom are making a difference in society through their choice of location, literature, music, art, and cuisine.

My guest on Five Star Insights is Bob Tiede, a leadership expert who has been with the CRU organization for 50 years. He served for eight years on crew campus, 24 years directing the Josh McDowell Ministry and 18 years on the leadership development team. He's author of several popular books, including ‘Leading with Questions’ and his blog with the same name is followed by leaders in over 119 countries.

My guest on Five Star Insights is Founder and Director of Trojan Consultancy, Simon Morgan.

Simon has enjoyed an illustrious career where he served as a personal protection officer to Her Majesty The Queen and other members of the British Royal Family, former Prime Ministers like David Cameron and other high profile dignitaries, leaders and individuals.

He started in the Metropolitan Police Service working both in SO19 as a specialist Firearms Officer before moving on to the prestigious SO14 in Royal Personal Protection.

From 2007 – 2013 he was always on guard as the Royal Family went about their duties and he played a big role in the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding in April 2011.

While he enjoyed working in the public sector, the transition to the private sector with his business, Trojan Consultancy has been a new challenge as he had to quickly learn how to develop, run and expand a business.

The greatest lesson he has learnt is lots of people hear but don’t listen.

My guest on Five Star Insights is Roisin Wood OBE. Roisin was the Chief Executive Officer for Kick It Out, which was set up to kick racism out of football following a national campaign that started in 1993.  During her ten years at the helm of the organisation she worked with the football, education and community sectors to drive forward the equality agenda and encourage inclusive practices to make football more welcoming for everyone. She also sits as a lay magistrate in County Down in Northern Ireland dealing with family and youth courts.

My guest on Five Star Insights is Piers Adam, a serial entrepreneur with more than 30 years experience in the hospitality and beverage industry. He founded London’s best and most famous nightclubs in the 1990’s - SW1, Hannover Grand and Kabaret. The Sunday Times described him as ‘the man who redefined how Londoners eat, drink and dance.’

He went on to create a stable of concepts which became globally recognized, Mahiki, Whisky Mist and The Punchbowl Pub with Guy Ritchie. He owns the Craigellachie Hotel in Speyside in Scotland and is founder of Copper Dog whisky which launched in 2016 and is now sold in over 64 countries.

My guest on Five Star Insights is multi-award winning independent dance artist, Sonia Sabri. She is a choreographer, teacher and artistic director of Sonia Sabri Company.

Sonia started dancing at the age of six specialising in a major form of Indian classical dance called Kathak which originated from northern India. The classical dance performance is famous for telling stories without using words.

Over the years Sonia has evolved her skills and art exploring traditional and contemporary approaches to dance, pushing boundaries and creating original concepts reflecting Western and Eastern cultures.

She has performed at international arts festivals like Womad and choreographed Encompass for the Cultural Olympiad in 2012. She pioneered digital, dance and live music production Drishti in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

As a dance artist, Sonia is acclaimed for her enchanting stage presence, grace and musicality all of which leaves audiences enthralled both nationally and globally.

My guest on Five Star Insights this month is self-made billionaire Surinder Arora. Surinder is an entrepreneur with an extraordinary and inspiring story. He is founder and chairman of Arora Group, one of the UK’s largest private hotel owner-operators.

Surinder arrived in the UK at the age of 13 in 1972 speaking no English. His parents had arrived a few years earlier and called for him from the Punjab once they had settled in West London.

Hard work runs in the blood. His mother held down three jobs and was extremely ambitious for her son. Surinder left school and had jobs with British Airways and Abbey Life. He saved and invested in property, buying derelict houses and converting them into bed and breakfast for airline staff.

He eventually bulldozed the houses and built a hotel from scratch, convincing both lenders and British Airways to give him the contract to run a hotel for the airline’s crew. It wasn’t long before he was on a roll both buying and operating hotels and the rest as they say is history.

My guest on Five Star Insights is Louise Oliver who has worked in the financial services sector for over 30 years and is co-founder and director of Piercefield Oliver.

She is also UK President of the British Association of Women Entrepreneurs – affectionately known as BAWE.

A membership organisation, BAWE is a network for women who have considerable experience in running their own businesses.

In her day to day work Louise is a certified Financial Planner and Chartered Wealth Manager, helping families and individuals going through life’s changes with a particular focus on divorce, business sales and bereavement. A role less than 10 per cent of women do in this sector.

She is an expert commentator on the BBC’s Breakfast TV and Radio 4’s Money Box programme and has won several awards including Role Model of the Year in Financial Services.

Lessons learned include it takes time to find to find the right team with shared values, ethics and passion and that not everyone is right for her business. She has also learned to say ‘yes’ to challenges and step out of her comfort zone.

Five Star Insights enables us to learn about successful people from a range of backgrounds and sectors who are making a difference in society through their choice of location, literature, music, art and cuisine.

I’m delighted that my guest on Five Star Insights is Chief Executive Officer of Apps for Good, Heather Picov. The award-winning education charity specializes in tech and has reached over 175,000 young people aged between 10 and 18 since it launched in 2010. Apps for Good helps young people tackle issues they passionately care about by creating digital products like apps and software. Partnering with schools, it is already opening new education and career pathways especially for girls and young people in challenging circumstances.