Lost And Founded

In our final episode of Season 3, our business with a purpose is The Blair Project, Founded by Nile Henry. The Blair Project is a social enterprise that provides opportunities for the urban youth to participate in the green tech revolution through building racing and accelerating innovations in electric go-karts. Happy listening and thank you so much for listening to season 3. Let us know your thoughts and see you soon!

Sarah Jordan, Founder of Y.O.U underwear, shares her unexpected journey into the entrepreneurial world that was inspired by a trip she took to Uganda in 2016. Believing that underwear should be universally available to all communities, she was inspired to start Y.O.U underwear where she kept sustainability at the core of the business. Head to the link in our bio to learn more about Y.O.U Underwear.

Today's guest, Lorraine Dallmeier, Founder of Formula Botanica, tells us about her entrepreneurial journey to start up the business. Formula Botanica is an online organic cosmetics formulation and business school that aims to make formulation as common as cookery. Sounds exciting right? Let us know what you thought @lostandfoundedpod on Instagram.

Today’s guest, Aneeta Madhavan is a Leadership Coach, Diversity and Inclusion Leader, and Business executive who is the Co-founder of Talking Cranes. Talking Cranes partner with growth companies to create a pipeline of diverse leaders and build stronger, more inclusive organisations. Listen now to hear the benefits of a diverse workforce and about how Aneeta started the business.

We had a fantastic time speaking to the Co-Founder of The Project PT, Ajaye Hunn-Phillips. Project PT started their purposeful business with the aim of making a difference as they believe children and young people are being under-catered for when it comes to sport. Ajaye is passionate about developing its offerings and continued funding of its healthy schools programme. Enjoy episode 5!

In today’s episode, we had the pleasure of speaking to Charlene Hunter, CEO and Founded of Coding Black Females. Coding Black Females is a non-profit organisation that was born to inspire, provide opportunities and showcase the talents of black women in tech. Charlene tells us all about her journey, what ‘purpose’ means to her, and her many successes with the Coding Black Females. Let us know what you think! Tell us on Instagram @lostandfoundedpod 

In episode 3, we had the pleasure of speaking with the Founder of Confident and Killing It, Tiwa Ogunlesi. Tiwa set up the business as a response to the generational cycle of low self-esteem amongst women and girls. She is a globally recognised and qualified life coach who specialises in positive psychology and recently added the title of ‘author’ to her portfolio. Happy listening! 

Learn to celebrate yourself and keep track of your accomplishments with Tiwa’s FREE wins tracker: https://www.confidentandkillingit.com/shop/monthly-wins-tracker

In episode 2, we had the pleasure of speaking to Rosie Jacobs, Co-founder, and Director of Independent Oxford. Independent Oxford was established in 2015 as Rosie and her business partner felt strongly about supporting and showcasing the local businesses in Oxford. Listen now to find out more about Rosie and her journey with Independent Oxford.

And we are back! We know it's been a long wait, but trust us it's worth it! 

The theme of this season is 'Spotlighting Entrepreneurs with a Purposeful Business.'

To kick off our purposeful season, we are thrilled to have Dr. Kyle Grant, Founder of OxWash. OxWash was born out of frustration from broken washing machines in Kyle’s college laundry. They now operate in Oxford, London, and Cambridge and aim to eliminate the impact of washing on the world's ecosystems. Happy listening!

Our final episode of season 2 is with an award-winning healthcare innovator who had two patents. She is the Co-Founder of Fine Treatment. Fine Treatment is an R&D and medical devices company propelling innovation in healthcare along the three vectors. Ariana is an alumna of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics and she strives to extend the human healthspan and improve the quality of life of people with chronic health conditions. 

In today's episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with an Oxford local and wellbeing practitioner, Deborah Humphrey. She has over 30 years of professional experience in the mental health, nursing, and education sectors which allowed her to start up her own business ‘The Wellbeing Story’. Deborah talks us through her journey and gives us a better understanding of The Wellbeing Story and its importance to her.

In today’s episode, we spoke to Amy Russell who is a second-year business student at Oxford Brookes University. She is an advocate for e-commerce selling Dr Martens on various online platforms. She launched her platform on Depop where she has a reach of approximately 300 followers. She talks us through how she started up Docs and Drops at such a young age and what is in store for the future of Docs and Drops.

Today’s episode is all about urban food production from an enterprise spinout Formerly known as Incredible Edible Oxford. Founder and Brookes Alumni, Rachel Hammond set up Edge Landscaping starting with growing herbs, fruit, and vegetables in East Oxford to growing a full Forest Garden growing produce for a variety of purposes. As well as growing useful products with a focus on local enterprise and sustainability, Edge is a resource for anyone looking to educate themselves and develop their own sustainable edibles system. With toolkits to aid food production knowledge and education, workshops to design or make your own food growing space, and landscaping consultations.

Today’s special guest is the Co-Founder of Viaduct Generation, Duray Pretorius. Viaduct Generation is a team of entrepreneurs with experience in enterprise, SME, and start-up businesses. They’ve combined their skills in SEO, PPC, Creative Marketing, and Business Development to give life to this marketing agency for underrepresented and allied founders. Find out more, listen to today’s episode!

In today’s episode our guest is Lu Li, founder of Blooming Founders. This is a brand that aims to help early stage female entrepreneurs and diverse teams succeed.​ With its ecosystem of products and services, it creates new opportunities for female founders and enables them to build profitable businesses. The team does this by helping the brands to expand their network, by providing practical business education and by facilitating access to investors.

This episode, we're award-winning publicist and the founder of a company built on positive recommendations, Belle PR. With 10+ years professional  experience in public relations, our guest today took a pivot in her higher education journey to launch and handle strategic growth and comms for the UK’s most renowned talent, charity and brand names awarding her both personally and the agency. She is also a proud member of the Public Relations and Communications Association, Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and speaker at The London School Of Communications and has been awarded several awards including the  PRCA Small Consultancy Of The Year 2020. 

From finding his feet in business and management, to exploring the world of illustration and graphic design, David Onoalapo today has reached a social platform of over 50K followers on Instagram with global clients ranging from London, Nigeria and New York. To top things off our guest today is a huge advocate for strengthening his hard and soft business skills by being awarded funding through our Spark and Fuel programmes and participating in our Rise programme for underrepresented founders. Through his hard work and determination, David is really shaking things up in the creative industry.

Sonya Barlow is an Award-Winning Entrepreneur, TEDxSpeaker, Diversity Coach, Author and the host of The Everyday Hustle (BBC Asian Network). In 2020, she was named winner of the Most Influential Women in Tech UK, Women in Software Changemaker, Top 50 BAME Entrepreneurs under 50, and Marie Claire Future Shaper. In 2021, Sonya was shortlisted for Forbes 30 Under 30. Get in touch for inclusion training, business coaching & speaking opportunities.

In episode 15 of Lost and Founded, we spoke to Craig Dean McAnuff, Co-founder of the vibrant and flavoursome Original Flava.

Having explored his creativity through his degree in graphic design from Bucks University, he embarked on his career in design, branding and advertising. Having worked with renowned brands such as Sony, and L’Oreal, Craig is now a full-time entrepreneur, best selling author, and an amazing father. Through the influence of his Jamaican mother and grandmother, he later told his brother about the idea and launched a platform showing how to make Caribbean & Flavaful food easily! Original Flava has now reached a social media outreach of over 600,000 followers and a lifetime of community members.

In episode 14 of Lost and Founded, we had a chat with leather enthusiast Nu Shearman, Creative Director and Founder at Hide and Hammer Ltd.

Nu has a passion for creating fashionable and essential items for day-to-day use. Nu is a Brookes alumna and self-taught local saddler whose passion sprung from her grandfather who taught her to appreciate the fine details in the functional items that people walk past every day. She created hand-stitched bespoke bridles, some of which were worn by the British dressage Olympic gold champions.

Ever wondered what it is like to discover a niche market of students with a passion for luxury living?

In episode 13 of Lost and Founded, we will be speaking to Aileen Gilani, a changemaker discovering a niche market of students in the UK with a passion for luxury living. Making her vision come to life in 2017 straight after finishing uni our guest today shares her experience starting a business as an entrepreneur working with luxury brands. Moving forward, her move to relaunch as The Luxury Student Magazine means she now leads the interviews with industry leaders, upcoming designers, TV personalities, musicians and creatives whilst also offering students and recent graduates who are aspiring lifestyle journalists and bloggers the opportunity to write for this new online magazine.

Find out what Aileen has been up to as she relaunches the Luxury Student platform as an online magazine. Here she talks about her journey into the luxury industry, the art of networking and more.

Sol Escobar is a social entrepreneur and higher education specialist at the University of Cambridge. Her work is expansive although focuses on the humanitarian sector, and is dedicated to refugee wellbeing, empowerment and education. Having been selected as a United Nations women delegate in the UK, Sol’s passion for languages, cultures, and volunteering helps motivate her to grow her social enterprise. Our guest today has built this platform to enable women who are in a vulnerable position to ‘shop’ for free, through their catalogue of gifted women’s clothes and accessories.

In this episode, Sol explains the highs and lows of running a non-profit and how she has now managed to grow her team and build trust with her community of women in vulnerable communities.

As part of Refugee Week 2021 this week, Give Your Best is hosting a webinar to discuss the impact of the global pandemic on the refugee communities.  Make sure you grab your ticket via @giveyourbest.uk on instagram. 

In episode 11, joining us from London, our guest co-founded the renowned unique grain to glass distillery, The Oxford Artisan Distillery. As a managing director, it’s fair to say that our guest is an advocate for running successful businesses as he helped to launch the first luxury communications brand, Vertu, sitting on the global board for around 6 years. A Geography graduate at the University of Cambridge, Tagore really is a global influence and has even gone onto becoming a children's books author.

Jess and Lou are two sisters on a mission to change the world of dating, with an app that celebrates inclusivity, and mutual understanding. By putting a focus on personality so you no longer have to leave love to chance, the SoSyncd sisters are shaking up the dating industry.

In this week’s episode of Lost & Founded, we speak with Piere Godson-Amamoo, founder of Your Cinema, and co-founder of GRM Daily.

Pierre shared his experiences of being a co-founder of a hugely successful entertainment company, and how this led him to go on and create his own business.

In episode 8 of Lost & Founded, we are joined by Rabia and Samar, founders of Soap N Skin.

Rabia & Samar tell us more about how they have taken inspiration from multicultural society and why they chose to put a focus on diversity through their wellness brand. We spoke about their drive for female empowerment and the highs and lows of being female founders.

Soap N Skin is a skincare and wellness brand empowering women to change the way they see beauty. With their focus on natural ingredients, Soap N Skin is dedicated to the craft of making their products.

In episode 7 of Lost & Founded, we spoke with Brookes alumni Martin Holden-White, founder of Grubby.

As a young start-up, Martin opens up on his first 2 years of setting up Grubby and all the success that has led him to launching Grubby’s first crowdfunding campaign. Martin speaks of his entrepreneurial ambitions and how he brought his ideas to life, sharing the biggest lessons he has learnt along the way, to encourage other entrepreneurs to chase their dreams.

Grubby is the UK's first 100% plant-based recipe kit, with a mission to make plant-based cooking more convenient and accessible without costing the earth.

This week on Lost & Founded, we are joined by James Elliot, founder of Pizza Pilgrims.

James shared his story of how a trip around Italy and a new found skill in pizza making led to the creation of a restaurant chain which now has 15 branches across the UK. Battling the challenges of the hospitality industry over the past year, James shed light on how Pizza Pilgrims thought outside of the pizza box, and how some of these changes have now become a staple part of their business model.

Pizza Pilgrims is a pizzeria chain serving the ‘best Neapolitan pizzas in central London and Oxford.

In this week’s episode of Lost and Founded we are joined by Brontë King, founder of Gals Who Graduate.

We discuss Brontë’s childhood and how growing up in an entrepreneurial family empowered her to become her own boss. She shares her experience of social media success, and how she capitalised on her online presence to create a booming community for other female graduates and small business owners.

Gals Who Graduate is a group for women from universities across the country who are seeking advice for their next steps, over the past 2 years the community has grown to over 30,000 members.

In episode 4 of Lost and Founded, we are joined by Yasin, Taylor & Max, co-founders of gaming company, Orthors.

The team shared with us how they turned their dreams into a reality, by capitalising on their individual talents, passions, and life experiences to create a fresh and unique approach to gaming. We learnt more about the highs and lows of their journey, and why creativity and collaboration sits at the forefront of their mission.

Orthors is an innovative British gaming company, showcasing realistic narratives through their creative mediums, thriving to build a safe and productive environment for future generations.

In this week’s Lost & Founded episode, we are joined by Tessa Clarke, co-founder and CEO of food sharing app OLIO.

Tessa shared with us her unfiltered journey to setting up OLIO, including the struggles she faces as a female entrepreneur, and she goes on telling us more about why she chose to set up a business with a social purpose. She provided some great insight for anyone looking to set up a business no matter what stage of the journey you are at.

OLIO is a free app tackling the problem of food waste by connecting neighbours with each other, and volunteers with local businesses, so that surplus food can be given away, not thrown away.

This week on Lost & Founded, we welcome Kalkidan Legesse, founder of sustainable clothing brand Sanchos.

Kalkidan opens up about her mission to create environmentally sound and socially inclusive businesses, addressing hard hitting, cultural topics. She shares her highs and lows of entrepreneurship and despite this how she went on to create a successful brand.

Sanchos is the home of Sustainable Fashion, showcasing Independent and Black owned brands with  items that are built to last, sustainably sourced and created in fair trade conditions.

This is Lost and Founded hosted by the Enterprise Team of Oxford Brookes University. We are a podcast that will show you there are no limits to becoming an entrepreneur, follow us to hear about the successes and innovations of inspiring individuals. With each episode, you will learn all about the in-betweens of every business' success and failures, as well as coming away feeling more entrepreneurial than before. Lost and founded can not wait to be part of your journey.