The Entrepreneurs
A weekly deep dive into global business. Inspiring stories from startups to legacy brands in hospitality, design, fashion, and retail.
Latest Episodes
In search of top talent
As big corporations hunt for entrepreneurial candidates with digital know-how, smaller start-ups search for experienced executives to help them scale. Executive search firm Gordon and Eden is on a mission to bridge the start-up-corporate divide. The firm’s founders Sam Gordon and Sophie Eden share their unique business model and explain…
Making sense of the world
Jan Chipchase is the founder of Studio D Radiodurans, a consultancy that’s perhaps like none other in the world. He and his team travel to the far edges of the earth on behalf of clients to immerse themselves in difficult environments and understand human behaviour. He’s recently distilled his years…
Vitsœ
In the world of high-end, long-lasting and much-loved furniture brands, Vitsœ is perhaps without rival. For more than 50 years, the company has manufactured and sold furniture designed by the legendary Dieter Rams. But how do you sustain a legacy of top design, not to mention a profitable business model,…
Suitcase
How do you launch a thriving print magazine in the digital age? Serena Guen is the founder and CEO of Suitcase Group, a multimedia brand best known for travel and fashion-inspired quarterly ‘Suitcase’ magazine. Guen launched Suitcase as a globetrotting student in 2012 and has never turned back. This week…
Buster + Punch
Massimo Buster Minale is the founder of cult-favourite interior design brand Buster + Punch. During a career working for top architecture and design firms, Minale built and sold custom motorcycles in an east London garage. His passion evolved into a company and Minale was soon crafting furniture, light fixtures and…
The Next Web
This week we profile The Next Web, a popular media brand based in the Netherlands. Founded in 2006, it runs one of the world’s most visited websites for technology news, operates a start-up hub and hosts an annual technology conference in Amsterdam. The co-founder and chief executive, Boris Veldhuijzen van…
Listen here!
Have you ever listened to an audiobook – that grandfather of the modern podcast, once defined by cassettes and CDs at your local bookshop? Now slick, digital and massively popular, audiobooks are the fastest growing segment in the publishing industry. But how are they made, what do the economics look…
Exploration
This week we meet Ben Saunders, one of the world’s most famous polar explorers. In 2004, he became the youngest person to ski solo to the North Pole and a decade later he completed the longest human-powered polar expedition in history: a 1,800-mile return journey to the South Pole on…
How to ace an interview
In a former life, Robin Roberts studied zoology, was an officer in the British army and spent two decades at an executive search firm. It was then that he saw qualified executives consistently mess up job interviews. Robin decided to launch a company called ‘Rehearse it!’, staffed with theatre professionals,…
Exposure
Raoul Shah founded the powerhouse communications agency Exposure in 1993. He’s since pioneered the art of product placement and represented big-hitting clients from Nike and Converse to Coca-Cola and Uniqlo. He explains how PR has changed over the past quarter century, shares the secrets to keeping clients happy and tells…
