Trading Up

• Female Founder Karen Sells Up To Staff

  Karen Maguire doesn't do the expected or routine. She wouldn't have decided to set up her own manufacturing business if she did. She wouldn't have grown it, with much personal sacrifice, through lean years and tough times if she had only been half-committed. She was all-in. Until the death of her father in 2017 shook her world and she decided her business should belong to someone else. But who? Again, she took the path less travelled and sold up to her employees under the Employee Ownership Trust scheme. As she eases herself out of the business, and into a new venture teaching pilates (just doing it was clearly not enough), she tells her remarkable story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 53 rejections, 1 yes, and £150 million to lend.

  Judith Totten thinks kindness is important in her business. Which is rather surprising because she's in the finance business. But it has paid off for her and the numbers tell the story: zero A Levels because she left school early; 20 years at the bank learning her trade; £500,000 scraped together to start her own lending business; 53 rejections from London banks who wouldn't back her; 1 yes and £5 million from the one that did; 1 decade and two buyouts later and she's now got £150 million to lend. She tells her remarkable story with real candour and humour. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Heart Attack Sows Seeds of Success at Linwoods

  Patrick Woods' grandfather died at age 42. His father needed a heart bypass in his early fifties. So, being healthy really means something to him and his family. His dad transformed his lifestyle and eating habits in the aftermath of his bypass thirty years ago. Patrick has helped him transform the third generation family business to align with those new healthy priorities. Linwoods is the number one brand in its niche - the milled flax seeds you can add to your breakfast that promise a host of benefits, particularly for heart health. But the company has been through many difficult times and has radically transformed from a dairy and bread business that was becoming commoditised to a growing health food business that continues to innovate with new products. Along the way Patrick and his family have endured health crises, potential financial ruin and even the bullets of the IRA. It's a family saga that's a real tonic for the heart! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Saving Lives With Precision

  Picture a 72-year-old farmer in Idaho who has been diagnosed with skin cancer. He's about to start a tough regime of chemotherapy. The kind of toxic drugs that have been used to blast such cancers for 40 odd years. It's the only way his doctor knows to treat the cancer. It's possible the treatment could work. But it's also possible the treatment could kill him. But within 24 hours of testing and diagnosis, the doctor gets a knock at the door from a representative from a drug company. They're offering an alternative treatment so precise that it has been tailored to match the profile of the patient's very DNA. And they've arrived at the door of that clinic with that treatment because a company in Northern Ireland has crunched the data from the testing centre and discovered there's a patient there that could benefit. This is precision medicine in action and it's almost the stuff of science fiction, but it's the daily business of Ryan Keeling and his company Diaceutics. Ryan tells the story of how the company began life in his uncle's basement, but is now publicly listed and working with the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies at the cutting edge of diagnostics and modern medicine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Greg's Pure Gym Grit & Growth

  Greg Bradley is no spoofer. But when he got a call from the strength and conditioning coach for a global sporting giant requesting equipment he'd seen on Greg's Facebook site to be delivered within days, the young entrepreneur had a problem. All he had was the Facebook post. He hadn't yet figured out how to make the equipment. But the keen sportsman applied a lesson he'd learnt on the field "win first and worry later". He took the order. A week later, he delivered the equipment. Since then he's endured hardship, injury and tragedy. He's found love (but still had to cut short his honeymoon due to a pressing business issue). But he's also built a global business that has many of the world's top sporting brands, sports teams and personalities on its client list. From the moveable feast of installing a gym for Posh and Becks on their yacht, to the job of scaling to meet a major order from UK giant Pure Gym - the business is always presenting interesting challenges. As Blk Box moves into a new phase of global growth, he tells his remarkable personal story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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