The Whole Leader Podcast

What if we committed to giving our best without expecting any results? In this episode I talk to my old friend, Ramakrishnan Thothathrai. He has taken a long journey from forced self reliance at an early age, then learning how to bridge the divergent cultures of east and west, to becoming a successful founder and CEO, prepared to commit everything with no expectation of results.It was such a real pleasure to sit down with my old friend and talk about our lives, our futures, our beliefs and what is most important to us.

What if our fear of death is stopping us from living more fully?In this episode, I sit down with Emily Cummin, founder and CEO of Untangle, a grief support platform helping people feel less alone after loss. Through her work, Emily has supported people in 138 countries and is helping change one of society's most difficult conversations.In this episode, Emily shares why grief is not something to fix, but a natural human response to loss. We explore why talking about death remains so uncomfortable, what our growing obsession with longevity reveals about our relationship with mortality, and how making space for grief can help us better understand ourselves and each other.This is a conversation about grief, mortality and what it truly means to live well.You can find our more about Untangle here: https://untanglegrief.com/

Deirdre Parsons, Executive Director of the David Lynch Foundation, talks about stress, creativity and helping people think more clearly through Transcendental Meditation. We discuss how she has spent over 40 years practising and teaching TM, bringing it into businesses, healthcare, education, prisons and trauma environments, as the David Lynch Foundation helps people access deeper rest, greater clarity and more resilient ways of working and living.

Stuart Middleton, Founder and CEO of Interv_l Group, shares how his experiences in the Royal Marines shaped the leader he is today.From enduring one of the world's toughest military training programmes to serving on the front line in Afghanistan, Stuart reflects on the resilience, teamwork and sense of purpose that defined his time in the Marines. He also opens up about the challenge of leaving that world behind, rebuilding his identity in civilian life, and discovering that authentic leadership begins with being yourself.We explore why elite teams are built on trust rather than hierarchy, how adversity can reveal your true character, and why creating a values-led business became Stuart's way of continuing to serve. Today, through Interv_l Group, he helps climate technology companies build the teams shaping a more sustainable future.This is a conversation about leadership, resilience, authenticity, and finding purpose beyond the uniform.

What happens when a headhunter stops chasing career success and questions everything only to find even bigger success?In this episode, I sit down with John Purkiss, author of The Power of Letting Go and Brand You. After a career spanning investment banking, executive search and leadership advisory, John found himself asking a different question: what if success isn't about striving harder, but about seeing more clearly?We explore the experiences that shaped his thinking, from overcoming depression to discovering mindfulness, intuition and a different approach to leadership. Along the way, John shares why authenticity matters more than image, why many successful people still feel stuck, and how letting go can open the door to better decisions, stronger relationships and more meaningful work.This is a conversation about identity, honesty, and how loosening control can lead to growth as a leader.You can find more of John’s work at johnpurkiss.com.

Camilla Dolan, co-founder of Eka Ventures, is rethinking venture capital as a force for systems change.In this conversation, we explore her idea of shared value: the belief that businesses can create lasting commercial success by solving real societal problems. From reducing food waste and transforming healthcare to backing the next generation of women's health innovators, Camilla shares why the most valuable companies of the future may be the ones tackling the challenges others have overlooked.At the heart of the conversation is a simple but powerful idea: when entrepreneurs focus on changing systems for the better, commercial success doesn't have to come at the expense of positive impact. Increasingly, the two go hand in hand.

What if leadership isn’t mainly about strategy or influence, but the quality of connection we bring to each moment — and to each other?John Thompson spends his time helping leaders reconnect with themselves, with the people around them, and with what’s actually happening in the present. Through his work at Transformational Connection, he’s supporting a different kind of leadership: one that’s rooted in presence, emotional depth, and what he calls “relational intelligence” — the capacity to stay open, responsive, and human in the space between people.In this episode, we explore John’s path from high-performance sport into humanitarian work, and how those experiences shaped his view of leadership as something built on awareness, trust, and real relationship.

Scarlett Allen-Horton’s story cuts against the usual odds — and shows what can happen when someone refuses the script that life hands them. She left home at 16, became a mum at 19, and grew up around other people’s expectations of what she could or couldn’t become. She didn’t buy it. She made the final of The Apprentice, built a successful executive search firm, and has become a voice for leadership that lifts others with it.In this conversation, we go beyond the CV to explore the experiences that shaped her. We talk about growing up with very little, navigating motherhood while building a career, finding the confidence to be herself, and why the best leaders create environments where people can thrive.This is about what it takes to keep moving forward, how difficult experiences can shape who we become, and why the way we lead others often begins with the way we understand our own story.

What if surrender isn’t giving up, but waking up to what’s actually happening?In this episode, I speak with Sahasrajit Ramesh, co-creator of Satya Speaks, about what it means to live with more totality. His path runs from engineering at Oxford and MIT into deep spiritual work in Rishikesh, and he talks openly about stepping away from expectation and finding his way back to a more natural, creative way of living.As we talk, a few themes keep showing up. There’s the subtle inner voice most of us ignore, and how easily modern routines can drain our sense of aliveness. We explore the link between creativity, intuition, and presence, and what “progress” starts to look like when you stop gripping the reins so tightly. And we come back again and again to this idea that life isn’t a series of separate events, but one continuous unfolding that we can either resist or move with.It’s not a conversation about fixing anything. It’s more an invitation to stop managing life and start participating in it — to feel, as Sahasrajit puts it, “the juice of life,” in a way that’s simple, honest, and available right now.

What happens when power goes unchecked — and the people in charge choose not to look too closely?In this episode of The Whole Leader Podcast, I sit down with Claire Glasgow, a solicitor and director at Fieldfisher who represents individuals harmed by powerful systems — from catastrophic injury cases to survivors of sexual assault taking on some of the UK’s most established institutions.Claire brings a thoughtful, unvarnished perspective shaped by years of seeing what happens when policies aren’t followed, accountability slips, and leadership stops protecting the people it’s meant to serve.We explore the real cost of lip-service leadership, the emotional weight of her work, and what it takes to stay self-aware inside systems that often reward the opposite. And underneath all of it is a simple question: how culture is created, and how it unravels.At its heart, this is a conversation about justice, responsibility, and the choices leaders make every day that shape the cultures people experience.