In Good Company

033. Pandora Sykes. Modern Dilemmas. Ambition And Success.

Pandora Sykes is a journalist, podcaster and author of the Sunday Times bestselling collection of essays How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right?, which attempts to dissect and give some shape to the infinite choices that modern life presents us with.

Previously an editor at the Sunday Times Style (you may remember her days as the magazine’s Wardrobe Mistress), Pandora is also the former co-host of the wildly successful podcast The High Low Show, which during its 4-year duration grew to become one of the biggest podcasts in the UK.

In this episode we discuss several of the essays from her book, touching on everything from ambition and ‘comparisonitis’, to the wellness industry and the psychology of fast fashion. We also discussed Pandora’s own career – the beginning and end of the High Low, her time as a fashion journalist, dealing with criticism, and her personal definition of career success – as well as her thoughts on the likely ramifications of our global annus horribilis.

Find Pandora on Twitter (@pinsykes) and Instagram (@pandorasykes)

Pre-order the paperback of How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right? https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-do-we-know-were-doing-it-right/pandora-sykes/9781786332073

 

Pre-order my forthcoming book We Need To Talk About Money (4th Estate) via Amazon or Waterstones

Get tickets for my FANE digital event A Night In With Otegha Uwagba on 7 July

Produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin

032. Amy Fraser. Building A Community. Recovering From Trauma.

Amy Fraser is the founder of OKREAL, a self-development platform for women that’s focused on providing the community and resources that women need to build the lives they want - both in the office and outside of it - offering everything from panel discussions and workshops, to digital content and group mentoring sessions.

In this episode we discuss the importance of building a career around your life (as opposed to the other way round), how to use career uncertainty to your advantage, the secret to cultivating a thriving community, securing brand partnerships and much more.

We also dive into a pretty traumatic period of Amy’s life – the sudden end of her marriage when she was 5 months pregnant with her first child – and how she found the resilience to cope with that situation, and her advice for anyone who is “facing the unfaceable”.

Find Amy on Instagram at @fr.amy, and OKREAL at @heyokreal

Discover OKREAL’s resources at okreal.co

 

Pre-order my forthcoming book We Need To Talk About Money (4th Estate) via Amazon or Waterstones

Get tickets for my FANE digital event A Night In With Otegha Uwagba on 7 July

Produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin

 

 

 

031. Anna Wiener. Toxic Startups. The Truth About Tech.

Anna Wiener is a contributing writer to The New Yorker online, where she writes about Silicon Valley, start-up culture, and technology, and the author of tech memoir Uncanny Valley, which tells the story of Anna’s time working in Silicon Valley during her mid to late twenties.

 

Despite its tech world setting, Uncanny Valley is very much an everywoman story that will be familiar to any woman who’s ever worked in a sexist environment, and it touches on everything from gendered discrimination and emotional labour in the workplace, to why your work will never be your family, and the lies that companies often tell their employees. It’s also a brilliant exploration of the often toxic nature of tech startups, and the ethical quandaries that many of those companies are struggling to address.

 

Read Uncanny Valley (4^th Estate) https://www.waterstones.com/book/uncanny-valley/anna-wiener/9780008296865

Find Anna on Twitter (@annawiener)

 

Get tickets for my FANE digital event A Night In With Otegha Uwagba on 7 July

Pre-order my forthcoming book We Need To Talk About Money (4th Estate) via Amazon or Waterstones

Produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin

030. Emma Dabiri. Inventing Whiteness. From Allyship to Coalition.

Academic, activist, broadcaster and SOAS university teaching fellow Emma Dabiri joins me to discuss her latest book What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition.

Written in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder last year and the subsequent conversations on racism and anti-racism that followed it, What White People Can Do Next is a simultaneously radical and practical essay aimed at changing the way we talk about racial injustice, and featuring some incredibly nuanced and thoroughly original analyses of race, class, privilege and capitalism.

A thoroughly illuminating read – and now a Sunday Times and Irish Times bestseller – it tackles the subject of race through a very different lens to the prevailing narrative, and in our discussion Emma shares why she felt so compelled to write this essay, the problems with the current anti-racist framework, the role that social media plays in learning about anti-racist theory and her thoughts on coalition building and the importance of finding common ground across racial lines.

Find Emma on Twitter and Instagram (@EmmaDabiri)

Read What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition (Penguin Books) https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Emma-Dabiri/What-White-People-Can-Do-Next--From-Allyship-to-Coalition/25378182

Audiobook extract courtesy of Penguin

 

Get tickets for my FANE digital event A Night In With Otegha Uwagba on 7 July

Pre-order my forthcoming book We Need To Talk About Money (4th Estate) via Amazon or Waterstones

Produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin

029. Sirin Kale. Career Pivots. Government Accountability.

Journalist Sirin Kale is a features writer for the Guardian, Observer, British Vogue, Wired UK, VICE, GQ, and many other publications, and was previously an editor at VICE UK, where she launched their award-winning anti-stalking campaign Unfollow Me. Sirin authors the Guardian's flagship longform series on Covid-19 deaths, Lost to the Virus, which tells the stories of the individuals who died of Covid-19 in the UK, and the structural and systemic factors that contributed to their deaths.

In this episode we covered everything from corporate lobbying and how it influences politics, to pivoting careers in your late twenties and how Sirin knew it was time to quit her corporate job and pursue journalism. We also discuss media precarity and the overall direction of the journalism industry, as well as what motivates Sirin on a day-to-day basis, and what she considers the role of journalists to be in our current political climate.

Find Sirin on Twitter (@thedalstonyears) and Instagram (@sirin_kale)

Read Sirin’s Lost To The Virus series for the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/society/series/lost-to-the-virus

On the end of girlboss culture for Tortoise https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2020/12/02/wing-women/

Reporting from the Sarah Everard vigil for The Cut https://www.thecut.com/2021/03/police-violently-broke-up-a-vigil-for-sarah-everard-photos.html

 

Get tickets for my FANE digital event A Night In With Otegha Uwagba on 7 July

Pre-order my forthcoming book We Need To Talk About Money (4th Estate) via Amazon or Waterstones.

Produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin.

028. Sarah Jaffe. Hustle Culture. Exploitative Bosses.

Journalist Sarah Jaffe’s work focuses on the politics of power, especially within the workplace, and her writing has appeared everywhere from the New York Times and the Atlantic to the Guardian and many, many more.

Most recently she’s written a deeply compelling new book called Work Won’t Love You Back, which seeks to examine what Sarah calls the ‘labour-of-love myth’ – the idea that certain work isn’t really work, and should be done out of love or vocational passion, and how that myth is then used to exploit workers, allowing work to encroach on almost every part of our lives.

We discuss everything from the fetishisation of busyness and hustle culture, to the impact of a year spent working from home, and how the pandemic is likely to change workplace structures in years to come. Plus, Sarah has some fascinating thoughts on the gig economy and self-employment, the role that personal brands play in creative careers, and how unionising might just be our way out of many of the workplace ills we discuss in this episode.

 

Find Sarah on Twitter and Instagram (@sarahljaffe)

Buy Sarah’s book Work Won’t Love You Back out now

 

Get tickets for my FANE digital event A Night In With Otegha Uwagba on 7 July

Pre-order my forthcoming book We Need To Talk About Money (4th Estate) via Amazon or Waterstones.

Produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin.

027. Marjon Carlos. Working In Fashion. Conversations About Race.

Journalist, public speaker, creative consultant, talk show host, fashion icon – there is nothing Marjon Carlos can’t – or does not – do.

As a journalist, Marjon’s works sits squarely at the intersection of style and culture, and covers a range of really fascinating topics and personalities, from Cardi B to intersectional feminism. She was previously a Senior Fashion Writer at Vogue, and is now the Editorial Director at lingerie brand CUUP, and her work has appeared in Vogue, Elle, Refinery29, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Porter Magazine and many more. She’s also the host of the quarantine break-out hit IGTV talk show Your Favorite Auntie, billed as advice “from someone you actually listen to”.

In this episode we get into it – discussing everything from fashion as self-expression to critical race theory and the corporatisation of activist causes (hello Allyship Industrial Complex). Marjon outlines the career choices that got her to where she is, her experiences at Vogue, and racism and diversity within the fashion industry as a whole – we’re talking colourism, light skin privilege, ‘palatability’… the works. Plus, how she adapted to freelance life and has built a deeply enviable portfolio career.

Find Marjon on Twitter (@Marjon_Carlos) and Instagram (@marjon_carlos)

Catch up on Your Favorite Aunty on Instagram (@yourfavoriteauntieshow)

Some of Marjon’s recent work:

Cardi B profile (Elle)

www.elle.com/culture/music/a33537374/cardi-b-interview-september-2020/

FKA Twigs profile (Elle)

www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a35460385/fka-twigs-shia-la-beouf-abuse/

Fashion Was Super White In 2009. It Still Is (The Cut)

www.thecut.com/2019/09/fashion-was-super-white-in-2009.html

White Women Fear (No Man’s Land)

www.marjoncarlos.com/no-mans-land-article

Some context for our ‘Dannileigh’ conversation at 39.35:

www.bossip.com/1992773/danileigh-yellow-bone-colorist/

 

Pre-order my forthcoming book We Need To Talk About Money (4th Estate) via Amazon or Waterstones.

Produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin.

 

026. Penny Martin. Women’s Media. Celebrating Peculiarities.

A wide-ranging conversation with Penny Martin, editor-in-chief of iconic women’s magazine The Gentlewoman. Widely recognised as the definitive style title for discerning women, as The Gentlewoman’s founding editor, Penny is responsible for the exacting editorial standards and refined taste that have made it so influential. Before being tapped by the publishers of Fantastic Man to head up the magazine back in 2010, Penny was previously a curator at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television and chair of fashion imagery at University of the Arts, London. She also contributes to numerous international publications and consults for several brands, including the likes of Miu Miu and Nike, and is a trustee of The National Trust for Scotland.

In this episode we discuss how the magazine has evolved since its debut in 2010 and going against the grain of women’s glossies, as well as the magazine’s driving ethos, the nuts and bolts of the editorial process, and some of The Gentlewoman’s most iconic covers to date.

Find Penny Martin on Twitter and Instagram @pennyjanemartin

Find The Gentlewoman on Twitter @thegentlewoman and Instagram @the_gentlewoman

Check out The Gentlewoman’s archive of interviews at www.thegentlewoman.co.uk/library

Pre-order my forthcoming book We Need To Talk About Money (4^th Estate) via Amazon or Waterstones.

Produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin.

BONUS EPISODE: A Feminist State Of The Union.

A special bonus episode produced in collaboration with the Standard Hotel as part of their new audio programming platform, Sometimes Radio, and recorded in the Library Lounge of the Standard Hotel’s London outpost. 

This episode is a live recording from the Feminist State of the Union I hosted on International Women’s Day, a conversational salon about contemporary feminism featuring contributions from award-winning author Reni Eddo-Lodge, broadcaster Zezi Ifore, and Dazed Digital’s Head of Fashion, Emma Hope Allwood, and covering everything from girlboss culture and the problem with corporate feminism, to intersectionality and how we can all be ‘better’ feminists and allies to marginalised communities.

Follow Reni Eddo-Lodge on Twitter.

Follow Zezi Ifore on Twitter.

Follow Emma Hope Allwood on Twitter.

For more career-related ideas and advice, join the Women Who community by signing up at https://www.womenwho.co/, or follow @oteghauwagba and @womenwho on Instagram and Twitter.

025: Elaine Welteroth. Harnessing Ambition. Navigating Office Politics.

As the youngest ever person to be appointed editor-in-chief of a Condé Nast title – and only the second ever African American person to hold that position – former Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Elaine Welteroth was the driving force behind the magazine’s pivot to a more political, more socially conscious editorial stance that earned it an army of new readers and admirers.

An award-winning writer and New York Times bestselling author (on account of her memoir More Than Enough), Elaine has charted a pretty unprecedented course through the media industry – and she’s only just getting started.

We managed to cover so much on this episode, from existential careers crises and navigating toxic working environments, to how to approach your career role models for advice, and the salary negotiation lessons Elaine had to learn the hard way. Her story is a lesson in harnessing ambition whilst staying true to yourself, and Elaine speaks with refreshing candour about the ups and downs of being at the forefront of one of the most prestigious media brands in the world.

Buy Elaine’s memoir More Than Enough.

Follow Elaine on Twitter and Instagram @elainewelteroth.

In Good Company listeners can enjoy 30% off their first purchase from our episode sponsor ESENIA CBD’s range of supplements by entering the code WOMENWHO at checkout.

For more career-related ideas and advice, join the Women Who community by signing up at www.womenwho.co, or follow @oteghauwagba and @womenwho on Instagram and Twitter.