This is Part Two of my chat with Sam Baines, my first guest for Season 6 of the podcast, and a woman that I’ve know for a few years after she was shortlisted at the inaugural International Women’s Podcast Awards back in 2021. It’s fitting that she’s first this season, because she’s been the first woman to do a few other things too.  Sam is an award-winning comedian, podcaster, author, actor, broadcaster and general legend. In 2014 she won the Funny Women Awards, and subsequently went on to scoop of the 2015 ‘What the Frock’ Best Newcomer Award. But that’s not all. As an adult, Sam experie ..read more

We're back for Season 6! My first guest is a woman that I’ve know for a few years after she was shortlisted at the inaugural International Women’s Podcast Awards back in 2021. Her name is Samantha Baines, and it’s fitting that she’s first this season, because she’s been the first woman to do a few other things too.  Sam is an award-winning comedian, podcaster, author, actor, broadcaster and general legend. In 2014 she won the Funny Women Awards, and subsequently went on to scoop of the 2015 ‘What the Frock’ Best Newcomer Award. Sam was the first ever woman to reach the finals of the UK Pu ..read more

We’ve been away for a little while, but we are back! I’m Naomi Mellor, and I’m delighted to let you know that there’s a new season of Smashing The Ceiling just around the corner, with all sorts of delights awaiting you. In this podcast we chat to women with unusual, interesting and inspiring careers, and we’re kicking off Season 6 with comedian, author, actor, podcaster and deaf activist Samantha Baines, one of the funniest women I have ever met. My chat with Sam ranged from meeting Channing Tatum whilst working in an art gallery at Heathrow Airport, to becoming a writer of children’s books wi ..read more

If you’re into meditation and healing, you may know what a Tibetan sound bowl is. If not, you’ve got a treat in store, as we’ll be digging deep into the world of holistic health in this episode. My guest today is Justine Nagaur, a spiritual healer, teacher, mentor, and creator of bespoke crystal malas. I met Justine a couple of years ago, and she’s one of those rare people with a degree of warmth, insight, intuition and care for others that is incredibly striking. But like many of my guests, Justine’s career is multi-layered, with twists and turns along the way. She went to finishing school, a ..read more

This week, we’re talking, amongst other things, about sleep. My guest today is Dot Zacharias, COO and co-founder of Nourish, a wellbeing app designed for busy mums to find a little calm in their lives, which aims to protect maternal mental health and provide support. But that description doesn’tquite cover Dot’s career. After starting her working life in Russia, she’s worked as a management consultant, qualified as a sleep coach, been a part of multiple start ups and successfully exited her own previous company, Sleepability. She describes herself as rebellious and adventurous, which basically ..read more

Have you ever had a moment when you met someone for the first time, but you felt like you'd known them your entire life? It's a weird and rare but wonderful thing. I had that feeling when I chatted to Nikki Trott prior to this interview, and I knew I had to have her on the show. Nikki is an entrepreneur, podcaster and coach on a mission with her company, Conscious Accelerator. That mission is to help entrepreneurs with a real purpose in their business to thrive. She believes that purpose and profit don't have to be mutually exclusive (something I wholeheartedly agree with) and that business ca ..read more

My guest this week is an incredible woman, whose life and career were turned upside down by circumstances. We talk often on this podcast about how circumstances shape the careers of women, but in the case of Victoria Jenkins, the circumstances were becoming disabled in her mid twenties. Before becoming ill, Victoria was forging a successful career as a garment technologist, working for the likes of Sweaty Betty, Jack Wills and Victoria Beckham no less. She was doing well, and that’s an understatement. But at the age of 26, her life turned upside down - I’ll let her tell you her story in the po ..read more

We've often talked on this podcast about how our upbringing shapes our attitudes to work, ambition and success. Mira Patel's parents ran a newsagent, and she started working in the shop at an early age, before forging a successful career in HR. She understands the value of hard work and determination in building a business. She stepped away the HR world to train in neurolinguistic programming, and she founded her company, Prana Coaching in 2019. She now specialises in coaching young people through their teenage years, equipping them with the tools and skills they need to navigate the mode ..read more

When you're in a box career-wise, it can be hard to get out of it. Sometimes it's pressure from others, or from society that keeps you in that box, or sometimes it's your own internal monologue telling you that you can't do anything else. Sometimes, life events send you on a different path. Imogen Tinkler is a total inspiration in this area. After an adventurous childhood in Pakistan, and studying Russian with politics at uni, Imogen thought she was going to be a lawyer. After losing her mother, she re-considered her priorities, and subsequently forged a successful career in the charities and ..read more

Kate Healy has, she says, always been interested in money: how people use it, why some people squander it, why others are obsessed with it and how some use a little to produce a lot. Money still carries a stigma, a taboo around it that she would love to help break down, and to encourage more women to take responsibility for their finances, to understand money and what they can do with it, and to promote a career in finance as being a worthwhile and interesting one.  Kate's day job is as the Managing Director, Generation Next, focused on advocacy for sustainability issues facing the RIA in ..read more